[Ohiogift] ungiftedness

[Mary Collier]

Thank you, Margaret, for saying what I wanted to say, but you did it so well.  I also was bothered with the "success" and intelligence relationship and how "success" is defined.  Many "successful" people also end up in prison.  In the military there was a saying "rank times IQ is equal to a constant" which was a sad/humorous way of saying, the more intelligent you were, the less likely you were to achieve higher rank.

Mary Collier
-----Original Message-----
From: Margaret DeLacy <margaretdelacy at comcast.net>
To: Ohiogift <Ohiogift at lists.service.ohio-state.edu>
Sent: Sun, Jun 23, 2013 1:17 am
Subject: [Ohiogift] ungiftedness



>challenge the conventional wisdom about the childhood predictors of adult 
success


Speaking just for myself, I am frustrated when I see comments about how "gifted 
programs" have failed if their graduates turn out to be "ordinary" and don't 
turn out to be distinguished or "successful" by some outside standard.  I want 
to grab these authors by the lapels and scream "that's just the point!"  I 
believe that most parents of children with physical disabilities or intellectual 
disabilities want their children to have as normal a life as possible.  That is 
just what I want for my own children.  I don't expect my children to become 
"great".  I just want them to survive school with their spirits mostly intact.

There are indeed many paths to greatness.  Many great men and women had terrible 
childhoods, but I didn't abuse my own children in the hope that some day they 
would write a best-selling memoir about it.  Similarly, I didn't want to see my 
children abused in school, even if it turned them into distinguished individuals 
down the road.  

That is one of the reasons I am uncomfortable with the new NAGC definition of 
giftedness.  It seems to be about what society wants from gifted children.  I am 
more interested in seeing them engaged in school, happy in their relationships 
and satisfied with their eventual occupations, however humble. Maybe Kaufmann 
has the same point of view--I will read the book (eventually) and find out.  But 
I reject the claim that we should identify gifted students  in order to predict 
adult success.  We should identify gifted students to find those for whom 
regular classroom instruction is inappropriate so the level and pace of 
instruction can be modified and they don't go crazy sitting in class. 

The founding fathers didn't write about life, liberty and success.  They wrote 
about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Why should we want less for 
our children?  

In any case, thank you Art for letting me know about the book.

Margaret





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