Curse of Giftedness

If you ever wanted to wish someone a muck out loud, so much so that you are thanked for this, listen to my advice. Wish a person to have a gifted child. Hemorrhoids long in life (and if you're lucky, then a little more) is guaranteed. If you are interested, why a gifted child is a problem, we will understand.

If you google books, you can easily find such names as "Unsuccessful gifted schoolchildren" or "Drama gifted child." This is not accidental.

Let's just look at the child with giftedness. It is clear that I will cite exaggerated examples. In life, maybe not everything is scary, but potentially these and other problems can arise. Everything depends heavily on the environment, parents, the degree of giftedness and how these problems will be superimposed on each other. Leaving aside these subtleties, we note some problems.

Child and parents
Parents do not know what to do with it, with such clever, do

First and foremost, these are difficulties in teaching - it is difficult to teach a child who already knows more than you and catches you on mistakes. We do not know how to recognize them, in general, mistakes in our society are usually stigmatized. So to admit that was wrong, for us it is usually not easy.

Difficulties in education - it is very difficult to call for the order of a child who has more than once proved smarter than you. Traditionally, the parent can resort to the argument "I'm older, I know better". In the case of a gifted child, only "I am older" remains. A normal parent will be able to establish authority without appealing to age / mind, but this is the easiest way. Unfortunately, when there is no time / difficult / tired / it's all very bad to just go into authoritarian style just by this scheme - "I'm older and smarter".

The giftedness of the child poses great challenges for parents. At a minimum, the task of personal growth. Each of us wants to have a decent self-esteem. To think of myself is good. What would a man himself in this "good" did not invest. The easiest way to increase this rating is to say "I'm having trouble". That is, there is at least one sphere in which you took place (in fact). Parents do not just physically give birth and raise a child, they raise it. And this part is also very important. Few people notice this, but psychologists are laid on the post: one of the significant components of good self-esteem is a natural intellectual superiority over the child. Raising a child, parents perceive themselves as more wise, and constantly act from a "top" position. In the case when the child is superior to the parent, you have to build your self-esteem differently - not that you are stronger or smarter than him. Quite a non-trivial task, which is rarely thought of simply because there is no need.

A child and teachers
It's even worse than with my parents. This is not only a strange child, he is not even equal to the teacher (as it was with peers). At first, the teacher has little reason to be proud of him. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that if parents can bypass acute angles, shifting attention to household issues in which they understand better, then the teacher has no choice - he must teach the child in the area in which he is particularly gifted.

And he's a terribly uncomfortable student. Sets questions for which the teacher often does not have an answer. Just because the teacher is an ordinary person. He knows the school curriculum, if lucky, the sign of the pedagogy, but he himself does not have to be Pestalozzi. A gifted child can ask such a question, the answer to which may not be in the books. There it is necessary to think. And we remember that the teacher as well as any adult wants to respond immediately, so as not to "lose face". In fact, there is nothing shameful in saying "I'm not ready to respond now, I need to think." But it is known in the best of the worlds, but in reality everyone is afraid that after such words they will no longer be respected. "What will the other children say if I do not answer right away?" The teacher thinks. As a teacher, I ran into this problem. I had to invent a few phrases for these cases and literally accustom myself to telling them calmly.

That is, the problem of the teacher's self-esteem and the reproduction of role stereotypes is very acute. It is assumed that the teacher is one who knows all the answers. This is a stupid position, it would be better for the teachers to represent, as an older comrade who knows how to think, and teach this to others, but this I dreamed of, yes. And usually this authoritarian "I'm a teacher - I know better!" From a person who has passed a double negative selection. I entered a pedagogical school without getting into other more prestigious universities for more interesting faculties, and after getting an education I went to school, but did not find a more promising job. I know wonderful teachers who are created for their profession and love it with all their heart, but such, alas, a minority. Often in school are on a residual principle.

Another difficulty for the teacher is that the training program for a gifted child is different from the program for ordinary children. That is, the teacher has to do double work to prepare for the lessons - for everyone, and for this clever man. It takes too much time and makes you angry. And the more such children, the more difficult, because gifted children are all different. That is, two programs (for gifted and for ordinary children) can not do. Every gifted person has his own program. Shoot himself!

Finally, it is difficult to select pedagogical methods for such comrades. And not always a subject is a teacher. Most often it's a specialist. More physicist or mathematician than a teacher. He even has children with ordinary children, and now imagine that he got such a nut here - you can not use ready-made solutions to him. Plus, the fear of the teacher to lose face, as we mentioned above. And if the teacher could still teach that authority is not "when you are always right", then the subject, far from pedagogy and psychology, serving a school hard labor for a little money, more often than not knows about it. In short, a couple of "teacher-gifted child" - often a problem pair.

To be continued

Photo of pixabay. License CC0.