Lisa Van Gemert

Did you know that students (really aimed at college students) can get free Amazon Prime membership?  If you're in college, go to http://www.amazon.com/gp/student/signup/info and sign up.  It's perfect for the holidays!  I get nothing for this...it's just a hot tip.

I spoke at the TAGT (Texas Association of the Gifted and Talented) Conference last week, and it was a thought-provoking experience.  The most powerful part for me was the keynote by Jim Delisle.  He's best known for his many books on parenting (and being) gifted kids, but this keynote address was primarily about how we're running on a hamster wheel (my metaphor) in gifted ed.  I wanted to shout "Hurrah!" when he said that cluster grouping is an abject failure and that gifted kids needed the sanctuary of each other.  That's what I love about Mensa - it's sanctuary.  It's a haven. 

One of the things I particularly noticed at the conference were the number of teachers who texted through entire presentations (not mine, of course!).  It shocked me.  Here they were, their districts having paid to send them, they themselves having prepared for subs to come, and they couldn't think of anything other than texting.  What hope for the kids, then?  Really?  Stay home and let someone else come who actually cares.  To me, it signaled their disregard for their students.  Even if the session isn't perfectly tailored to you (or even very good), you can think about what you can teach yourself from what you're hearing.  You can network with other teachers.  You can make a list of what you yourself could present to benefit others next conference. 

This is the only video link I could find regarding Jim Delisle, but look for his books and keep an eye out for him.  He's got it.

As I teach the professional development seminars, I am amazed at how eager so many teachers are to truly serve the needs of their gifted students.  It sometimes (like today) literally makes me choke up.  They amaze me. I teach all this training, though, and I feel like it's just the tip of the iceberg of what they could know.  So it may seem odd to write about the ONE THING I wish politicians, teachers, parents, and gifted kids knew about gifted kids when there are so many possible things to know.  I will try anyway.  Here goes...

First, politicians. I would like to apologize for all the bad things I've thought about you in the past.  I probably should apologize for all the bad things I will think about you in the future (the very near future), but that might require not thinking them, so I'll have to pass on that.  What I would like you to know, most of all, is that it would be most beneficial if you would stop blaming teachers for all the ills in the educational world.  There are students and parents involved in this dynamic as well, but we never hear about that.  How about paying parents depending on how their kids are doing in school?  Like with a pro-rated sliding scale on the dependent tax deduction?  You only get the full deduction if your child is passing all of his/her classes.  I know this isn't a specifically gifted child focused comment, but the teachers can't focus on the GT kids if they are worried that they will be fired if their low-performing kids don't come to school and learn enough to pass the tests at the end of the year.

Secondly, teachers.  Please stop being scared about differentiation.  It does not mean planning 30 different lessons for your students.  If you have three sick children and they have to take different doses of their medicine, do you give them all the same anyway because it's a hassle to figure out who gets what?  Of course not!  It's essentially the same thing.  I know you're busy. I know you're overworked. I know you're tired. I know things get thrown in your lap every day that really are beyond the scope of what you thought your job was.  But while you're thinking about how this whole teaching thing is just slightly overrated, remember that there are GT kids in your class who will never have another shot at this grade/class, and they need you to help them learn as much as they can as much as they need medicine when they're sick.

Watch Ken Robinson talk about this at

Thirdly, parents.  Please remember that not every behavior problem is because your child is gifted.  Please bear in mind that your child, no matter how gifted, must still behave in a way that enables him/her to function in a society that values manners and social niceties.  I  am not asking that you raise your child to be a conformist or wannabe Stepford Wife, but rather that you consider that to achieve to their fullest or even semi-fullest [Is that right?  That doesn't look right.] potential, our kids have to know the social norms.

I saved the best for last.  GT kids.  Well aren't you the cat's pajamas?  You are smart.  That's very nice.  It's nice to be smart. It makes life a lot easier in a lot of ways.  You can , for instance, come up with wonderful ways to spend your time that other people would never think of (making chess sets out of dried toothpaste and old cereal boxes, for example).  You can, when prodded, perform amazing feats of cerebral gymnastics that amaze and astound your family and friends.  Please keep in mind this one thing: shun pride.  Cultivate humility and you will be far more effective in your personal and professional life.  As smart as you are, there is a strong likelihood that there is someone smarter.  The best way to stay humble?  Serve others. You will then see how richly blessed you are, and you will come to realize that the only truly noble use of your gift is to try to make your world a better place.  I believe it is a better place because you are in it.  Prove me right.

Reality TV shows are typically not geared to the cognitively gifted viewer, but there is a series running in Britain called "Child Genius" that follows the lives of that nation's most gifted children.  I've been lurking for a couple of years (Can you lurk on a show?  Maybe I'm stalking.), and I'm finally ready to pontificate on it. 

You would think that I would be thrilled with this series, and a part of me is. After all, isn't any press good press? Won't people see this and realize that gifted kids have different needs? Isn't it better than a show about people who married their first cousins? Aren't some of the kids in the show Mensans? The answer to all of this is yes...but.

When you see the show, the kids are all outliers - way, way out there on the bell curve.  They are the dong in the bell.  The danger I see is that parents with kids who have real potential will see the show and think that their child isn't gifted because he/she is not journaling about unified field theory at the age of six. 

Maybe I'm just bitter - I'm constantly fighting against precociousness being mistaken for giftedness.  These kids are clearly gifted, not just precocious, but it feeds the fire.

I'd like to find a balance somewhere.  You don't need to be an amateur physicist before you hit kindergarten or start your own company before you can cut your own meat to chill out under the gifted umbrella.  Many people we consider gifted, geniuses even, showed no sign of it until late in life, and many a young prodigy burns out like the proverbial candle.  So, watch the show for its entertainment value (and cool British accents), but please don't see it as prescriptive or definitive.  It's one side of giftedness, that's all.

You can view a short clip here:




If you want to see full episodes, they are available here.

Although I've been doing GT professional development for years, actually formalizing the process with a blog, a website, and other accoutrements of business is new. This is the first post on my GT blog...a blogging home for people who teach, raise, and/or care about gifted learners.

My best friend recommended a book to me called The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You've Been Told About Genetics, Talent, and IQ is Wrong by David Shenk. He's the guy who wrote Blink (which I will also have to write about at some point). I was prepared to be oppositionally defiant. After all, my professional reason for being is people who have been identified by IQ tests as being geniuses (or near geniuses or at least really, really smart). Luckily, I had left a window open in my mind. Shenk's argument isn't that there is no genetic component in giftedness. Rather, his argument is that what we call intelligence is a complex intermingling of natural gifts and environmental factors. Who can't get on board that train?

The thing that Shenk's book made me think about is one of the common characteristics of gifted learners: reluctance to fail. Bear with me while I make a psuedo-Socratic argument here. Imagine you have gifted child x, whom we'll call Lobelia. Lobelia has a quick mind, as evidenced by her knowing all her numbers and letters by the age of nine months. Whenever she displays this talent, she is praised with some variation of "Oh how smart you are, Lobelia!" (Go read Carol Dweck for more on that.)

When Lobelia is three, so goes to preschool with her parents and everyone else she knows well aware of her inherent genius. At preschool, the teacher is teaching colors, and Lobelia, used to hearing herself praised for her intelligence by demonstrating the things she can do, is unhappy with the idea that there are other children who already knew their colors, while she is having a little difficulty remembering that violet and lilac aren't the same color. She doesn't want to work on colors at school. She only wants to work on numbers and letters. Lobelia's mother is likewise upset. She reads about giftedness on the internet and makes a quick diagnosis of the problem. She decides that Lobelia, because she is gifted, doesn't like to do things unless she can do them perfectly.

Instead of seeing Lobelia's issue as one of praise gone wrong or a normal learning curve, Lobelia's mother sees Lobelia's reluctance as proof of genius and actually encourages the behavior, allowing her to work on letters and numbers exclusively because that is her "gift." The extra time spent on the letters and numbers makes those skills even stronger, thus reinforcing the initial impression. As Lobelia progresses in school, she is only encouraged to work hard at the things in which is already comfortable. Whenever she is faced with something that doesn't fit in her comfort zone, she rebels, and this rebellion is again seen as proof of life for her giftedness.

And yet it was perhaps the initial reluctance itself that made the "gift." If she is spending more time on the things she likes to do and is praised for, she will become better at those things, and the initial impression of her giftedness in them, which may have been simply a precociousness, through work and effort has now become a developed talent.

This dynamic is a logical fallacy, it is common, and it is dangerous. Perhaps my first blog posting is not the place to be controversial, but that's the way I see it...gifted learners are not naturally easily frustrated by things that don't come easy. This is an adult-centered affectation. We have created that monster. We have seen the enemy, and it is us.