Sometimes, Gracie scares me with just how much she seems to be morphing into a mini-me. Allow me to illustrate one teeny tiny example.
After Christmas break, Gracie’s school sent home notices that the school had evaluated all first-grade students and some would be selected to test for the district’s Gifted and Talented Program. In order to be considered, students would need to be nominated for the next round. Nominations could happen one of three ways: they could be nominated by their teachers; they could be nominated by parents or someone else in their community (no doubt to appease Those Parents who would insist their child had been snubbed); or, students could be invited into the next round because they had placed so high on the standardized tests they had taken at the very beginning of the year.
I spent a lot of time thinking about that notice. Did I want to nominate Gracie? Sure, the kid is alarmingly clever and incredibly bright. She reads 60-page chapter books in a single night and breaks any sort of code I create to communicate restricted information to other adults in the room. Throw in her 101 math average and you can see why the CIA is gonna love this kid. So, yeah – she’s smart. But is she gifted?
It’s a tricky question. Gracie will make intuitive leaps and spend her free time concocting inventions and dreaming up imaginative-play scenarios you wouldn’t think she could ever in a million years think of on her own. But she turns her gift (if that’s what it is) on and off at will. She can be a typical 7-year-old who isn’t held back by this so-called giftedness. She isn’t bored in class on a regular basis (although really I think that’s because she has such strong and gifted – yes, I said it – teachers this year). She doesn’t seem hampered or held back by whatever it is. She can be as dumb as anyone when she isn’t in the mood to be smart.
And oh lord can she be moody about it. If she doesn’t want to work on her homework, she can collapse faster than a house of cards under a hippo. She will much more often come up with the easiest, quickest vocab sentences she can think of, rather than trying to be tricksy and show-offy with them. She doesn’t particularly like to work; she’s a bit lazy. I have aboslutelynoidea where she gets that from, by the way. Ahem. My point is, the kid is almost seven years old and in this regard, at least, she acts like it. And that’s okay! I love seven! Especially on her.
Maybe Gracie was “just” wildly intelligent and not gifted. Certainly she’s young. I explained the Gifted and Talented Program to Gracie and asked her if she wanted to maybe try to join a class of witty and beautiful students like her. Once she heard that she would have to work harder, she passed. Then I emailed her team teachers and asked for their input. Ms. N echoed my thoughts and explained that’s why she wasn’t planning on nominating Gracie at that time. Since the kids are invited to joint the G&T program [how much do I love that it’s the G and T program? Ha!] every year, and since Gracie wasn’t very interested, I decided not to nominate Gracie on my own and to see what happened next year. If her second-grade class devolved into a mess of behavioral issues or Gracie was bored from a lack of structure or challenges, I could press the issue next year. Ta da! A solution!
I was very happy with my decision…and then Gracie’s teacher emailed me to say that the scores from the standardized test she took at the beginning of the year had just been delivered. The little brat had absolutely aced the test and the G&T Program Director specifically asked that she be moved to the next round of evaluations. Suddenly, Gracie was thrilled and excited about being in “the smart class.” Suddenly, I was too.
But seriously?! Again this child of mine has a way of making things happen on her own timeline and circumventing my system. It’s a good thing I was a master of it myself at that age or I wouldn’t quite know what to do with myself now. (The answer, by the way, is to just enjoy the ride. I really did know what I was doing at her age. Good for Gracie!)
February 16, 2011 at 11:35 am |
Such a tough decision to make. So glad Gracie came to be interested in the G & T program on her own. So much better than being pushed into it.
February 21, 2011 at 12:06 pm |
Yeah! Good for Grace. It actually took a little bit of pressure off of you didn’t it?
February 22, 2011 at 10:10 am |
Nice going, Gracie!!!