A reader responded to an earlier post: Gifted – It’s Not About School - it contained so many good points I wanted to respond to it properly.
True enough, Admin, but you’re about thirty years late… the “social-affective needs” approach to giftedness became predominant about 1982 in the Gifted field and, if anything, has swung to opposite extreme and now neglects the achievement and self-reliance of the gifted. (Ability grouping, tracking or any attempt to educate gifted children according to their mental age is usually felt “elitist” and opposed by most educators, to which Gifted experts– often quite liberal themselves– accede and focus upon providing social and emotional support to gifted students as a sop.) . Today, a high IQ score is a presumption of vulnerability and fragility, with gifted children being “nurtured” about perfectionism, being different, overachievement, etc. until it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that they’re inherent victims. (Thank Dallas Egbert, a 16-year-old gifted college student who killed himself over being pushed to achieve– and being gay, over which people have killed themselves just by itself before and everyone seems to forget in his case– and inspired to social-affective needs approach’s ascendency.) True, there’re brain-dead educators who forget an IQ score is like the oil dipstick in your car– shows how much oil’s in the crankcase, but not what grade or if it’s dirty– and think that’s the end-all, be-all. True, there’re folk who think giftedness is just a “school” thing, but they’re few and far between any more… usually people know gifted folk “escape” school and are out there, somewhere, waiting to snatch their job and the food out of their families mouths. (Panel job interviews, where responsibility for hiring is diffused but votes against hiring can be easily cast, bring this feeling out quite well.) Yes, the gifted do develop mentally– and all the faculties within the brain that affects– sooner, faster and to a greater degree than normal. And, yes, few if any people out there know what do with that. Finding a romantic partner of suitable “chemistry” gets funneled through the scarcity of +/-30 IQ points commonality before personal compatibility comes into play. (Fortunately, once you do settle down and have kids, giftedness runs in families. Gifted parents have gifted children such that IQs only vary within +/-10 points across three generations or more, so not not much to worry about– relatively speaking– there.) As far as job and careers go, no one knows how to nurture, cultivate or retain gifted people– they may sure want them or like what they can do, if so– but develop, motivate or keep them around, forget it (complete mystery). Most gifted people I know actively hide it to “pass” a normal because to be seen as gifted today means being seen as a weird, geeky therapy addict (thank you modern experts) and everyone, not just the gifted, can do without that. Oh, yeah, there’s an incomplete idea of what it means to be gifted out there, but it’s just entirely the opposite of what it once was.
….you’re about thirty years late… the “social-affective needs” approach to giftedness became predominant about 1982 in the Gifted field…
Yes, there is an approach to giftedness that includes social-affective needs, however, ”this approach became predominant in the Gifted field”, which to me means: school. And I’m not sure, thirty years later how prevalent it is, even in the gifted community. I live just outside Toronto in Canada. Gifted education is about 35 years old in City of Toronto. Personally, I attended a gifted programme 24 years ago and it was simply a differentiated learning approach that grouped exceptional learners. That was it. Fast forward to today, my daughter is now in a gifted programme and it remains the same: differentiated learning. Even within education, even within gifted education in Toronto, there is a lack of awareness of the social-affective component of giftedness. In addition, I have spoken with a number of psychologists who have never encountered information about the social-affective needs of gifted people. And I love just outside the city and there is no established gifted community; the approach to gifted education is extremely spotty and doesn’t even take the form of a differentiated learning approach (it’s more like enrichment). So despite the hypothesis that there is a strong awareness of giftedness, I live in a community where there’s not even a strong enough awareness to support a school program and I don’t live in the boondocks but on the periphery of Canada’s largest metropolis. It may not have been clear in my earlier post, but I do recognize there is a broader, more holistic definition of giftedness, however, my experience is that awareness of this concept is not widespread, not even in the gifted field. I think that awareness of a social-emotional definition of giftednes largely remains ghettoized in education or psychology.
IQ testing and identification has been pretty standard since Sputnik (in the United States, at least)
Yes IQ testing is familiar to people but how many people are actually formally assessed? For those who are, how many are provided with information beyond a percentile ranking? I wonder how many gifted adults are remain unidentified because of the misconceptions/lack of information about giftedness. Due to the prevalent, inaccurate ideas of what intelligence looks like, how many gifted adults would never link their personality traits with intelligence, never write an IQ test? (I’ll leave the fallibility of IQ tests aside for now since that’s another issue altogether).
…a high IQ score is a presumption of vulnerability and fragility, with gifted children being “nurtured” about perfectionism, being different, overachievement, etc. until it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that they’re inherent victims.
I think this is such an interesting statement because I agree that the language of social-affective needs approach to giftedness is victim oriented. Or as someone else commented on another post, Why “Gifted” is a Terrible Word, the clinical approach to being gifted is focused on weakness rather than strength. Personally, I react negatively to the Columbus Group’s definition of giftedness because it includes the idea that the gifted are ‘more vulnerable’. Gifted programmes in Canada are created around the idea that gifted children are ‘at risk’ in a regular stream. I prefer the idea that gifted people are different, without loading a value statement into it. I also like the idea that we, as individuals, are capable and responsible for managing our own giftedness, adults and children alike. However, to manage our giftedness, it’s helpful to know that we are gifted and have a broad picture of what that might mean. The misconceptions about giftedness, the narrow reach of the gifted community that understand that giftedness includes social-affective factors and the victim/entitlement mentality of some in the gifted community limits awareness, and, as a result, gifted people from either recognizing their giftedness or understanding it.
Finding a romantic partner of suitable “chemistry” gets funneled through the scarcity of +/-30 IQ points commonality before personal compatibility comes into play…
It’s been suggested to me that gifted adults and romantic relationships merits some stand alone attention so I’ll keep this brief and address the topic more fully later. But to point out the obvious, the challenge of finding anyone of comparable intelligence, particularly if you’re profoundly gifted (far end of the tail on the intelligence curve), is significant. Never mind find the challenge of finding someone of comparable intelligence with whom you also share chemistry.
[Gifted people are waiting to] snatch their job and the food out of their families mouths. (Panel job interviews, where responsibility for hiring is diffused but votes against hiring can be easily cast, bring this feeling out quite well.)
Ahh, panel interviews, generally the hallmark of a large, bureaucratic organization. Huge, under investigated topic: work and the gifted adult. In a tongue in cheek way, Anonymous points out the gifted adult’s challenge of being able to contribute the full extent of their abilities at work without being threatening. I believe there is a tremendous opportunity to better understand what kind of work environments are more likely to be suitable for a gifted adult. There is also opportunity for organizations to better leverage the potential contributions of gifted adults. If, as a group we tend toward unconventional thinking, resistance to hierarchy, inclination towards autonomy, what makes us think that we will thrive in a traditional corporate environment that represents the antithesis of all these aspects? Ultimately, I think the onus rest on individual gifted adults to not settle and to figure out a way to get the most out of the work environment they’re in and/or keep searching until we find a work environment that suits us.
Most gifted people I know actively hide it to “pass” a normal because to be seen as gifted today means being seen as a weird, geeky therapy addict….
Some gifted people are better able to ‘pass’ as normal than others…some of us can’t do it no matter how hard we try. Assimilation for those of us who can do it (or think we can – I doubt many of us truly assimilate as successfully as we think we do), is a poor answer. I think we harm ourselves when we walk through life wearing a mask. I think most of us believe there are two options: hide or be ostracized. I really do think there’s a third option of understanding how to modulate ourselves (without compromising ourselves), grounding ourselves in a like minded community and finding an appropriate work environment. THIS issue, perhaps more than anything else, is the crux of the gifted experience.
So Anonymous, if you read this, thank you very much for your thoughtful comment. For Anonymous and anyone else reading this post – what do you think? Is there a third option beyond hiding or being ostracized?
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Yes, there is a third way– the one we all look for, more or less, relatively speaking, like everybody else. It does happen; look for tolerance of eccentricity, then play it straight while gradually easing into how you are (the foot-in-the-door or salami-slicing technique) but that requires things to be acceptably “close” already and may take a year or so. (Folk who admonish “Be yourself!” when you are want the opposite– the difference between the “tolerant” and the actually tolerant.) School leads the understanding of giftedness, unfortunately; the “social-affective needs” approach makes it a psychological and not educational issue, and everyone’s the same “as a person” inside so that makes it all simpler… supposedly. (Sure, it’s an egalitarian idea– fair, equal– and wrong; not everyone feels the same or develops at the same rate either. Psychology is THE low-detail “fuzzy” discipline, especially about things social-affective, too, which has led to a drop in understanding about giftedness generally– they just need to feel good about themselves like everbody else and it’s “sounds like a personal problem to me” if there’s anything else, in the short answer.) Unfortunately, this neglect of variation makes what one’s like “inside” a matter of conformity– feel like everyone else or, by default, you’re “crazy.” (If the gifted develop age-appropriately, they’ll have dysynchrony between their cognitive ability and social-affective ability to handle it and will need counseling; if they develop by mental age instead, they won’t be age-appropriate and will need counseling because they’re not normal.) Then, there’re folk who expect “be yourself” AND “apply yourself” at the same time without realizing the conflict– avoid that, especially at work. Like-minded folk and/or ones who realize things vary are always best.
P.S. Yes– ” (If the gifted develop age-appropriately, they’ll have dysynchrony between their cognitive ability and social-affective ability to handle it and will need counseling; if they develop by mental age instead, they won’t be age-appropriate and will need counseling because they’re not normal.) “– Catch-22, it’s the best catch there is! Run, don’t walk, in the opposite direction if you find yourself faced with this situation. No one accounted for giftedness here (it’s called “exceptionality” for a reason) and, as it’s good business for therapists, no one seems interested in fixing it. Just don’t get stuck in that trap.
I commented on the prior post at http://gifteduniverse.com/work/gifted-its-school/comment-page-1/#comment-119
Another point:
“I think that awareness of a social-emotional definition of giftednes largely remains ghettoized in education or psychology.”
I can say from unfortunate experience that the majority of educators and psychologists do not have any accurate awareness of this stuff either.