Nature or nurture?
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- August
- 11
We’ve taken a “look”:http://www.lohud.com/education at the state of gifted and talented public school programs.
One issue is whether children are gifted because of encouragement from school, family or mentor, or if they’re born that way.
If they’re born with different brain makeup, how can schools find gifted kids who don’t speak English or who don’t test well on exams that seem to favor white, middle-class backgrounds?
Is it nature or nurture?
This entry was posted
on Friday, August 11th, 2006 at 10:16 am by Randi Weiner.
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Ok, wait a second? Are we in America? By the time someone is seen as gifted they should be able to speak English. Or if they are taking ESL then the fact the person is actaully smart will show. If someone has lived here more than a year and plans on staying here they should speak the Language. End of Story. Secondly White Middle Class what ? Sorry if i sound offended but I am from Brooklyn, I didnt get exposed to the whole white/black thing until very late. and even then it was who cares. My friends were my friends regardless of Color. And let me tell you Many of my friends were very intelligent and very gifted, and not all were white. As far as nature and Nurture , its the chicken and the egg. For the Child to excel, there has to be some of both. The issue you face in some schools is the parents may not know english and also refuse to learn english, as a result the poor child cant excel. A good teacher should be able to spot it, so should a good attentive parent.
My oldest son is gifted. He is off in college now, a physics & math dual major,but in 4th and 5th grade when he should have been served by the gifted program he was not. Why? The teachers recognized he was gifted, but he also has disgraphia—his writing is scrawly, he cannot spell correctly and he cannot draw. He was quiet, not acting out his frustrations so they chose to not recognize him. At last he told me that his hands would not do what he saw in his head and I took him to the school psychologist for testing. He was the brightest person in the school, but not qualified for what he deserved because he was not perfect. With a school budget that allows service for gifted students at a rate of 5% per grade level when the actual rate is 20%, any chance to exclude a student is taken.
Nancy,
Always fight the fight. My wife and I are the most proactive parents. All our kids go, have gone to woodglen. They know if there’s anything that needs doing we will show up to make sure either they do what they need to do or what it is we need to do to help them do their job. All my kids are like night and day and by all means are not perfect. So when we get called because one is not doing what he/she should be we get all in them when we find out its been going on for awhile. We want to know when things happen and what need to be done to correct the,. Unfortunately I have seen too many kids just do as they please, which by no means there’s a bad parent. But ya know sometimes the parents are blind to their kids. If anything I can be over critical of their behavior. As for school work, as long as they try and do the work I am happy with what they do. My one sone qualified for the John Hopkins test and moved out of woodglen with all As. my second son who is as bright has writing issues not dis-similar to your son’s. However with my son its laziness he doesnt like to write. So i guess my long drawn out point is this, you need to get in their face, they will work harder with you so they don’t have to deal with you as much.