... but giving them the extra boost they need

Press, 4 December 1981, Page 14

... but giving them the extra boost they need

The Beards became interested in gifted children when their first child was about six years old. They lived in England then, and the boy was unhappy and frustrated in school. He also had some behaviour problems. A battery of tests run by the school psychologist showed that he was highly gifted, and the parents were encouraged to make contact with an association for gifted children. They came out to New Zealand in 1976, and found a local organisation on the verge of being formed. “In Christchurch, as in most of the world, little is known about this particular branch of education,” Mrs Beard says. "Very little is being done. You hope you’ll get an understanding teacher and principal, someone to provide that little extra." Children themselves seem to become aware of the nature of their abilities — and their problem — when they are about nine years old, she says. “Before that, they just know they are bored stiff in the classroom, that things aren't right. Some of them can walk in the door at the end of a day and explode from the frustration.”

Her son benefited from the wide range of activities they found for him. Now a teenager. he does computer programming at Christchurch Polytechnic, for one thing. Other friends in the association have similar interests “We provide him with other outlets — take him to lectures, provide him with books, keep an eye out for activities that can help him along,” Mrs Beard says. “The most important thing needed locally is a co-ordina-tor and director of special programmes. You need continuity. A child can get a definite lift from the special attention of a seconded teacher, but then he gets let down with a bang afterwards if that teacher leaves." Mr Richard Wethey, a local primary teacher, was in such a position in 1979. The position was not carried on. but he has informally kept up the contacts he made. especially with schools. During the year in his unofficial position, he visited 30 Christchurch area schools and had contact with several hundred students, either individually or in groups. He worked with teachers in the same way. Part of the work was in identifying chil-

dren with special abilities. “It was very much a trial and error thing to some extent.” he says. “We were sharing ideas, seeing what worked. “I was concerned not so much in pushing gifted children as something extraordinary, or something that should be put on a pedestal. Some teachers were concerned that we could be doing that. “I was concerned about the children’s social needs, physical needs, emotional needs, and intellectual needs, in whatever order they occurred.” If extending work is done properly with gifted children, they do not reach the next school year and find their curriculum filled with things they have already done. He says that children can be taken out of a classroom in a natural way so they can be encouraged and stimulated. ‘What we did was not something where the children were secreted away,” he says. “The ones who go away can come back to the classroom and share their ideas. Everyone in the class should know what is going on. “The ones withdrawn get a

boost. The children sometimes see, for one thing, that they can show their true abilities. These people are sometimes the gross underachievers. They tend to comform. “But just being off from the bunch, they can relax. Conversation can start zipping between then in a way it just could not do in the classroom.” Mr Wethey says there is greater teacher awareness now, and more public interest in the education of gifted children. “People are more interested in those with higher intellectual abilities in times of hardship.” It is often a traumatic experience bringing up a gifted child, and Mr Wethey says that many parents show a great deal of restraint — and are very helpful — in working with schools. “Given large class sizes, and the normal pressures on teachers, what is done from school to school, and teacher to teacher, is very much an individual thing. “A lot of the provisions being made are being made quite unconsciously, with teachers for instance being sympathetic to all children. I guess my role was really as a catalyst. I provoked a lot

of people and gave them something to think about. I was a listener and a sharer. I also saw some tremendous teaching of high ability children." There should be greater sharing of ideas between • teachers of gifted children,and a better way of. measuring giftedness, Mr Wethey says. “Certainly a brilliant •. carver is gifted, and there is ( physical giftedness. Maybe' you can see any individual as someone with a gift. There are also social gifts, such as leadership." No matter how gifted or talented they are, children must be allowed to be as normal as they can. “They have to be given the extra educational dimension, but you have to let them be children as well,” Mr Wethey says. “I get very apprehensive when I see a child who is 12 mentally and six chroj nologically, and not allowed to be six.” “If social and mental levels are too far out of limbo, you do put people out on a limb. “The big danger with gifted children is generalising about them and their characteristics. There are too many variations.” ’