gifted 是不是就是high achiever,这个真不好说。。。
由于基本没有应试的压力,西方教育扬长不错,但基本是弃短而不是补短。。这也与东方的教育理念有冲突。。
进了gifted specialized program是不是如同自认酒鬼的trustee Balckburn在Citizen上说的是家长BS的资本?我只能说她是井底之蛙,做教育委员不合格。。。
有时真正的天才是孤独的甚至是disruptive。。I knew this young chap mentioned below, and he is shining in the gifted program..
"My son, at the age of 3 started reading on his own, we were shocked, but didn't think much about it since he was our first and we didn't have any experience with giftedness and/or anything of this nature at the time. We only noticed the real issues when he started JK. We started him in the Catholic Board, because we are catholic and both went to catholic School. It was a nightmare to say the least. He became very aggressive, violent, distructive and the calls and notes from the School on a daily basis were shocking. He hated School and was miserable to say the least. He was a 4 year old that made comments that he "wanted to kill himself". Seriously? What 4 year old says this? He had a baby sister, and would lash out on her after School (the positive is, she is one tough cookie now!). The teachers had NO answers for me, they just said he is impulsive and lashes out for "no reason". I had a few parents of gifted kids urge me to look into giftedness, that this may be the answer. When I started researching everything was to the "T"! So I asked the Resource teacher if she feels he may be gifted, her response "he's to young, and we need to repair the behavioural issues before we could even explore that avenue.". This was in May (almost the end of the School year) and I knew right then and there that I had to pull him out. It was bitter sweet, because some of my friends had children there, and I had high hopes that they would grow up together and enjoy each others company, but by this point, not one student wanted to be his friend anymore. The damage was done. He was "that kid" and never in my wildest dreams could I have predicted that would happen.
I found out that the Public board did testing for SK. So I approached our public School and asked them if they could help my son. I told them all the issues we were having and their LST was very supportive (God Bless Her!). She promised that if he went to that School she would observe and perform the testing on him for giftedness. (I might add that in the 35 or so years that she was an LST, she had never done testing at the SK level - this was a very rare case!). He went to the School, they did the testing in October, he passed the CCAT with 12/12 & got 99.9% on other tests. They did the PM Benchmark reading and comprehension test, and he completed the entire test up to level 30 (Grade 6 I believe). They knew at this point, they could not accomodate him and he needed the CGP. In the meantime, he was in a SK play based learning environment, isolated in the corner with earphones doing advanced math worksheets and reading dinosaur dictionaries. There was no one he could relate to, and he felt that something was very wrong with him because everytime he'd open his mouth kids would roll their eyes at him or turn away. It was heart breaking to witness. This was a complete eye opener. I will admit I was one of those people who thought being "Gifted" was just smart. I had no idea how many issues it could cause. The School fought for DDD and did everything within the new criteria to get him into the CGP, and I am very grateful they did. He started at JYES in Grade 1. I have to say now in grade 2, he has blossomed into a very handsome and amazing young boy. He has matured so much, never fights me to go to School anymore (even when he is sick!) and got invited to a few birthday parties for the first time! he has friends, is enjoying life more and speaks up more as well. The program has been a blessing for us, I have no idea what would happen if he went back into a reg. classroom. I know it would depend heavily on the teacher and staff, has he aquired all the skills he needs (know that he has calmed down) to be integrated? Of course, the craziest part of all of this is now My husband and I are left wondering, how did we end up with a child like this? And it makes us look at our own Schooling experiences and the many challenges we faced. We turned out ok, but could we have turned out better if we were steered in the right direction? This is why I am avocating for my DS. I want to make sure he enjoys life, gets the satisfaction he craves from learning and does whatever he wants in life - right now he wants to be a paleaontologist!"