Traveling with Intensity

The Teenlet and I are going on an adventure. This is a trip I've wanted to take my whole life, and the opportunity came up to do it, so we're going. We are going to India.

Now, everything I've heard about India is that it's an intense experience that will touch every emotion, sense, and engage the imagination. I hear about the huge crowds of people, the smaller personal bubble that you must live with when there are that many people living in so little space. According to World Population Statistics, India's population is about 1001 people per square mile - that's compared to the United States' population, which is 88.6 people per square mile. So... lots of people, especially in the cities. With lots of people comes lots of noise, smells, things to see and taste. Add to that India's love of color and beauty, and you get the potential for being overwhelmed even if you don't have extra sensitivity to all of those things. Three of the four of us who are traveling together experience significant sensory sensitivity, so this will be interesting (I suspect the fourth does also, but does not show it).

As if the sensory overload isn't enough, India also presents an emotional challenge. We will be in big cities and smaller towns, and I've heard that poverty in India is inescapable. Even in making our travel plans, we've seen the incredibly low wages that people in India make (200 Rupees/day for our driver - that's about US$3.25). Contrast that to India's fascination with technology and the wealth that tech jobs bring, and I'm sure we're in for an emotional ride. If you want to read a heart-wrenching but lovely book about life in the Mumbai undercity, check out Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo.

We will see the most beautiful building in the world, and we will see slums. We will see palaces, forts, lakes and forests. We will see rail lines that go forever. We will see Hindu temples and Muslim mosques. We will see bazaars that extend beyond what the eye can see. We will hear and tell stories from times gone by as we seek out places we've only read about in history books and personal letters. We will see tragedy and beauty, melded together in a way that will make them almost interchangeable. This - all of this - is fodder for the imagination, and I'm sure the tales we live, and those we spin, will live on for years to come.

So for those of us who experience overexcitabilities anyway, this will be a fascinating experience. We have definitely padded our time there, to give spans of time for our senses and emotions to engage, process, and release what we are experiencing. I have my brightly colored kurti and even more brightly-colored shalwar kameez so I won't stand out (oh the irony!). Books have been read, itineraries planned, and bags are almost packed.

India is a place that has a huge place in my personal mythology and has been part of my imaginary world since I was a young child. Now it will become part of my real world, my life experience.

Oh how I love adventures.

This is How We Homeschool

Teenlet doing physics problems.

Since first grade, the Teenlet has used this spot, right here in the picture, to do his homework. It isn't a desk. It's not a table. This is the floor. There is a little step that goes from our family room up into the kitchen, and he uses the kitchen floor as his "desk." He leans up against the edge of the step with his stomach, which helps to comfort and focus him (it's a sensory stimulation thing). 

This is one of the many reasons we homeschool. Most classrooms would not allow him to work on the floor, but it helps him concentrate (though Ms. Rushing did let him work on the floor in 2nd grade. Once she figured out how much it helped he didn't even have a desk in the classroom). 

The Teenlet is taking two real for-sure classroom classes now, and we'll see how the whole "desk" situation works out for him. This is a step towards the next bigger step, which is in-person college courses. He needs to master the desk-work before he can get there. The college courses he is taking now are going smoothly, so we know that the academic level is appropriate. His high school physics and calculus classes have upped the work-load, and it is getting done (though slowly and not without some frustration at the amount of work they require), so we know he will be able to manage the workload of a rigorous college course. So classroom management skills - figuring out how to get that same sensory input without the step and the floor - will be the next major key to college readiness. 

He's getting so close. 

If School Isn't Doing It, Who Can?

The question often arises, from within groups or from individuals, about students who need additional "gifted" support at school, and how to help them if their school or district won't - or aren't able to - do it. For some it comes down to their child not scoring well on a standardized test, so they don't qualify for programming that does exist. For some, it's a school or district that doesn't offer gifted services. For others (as in our case), the services that are offered are not sufficient for the needs of the child. In any case, you end up feeling very alone as you try to figure out how to help this child rise up to his or her intellectual potential.

I recently had a conversation with a friend which started like this, 

"I believe my friend's 12 year old son may be gifted but is slipping through the cracks. Apparently he is science wiz but is suffering in all other classes. They tested him at school for [the gifted program] and he did not score high enough. I was explaining to her that it sounds to me like he's bored. What's the next step in a situation like this? I've never met the kid but the idea that he may not achieve his full potential because a standardized test meant for his entire school didn't keep his attention keeps me up at night."

My question to my friend in response to this was the topic of this post - "If school isn't doing it, who can?" Many parents aren't able to make the same choice we've made to homeschool, but certainly every parent can enlist the help of others who have interests similar to their child's, to help engage them in the topic on a level they won't get at school. If the child loves science, find a scientist who would mentor the child. If music is her passion, find an adult who also loves music and would be willing to hang out every so often to talk about composers or create music together. If history, who is it who loves history so much they can't help but turn every conversation into a story - and lesson - from the past?

If you don't know any of these people, check again at the school. Teachers and principals know other adults who love their subjects and would love to have a conversation on a completely different level with a student than what they have in their normal course of the classroom day. Churches, synagogues, or other places of worship also are a great source for finding mentoring relationships because they involve so many people with so many interests. If your child is beyond talking elementary-level biology, find a college student or professor with whom she can discuss a level deeper than what she is getting in her 4th grade biology class.

I can't tell you the difference these types of mentorships have made for my son. They've never been formalized, but he has really loved meeting people who know about the same things he knows about - and they want to talk about them! The soccer coach who was a biology major in college, with whom teenlet (then 2nd grade) could discuss photosynthesis while they kicked the ball around; the rock hound at church who would bring the teenlet rocks he found and they would talk about their characteristics together; the biology professor who welcomed us into her college classroom even though teenlet was then only 11; the pyrotechnics expert who showed the teenlet all about fireworks and blowing things up (safely). These have been formative relationships for the teenlet - even though none of them was an official "mentorship," they allowed the teenlet to discover something new about himself and about a field of study in which he was passionately interested.

Those relationships - each in their own way - helped keep him going when he was still in school and not getting the intellectual stimulation he needed otherwise. I am eternally grateful for those people who shared their interests with him and allowed him to be part of it. And I continue to look for those people to inject into my son's life to enrich his learning and his personal growth.

Celebrating Gifted Education Awareness Week in Ireland, 2013

Our First Day of School

The way we homeschool, the First Day of School really doesn't mean anything. It's some arbitrary day, set amongst many other similar days, in which you feel with some confidence that we have moved beyond that to this. It's not even grade-level marked, because grade-level means nothing in homeschooling. But it does mark a freshness, a newness that kids all over the world recognize. Except we don't go school shopping and don't have to take insane amounts of school supplies to drop off with the teacher. Instead, we buy books and online course registrations.

I think I've said before that we don't really take summers off, because the teenlet needs to continue learning. Boredom, according to professionals who have worked with him, is his greatest enemy. But this year, the teenlet wasn't completely on board with not getting a summer break. After all, his friends were available more frequently, and he wanted to be available when they were. This is a teenage characteristic, a sign of growth and maturation - the increasing importance of friends over family - and I want to support that maturation, even though they only play video games and that drives me crazy, especially on a nice summer day. It's the common bond they have; I don't want to break it.

So we made a deal - as he finished an online course, we would not start a new one to replace it, with the exception of the Coursera course he wanted to take that went through June and July. This was an experiment for us - this gradual lessening of coursework. And he never really got to zero.

Our experiment was a success. Granted, we had a rather amazing summer, with lots of visitors (international, and more local), with camps, and our family vacation to Alaska. So we didn't have very many days when something unique wasn't happening. He did not have a lot of opportunities for boredom.

And that made for an almost-real "first day of school" this week. I say almost, because he hasn't exactly finished Trigonometry - he still needs to take the final. And he started a new course through Coursera last week, and another new one this week. He will start Calculus later this month, and physics will start in October. Writing will come, too, when I figure out how I want to approach it. So I guess we're on a rolling start.

When most people ask what grade he's in, I say, "Chronologically, he's in 8th grade." Most people don't pursue it further, and that's fine with me. I don't really know how to explain why he's so far advanced in his courses without seeing "that look" in their eyes - that look that says they think I'm either making it up or completely delusional about his ability. So we just stick with 8th grade.

So, I guess you can say that we have moved beyond 7th grade, and entered into 8th. But that isn't really descriptive of anything in his case, except a number that only relates to how long he has spent on this earth and nothing about his experience or what he has learned.

Challenge and Frustration

I'm not a psychologist or expert in education, but over the years I've learned a few things about that razor's edge between challenging my gifted child, and frustrating him. 

100% is not a good sign. I know, we all love to see those perfect scores. But in all honesty, 100% isn't a great thing. In most cases, it means that the material was not challenging enough to cause the student to struggle to answer the questions. Until I got to college, A-grades came easily for me. In high school, I generally studied for tests in the class prior, finished tonight's homework during class, and read maybe a third of the assigned reading (I became really good at skimming). This could be a scathing report on the quality of the education I received, but it was the same in two different school districts, so I think had more to do with a gifted child who was lacking in sufficient challenge. School was easy - until college. College was a shock to me; I had to do all the homework, pay attention to the whole lecture, and read all the assigned readings! Kudos to my professors who recognized that I wasn't stupid or lazy, I just needed to learn some study skills -  and they helped me learn them. Despite a 3.97 GPA in high school, I had never needed them before. Perfect doesn't leave any room for challenge.

I see this in the teenlet as well - he loves to score 100% on a math test or chemistry assignment, after all, who doesn't like to be perfect? But I have to admit that I'm glad he doesn't do it all the time. Because I know that he needs to keep learning, and learning has a challenging edge to it. 

When the tears come or the anxiety rises, the first place I look is at the level of challenge he is facing. The teenlet's weakest subject has always been writing - it's been a real struggle from day one. The physical act of writing is hard, for sure, but even the process of getting ideas down on paper is a struggle. And writing assignments are always where his biggest meltdowns begin, when it all becomes too much and he turns into a puddle of words. He will sit in front of the computer, literally, for 3-4 hours, and have four words on the page. This is after his topic is chosen, research done, ideas are formed, and even an outline written - all that's left to do is turn his ideas into sentences and sentences into paragraphs. We know now that we have to take this process very slowly, break it down into smaller bits, and keep him moving forward. Because it is hard for him. He needs to learn it, but we can't push too hard or he will fall apart and we lose the opportunity to learn something. You see, when something is TOO challenging, learning stops.

PS. As he gets older, he is managing this MUCH better now than he used to, and his writing is coming more fluently and freely - see, learning! But we're taking it SLOWLY.

Keep the learning coming. As you can see, too little or too much challenge is a hindrance to true learning. And, if we know one thing about teenlet, it is that he has to keep learning. But it is a tricky balance to try to keep, to make sure what he's learning is appropriate in content and difficulty.

But it's hard to tell sometimes with the teenlet - if he isn't doing well, is it because he isn't attending to the work (another sign it may be too easy)? Or is it too hard and he can't manage it? 

A while back, I signed the teenlet up for a college-level cryptography course. It sounded really interesting, and he's done a lot of learning about cryptography (think Enigma, secret codes, deciphering, etc), so we both thought it would be awesome. It wasn't. It really was a course on computer security, and it was waaaaaay over his head because he hadn't done anything on a computer except for basic word processing and playing a few games. I was so proud of him when he came to me and told me he didn't want to continue the course. I asked him why, and he said because it was too hard and it was frustrating him because he didn't know any computer coding and that's what they were talking about. So he dropped the course and started learning computer languages so next time he'd be ready. That was wise because he knew that we'd crossed over that line and it was beyond him, and we needed to pull it back. But the coolest part, I thought, was that he started taking action so he could understand what they were talking about in that class - and that's when you know that even though you've hit the edge of his ability, he's still being challenged. It made him think. And get ideas. And see something he needed to know and learn. 

And isn't that what it's all about? 

This post is part of the New Zealand Gifted Awareness Week Blog Tour. Please click the picture above to visit the many fantastic posts included in the tour!