I’d like to introduce you to another reason to be proud of Washington state.
March 11 is Washington State Gifted Education Day. In Washington, every school district is mandated to offer highly-capable services to identified children because gifted education is part of basic education.
Why is this so important? Picture a bell curve for IQ. An IQ of 100 is at the top of the bell. A typical classroom is tailor-made for kids in the middle. With differentiated instruction — meeting the needs of learners through targeted lessons — teachers can usually provide children who are slightly below or above this range a good education.
But let’s consider a child with an IQ of 56. Would it be fair to dump that student in a classroom without any services? Absolutely not! That’s why we have Individual Education Plans, para-educators, and a myriad of ways to help kids with special needs succeed.
Yet in many states, kids on the opposite end of the bell curve are ignored. Many people think that a student with an IQ of 144 will be fine because “he’s so smart.” But Washington State recognizes that being gifted does not make a child better or put him on a guaranteed path to success, it just means the child has different learning needs than his neuro-typical peers.
In a hi-cap classroom the pace is quicker because the students need less repetition to master concepts. At the same time, they can explore topics in greater depth than the classroom next door. Many hi-cap programs operate at least one grade level ahead, as if all the kids had accelerated a year.
The peer interaction of gifted kids is frequently different too, because one of the hallmarks of high IQ is intensity. Instead of being OK with casual friendship, gifted children can feel the need for deep, soul-mate connections. A really great example of this is Anne Shirley, the title character in “Anne of Green Gables,” wanting a “bosom friend.” Heaven help the parent of a gifted girl who isn’t invited to her classmate’s birthday party.
Of course, intensity looks different in every gifted child. The Polish psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski hypothesized that gifted people have overexcitabilities in five areas: psychomotor, sensual, emotional, intellectual and imaginational.
A gifted child who is intensely psychomotor and emotional might get so hyped up about algebra that she becomes physically ill. A gifted child who is intensely sensual and imaginational might be so overwhelmed by the classical music his teacher plays during handwriting practice, that he daydreams and doesn’t write one letter. Hi-cap teachers are specially trained to deal with gifted idiosyncrasies, whereas most mainstream teachers are not.
Children are not widgets and schools should not be factories. Every student in Washington State deserves an appropriate education.
This Wednesday when hi-cap families visit Olympia, they will ask lawmakers to fully fund basic education. On behalf of every child on the bell curve, I hope legislators listen.
Jennifer Bardsley is an Edmonds mom of two. Find her on Twitter @jennbardsley and at www.heraldnet.com/ibrakeformoms and teachingmybabytoread.com.
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