The Crash Course on Giftedness and the Schools — Part 1

In kindergarten, the students were supposed to count to at least 100. The teacher stopped Jon at 300 because she was afraid he would continue all morning. ~ Father of a Level Five (Profoundly Gifted) boy

It is easy to see why typical schools cause problems for gifted children and why gifted children pose problems for their schools. Most schools are not prepared to accommodate children who are as intelligent as Jon.

Once you know a child’s level of giftedness, what’s next? Most important is to decide what matters most to both the parents and the child. What do you value and need, and how much effort are you willing or able to expend to satisfy those needs?

Between the late 1990s and about 2017, I developed and used a system that allowed me to evaluate gifted children and then share the results and recommendations with the parents a week or so later.

When consulting for highly intelligent people — whether children or adults — the key session is the one that follows the intelligence assessments. I called it my Crash Course on Giftedness because it gave clients needed information about their own circumstance and options. I still do some virtual…