We Unschool (well sorta), What's Your SuperPower?

There's lots of talk about unschooling for gifted students, and definitely there is an aspect of unschooling that is ideal for this type of learner. Even with the teenlet, you can see it happen - when something clicks just in the right interest area, when he discovers something he wants to pursue more, when he jumps in and is trying to figure out the answer to a question - that is when unschooling is at its best.

Our version of homeschooling is definitely a hybrid. The teenlet isn't all that self-motivated, so we haven't gone fully unschooling, but he does love to learn and every so often will go off on a tangent that leaves us (his parents) standing agape, utterly startled at his passion. But mostly he just does the minimum amount of work with which he can get away.

There is something about unschooling that just seems so right for this kind of learner. Learning is organic for him - it just happens. If I didn't know better, I might think he was sleeping with textbooks under his pillow and gaining all that knowledge by osmosis. One day he doesn't know something and the next he does. He comes out with completely random and bizarre knowledge and I have no idea from where it came.

These moments remind me of the time, when he was a toddler not even 1-1/2 years old, on an airplane. The elementary-aged kid who was sitting in the seat in front of the then-toddler teenlet had turned around and was entertaining him with funny faces and talking to him. So, as any good parent would do when faced with not having to entertain their child for a few moments, I pulled out my book. I have no idea how it started, but pretty soon I was aware of this older kid saying,
        "so what comes after one?"
        "TWO!"
        "what comes after two?"
        "FWEE!"
        "after three?"
        "FOUR!"
...and so on all the way to seven.

I had no idea how he'd learned that. None. At all. He'd never watched Sesame Street. I hadn't been playing with flash cards or trying to teach him numbers. I wasn't even sure how he'd been exposed to the idea of numbers. Daddy is a numbers-guy, but I was pretty sure he hadn't started trying to teach him that either. We were both flabbergasted. (And yes, that's a very cool word that I really enjoyed typing right there.) Something in him had learnt that without anyone ever teaching it to him.

He did the same with algebra. In kindergarten. DH asked him to solve a simple, two-digit addition problem. The 5yo teenlet looked at him for a little while, then told him the answer. DH asked how he did it - and the teenlet explained how he had solved for x (without using those terms, of course) - something we'd never taught him. He figured it out on his own. And darn it if the kid isn't STILL doing algebra in his head even though we're far past the level that most people start using calculators to help them with the computations.

So, it's very tempting to let him unschool. He seems to learn more and better that way. But there is still a part of me that wants to be sure he's got most of his basic subjects covered, which won't happen if we let him loose completely. So, we are creating a hybrid system. He's got most of his academic requirements for high school completed, and only has bazillion or so elective credits to work on. So he continues to work on core math and science subjects, but with lots of freedom in his social studies and writing curricula, adding in other subjects of interest (like computer science) as he wants to learn them. And we find that, as he gains more freedom in his learning, he gains more confidence and more motivation as well.

Unschooling Blog Hop
(see the full list at Gifted Homeschoolers Forum)
CedarLife Academy
Chasing Hollyfield
Building Wingspan
Thea Sullivan
Buffalo Mama
Wenda Sheard
Sui Generis
Red, White and Grew
Laughing at Chaos

Gifted is About the Starting Point

"Mindset is about trajectory, not starting point. Gifted is about the starting point."

I said this the other day on #gtchat when someone referenced Carol Dweck's theory of Mindset. Because I totally believe this is true. Gifted is about wiring, plain and simple. It's where you start out. Your mindset is what you do with it. Dweck's research supports that if you believe that you can change your intelligence level, you will do so. But believing that your intelligence is static will only cause you to lose ground. It's the hard-work theory, and it has a lot of merit. Because if you don't work hard, it really doesn't matter how smart you are. There is someone who may have a lesser IQ but is willing to work - and they will get the job every time. They will win the award. They will earn the research grant. Because excellence takes work.

I don't disagree with that at all.

But now we have Seth Godin, guru of life principles, saying that we're all gifted - all it takes is a little work. And that, my friends, is just not true.

He says,

"Actually, it goes the other way
Wouldn't it be great to be gifted? In fact...
It turns out that choices lead to habits.
Habits become talents.
Talents are labeled gifts.
You're not born this way, you get this way."

No Seth, gifted is born. It's not about being the smartest person in the class, it's about experiencing the world qualitatively differently than most people. Many of our most gifted individuals probably don't even look like they are gifted - they don't look like the high achievers of which you speak.

If you walked into a classroom with the teenlet in it, most likely you would not pick him out as the "gifted" one. You certainly wouldn't look at his work product and say he's gifted - most likely he wouldn't have any work product for you to see. He's not what most people think of when they think of the super-scholar IQ nerd. Yeah, his IQ is high, but "gifted" is his ability to manipulate mass amounts of information to create new ways of seeing things. "Gifted" is the ripples of intensity that turn to waves of emotion at the smallest unsettlement of his world. "Gifted" is the way he paces when he thinks, around and around and around until he stops, and you can see in his eyes that he's solved whatever problem he was working on. "Gifted" is being so aware of the problems in the world that they seem to big to fix, causing an existential crisis of middle age proportions when you're 5. "Gifted" is hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, touching things that others just pass by. "Gifted" is being able to carry on a college-level conversation on underwater photosynthesis when you're 7 years old, but have emotional meltdowns like a 3 year old. "Gifted" is having adult thoughts, but not having the emotional maturity to deal with them.

Yes, maybe many readers of Godin's blog will rethink their lives and see how they can change their trajectory. I hope it works that way for those who need it.

But don't assume that because your trajectory has changed, that means your starting point was the same. Giftedness is about neurological wiring. It's not about elitism. It's not about being super talented at stuff (although many gifted people are quite talented because of their in-born sensitivities). It's not about grades or eminence or becoming a Nobel Prize winner - these are trajectory.

Mindset is about trajectory, not starting point. Giftedness is about the starting point.

Other responses to Godin's post:
Building Wing Span
Watch Out for Gifted People
Red, White & Grew
Gifted and Talented Ireland
Kate Arms-Roberts
Gifted Resources/Sprite's Site
Laughing at Chaos
Ramblings of a Gifted Teacher
Psychology Today/Creative Synthesis

Parenting Against Your Nature

I'm generally not a very structured person. I like flexibility; I like change; I like spontaneity. I'm one of those people who wants to wake up every day and go do something new. When I was a child, I rearranged my room at least once a month for the novelty of it. Rules have always been more like suggestions (not laws - I'm a stickler for laws); if I know why the rule was set and those conditions don't apply, why bother? I live in a world with many shades of grey - people and ideas deserve unique consideration according to their circumstances. Grace and love are my guiding principles - I don't judge others harshly (myself, yes - I judge myself VERY harshly), but recognize that everyone is different and it's okay to be that way.

But parenting the teenlet well, means I have to be structured. We set the house rules and never break them. When I say no, he won't ever get a yes out of me (doesn't mean he doesn't try!). When he was younger, even a rearranged room would upset him ("Mommy, you rearranged the furniture! My perfect life is RUINED!" age 3). Oh yes, we've had our moments of "Let's go do X" - and he has learned to adapt and transition in those times quite well. But, even with all of mommy's hugs and reassurances, he still has to learn the lessons of life. And I know that, as much as I'd love to cushion the fall for him, he needs to feel the impact of his decisions. NOW, when they are still small. Because as he gets older, stupid decisions have greater implications. I have to allow him to make his mistakes and learn from them, even when it would be so easy for me to make excuses for late schoolwork, try to patch things up for him with his friends after an argument, or clean up his messes. That would be easier for me, for sure - I hate seeing him suffer through the consequences of his actions. But he needs to learn these things now. It's so easy to fix things in the name of love - but is it really loving to never give him the chance to learn from his mistakes?

It's oppressive to have to parent in a way against which your own nature rebels. It's worse for me than for him. He gets his security blanket of knowing what is expected, and what to expect. I get wrapped up tight and can't breathe. I get stuck in a drudging routine like a car stuck in mud - wheels spinning but can't get traction. Everything slows down. Boredom. Routine. Blah. I have to seek out ways to find newness and refreshment at the same time I am being the hard-nosed, structured parent. He needs that parent, and that parent needs freedom, independence, and flexibility.

As he is getting older, I can let the structure go a little more (whew!). As he learns responsibility, he gets more freedom. And so do I. There are still times when I have to lock-down tight, allowing the teenlet to learn his lessons on his own. But he is learning those lessons, and each time he does the world opens up a little more. For both of us.

I might even rearrange a room.

With a Heavy Heart

This has been a rather brutal week. Between some personal family changes that have required me to have some very emotionally difficult conversations with people I love dearly, a certain teenlet officially becoming a teenager, some acute health problems (including trips to Urgent Care and the ER), and then little babies being senselessly killed in Connecticut - my heart is very heavy. I'm wavering between being unable to breathe and weeping uncontrollably.

It's not hard to imagine that the teenlet picks up on this. Despite his outward demeanor of not caring (a very carefully constructed defense mechanism of his), the teenlet has a very sensitive heart. During an emotionally-charged scene in a movie, I look over at him through my tears and see his eyes brimming, too. He still gets weepy when you bring up the death of our cat - that happened in 2008. Certain songs have been known to bring him to full emotional meltdown. I fear his reaction the first time he reads Old Yeller, Watership Down, or Where the Red Fern Grows - so I haven't suggested those books to him.

But he was watching the news on Friday. He loves watching the news each morning, so when I got up and he was laying on the couch with Good Morning America on the television, I didn't really think much about it. But then I began to hear the story unfolding, and I was horrified. And my little boy (ahem, teenager) was sitting there, taking it all in. He didn't say a word. At 9am when the news was over, he turned the television off and got himself dressed, and then went to work on his school work. He took a test. He wrote a paper. He listened to online lectures. He didn't say a word about Connecticut.

But he hugged me a lot that day. And the next. And the next.

Talking to a bright and emotionally sensitive child about incomprehensible tragedy can be a challenge. They need reassurance, but not empty promises of safety and security that they know you can't keep. They need to know why - but so do most of us and we really never figure it out. They feel a deep need to DO something, and a sense of helplessness that the problems are so big.

The best you can do is to ask them questions - what do you think about this? How does this make you feel? What is going on in your heart? What would you do? Help them plan how they would react if a friend confided in them that they had a plan to hurt someone. Help them decide ways they can help - can they reach out to someone who gets bullied at school? Can they raise money at their school to help the families of the victims? Can they identify someone who might need a little extra help, and offer it?

Your child will benefit most from being able to talk through all the emotions they are feeling. I know it's hard when you are feeling overwhelmed as well - but in my experience, it helps me, too, to talk to the teenlet about these things. It helps me to process as we are processing together. And it gives me hope that this little part of the next generation sees value in life (even though he is a teenage boy and obsessed with guns and weapons of war).

And give them lots of hugs.

I Love Books

Reading is awesome. Our whole family really loves to read. The teenlet reads faster than any other person I know. Hubby and I aren't slow readers ourselves. We have bookshelves in every room in the house - and books piled on the floor and every surface they can find. My Kindle makes me happy.

The thing I like so much about reading is that it allows you entry into another world. Fiction (my personal fave) allows you to become part of a world you might never encounter in any other way, whether it's hiding in the hills of Tibet, surviving on yak cheese and terrified of the spirit gods; or in 19th century England, solving the mystery of who is this Anne Catherick. Historical non-fiction and biographies provide insight into a time, a place, or a person that can guide our decisions today and tomorrow. Religious books can provide spiritual guidance to the devout, opening windows to God and your heart to love. Self-help books can give you psychological insights in an effort to strengthen your inner world or heal from past hurts. Parenting books offer perspectives on helping our children become the strong, well-rounded, emotionally secure individuals who are successful (whatever that means) and happy adults. There are many, many more genres that I haven't mentioned that are equally as constructive and/or fun to read. Bottom line is: I just love to read. Reading is an easy pathway to information. And information is my friend.

Which is why it is so weird that I have such a hard time reading parenting books, especially those having to do with giftedness and intensity. What I've read have been fabulous, and I have a gadzillion others in my "to-read" pile. I've learned a lot from what I've read. I've met (virtually, at least) many of the authors and they are fabulous people. I continue to buy new books on giftedness, knowing that knowledge is power, and the more I know the more I can help my child and others who are struggling with their own giftedness/gifted children. Oh, and myself, too.

I think that's the thing that keeps me from opening those books - the more I learn for the teenlet, the more connected I become with my own giftedness. It's disconcerting. I'm old enough and I've managed to get this far in life without knowing all this stuff, and it's a little upsetting to take a look back through life and see all these markers I didn't know were supposed to be telling me anything. The more I learn to help my child, the more in touch with my own intensities I become. And that is at once freeing and frustrating. How wonderful to realize that I'm not a freak of nature - all of this stuff is there for a reason. But it's also frustrating because as I'm learning about it, it takes on this new life that has been hidden all these years.

But I keep reading. I pick up those books less frequently than others, but I still pick them up. I put them down for longer periods as I readjust to new realities, new images, new ideas about why we are the way we are (these are usually things the teenlet and I have strongly in common, since our intensities are nearly identical). I read them because the better I understand myself, the better I can understand my child.