Empty Space to Become & the value of Futility

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to spend a day listening to Dr. Gordon Neufeld speak. WOW. I've put link up on left to his website and I would recommend buying a book or DVD. He spoke about an issue that is huge in gifted kids - how easily they are wounded and how negative behaviour is born from that wounding.

Let me hit you with a few highlights though, that relate to the kids we are working with.

Gifted kids are often are often highly praised. Not so helpful. If a child is internally motivated, praise will shut them down. Instead of praise and reinforcement and high structure, these children need "empty spaces to become".

They need:

• room for initiative, creative and originality.
• to be placed in charge of their learning whenever possible

You (parents and teachers) need to:

• provide options and solicit intentions to get them into the Driver's seat
• give interest the lead when providing information
• generate questions before providing answers
• provide opportunities for experimentation and exploration
• not preempt intrinsic motivation with praise rewards and incentives. (from his notes)

The other thing that really hit me from this presentation was Neufeld's admonition that we, as teachers and parents need to be "Agents of Futility and Angels of Comfort" at the same time.

Many gifted children will try and reason themselves out of a "No" that is a firm "no". They will engage you in unending argument or withdraw ("I didn't want that item/experience anyway"). Neufeld's point is that in order to adapt, learn from your experiences and failures, gain resourcefulness and resiliency, you need to feel a No and understand it emotionally, not understand it intellectually. You need to be brought to tears over the futility of the experience, not allowed to argue your way out of it or wear their parent down. But that futility, that "No" should not alienate the child from their parent, which is where the "angels of comfort" come in. Comforting as you say no. You don't explain the No, which takes it to that intellectual level, you just stick to it and sympathize with the child's frustration.

Neufeld points out that those tears of futility have enough toxins in them to kill a small rodent. Which is why you feel better afterwards. I find this fascinating.

The other point I took was that Gifted kids are often born sensitive. It is a huge challenge to keep their hearts soft, and attached to their parents. If that fails, you often have behavioural issues.

Attachment goes into the importance for children to be primarily attached to and dependant on "tempered" adults rather than "untempered" peers, for the protection of their own hearts.

And as always, Neufeld promotes finding islands of competence and building on the positive rather than focusing on the negative.

Just to whet your appetite....buy the book or DVD!

Motivation (or the Lack Thereof)

I've gotten to thinking about achievement and motivation with Gifted kids. A number of the students I'm working with this year really struggle with this and it seems worth-while to explore why these kids, for whom learning is "so easy", should struggle so with getting their learning for school completed.

From my reading (in this case, largely from the Alberta Special Education department) and my experience around giftedness, some of the factors around lack of motivation or achievement may include: perfectionism, a lack of clear relationship between effort and outcome, low self-esteem, lack of self-confidence, and a sense of low personal control over one's own life. The factors that contribute include emotional issues, inappropriate curriculum, poor self-regulation concerns.

It has been suggested that positive reinforcement and relationships with adults make a difference, along with interest-based curriculum, a focus on strength, self-selected topics, mutual respect and addressing real-world problems.

In would be great if these gifted kids could select and shape their own topics and outcomes and make the learning as real to their specific and immediate needs as possible.

This year, with gifted kids, I have seen some shut down because of motivation - if they can't see the point, they won't do it - I would go so far as to almost say - can't do it. They will have to believe it is important and interesting before they put in any time at all. It is a different challenge from students with your regular need for learning services - these children can learn, they just won't. That is, they won't learn what we say is important on a timeline that we say is reasonable. They are often very very bright and are learning lots, but it is what is important to them and on their own timeline. Much like adults.

Often gifted kids are computer wizards, or read everything, or dance or sing, or play an instrument or make movies or cartoons - but it is really hard to get them to do school work. Because in their mind (and in reality) school work is "fake-work" or "busy-work". It is practise for real life and these kids would rather skip practise and engage life the first time around. They are generally capable enough to make that work for them. Sadly, most of our educational system is not geared to their needs and forcing them to do it our way often will only cause them to disengage.

When I think of motivation and gifted kids this way, not as rebellion or laziness, it makes a lot more sense to me. They may the be unconventional or perceived as unreasonable, but as George Bernard Shaw put it: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."