por momentos siento que nada

[lotesse]

I just had a major window into the formation process of my Issues. I linked my father to staranise's recent post on Giftedness, both because I thought he'd find it interesting and because I'm in a phase of helpfully trying to explain my head to others so that they can help *me* more effectively. And the first thing he did, even before reading the link, was to respond by equating giftedness with privilege. "What do you mean by gifted?" he said. "Because being free and housed and safe is a pretty big gift in this day and world." And of course it is, but - but -

My father taught me early on to conflate my mental gifts with social privilege. I've written before about our Thing with T.H. White's The Once and Future King - that was the vector for a lot of this. I was taught that I was lucky, because I could learn well and see the truth, and because my family were good to me, and because I was a middle-class-enough white girl in 21st century America. To some degree I am deeply grateful for this, because I think it prepped me pretty well for the demands of intersectionality. Because of what my father taught me, when Black feminism or trans*theory or whatever informed me that I had privilege, I didn't experience the sort of kneejerk denial reaction that seems common. So in that way my daddy did real, real good.

But one of the things in 's post that resonated most with me was the need to conceptualize giftedness as disability-like, in that it can create more problems than solutions. I started wondering if part of the reason why I've been academically borked this last year is that I haven't been thinking of myself as Gifted. I wanted to be like everyone else; I thought, well, I'm at university now, that difference should be irrelevant here. I've been trying to not think of myself as different, but that hasn't been working out so well for me. My father taught me to understand giftedness as privilege. If I turned that around, it could change a lot of things; I definitely want to talk to my counselor about it. It was still really interesting to watch the process between my daddy and I unfolding.

Comments

[lasergirl]

I became a teacher ... well, I was going to say "I became a teacher to teach Gifted kids" but that's not really true. I became a teacher who IS a Gifted kid, who tries to make other people understand that being Gifted is Different and not what everyone thinks it is. And the way teachers are educated, yes, there is a handwave of "Gifted kids learn differently" or they wouldn't be included in the special education spectrum, BUT, oh but but but. Apart from that? No one knows what the fuck to do with them. Because learning concepts or skills easily isn't a *problem* in the school system that's trying to even the ground for students who actually have a hard time with it. Oh, just throw more work at the Gifted kids. Let them help the struggling kids. DEATH that is death.

There was, briefly, a program for Gifted kids when I was in school. But since noone knew how to teach them, it was a total waste of time. Sometimes? Sometimes Gifted kids aren't high-drive overachievers. Sometimes they are awkward, existential, introverted, asocial weirdoes who maybe don't want to do all that stuff teachers are showing them, but want to write long, elaborate stories or build complete worlds in a sandbank.

Wow this is not what I expected. I wanted to say GO YOU for realizing that Giftedness is a an atypical neurological thing.... (I think it's multiple crosswiring, personally). Talk to your teachers and your counsellors about how you learn, how you can make your curriculum speak personally to you, how you can accomodate, not erase, the atypicality. Because fuck, that's what education is for. It's not for jumping through a standard hoop because you can. It's getting there because the whole journey is awesome.

[highlyeccentric]

Yes, this. Primary-school gifted kid here (accelleration, age, and senior high school seemed to smooth out the difference between me and regular smarts), and yes, so much this. My experience/observation from a hotchpotch of good and bad education responses to giftedness is that a lot of strain comes from teachers and other authorities seeing giftedness as a privilege for which students shouldn't be rewarded (and sometimes ought to be... brought down to size).

I was taught by a trained gifted ed teacher in final year of primary school - in a regular classroom. My observation there was that many students with learning difficulties also flourished under the teaching styles and choices she had learned to make as a G&T teacher. And the students in the middle were typically engaged, and at least didn't seem to me to be any *worse* off. (Uh... I read a lot of gifted & talented teaching / parenting materials at that age. High reading age, high critical literacy)

[ironed_orchid]

I am still having lots of FEELS and recognitions thanks to that post.

I find your father's approach interesting, it's been really important for me as an adult not to equate "smarter" with "better". Typically, when complained about kids at school or even my teachers, my mother would say "they're opinions don't matter, you're smarter than they are" as if that solved everything.

[skywaterblue]

Thank you.