The Curse of Being Gifted

Many people believe that gifted children have it easybecause they are capable of learning easily. And that is one great thing about being gifted.  However, not all things about being gifted are great from a student’s point of view.
Consider a gifted student who learned to read early, and has a great usable vocabulary.  Using that larger vocabulary draws attention to the student.  Some of that attention may be good, for example when it comes from teachers or other adults.  However, when it draws the attention of the student’s peers it can be very  ncomfortable for the student.  Children can be mean, and sometimes pick on a student who shows a difference.   To avoid drawing attention to themselves, gifted students sometimes “dumb” down their vocabulary so that they speak with a vocabulary more commonly associated with the average student.
There is an incredible amount of pressure put on gifted students.  Parents and teachers expect more from a student who has shown greater learning capacity.  The gifted student is often expected to learn in all subjects equally well.  Parents and teachers are sometimes disappointed, even angry when a gifted student does
not get straight A’s.   Parents and teachers need to remember that being gifted doesn’t mean the student already knows the information, just that information presented might be more easily learned than if the student was not

gifted.
For the gifted student these expectations can be very frustrating.  The reason for this is that most gifted students are not equally gifted across the board.  The student might be gifted in science, and be below level in math.   The student may read years ahead of grade level, but write years behind grade level.
Being gifted doesn’t always mean that the student gets the information the first time through.
Being gifted also means that in some subjects, those the student excels in, repetition can be mind-numbing.  The
parent of a gifted first grader related this story.  The child got in the car at the end of the school day in tears.  She announced that the teacher thought she was the “stupidest kid on the planet”.  The mother, shocked to hear this, asked the child to explain.  The student stated that the teacher must think she was stupid, because the teacher made her repeat the spelling list every day of the week, five times.
The parent tried to explain to the student that repetition was how learning to spell worked.  The student
then said that that was a stupid way to learn.  Why didn’t the teacher give her the spelling test the first day, and
then spend the rest of the week concentrating on the words she didn’t know?  Why waste time on the ones she
already knew?  In a week she could learn more than the ten words on the list if the teacher didn’t insist on her wasting time all week on words she could already spell.
Perhaps this is the paradox associated with gifted students.  They learn differently, their brains work differently, yet the school system is designed to teach the average student.  Parents expect the gifted students to excel, teachers expect the students to excel, and yet, they try to teach gifted students in the same way that other students are taught.  Unfortunately, when the gifted student doesn’t excel it is the student who is blamed, not the teacher, not the school system.  

Another situation in which gifted students are penalized for their abilities is gifted programs.  In many school districts the gifted program is under special education.  For many students, special education is what learning disabled students participate in.  The failure to separate gifted students from special education means that they are branded as different by their peers.  While this difference is actually a good thing, it can have negative connotations.  Gifted students, pulled from general education classes, to participate in enhanced, accelerated, or enrichment classes are often held accountable for the material covered in the general classroom while they are away.
This means that gifted students are held responsible for more work, almost double work.  In some accelerated classes, the gifted student is required to read more books, or produce more essays, or work more math problems than other students.  It is often hard for gifted students to accept that because they are smart they should have to do more work.  In their eyes, they are being penalized for being smart.  Gifted students don't want more work, they want more challenging work.
 One gifted student told his father that he would rather not be labeled gifted at all.  That the label didn’t mean that he got to do something fun when he finished his work ahead of the class, but that he was given more work because he could work faster, and that work was often busy work, repeats of the work he had already done.
He proclaimed that if he was “a normal kid” he could read a book of his choosing when he was done with his work.
To overcome the curse of being gifted, students who are gifted need to be allowed to learn at their own rate.  The gifted student needs to have a curriculum that allows them to excel in the places where they are exceptional.  Even in the traditional classroom setting an online curriculum for gifted students would allow the student to work ahead on certain subjects without burdening the teacher with additional lesson plans to accommodate the
gifted student.  Parents and teachers need to understand that the gifted student will not learn all subjects with
equal ease and adjust their expectations accordingly.  Being gifted should not be seen by the student as a curse, but an advantage, and it is the teacher, parents, and schools responsibility to use that advantage to enhance the student’s education.