What does inequality in gifted education look like? This is the story of a boy and a canoe.
Continue reading “The Boy and the Canoe”
Adventures in the Jungle: Finding Peers for 2e Kids
Sometimes trying to find places my kids can be themselves and meet others with the same interests feels like a walk in the jungle. I set off with a map, but it’s soon useless as the twists and turns under the canopy disorient me and I’m stumbling through the semi-dark, hoping for a clearing and a brief glimpse of light. For a few moments I’ll think I’ve learned the do’s and don’ts . . . until I tumble into a new part of the jungle.
But those glimpses of light – when connections are made, friendships formed and a real meeting of minds happens? Those moments are worth every laborious step. Continue reading “Adventures in the Jungle: Finding Peers for 2e Kids”
Different Doesn’t Matter . . . Until it Matters
There’s a well-meaning, but very ignorant article, by Farrah Alexander at Huffington Post floating around at the moment. And like most of these articles, it appears to be inclusive and kind. It’s not. It hurts.
Tabitha over at Simply Precocious wrote a beautiful empathetic piece on why the original article was and is hurtful. Please go and read it.
Now, I could write about why dismissing the idea of giftedness is harmful. And I have previously here.
This isn’t the first or the last ignorant piece written by well-meaning but poorly informed people who think they’re doing everyone a favour by dissing on gifted people. You can read my previous responses here and here and here.
Instead I want to talk about why the idea that difference ‘doesn’t matter‘ is harmful. I see it all the time – “Everyone is different“, “Let you’re unique self shine!”. They’re lovely memes. Lots of fist-pumps and “Yeah! That’s awesome!”
But it’s a rare person that actually means it. Instead, a more honest meme might be:
or
Continue reading “Different Doesn’t Matter . . . Until it Matters”
Living in Extracurricular Purgatory
When, all those years ago, we decided that homeschooling was the right choice for our deeply asynchronous children, I kind of hoped that this would mean an escape from age-based norms and expectations. We would be free to craft the curriculum and activities that ‘fit’ our kids without the limitations that came with the age-grade lockstep that is the traditional way schools organise learning.
Gosh was I naive.
Because, whether I like it or not, almost anything to do with children is organised based on these traditional age-grade levels. Finding places that ‘fit’ my kids and their very different needs has been like ground-hog day. Reliving the same situations over and over again, with only the surface details changing. And each time feels like another walk through extracurricular purgatory. . .
Continue reading “Living in Extracurricular Purgatory”
The Smartest Person in the Room
Whether I like it or not, I am making unconscious decisions everyday on the people I meet. Is a person listening? Are they engaged in our conversation? What are they thinking?
And I have come to realise that my answers to these questions – and the unconscious assumptions I make about people around me – have been driven more by cultural ideas about behaviour than the reality I face each day.
It’s steep learning curve to to step away from my own ingrained ideas. Particularly when I am not always consciously aware I hold them. But I work at it day by day, assumption by assumption. I’m not there yet.
Continue reading “The Smartest Person in the Room”