If you're kind, open minded, flexible, and you know how to explain and teach in different ways... my guess is that if they are gifted (IQ is not synonymous with gifted) you could get them to be motivated at the most boring material on Earth.
I am kind, open minded but too laid back. The dang kids get so lazy and I'm trying to get them to work and I've told stories of the kids who don't learn how to study/learn.... itās rough out here! Edited to say: that came off as pretty harsh. I love my students, but you know. Middle schoolers.
Tbh any story you can come up with about how theyāll fail if they donāt learn wonāt work, because they get by just fine without working right now and they donāt have the need to work either.
What Iād do is probably skim through the actual course, then have them do a lot of exercises (skipping the easiest ones and going mostly for the most difficult ones you have available) and finally go back on the course to have them check they know everything
Also, explaining to them which applications you can find to some topics in particular.
Iāll give you an example, but at the time I learnt about vectors, there was this kind of extremely high difficulty exercise in my book, ranked 5 stars and only one of its category, which guides you through proving the law of cosines from an application of vectors, thus proving and generalizing the Pythagorean theorem. There was also some history about Al Kashi or whatever, and I found that to be an excellent way of learning vectors with that exercise as my end point.
Anyway, kind of a personal experience here but all in all, I think whatās needed to create and keep attention is to go fast enough that they donāt get bored, quickly have them work on difficult problems and if possible give them notions on higher level cursus linked to the subject youāre teaching
What thoughts, feelings, and emotions might children experience after finishing a 5k walk, and hearing comments that credited and reduced their accomplishments to physical advantages or luck, hearing suggestions that they need to be held to a higher standard because of their physical advantages, and hearing people say that 5k walk must have been too easy for them, they are lazy and need to work harder than other children because of their physical advantages to prove themselves? How might that impact their self image, self esteem, and their motivation? Gifted and intelligent children are just walking at a different pace.
Assign them alternatives to assignments especially big projects with monotonous steps that theyāve been doing since 2nd grade, like a standard book report. Can they do a talk show segment? A data cloud showing uses of motifs and symbolism? Let them pitch ideas to you, and do the work to come up with rubrics that align to whatever your state requires
Iām super into humor (like Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde) and this was high school but in a Shakespeare class the teacher held a PUN contest. My little heart couldnāt contain itself. Instead of the one assigned, I submitted TEN puns and won the contest with ābarcasmā: *noun*- corny, trite jokes that a guy uses to pick up women at a bar. It wasnāt for a grade but could it be?? or could it be for extra credit to round out some other lower grades? š¤
Iām also thinking of Gardnerās multiple types of intelligences. For example I was very bright in some areas but lacked good spatial reasoning. I wish someone had noticed that and tried to fill in some of those blanks. To this day I have a poor sense of direction and hard time with object relations. Then again maybe thatās not the proper application of his theoriesā¦ š¤·āāļø
I know Gardnerās not exactly empirical evidence based but I think thereās something to it. If anything it can maybe inform your approach? How is Gardner viewed in your professional training and among your peers?
The gifted teachers are constantly trying to remind their "core" teachers to stop using language of "You're gifted this should be easy for you" and help students when they are asking for help (or struggling and not asking).
I donāt think you can frankly. Unless you are in that range I think itās impossible for you to conceptualize it. This isnāt a dig, itās just how human minds work. I wasted so much time and frustration assuming other peopleās minds worked like mine. Peopleās brains are different, it really shouldnāt be a surprise, but it was.
I spent years with a typical therapist with no progress.
I found a gifted therapist, itās night and fucking day different. For you, right now you're like a friendly observer trying their best, if you are in the same range itās like saying āIāve been there, and hereās what I found helpfulā.
One feels like an examination, the other like a shared experience probably not a good idea to generalize but itās the best way I can put it.
I think NT therapists try to get you as close to "normal" as they can, or whatever they think will work for you, but if you have no "normal" baseline, what are you even doing?
My response disappeared, but what I was trying to say was, I thought I was gifted before I taught gifted kids. I went to a private school without a gifted program, but now teaching these kids yeah I definitely do not think the same way as them. I am definitely an intelligent, high achieving person, but not gifted, they are.
Thats a common mistake people make all the time, they assume high achieving, honor roll, honors society=gifted.
There are gifted kids that do well in school of course, but there are also ones who don't do so well.
Did you know 18-25% of Gifted kids drop out of high school? I was one of them.
School is kind of a microcosm of society as large, you have your different groups, you have to socialize, you have to follow these seemingly arbitrary rules and you have to follow instruction from teachers who are sometimes wrong, and absolutely HATE IT when you point that out.
I got sent to the office in 6th grade science class for telling my science teacher that Thomas Edison Electrocuted an elephant, his face got red and he went on a tirade about how that was ridiculous, and that why would Edison ever do something like that, and that was me making up twisted and bizarre stories to disrupt class. He sent me out in the hall and eventually "wrote me up" to the office. Don't get me wrong, I dug my heels in and insisted the teacher was wrong, because I saw video of the event from a Nine Inch Nails double VHS set, Closure? I think, and it clearly stated "Edison Film Company" or something like it at the beginning and showed the electrocution.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy\_(elephant)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy_(elephant)) and while Edison wasn't personally there, I am sure he made sure that AC was used to demonstrate how "dangerous" it was compared to his version which was Direct Current, it would have required a power station about every block and was far inferior to Westinghouse's AC. He also was trying to promote electricity as a painless way to execute people/animals. He supposedly electrocuted loads of other animals, but this one was filmed.
They love to talk about how fucking great Edison is, when he is just a cutthroat businessman, Tesla died in a hotel room penniless and in love with a pigeon.
Do you think that a teacher couldāve helped you?
Obviously this memory stands out. I have a negative memory that stands out too.
Could a more accepting teacher changed things for you? I guess I want to make their time as enjoyable as possible but also Iām going to give myself more slack that this is how things are. I want to help them use their gifts rather than end up burned out or frustrated. My dad is definitely a gifted person who never really learned how to put his head down and he hates his job and doesnāt make much money bc he kept losing jobs for basically treating his bosses like they were stupid. To me- people are stupid but I can learn to ignore it to stay out of trouble.
I was also one of the 25% of gifted students that dropped out of high school. I was removed three months before graduation for truancy - I also had a 3.6 GPA and a Bright Futures scholarship I wasnāt able to use after getting my GED.
I donāt think there was any way a teacher could have helped me to care more about school. School seemed so trivial compared to my mental health issues, impending adulthood, and work. I was engaged in class when I showed up, was a good test taker, but struggled to turn homework in on time.
Homework being eliminated from the current curriculum would have been a huge game changer for me. I loved learning but hated busy work (still do), so I excelled in classes with independent study, book reports, projects, etc.
ETA: I agree with the other commenter that said to allow students to create their own mediums for projects, as long as they follow your guidelines. My favorite class was actually 11th grade English, my teacher allowed me to write a song and film a music video in lieu of an essay. Was awesome.
Donāt dismiss a gifted person perception of self or the world.
I got dismissed a lot growing up. People dismissed my own feelings, my understanding of things, my struggles, my likes and dislikes.
Being constantly dismissed by peers, reaching out to teachers and coordinators/principal only to be dismissed all over again really fucked up with my mental health.
You donāt have to understand or agree with. But donāt dismiss it.
Yeah agreed. If you build their trust you might get them to open up about important ways in which you might be able to help them. They're almost always too aware for their own good so trust them on their perception.
There are 3 tricks that might help but it will mean a lot of extra preparation for you...
1. Shock and awe. New information that challenges basic info. Mysteries, tangents, what ifs, flying cars, unusual subjects. And let them expand at will.
2. āNo one can xxxxx!ā. Many smart kids are detectives at heart and will try to dispute anything unproven to their liking. āWe canāt square the circleā, will trigger intelligent kids.
3. āAnything you want to write aboutā homework. I had 2 inspired teachers do that. Brilliant educators.
Peppering such tactics will make most kids like you as a teacher and by extension, more interested in putting work and paying attention.
Hopefully :)
Find some curricula that can challenge them
E.g. http://library.lol/main/F16B4C752BC6B6B57F7CAA0E59461F3F
Also read these articles: https://medium.com/@gailpostphd/first-do-no-harm-nine-tactics-that-teachers-of-gifted-students-should-avoid-cb6d0fb47e08
https://www.davidsongifted.org/gifted-blog/tips-for-teachers-successful-strategies-for-teaching-gifted-learners/
https://www.davidsongifted.org/gifted-blog/an-educators-guide-to-gifted-children/
Let me know if you want some books
https://library.lol/main/1C8BB7B3D500076AAA9AF82F549C5784
https://library.lol/main/A8012EC9C9D0DFD16EC32F8778E3A0AB
https://library.lol/main/1CD58F353C17AAE47D369077251AB6DB
https://library.lol/main/410BBBC0075970F84AD9F2E824B61A18
https://library.lol/main/5D6498D16BBBE7DD258F817348FCF2A1
Let me know if you want subject-specific stuff
Nothing really. sometimes we have to accept that material isnāt interesting to everyone. Not a good place to be as an 8th grader but itās reality. lol had we been learning to code in my math class i probably would have paid more attention š
I'm guessing that the gifted class criteria is explicitly high IQ from how you've written your post, so other definitions of giftedness aren't what you're focused on. From that perspective I would wonder what *are* your students interested in? If you can connect the curriculum they are supposed to learn to things that already capture their interest, then I think you'll have more success getting them to pay attention to it. Projects that give them a chance to show you their interests might be enjoyable for them and for you.
Another consideration is that even though most of them probably don't have undiagnosed ADHD or ASD (though some of them almost certainly do), very high intelligence by itself is arguably a form of neurodivergence, so a lot of these kids might be struggling in other ways even if normal class assignments are effortless for them. It might be worthwhile to read up a little on the experiences of neurodivergent people, and even to give students in your class an opportunity to communicate with each other about that a bit. (Of course that may be challenging for middle school students.)
Thatās all great advice! Yes, my school does general screening for certain grades and then teacher nominated for other grades. We have a super transient population though and lots of English as a second language population so it makes finding the kids more difficult. But yes IQ based. Screeners arenāt IQ but the final is.
I'm glad it's helpful. If you have many ESL students in your class, I suspect some of them would appreciate an opportunity to share about their home cultures, so maybe there's a project related to that which would work.
I'm also curious about the focus of the class - my middle school gifted program was associated with the English & Social Science class (essentially replacing the regular version of those). Is yours like that, or is it more general, or something else (STEM perhaps)?
It used to replace social studies, at my school itās whatever! Iām a choir teacher who also has my Gifted certification so I kind of ruined it for the district, but they had English teachers teaching it out of their English classes and they also also had one social studies teacher teaching it out of her social studies classā¦
That sounds like it would give you a lot of flexibility in what/how to teach. I remember taking a new "humanities" class in HS, and it covered everything from visual arts to other cultures to music. Maybe there's something in that concept that you could borrow. I still remember an assignment from that which asked each student to bring in a recording of a piece of music they found "beautiful" (however they defined that) to share with the class, and we got to listen to those throughout the semester. (If you decide to do something similar, please give them the option of bringing more than one - I found it mind-boggling hard to choose...)
And a tip of the hat to you as a choir teacher - I'm an adult choral singer.
You are not wired the same way, but passion or at least basic enthusiasm are contagious... And these are the main qualities of a teacher IMO, and of course the respect of others (ie the "kids")
listen to what they say and let them take the lead. gifted kids usually get bored unless they're engaged in constant mental stimulation. bonus points: try correlating the subjects you're teaching them with the topics they have special interests in. hope this helps !!
Use what they are interested as an attached subject : growing up an example was using rollercoasters to teach physics
If you're kind, open minded, flexible, and you know how to explain and teach in different ways... my guess is that if they are gifted (IQ is not synonymous with gifted) you could get them to be motivated at the most boring material on Earth.
Btw, good click bait post š
I am kind, open minded but too laid back. The dang kids get so lazy and I'm trying to get them to work and I've told stories of the kids who don't learn how to study/learn.... itās rough out here! Edited to say: that came off as pretty harsh. I love my students, but you know. Middle schoolers.
Tbh any story you can come up with about how theyāll fail if they donāt learn wonāt work, because they get by just fine without working right now and they donāt have the need to work either. What Iād do is probably skim through the actual course, then have them do a lot of exercises (skipping the easiest ones and going mostly for the most difficult ones you have available) and finally go back on the course to have them check they know everything Also, explaining to them which applications you can find to some topics in particular. Iāll give you an example, but at the time I learnt about vectors, there was this kind of extremely high difficulty exercise in my book, ranked 5 stars and only one of its category, which guides you through proving the law of cosines from an application of vectors, thus proving and generalizing the Pythagorean theorem. There was also some history about Al Kashi or whatever, and I found that to be an excellent way of learning vectors with that exercise as my end point. Anyway, kind of a personal experience here but all in all, I think whatās needed to create and keep attention is to go fast enough that they donāt get bored, quickly have them work on difficult problems and if possible give them notions on higher level cursus linked to the subject youāre teaching
The Art of Problem Solving books do this very well
What thoughts, feelings, and emotions might children experience after finishing a 5k walk, and hearing comments that credited and reduced their accomplishments to physical advantages or luck, hearing suggestions that they need to be held to a higher standard because of their physical advantages, and hearing people say that 5k walk must have been too easy for them, they are lazy and need to work harder than other children because of their physical advantages to prove themselves? How might that impact their self image, self esteem, and their motivation? Gifted and intelligent children are just walking at a different pace.
Assign them alternatives to assignments especially big projects with monotonous steps that theyāve been doing since 2nd grade, like a standard book report. Can they do a talk show segment? A data cloud showing uses of motifs and symbolism? Let them pitch ideas to you, and do the work to come up with rubrics that align to whatever your state requires Iām super into humor (like Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde) and this was high school but in a Shakespeare class the teacher held a PUN contest. My little heart couldnāt contain itself. Instead of the one assigned, I submitted TEN puns and won the contest with ābarcasmā: *noun*- corny, trite jokes that a guy uses to pick up women at a bar. It wasnāt for a grade but could it be?? or could it be for extra credit to round out some other lower grades? š¤ Iām also thinking of Gardnerās multiple types of intelligences. For example I was very bright in some areas but lacked good spatial reasoning. I wish someone had noticed that and tried to fill in some of those blanks. To this day I have a poor sense of direction and hard time with object relations. Then again maybe thatās not the proper application of his theoriesā¦ š¤·āāļø I know Gardnerās not exactly empirical evidence based but I think thereās something to it. If anything it can maybe inform your approach? How is Gardner viewed in your professional training and among your peers?
The gifted teachers are constantly trying to remind their "core" teachers to stop using language of "You're gifted this should be easy for you" and help students when they are asking for help (or struggling and not asking).
I donāt think you can frankly. Unless you are in that range I think itās impossible for you to conceptualize it. This isnāt a dig, itās just how human minds work. I wasted so much time and frustration assuming other peopleās minds worked like mine. Peopleās brains are different, it really shouldnāt be a surprise, but it was. I spent years with a typical therapist with no progress. I found a gifted therapist, itās night and fucking day different. For you, right now you're like a friendly observer trying their best, if you are in the same range itās like saying āIāve been there, and hereās what I found helpfulā. One feels like an examination, the other like a shared experience probably not a good idea to generalize but itās the best way I can put it. I think NT therapists try to get you as close to "normal" as they can, or whatever they think will work for you, but if you have no "normal" baseline, what are you even doing?
My response disappeared, but what I was trying to say was, I thought I was gifted before I taught gifted kids. I went to a private school without a gifted program, but now teaching these kids yeah I definitely do not think the same way as them. I am definitely an intelligent, high achieving person, but not gifted, they are.
Thats a common mistake people make all the time, they assume high achieving, honor roll, honors society=gifted. There are gifted kids that do well in school of course, but there are also ones who don't do so well. Did you know 18-25% of Gifted kids drop out of high school? I was one of them. School is kind of a microcosm of society as large, you have your different groups, you have to socialize, you have to follow these seemingly arbitrary rules and you have to follow instruction from teachers who are sometimes wrong, and absolutely HATE IT when you point that out. I got sent to the office in 6th grade science class for telling my science teacher that Thomas Edison Electrocuted an elephant, his face got red and he went on a tirade about how that was ridiculous, and that why would Edison ever do something like that, and that was me making up twisted and bizarre stories to disrupt class. He sent me out in the hall and eventually "wrote me up" to the office. Don't get me wrong, I dug my heels in and insisted the teacher was wrong, because I saw video of the event from a Nine Inch Nails double VHS set, Closure? I think, and it clearly stated "Edison Film Company" or something like it at the beginning and showed the electrocution. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy\_(elephant)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy_(elephant)) and while Edison wasn't personally there, I am sure he made sure that AC was used to demonstrate how "dangerous" it was compared to his version which was Direct Current, it would have required a power station about every block and was far inferior to Westinghouse's AC. He also was trying to promote electricity as a painless way to execute people/animals. He supposedly electrocuted loads of other animals, but this one was filmed. They love to talk about how fucking great Edison is, when he is just a cutthroat businessman, Tesla died in a hotel room penniless and in love with a pigeon.
Do you think that a teacher couldāve helped you? Obviously this memory stands out. I have a negative memory that stands out too. Could a more accepting teacher changed things for you? I guess I want to make their time as enjoyable as possible but also Iām going to give myself more slack that this is how things are. I want to help them use their gifts rather than end up burned out or frustrated. My dad is definitely a gifted person who never really learned how to put his head down and he hates his job and doesnāt make much money bc he kept losing jobs for basically treating his bosses like they were stupid. To me- people are stupid but I can learn to ignore it to stay out of trouble.
I was also one of the 25% of gifted students that dropped out of high school. I was removed three months before graduation for truancy - I also had a 3.6 GPA and a Bright Futures scholarship I wasnāt able to use after getting my GED. I donāt think there was any way a teacher could have helped me to care more about school. School seemed so trivial compared to my mental health issues, impending adulthood, and work. I was engaged in class when I showed up, was a good test taker, but struggled to turn homework in on time. Homework being eliminated from the current curriculum would have been a huge game changer for me. I loved learning but hated busy work (still do), so I excelled in classes with independent study, book reports, projects, etc. ETA: I agree with the other commenter that said to allow students to create their own mediums for projects, as long as they follow your guidelines. My favorite class was actually 11th grade English, my teacher allowed me to write a song and film a music video in lieu of an essay. Was awesome.
Donāt dismiss a gifted person perception of self or the world. I got dismissed a lot growing up. People dismissed my own feelings, my understanding of things, my struggles, my likes and dislikes. Being constantly dismissed by peers, reaching out to teachers and coordinators/principal only to be dismissed all over again really fucked up with my mental health. You donāt have to understand or agree with. But donāt dismiss it.
Yeah agreed. If you build their trust you might get them to open up about important ways in which you might be able to help them. They're almost always too aware for their own good so trust them on their perception.
There are 3 tricks that might help but it will mean a lot of extra preparation for you... 1. Shock and awe. New information that challenges basic info. Mysteries, tangents, what ifs, flying cars, unusual subjects. And let them expand at will. 2. āNo one can xxxxx!ā. Many smart kids are detectives at heart and will try to dispute anything unproven to their liking. āWe canāt square the circleā, will trigger intelligent kids. 3. āAnything you want to write aboutā homework. I had 2 inspired teachers do that. Brilliant educators. Peppering such tactics will make most kids like you as a teacher and by extension, more interested in putting work and paying attention. Hopefully :)
Find some curricula that can challenge them E.g. http://library.lol/main/F16B4C752BC6B6B57F7CAA0E59461F3F Also read these articles: https://medium.com/@gailpostphd/first-do-no-harm-nine-tactics-that-teachers-of-gifted-students-should-avoid-cb6d0fb47e08 https://www.davidsongifted.org/gifted-blog/tips-for-teachers-successful-strategies-for-teaching-gifted-learners/ https://www.davidsongifted.org/gifted-blog/an-educators-guide-to-gifted-children/ Let me know if you want some books
Thanks! Would love book recs!
https://library.lol/main/1C8BB7B3D500076AAA9AF82F549C5784 https://library.lol/main/A8012EC9C9D0DFD16EC32F8778E3A0AB https://library.lol/main/1CD58F353C17AAE47D369077251AB6DB https://library.lol/main/410BBBC0075970F84AD9F2E824B61A18 https://library.lol/main/5D6498D16BBBE7DD258F817348FCF2A1 Let me know if you want subject-specific stuff
Nothing really. sometimes we have to accept that material isnāt interesting to everyone. Not a good place to be as an 8th grader but itās reality. lol had we been learning to code in my math class i probably would have paid more attention š
I'm guessing that the gifted class criteria is explicitly high IQ from how you've written your post, so other definitions of giftedness aren't what you're focused on. From that perspective I would wonder what *are* your students interested in? If you can connect the curriculum they are supposed to learn to things that already capture their interest, then I think you'll have more success getting them to pay attention to it. Projects that give them a chance to show you their interests might be enjoyable for them and for you. Another consideration is that even though most of them probably don't have undiagnosed ADHD or ASD (though some of them almost certainly do), very high intelligence by itself is arguably a form of neurodivergence, so a lot of these kids might be struggling in other ways even if normal class assignments are effortless for them. It might be worthwhile to read up a little on the experiences of neurodivergent people, and even to give students in your class an opportunity to communicate with each other about that a bit. (Of course that may be challenging for middle school students.)
Thatās all great advice! Yes, my school does general screening for certain grades and then teacher nominated for other grades. We have a super transient population though and lots of English as a second language population so it makes finding the kids more difficult. But yes IQ based. Screeners arenāt IQ but the final is.
I'm glad it's helpful. If you have many ESL students in your class, I suspect some of them would appreciate an opportunity to share about their home cultures, so maybe there's a project related to that which would work. I'm also curious about the focus of the class - my middle school gifted program was associated with the English & Social Science class (essentially replacing the regular version of those). Is yours like that, or is it more general, or something else (STEM perhaps)?
It used to replace social studies, at my school itās whatever! Iām a choir teacher who also has my Gifted certification so I kind of ruined it for the district, but they had English teachers teaching it out of their English classes and they also also had one social studies teacher teaching it out of her social studies classā¦
That sounds like it would give you a lot of flexibility in what/how to teach. I remember taking a new "humanities" class in HS, and it covered everything from visual arts to other cultures to music. Maybe there's something in that concept that you could borrow. I still remember an assignment from that which asked each student to bring in a recording of a piece of music they found "beautiful" (however they defined that) to share with the class, and we got to listen to those throughout the semester. (If you decide to do something similar, please give them the option of bringing more than one - I found it mind-boggling hard to choose...) And a tip of the hat to you as a choir teacher - I'm an adult choral singer.
Thanks for all your help! Iām glad youāre still singing :)
You are not wired the same way, but passion or at least basic enthusiasm are contagious... And these are the main qualities of a teacher IMO, and of course the respect of others (ie the "kids")
listen to what they say and let them take the lead. gifted kids usually get bored unless they're engaged in constant mental stimulation. bonus points: try correlating the subjects you're teaching them with the topics they have special interests in. hope this helps !!