gt in classroom

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Home : 2003 : September : 12

gt in classroom
By karen

I agree completely with the advice not to add home projects for the GT child's already long day. GT children are sadly neglected in this country and then we wonder why they get so turned off to learning and education. Our
district has no gifted program for elementary children (in fact no school within 30 minutes has one). The closest one runs a program with a teacher with no training that simply gives the children longer assignments and bigger words. GT children need challenges and higher level thinking activities (Susan Winnebrener's --sp?-- book is great). Pretest relieves you of having to justify why

the GT student is doing something different. Once you have pretested, you and the student can decide a project for him/her to work on without worrying that she/he is missing anything.
My biggest success has been through mentors. A college 40 minutes away has helped me find mentors willing to drive that far to help a child that is highly gifted (he passed the fourth grade science textbook test on the solar system and space before we ever started the unit--the rest of the class just takes a quiz based on benchmarks). Honors COllege students remember being in the same situation. They have been wonderful. He has learned about molecular science, the surface of Venus, and more. And just as important, he has found "friends" that understand what he is talking about and share his enthuiasm for learning. My advice is get the book, look for mentors and pretest. If your classroom is like mine (mine range from a student that is trainable to this one that reads high school nonfiction "for fun".)it is not easy. Hang in there. These children are our lost resource and they are worth it.
Karen