Thursday, April 27, 2023
Twelve years ago, I started my gifted advocacy journey. After years of misunderstanding—on my part, the school’s part, and society’s part—I found myself frustrated, confused, fearful, and also angry. How can a school ignore a student who is clearly ahead of his classmates and shows mastery of all content at his current grade level? How can a teacher give busywork to a student who consistently completes his classwork long before every other student? How can a principal tell a parent, “He’s making straight A’s! What more do you want? Let him slide instead of moving him up a grade level.”
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Wednesday, October 6, 2021
From their precocious first words, they were branded. At a very early age, the gifted are branded with the expectation of achievement. At a very early age, the gifted are branded with the expectation of achievement.
“Oh my gosh, he’s so smart! He’s going to go far in life!”
“Wow, her vocabulary is so advanced. She’s going to breeze through school!”
“I predict she will be a doctor, a scientist, a CEO, or our future president!”
Far too many gifted people feel the pain of that branding. It burns, and it scars, sometimes for life.
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Monday, March 11, 2019
“Shame is a real and potentially devastating emotion, impacting each of us at one time or another. A sense of worthlessness and an urge to hide or cover…
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Monday, October 22, 2018
You’re the parent of a gifted child, or maybe all of your children are gifted. If you are just starting out on this journey, you may not as…
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Monday, June 26, 2017
In A Gifted Child Checklist for Teachers, I listed ten basic characteristics and traits of gifted children intended to help teachers and others identify giftedness in all children…
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Tuesday, March 8, 2016
Too smart for your own good. What does this familiar saying really mean? How can being smart undermine what should be good? And how does this relate to…
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Thursday, January 7, 2016
A few months shy of three years ago, without a thought to the future or a plan in my head, I guilelessly created my blog, Crushing Tall Poppies….
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Tuesday, December 15, 2015
“Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.” Often when I think of the perception most of society seem to hold about gifted children, I am always reminded of…
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Wednesday, September 2, 2015
I’m not THAT parent. Having a gifted child, an intellectually gifted child, does not make me THAT parent. There is no need to sound the alarm and send…
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Saturday, August 1, 2015
Your child is gifted. What happens now? What will his school do now that he has been identified? How will his education change? What do I do if…
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Crushing Tall Poppies
