Gifted student not applying herself

Mommy1:)

Mon, Jan 17 2022, 5:30 pm

OP I am so happy to hear you asking this question! As the parent of a child who is marked not applying themself in each conference, I wish my kids teachers would ask what they can do to help instead of putting it on me, the parent.

amother

Sapphire

Mon, Jan 17 2022, 6:50 pm

Yes, it’s so nice to hear you are invested in helping this child. I feel like there is so much focus spent on special ed these days, that the gifted kids are getting shortchanged.
My son is bH very bright. For much of elementary, he was able to “coast” on this advantage. So he got used to not needing to put in much effort and still get good grades. Now, he is in middle school where they finally track the kids and actually have high expectations for them. But unfortunately, his work ethic is just not up to par and he’s constantly looking for the easy way out. It’s so frustrating because I know if he would spend proper time reviewing his work every night, he’d be getting straight A’s.
I wish his elementary teachers would have held him more accountable.

amother

Maple

Mon, Jan 17 2022, 7:52 pm

Not to be cynical but truly questioning- isn’t gifted a rare diagnoses of a very small percentage of the population- what qualifies one as “gifted” rather than quick, bright and sharp.
(Asking because my daughter is having a hard time in school, very bright and gets into power struggles with teachers and principals. They want me to evaluate her , she is not showing any signs of any of the typical diagnosis- I do question the adults for inviting her into a power struggle- they think she is gifted and I would be very surprised if she would be- she is very smart and all but not gifted- I think she can use more depth and has areas to improve.. she is not artistic or creative )

amother

Mimosa

Mon, Jan 17 2022, 7:55 pm

Reposting from another thread:

Quote:

There is no one definition of gifted. Every state in the US has its own criteria. In my state, for example, scoring in the 95th percentile or higher on an achievement test or somewhere in the 120's on an IQ test will suffice. This means that 10% of kids or even more might be considered gifted, which is pretty common. But practically, there will be a big difference between kids in the 120's and kids in the 140's, even if the state labels them all with the same label. Also, these tests are just for academic indicators of giftedness and might not capture a child who is gifted in another area, such as music or dance. They might also overlook a gifted child who is "twice exceptional," I.e. has a disability that hampers their ability to perform on tests.

amother

Honeydew

Mon, Jan 17 2022, 10:23 pm

There are a lot of myths surrounding this topic. Standard gifted is 5-8% of the population. Up to 3% are highly gifted and 1% profoundly gifted. We just only look at the profoundly gifted as a marker. Particularly in the frum world there is very little understanding of the needs of these students on an academic, emotional and social basis. If anyone wants more info on this, put your username up and I will PM you.

amother

Taupe

Mon, Jan 17 2022, 11:07 pm

It's great that she's talking to friends. Too many gifted children excel at school but struggle socially.

It doesn't matter if her grades are good. If her brain is engaged, schoolwork is irrelevant. When she needs good grades, she'll step up and get them. You can encourage self-discipline in other areas, if you feel she doesn't have it.

So long as she's curious and learning new things, her report card doesn't matter.

English3

Tue, Jan 18 2022, 2:02 am

If the teachers would have put pressure on me I would be an a star student. All they said was such a shame I would've expected more from you. I was a lazy kid and my parents didn't bother with my grades they knew I was intelligent.

amother

SandyBrown

Tue, Jan 18 2022, 2:15 am

Giving a gifted student more busy work is actually not going to motivate them. One of my teachers tried to get me to translate more mefarshim, I stopped doing it after 1 lesson. If she would have asked me to try analyse them instead, maybe she would have been on to something.

My son also felt it's not fair, why does he have to do harder work just because he's smarter. One teacher actually asked how to engage him. Skip the busy work. When a reading comprehension starts with simple questions, let him skip straight to the more challenging ones, if you make him start with the basics you've lost him way before he gets to the ones that will actually make him think. Let him be creative and take the lead on certain things, even if he's planning the class party while everyone else is doing work.
His 8th grade gemara teacher got him to come up and draw out the gemara on the white board while the teacher explained for the second or third time, and he would have been bored and chatting. He's very artistic, it kept him busy and actually helped some of the other boys who were more visual learners.

amother

Snow

Tue, Jan 18 2022, 2:43 am

English3 wrote:

There's a difference between that and gifted.

Gifted are bored out of their minds. Lazy just don't feel like working.

Gifted will get Bs or As without studying. Lazy, if they don't study, might get Bs if they are lucky, but are more likely to get Cs or worse.

Gifted can space half the class and still know what the teacher is saying. Lazy won't have a clue.

ora_43

Tue, Jan 18 2022, 4:53 am

One approach I've seen work well is to have an automatic "gifted level" for every assignment.

Eg, "we're going to work on problems 10-12. If you have trouble with these problems, try solving problem 13 from the previous section first, and see if that helps. If you finish problems 10-12, please move on to the bonus question."

Basically, there's always a natural "next step" so that there's something to work towards, beyond just the option of getting a slightly better grade on the same material. Plus, the gifted kid isn't singled out (which can also be good for other kids, some of them might surprise you by being able to do the extra material too).

Open questions are also a natural way of doing this. Like, "see how many ways you can find to solve this problem" or "how many shapes can you make with these lines". There's an automatic challenge in there of finding more (and, bonus, kids who only find 1-2 ways haven't failed - they still got a correct answer).

ora_43

Tue, Jan 18 2022, 5:15 am

Other thoughts in no particular order

- if one specific student is really not making an effort, consider the possibility of emotional problems, ADHD, or similar. for gifted students, also consider that she might simply not have study skills.

- a class culture of seeing failure as a natural part of the learning process can help. sometimes gifted kids don't want to push themselves in part because they've subconsciously built their identity around being right, which makes them risk-averse.

- in line with above, praise students who try new things. Eg in English class, "the house is big and green" is an OK sentence, "the house it is grand and his color is emerald and pleasing" is an excellent sentence. It's not right, but it shows that the student is trying to use new words.

- use some real-world problems in class. They tend to be interesting, and can encourage big goals. Like, if I did a worksheet in Arabic class I'd just be thinking, "I wish I would stop confusing the words for 'yellow' and 'green,'" but if I watch a TV show in Arabic I'm thinking, "I wish I understood."

- nobody fully applies themselves all the time

amother

Honeydew

Tue, Jan 18 2022, 6:34 am

In theory, all students who are on the extremes of the Bell curve should be provided with an individual education plan which all their teachers have to follow.

The first step has to be acknowledgment of the child's gift. Unfortunately, too often the school will look at achievement to determine giftedness and not at potential.

Never, ever give a gifted kid "busy" work. Busy work includes any work that is just more of the same, any work that is not challenging and that the rest of the class do not have to do and any work that is blatantly given to them to keep them out of mischief.

There are many other tools that a teacher can use to keep a gifted student engaged. It doesn't have to be more advanced content. It is more to do with the way the material is presented than the actual material itself. You want to keep them interested in what they are learning.

amother

Mimosa

Tue, Jan 18 2022, 6:47 am

Whether or not there is resentment about getting more challenging work depends on the student's personality and also on how the school is run.

In my children's school, a significant portion of the children's learning is done independently and they work through mastering the material at their own pace. Everyone is used to the idea that their classmates are all at slightly different places in the math curriculum, in spelling, and in dikduk, for example. My kids don't resent being more advanced because they know that everyone does approximately the same amount of work each day and everyone is progressing. It is normal in their school for kids to move at their own pace for certain subjects.

Something that can be done for group lessons and work, if logistics allow, is to place the child in a group with older kids. I have one child who likes this and one who refuses it. The latter is perfectly willing to be given the material from the older grade to work on, but refuses to be separated from her age group for lessons. She prefers to sit through a group lesson that is completely irrelevant to her assigned work because it is with her peers. And that is fine with me because I want her to be happy and comfortable. But my other child doesn't mind being the youngest in an older group, so for her that works.

amother

Tulip

Tue, Jan 18 2022, 7:13 am

My 8th grade DD is not being challenged in school but she's a sweet girl so the teachers ask her to help her classmates. Usually when she says she's studying for a test she's actually helping her friends study because she already knows the material.

Hopefully high school will be more stimulating for her when there are more honors classes and APs and the opportunity to choose her electives and do independent learning.

Hashem_Yaazor

Tue, Jan 18 2022, 12:02 pm

If you teach kodesh, a kid who likes challenge might want to take notes in Hebrew (or mirror writing), answer tests in Hebrew (none of this needs to be grammatically correct), do all the questions even if they only need to do some, pick up extra meforshim on their own (never force them though), prepare a lesson to give over in the subject, be buddied up with someone who needs extra support if this kid likes explaining things.... Really it's a matter of finding what the kid enjoys. Speaking from personal experience as a (gifted, ugh it's taking me forever to get comfortable with that word but whatever) student and as a mother of many children ranging from bright to gifted who either have excelled or not in school.

In English subjects, math turned into word problems and higher application thinking. Language arts is easy enough for a kid to expand on their own with stronger writing. In vocabulary, one of my kids who finds the definition writings too easy checks up the parts of speech and etymology on her own. Science lends itself to higher thinking hypotheses and theories and applications in lab work.

There's so much room to expand laterally without adding on extra work that a kid doesn't want or jumping them vertically widening the gap between them and their peers.