Humor

For some reason today I was thinking about five-year-old Charles, a delightful little boy I knew years ago.

"I took the bus home from school today," he told me, "but my mom made me give it back." Then he waited with an expectant smile for the several seconds it took me to catch the pun!

In A Parent’s Guide to Gifted Children (Great Potential Press, Inc., 2007), Webb, Gore, and Amend remind us:   “By age five or six, a gifted child’s strong imagination and creativity are often expressed in an unusually mature sense of humor.”

When teens are self-advocating, it's important for them to remember tip #9 from Galbraith and Delisle's 10 Tips for Talking to Teachers:

9.  Bring your sense of humor.

Not necessarily the joke-telling sense of humor, but the one that lets you laugh at yourself and your own misunderstandings and mistakes.

Repeat for emphasis. Repeat for emphasis.

Not only do we need to be intentional about teaching gifted kids to self-advocate we also must reinforce the skill throughout their remaining school years.    

Case in point?  Amelia.  She was one of those amazing kids who loved school, loved her friends, loved cross country, loved community service, loved creating works of art, loved Destination Imagination, and loved her teachers.  It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that her teachers loved her in return because of her energy, her positive attitude, her willingness to work hard.

And Amelia was always up for an intellectual challenge, including the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, one of the most academically demanding high school programs. 

But half way through her first year of IB, Amelia walked into my office in tears.  “I can’t do this,” she said.  “I have too many mid-term deadlines during the same week.  I can’t do a good job on anything when everything takes so much time, so much thought and energy.” 

“Have you talked to your teachers about the deadlines?”  I asked.

“OMG!”  Amelia said.  “You’ve been telling us about self-advocacy since 6^th grade and now, for the first time, I need to do it!”

And guess who talked to each of her teachers, proposed alternative due dates, and did an extraordinary job on all of her IB assessments.

Actual self-advocacy is an ongoing process that students consciously or subconsciously must be comfortable using if and when they need it throughout their lives.   

3-2-1 Contact

It may be that the most important part of the any gifted education coordinator’s job is connecting with individual students. It is this personal contact that will best support youth as they learn about themselves and choose those experiences that are most appropriate for their growth.

Deborah Douglas
Action Research
Roeper Review, Summer, 2004

A Parent's Role

What can parents do to help their children self-advocate?

• Work in partnership with your child and the school
• Talk with your child about the steps to self-advocacy
• Help your child develop attributes of good character that are expected of every student  (For instance, being bored is no excuse for doing poor work!)

• Work hard
• Listen with interest
• Work well in a group 
• Be accurate
• Be neat
• Complete assignments
• Enjoy school and learning
• Be alert
• Be considerate
• Be organized

• Set up an appointment with the school counselor for you and your child to view and discuss the student’s permanent record.  What does it say about his or her learner profile?
• Check out state and district graduation requirements.  What’s optional? 
• Discover what opportunities are already available in your district.
• Focus on your child’s individual wants and needs and match them to the options.
• Ultimately, allow your children to make their own informed choices.  
• Support their decisions.

Ben's Story

“Teaching gifted kids to self-advocate won’t work because they’ll ask for something we can’t offer.”

Ben loved science.   As a preschooler his TV preferences were PBS science shows and even before he could read he began paging through Popular Science.  In grade school, he was good at every subject, but he was passionate about science and eager for secondary school classes that would stretch his mind.

Middle school general science was disappointing, however.  Although Ben liked helping other kids with experiments he’d already done on his own at home, he wanted more, much more.  

In the spring Ben approached me with an idea:  Could he skip the next year of science and take a high school course, Integrated Physical Science (IPS) instead?

But the science department said, “We can’t offer IPS to students until they’ve completed the 8^th grade curriculum.”

Ben’s response?  “If I take the 8^th grade text home over the summer, do all the chapter questions, and pass the final exam, can I take physical science next year?”

The science teachers agreed to the plan but were pretty sure it wouldn’t work.  What kid would spend his summer independently working his way through the 8^th grade curriculum???  Ben would . . . and did.  And of course he passed the exam with flying colors.  And at the end of the next year the IPS teachers honored him with their Excellent Student Award!

But the story doesn’t stop there.  What Ben began expanded since he had demonstrated to teachers that some students are ready for a faster pace and greater depth.  It wasn’t long before they compacted two years of middle school general science into one year for identified students.  And eventually accelerated students were given the choice of IPS and/or Biology, both for high school credit but taught in the middle school.

What had been seen as something “we can’t offer” became something we did offer.  And through Ben’s self-advocacy, scores of other students have benefited from something that now seems common place . . . subject acceleration and early access to high school courses.

Big Heads

Just a couple thoughts in response to the misconception that 

“Teaching gifted kids to self-advocate won’t work because if we tell them they’re smart, they’ll just get big heads.” 

• Gifted kids already know they’re smart, but they frequently don’t know how to put that into perspective.  That’s why self-advocacy workshops take a close look at the whole concept of giftedness.

• When they know what gifted is and isn’t, they realize that you can be better AT something, but that doesn’t make you better THAN others.

• Interacting with like-ability peers helps them discover the great diversity of gifted kids, the wide range of interests and experiences.

• Assessing their personal learner profiles leads them to also think about areas that need improvement, sometimes a humbling experience!

All of which leads me to a March Madness thought . . . Do you think it might be better if we didn’t tell athletes that they are on the varsity basketball team? We wouldn’t want them to get big heads. :  )

Responding to "elitist"

"Teaching gifted kids to self-advocate won’t work because it would be elitist."

How do I respond?

The self-advocacy movement is about people speaking up for themselves. It began as an effort to reduce the isolation of people with disabilities and give them the tools and experience to take greater control over their own lives.  Who would consider that elitist?

And this is exactly what we want for all outliers, including those who are gifted and talented.

Our children are empowered when we help them to recognize their uniqueness – their strengths and weaknesses, their attitudes and interests, their pleasures and passions.

  

     Self-recognition is not to fuel egotism or elitism, but to align with a more powerful, creative part of you that will let your heart, your knowledge, your talent loose on the world.   

Mary Rocamora, founder and director
Rocamora School, Inc.

(BTW, don’t you get tired of charges of elitism from those who don’t understand that the major goal of gifted advocates is to give every student an appropriately challenging education?)