SuperSchool: A fictional short-short story

"Idiot! "a short-short story

Lessons I Wish I Learned Earlier

A Tough Dad: A fictional short story

Frank Worrell on the present and future of education

I'm Offering a Mini-Grant(s)

Like Mother, Like Daughter? A short-short story

Addressing Five Annoying Characteristics of "Gifted" People

Most people can, in one way or another, be annoying: They’re too quiet or too noisy, too aggressive or too passive, too emotional or hyperrational, etc.

Brainy people, the so-called gifted, bring their own set of annoyances. My PsychologyToday.com article today describes 5 "overexcitabilities" identified by a psychologist, Kazimierz Dabrowski.

If I Had a Gifted Child

Yes, every child is a gift and a challenge. And so-called gifted kids present special gifts and challenges. My Psychology Today article today describes what I’d do if I had such a child today.

Parenting a Smart Child

Smart parents tend to have smart kids, so you have a leg up in parenting, but issues remain. I try to address some in my Psychology Today article today.

Tough Problems: Gifted child cuts school, a struggler rebels

My PsychologyToday.com article today is the latest in the Tough Problems series.

 

In each post, I present two composite questions that my clients face and my response to each. 

Today's installment describes a smart kid who, at 12, started cutting school. The other is about a high schooler who's promiscuous and a drug abuser.

Ten Tips for Parents of a Smart Kid

My PsychologyToday.com article today, Ten Tips for Parenting a Smart Child.

is part of a four-part series of tips for smart people. 

The others are: 
Five Tips for Smart People in a Not-So-Smart World

Five Tips for Smart Job Seekers

Six Dating Tips for Smart People  (It will be published 1/11/18 at around 9 PM Pacific time.)




All children are entitled to a fair shot at living up to their potential. That includes intellectually bright and gifted kids. That may be especially true because if they live up to their potential, they're the most likely to cure cancer, become wise leaders, create another Google or iPhone. Especially if you feel the schools aren’t adequately helping your child live up to his or her potential, the tips I offer in my PsychologyToday.com article today might help, even help a lot.

Alice in America: Everything seems upside down

My op-ed: Alice in America. Everything seems upside down.

The Unhappy Intellectually Gifted Child

Being intellectually gifted isn't necessarily all roses. 

In my PsychologyToday.com article today, I interview Edward Amend, an eminent expert in intellectually gifted kids who are unhappy. That of course can be caused by a misfitting educational experience but also can come from ADHD, depression, or autism level 1 (Asperger's Syndrome.)  In the jargon, such kids are called "twice exceptional."

I asked him about what parents and teachers can do with various flavors of unhappy gifted kids.

Career Advice for Geniuses

Standard career advice is to focus rather than dabble, to network your way into a good job, and to be a team player. 

Very smart people often require very different advice. I attempt to offer it in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

What if Your Child is Gifted, High-Ability, an Advanced Learner?

Especially below the high school level, programs for high-ability children have been cut, often to non-existent. As I wrote in an earlier PsychologyToday.com article, advanced learners too often sit stultified in a class for hours each day, for a decade. They may be America’s most underserved kids. What’s a parent to do?

To address that question, I interviewed one of the nation’s leading experts on gifted students. That's my PsychologyToday.com article. HERE is the link.

A New Idea for a Great and Easy to Create Summer Camp: Camp Think

Here's an advance look at a short piece that will appear in the Mensa publication, The Intelligencer:

Camp Think

by Marty Nemko

There are camps for sports, arts, science, and religion. Why not a camp that focuses on improving thinking skills, a Camp Think?

It could contain such activities as:

• a camp-wide effort to develop a plan to solve a societal problem, for example, substance abuse. The resulting White Paper could be submitted to an appropriate local, state, and federal official.
• A debate on such issues as: Should taxes be raised?  Soda banned? Marijuana legalized?
• Contests: Which team (and/or individual) can make the robot that wins a 20-year dash? A rocket that flies highest with parts that cost under $50? Develop the best idea for a reinvented elementary school? Win a logic-problem quiz show? Create the best skit? Museum exhibit? Develop the best improvement for next year’s camp?
• Because life isn’t just about thinking, there would be time for songfests, sports, talent shows, storytelling, and yes, even traditional camp arts and crafts--I still fondly remember learning how to make a lanyard using the diamond and box stitches.

None of these require fancy facilities. You could have a small day camp in your home, a spare room in a church, or in your apartment complex’s community room.

If you’re looking for something to do this summer, you could do far worse than run a one- or two-week summer day camp for at least a small number of kids.

When You Have a Gifted Child Poorly Served By the Public Schools

I often get letters from parents frustrated with the public schools' denying their gifted child their right to an appropriate leveled education. Here's one I just received. Below that are my suggestions for what she might do:

From: MJ [mailto:I'VE DELETED THE REST TO PRESERVE HER ANONYMITY
Sent: Friday, April 01, 2011 9:53 AM
To: mnemko@comcast.net
Subject: Active Smart Boys
I recently read your post Our Most Underserved Students: Active, Smart Boys, and agree with your assumption on this topic. I’m wondering if you can offer suggestions for parents? Our son is consistently at least two years ahead of his classmates in every subject. I home school him part time over the summer, in the afternoons after school, weekends, and breaks. It has been very frustrating for us, however, to see him take almost a “teachers aid” position in the classroom during the day in school every year. He has picked up the rolling pencil on the table, tilting his chair, staring out the window, tapping habits recently this year and this is a bad sign of boredom for the hours he spends at the school. Would it be insulting to the teacher(s) if I suggested he bring in work packets from home to work on after he completes their work?

I scheduled an appointment to discuss this with his teacher. I don’t know how to approach this without causing the teacher to become defensive. Last year the teacher picked on him and called him names throughout the year (if he answered too many questions she would yell at him to stop bragging). So I don’t want to annoy this years teacher.
I look forward to your input,
MJ (I ONLY PROVIDE HER INITIALS TO PRESERVE HER ANONYMITY)

Dear MJ,

Indeed, these stories sadden me a great deal, both for your son and for all of us, which is not helping to flower the students with the greatest potential for improving society. Also, your description of your son's behavior fits me-- I was like your son--the tapping, tilting, etc., bored silly in school. Here are things you might try:

1. Observing your child in class to see if there's more going on than you're aware of.

2. Speaking with the teacher to ask, "What should my child be doing differently? What should I be doing differently? And finally, "Is there anything you think you might do?"

3. Speaking with the principal to help ensure your child is in a better-suited teacher's class next year. Especially if there isn't a very well-suited teacher, consider having him grade-skipped one to three years. Here's an article I wrote about that: www.naesp.org/resources/2/Principal/2009/nov/N-D_p50.pdf

4. Teaming up with the parents of some other gifted kids to pressure the school into providing for gifted students' needs just as special ed parents successfully have done.
5. Perhaps start a one-room schoolhouse for gifted kids, which may not be as difficult as it sounds: I outline how to do that here: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2011/03/smarter-way-to-start-school.html

A Smarter Way to Start a School

Elitist that I am, I care deeply about improving education for the intellectually gifted, those with the greatest potential to solve our problems: from terrorism to cancer to inventing the next Google.

Alas, in today's egalitarian era, educational resources have, especially in elementary schools, been reallocated to the lowest-achievers. For example, ability-grouped classes have so often been replaced by mixed-ability classes, in part so the bright kids can become indentured servants helping low-achieving students. That, of course, denies bright kids of their right to an appropriate-leveled education. For example, even though a bright third-grader may be reading on a fifth grade level, s/he may be required to help classmates with The Cat in the Hat.

For the foreseeable future, the public schools will not likely change, so the main hope is in private schools. It is very difficult to start a private school in the traditional way, but I believe an excellent school can be created far more simply. This model could be used to start a school for any group of students of relatively homogeneous ability.

1. It should be a one-room elementary schoolhouse run by a teacher who would be a transformational teacher and mentor to gifted kids. (No principal is required.)

2. The teacher uses his/her own home as the school. That may seem creepy to some parents, so low-cost alternatives include vacant rooms in churches, community centers, etc.

3. Excellent curriculum is available free on the Net. A portal for such curriculum is THIS article in Duke University's Gifted Newsletter.

4. Students are selected based on an IQ test (a far more validly potent measure of academic ability than critics claim), an interview, and a group activity with other prospective and current students.

5. The curriculum is defined by interactivity, development of critical thinking, writing, leadership, and identification and development of students' passions.

6. The school is set up as an "independent study" or "home school" thereby enabling attendees to meet the state's compulsory education requirement.
7. The only paid staff are the teacher and a part-time administrative assistant. The kids would be in charge of cleaning up.

8. The school might elect to not seek accreditation. That may require too much money and compromise.

9. The tuition can be set low not only because the teacher/principal is using his home but because there's no gym, cafeteria, library, etc. The school provides what counts: great teaching, transformational curriculum, brilliant, good kids--the perfect greenhouse for intellectual, social, and emotional development.

I believe that such a school could be economically viable with 15 students paying $10,000 a year. And with a decent marketing effort (for example, presentations at libraries in locales with high achievers, articles in local newspapers and websites) a great teacher should have little trouble recruiting that many kids. And I believe it could be started in just months.

Grade Skipping: An Underutilized Option for Gifted Kids

Today, most public schools merely pay lip service to the needs of gifted kids. This is the era of education "for all"--translation: low achievers. 

The research suggests that the wisest work-around often is for gifted kids to skip between one and six grades, depending on the student. Grade skipping is the only powerful school-based intervention that doesn't require great teacher effort, which you can too rarely count on.

Parents' main worry about grade skipping is social maturity. Even if your high-ability child isn't socially adept,  in many cases, it's wiser to have him or her skip a grade(s) than to endure the ongoing boredom and lack of learning that comes from being in a too low-achieving class. Too, grade skipping reduces the chances of a gifted child being ridiculed by classmates as a snob or showoff.

You can mitigate the social risk of grade-skipping by:

• Trying to get another gifted child accelerated into your child's new class. 
• Having your child sit next to a kind, socially adept student(s) who can teach your child the higher grade's social and academic norms.
• Ensuring that the receiving teacher will welcome your child and be willing to keep an eye on your child to ensure s/he's being welcomed into the class and to give your child needed feedback, social and academic.

To maximize your chances of getting permission to have your child skip a grade, present to the principal a portfolio including:

• Samples of your child's in- and out-of-school work that suggest the ability to handle the work in a higher grade. 
  
• Samples of work assigned in his current class that demonstrate how beneath his ability or achievement level that work is.
• Standardized test score results.
• Research supporting grade skipping, including those studies that address the social maturity and knowledge-gap issues. An easy way to assemble the research is to print pages from the excellent book Genius Denied. Because principals tend to be busy, highlight the key sentences. 
• If your child writes well, include a letter from your child explaining why it's important s/he be allowed to skip a grade(s).
• Have your child verbally join you in making the case for skipping a grade(s).

For more on accelerating gifted kids, see this portal and/or the book, Acceleration Strategies.