Joe is our 6-year-old son. My husband and I chose to have him assessed by a psychologist when he was 3 1/2-years-old using a battery of tests, including the Stanford Binet Form-LM. Afterwards, we discussed the results. As we looked on, the psychologist drew a bell-shaped curve. He then moved his pen several standard deviations out from norm, placing Joe's dot out where the curve had gone flat. I didn't need an explanation. I felt an ache in my heart knowing the struggle we now faced as a family.
Life suddenly had become unbearably complex and overwhelming as we discussed Joe's special needs and the accommodations he would require upon entering school. The prospect of raising and educating an exceptionally gifted child, packaged with allergies and related respiratory problems, was staggering.
The following year Joe was again tested. He surpassed his previous score leaving little doubt of his exceptional ability. We felt ill-equipped and scared out of our wits to raise Joe, his education looming as the greatest obstacle.
Joe was enrolled in kindergarten early, just prior to his fifth birthday and is now in first grade. He has strong abstract and spatial reasoning abilities, a mechanical orientation, an inclination to tinker, and the hands and heart of an engineer. He loves science, math, art, and music and demonstrates strong potential in each area.
Our public school system promises Joe an appropriate education commensurate with his abilities. Since there is no law in Minnesota which mandates gifted education or insures gifted children an appropriate education and needed services, we can only take the district's word that it will deliver. I keep looking for a disclaimer in small print because I don't see any programs or designated services for exceptionally gifted children.
On the other hand, children who are handicapped are guaranteed an appropriate education and specialized services. Their needs must be met even if it involves providing one-on-one instruction to implement their individualized education plan - regardless of cost. Joe, it would seem, has these same rights to education and services but as a child with more than average cognitive abilities. However, educational programs that are geared to the above average student tend to become a decision of the school district - prone to budget cuts and shifts in community values rather than a right.
Joe's stuck with the wrong label. Minnesota law, Chapter 120, holds school districts responsible for providing special instruction and services from birth for handicapped children. The statues are very specific; the district must provide special instruction and services, assess and plan the programs for all handicapped children detailing the scope of instruction. This is not a debatable issue left to the district's discretion or to the wishes of the school principal or teacher.
There is no parallel legislation, however, that relates to the rights and special needs of gifted and talented students. The state is implying a message to Minnesota school districts: the rights and needs of handicapped children are justified and, by law, are more important than the rights and needs of gifted children.
The irony in this is that Minnesota's State Board of Education recently adopted the following rule: 3500.0500 General Education Program Requirements. Subpart 1. Program for all pupils. The educational program shall provide a general education for all pupils and suitable special education for exceptional children handicapped, gifted and talented.
Gifted children and handicapped children are both designated as 'exceptional' children with equal billing albeit in vague language and subject to interpretation. Even so, it does state that gifted children are to be given a suitable, special education. The Minnesota Department of Education is obligated to enforce this commitment and our school district is expected to comply with the law's provisions. The Department provides the operational guidelines to the districts for meeting these needs. However, because these guidelines are not stated in the law or administrative rule, they are difficult to enforce but easy to avoid and have little impact on the educational focus and fiscal decisions made by Minnesota school districts.
For Joe, timing is critical and costs to meet his needs are high. We have neither the time nor money to personally prove a legal point that may take years to settle. Until needed legislation is in place that gives our son rights to an appropriate education, we look at the school district as one of our resources rather than the sole source for Joe's education. Even so, we think we selected the best school setting for our son. We deal with competent educators, who, like us, haven't had much experience in educating highly gifted. But we selected this particular school because it appeared to have a flexible program and there were specialists for Joe if he needed them. Two are gifted and talented specialists who play a critical role in forging the way for Joe. The fact is without their help Joe wouldn't have made it through the system. Together, we continually advocate against having his deficits rather than his strengths become the focus of his educational plan.
As parents we want to play an active role in Joe's education. We've asked his school for a kind of partnership, but there remains some reluctance to regard parents as educators for their children. I would have expected teachers to be openly receptive to any offers of help when it comes to exceptionally gifted children but it doesn't always work that way. Wanted or not, we continue to fill the gaps in services and education by taking Joe to programs operated by local museums and other schools. It may be that at some time I may end up teaching Joe at home. I know that's not a perfect system either, but there are no guarantees that any system is going to work for foe.
As his parents, our credibility is somewhat suspect and tenuous. Even armed with a psychologist's evaluation, we are continually asked to provide physical proof that our son needs a carefully monitored individualized program and a mixed bag of gifted and talented services. We find it best to rely on Joe to demonstrate his abilities and perform well even in his weaker areas in order to get the services he needs. We hold our breath and wait without prodding because if we prod we're accused of pushing. We wait and hope that Joe's gifted behaviors will rise from the mainstream and loudly plead his case.
The problem is Joe isn't a star. He may even trail behind, unable to keep up with quick responses, intense focus and task-orientation objectives the way the game is played. His answers to questions and his learning of basic concepts come later, sometimes much later, after other students have already given the correct response. Joe feels like he can't measure up and thinks he's dumb.
Joe is described as a distracted, heavy thinker who looses his place in time and space as he tinkers with ideas and concepts. He ignores or at best merely tolerates the routine settings and time periods if the consequences are severe enough. Preoccupied, Joe seldom follows through and will often say he didn't hear what was said. He tends to get sidetracked, never making it to where he was originally directed - that is, if he remembers where he was going. On the other hand, once busy in a project, attempts to break his concentration and redirect his efforts often end in anger and frustration. He's a highly creative, divergent thinker who doesn't always see things in the same way as his peers.
What's more, Joe resents being put into cooperative learning situations. He prefers to work independently, without a partner. He doesn't always fit in and doesn't necessarily want to, which some educators find very disturbing. With a poor teacher/student match, a teacher's agenda for Joe may focus on remediation with disciplinary tactics or academic barriers to encourage behavior change.
Joe needs accommodation and flexibility to learn in his own way. He tends to approach and learn subject matter out of order. At times, he looks at the pieces; other times he approaches detail all at once or top down, taking on more difficult aspects of complex topics before he has learned the basics. This poses problems for both Joe and his teachers who may find his approach unorthodox and often contradictory to the way a task is suppose to be learned. His approach, though, has also served as a smoke screen.
At first we assumed it was boredom with the basics. Over the year, it's become apparent that Joe is having a difficult time learning reading and math fundamentals and gravitates toward working with higher level materials. It's a blow to his ego to recite what he doesn't understand and be told he can't proceed to materials that interest him until he masters the basics. He faces an ordered sequence of events established by level of difficulty even though he is able to operate on a more difficult level at home on his own. His advanced spatial reasoning and abstract abilities in math go untapped and unnoticed by peers as he struggles with simple computation. Joe's losing his pace and is silently slipping back into the mainstream.
He's not learning it the way they're teaching it; Joe shouldn't have to change - he just needs different teaching strategies. Joe needs remedial help but is still able to keep pace with the accelerated math group. It was suggested that he has an attitude problem rather than a learning deficit or a delay in development. In terms of his own potential. Joe is more aware than his teacher that he is several grade levels behind in math. He needs one-on-one help to get back on track which would enable him to move ahead.
I have learning disabilities. We may find that Joe has the same. Part of me would be relieved if he were labeled LD so that he can get the help he needs to move ahead. Children with learning disabilities are considered handicapped by Minnesota law. On the other hand, I am outraged that he can't get services based on individual need without having to meet a qualifying criteria.
First grade can be a horrible time for highly gifted children. It can also become a turning point in their education with home schooling as an alternative. We haven't reached that point, but we're ready if we can't work out a compromise with our son's school. By not working, I would be able to teach our son in a coordinated home-school team effort. This would enable Joe to work at both the basic and advanced skill levels of a particular subject, learning in his own way - at least until his reading and basic math skills get up to speed. Before Joe came along, I never dreamed I would ever consider home schooling as an option for educating a young child.
Parents of exceptionally gifted children become knowledgeable and adept at many things - out of necessity. I doubt whether many parents under similar circumstances would hesitate to provide what they can for their child because they lacked the credentials. They find out that they are their own best resource sometimes the only resource available to meet their children's needs.
Until gifted children get state and district level support which gives them rights to and funding for an appropriate education, we have to take what we can get from our school system and provide the rest ourselves. I will be home teaching science in the fall. That means putting my career on hold which creates its own financial dilemma for by leaving my job we give up money earmarked for Joe's educational needs. On the other hand, we've found that it's impossible to purchase an appropriate education for a highly gifted young child in our area. So maybe we're ahead in the long run. The fact is, either we piece together and fill in the gaps of Joe's education or it won't happen.
As school budgets tighten we may have to take over larger areas of his education. And if current political trends continue, we may lose all traces of gifted and talented programs and services in our state. I doubt Joe's ability to survive the public school system without these components for the gifted.
We have decided that regardless of what we have to do or how much it may cost, we will see that our son receives an appropriate education. We can't let Joe down; he's our son. By the same token, we cannot allow our state's school systems to continue to erode and eliminate programs and services for gifted and talented students. Joe is only one of a whole population of Minnesota's children who are at high risk of having their potential wasted and their dreams mainstreamed to fit stereotypic expectations.
Postscript
Several months have passed. I am no longer employed so that I can better manage Joe's medical and educational needs. Most of the summer has been spent trying to control his asthma using different combinations of drugs, and working with his psychologist to help our son change his negative feelings about himself and school.
It has been stressful particularly without the second income. But considering what we have recently learned about Joe, I am grateful that I am able to focus my energies on this child. It's taking a herculean effort to try to reverse patterns that have crushed Joe's self-esteem and categorized him as a severe underachiever. By the end of the school year. Joe had academically shut down and was showing signs of deep rooted anger. We were looking for learning disabilities, but instead uncovered a far more complex problem.
We asked Joe's psychologist for help. As part of the process, Joe once again took the Stanford Binet L-M and the Wide Range Achievement Test. For the third time, the results identified Joe as an exceptionally gifted child. The down side was that he showed minimal progress in math and reading achievement. We needed to know why.
Talking to Joe, we learned that his feelings about himself and his past year's academic experience at school were intertwined. Academically and socially, his self-esteem in school was at rock bottom. Peer relations, cooperative learning, simple content and rote basics in math did him in. By not having had ample opportunity at school to learn and perform at his optimal level of ability, he was left to judge himself by how well he did at learning first grade basics. And he hated first grade basics! He watched his peers pass him as he struggled with simple tasks.
Joe came to his own logical conclusion: he was dumb. In the first grade there is little room for divergent thinking, so life boils down to being either right or wrong. Joe, a hard core perfectionist, now takes great pains to avoid learning situations in which he might not have the right answer or may make errors while reading aloud. Joe might get found out if he slips and makes a mistake. The whole world will know he's dumb.
Joe ended up hating school even though he enjoyed his enrichment activities in the Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM) pull-out group. SEM challenged him and he was able to interact with a group of highly able children. But SEM was only 45 minutes once a week, not enough time to balance out how he perceived himself and the level of work he did in the regular classroom.
The saddest loss, from my perspective, was that Joe felt "invisible" in the classroom. He felt what he had to contribute didn't matter. He did not feel worthwhile as a classmate or appreciated as a friend. Not having close friendships has become a critical issue for Joe. He has friends, but he is feeling the need to be with intellectual peers. Joe is painfully learning how different he is from his age mates - so different that it's hard for him to tolerate the behaviors of kids his own age. On the other hand, he desperately wants to play with them and be one of the guys.
Joe needs a soul mate. A best pal. A science buddy. Being able to interact with children having similar interests and abilities may be essential to his academic survival in the coming year.
We are six weeks from the new academic year and Joe hasn't fully recovered from the previous year. We are more optimistic than at the start of the summer because Joe is learning on the sly. He's doing it his own way and allowing me to work with him as long as I don't drill him on what he's learned. He's also more comfortable making mistakes. The challenge will be whether these new behaviors will hold together when his teachers and peers are present in the classroom. Without a supportive environment, will his defenses shut him down?
Second grade could be a repeat performance of this past year. We're hopeful it won't be based on our work with Joe over the summer and the people who will be working with him when he's in school. We want Joe in school but stand ready to assume full responsibility for his education and will be watching for signs that it isn't working.
We're convinced Joe doesn't fit our education system. His differences are too extreme to force a fit. The test next year will be whether or not his school is willing and able to work with us to accommodate all of Joe, not selected parts of Joe, and to do so without breaking his spirit. Will his teachers help Joe recognize and utilize his strengths while addressing his weaknesses?
Sandra Carlton has an M.S. in Educational Psychology-Vocational Rehabilitation Counseling. She has been a technical writer in the area of state policy development and program administration for the past eight years.
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