# What's your definition of giftedness?



## OrchidSugar (5 mo ago)

Scoobyscoob said:


> Giftedness doesn't have to be on the basis of IQ. There's giftedness, which has a certain meaning, there's having a gifted level of IQ which is generally 130-145 and there was what @FaeSoleil mentioned and I replied back about which is being in a gifted and talented program, which @ai.tran.75 mentioned used to be called GATE in California which is actually called something else now the last time I spoke with the woman who was going to be my oldest daughter's teacher while she'd be in the gifted and talented program.


Yeah I'm in agreement. High IQ is just one form of giftedness. There are many ways to be gifted. Usually it involves a level of comparison between others of your same age level, experience level, etc.


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## ENFPathetic (Apr 3, 2018)

PierViers said:


> Is it merely IQ measurement or relentless obsession over understanding things?


Both. But as was stated in the first response, the obsession itself is the gift, not the results it leads to.

Everyone is gifted. The problem is how do you properly appreciate what you've been given without effort? Do you even notice it's there? It might be obvious to others, but to you it will be like water to a fish.


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## Scoobyscoob (Sep 4, 2016)

FaeSoleil said:


> Tbh, it sounds like the program your daughter's getting is far better than what I got. My school's program introduced me early to algebra, but... it wasn't very 1 on 1, and definitely had basically no focus on soft skills.


Ah, I see. Your experience sounds like what would've been the old GATE program. My oldest still-a-kid daughter was recommended for gifted and talented education and she was accepted to a school that mainly accepts students in the gifted and talented program. I've heard my middle daughter was also accepted and while I don't know for sure, I don't see why my youngest wouldn't also be accepted. All the kids going to the same school makes transportation a whole lot simpler too.


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## FaeSoleil (9 mo ago)

Scoobyscoob said:


> Giftedness doesn't have to be on the basis of IQ. There's giftedness, which has a certain meaning, there's having a gifted level of IQ which is generally 130-145 and there was what @FaeSoleil mentioned and I replied back about which is being in a gifted and talented program, which @ai.tran.75 mentioned used to be called GATE in California which is actually called something else now the last time I spoke with the woman who was going to be my oldest daughter's teacher.


They did a lot of tests on me as a kid around academic and IQ-adjacent things. No idea which ones actually got me in the program.



OrchidSugar said:


> Everyone with a high IQ and with a relentless obsession for problem solving (compared against the average) would be gifted. But not all gifted people have high IQ or relentless problem solving abilities.


Honestly... idk. I definitely feel like people make way bigger a deal of intelligence than it actually is. I kinda dislike a lot of the people around my IQ bracket. "Gifted, but not genius level" feels like it makes a lot of people who are smarter (by some measure) than 99% of people, and yet still manage to have far more ego than actual ability. Alternatively, people who could do so much good if they had the self-esteem to match their potential. Not many healthy people. >.<


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## FaeSoleil (9 mo ago)

Scoobyscoob said:


> Ah, I see. Your experience sounds like what would've been the old GATE program. My oldest still-a-kid daughter was recommended for gifted and talented education and she was accepted to a school that mainly accepts students in the gifted and talented program. I've heard my middle daughter was also accepted and while I don't know for sure, I don't see why my youngest wouldn't also be accepted. All the kids going to the same school makes transportation a whole lot simpler too.


I later went to a dedicated private school for "gifted and talented" kids. Suffice to say, it was worse, and the "teacher"s role model as Judge Judy of all people. Says enough about her, I think, that it was run by someone who thinks yelling is a replacement for soft skills.

Gosh. Is... strange to think about how much better things might have been if my parents found places like that - and without that kinda flaw.


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## Scoobyscoob (Sep 4, 2016)

OrchidSugar said:


> Yeah I'm in agreement. High IQ is just one form of giftedness. There are many ways to be gifted. Usually it involves a level of comparison between others of your same age level, experience level, etc.


IQ usually isn't a requirement to be considered gifted, because to be accepted into a gifted and talented program, most states have laws against discriminating kids based on IQ, which schools would obviously have to follow.


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## Scoobyscoob (Sep 4, 2016)

FaeSoleil said:


> They did a lot of tests on me as a kid around academic and IQ-adjacent things. No idea which ones actually got me in the program.
> 
> 
> Honestly... idk. I definitely feel like people make way bigger a deal of intelligence than it actually is. I kinda dislike a lot of the people around my IQ bracket. "Gifted, but not genius level" feels like it makes a lot of people who are smarter (by some measure) than 99% of people, and yet still manage to have far more ego than actual ability. Alternatively, people who could do so much good if they had the self-esteem to match their potential. Not many healthy people. >.<


Yeah, I got poked and prodded a bit as a kid too, hahah. I was never in the gifted and talented program though since my teacher didn't want to recommend me because she said she thought I was well-adjusted enough to stay with the regular class. Some of my friends who were in GATE though said they had a similar experience to you, but being in GATE would've be a great thing to be able to put on a university/college application though.


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## OrchidSugar (5 mo ago)

FaeSoleil said:


> Honestly... idk. I definitely feel like people make way bigger a deal of intelligence than it actually is. I kinda dislike a lot of the people around my IQ bracket. "Gifted, but not genius level" feels like it makes a lot of people who are smarter (by some measure) than 99% of people, and yet still manage to have far more ego than actual ability. Alternatively, people who could do so much good if they had the self-esteem to match their potential. Not many healthy people. >.<


Well yeah, now that's a separate conversation. For every domain where it might be advantageous to stand out from others, there are several areas of life where the gifted individual could be average or even far below average. For example, grossly above average intelligence, but poor social skills. Or high natural athletic ability, but lacks the discipline to eat healthy.

In other words, being "gifted" in whatever natural ability, doesn't make you any more effective than anyone else.


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## superloco3000 (Dec 15, 2017)

Ling ling, of course.


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## Scoobyscoob (Sep 4, 2016)

FaeSoleil said:


> I later went to a dedicated private school for "gifted and talented" kids. Suffice to say, it was worse, and the "teacher"s role model as Judge Judy of all people. Says enough about her, I think, that it was run by someone who thinks yelling is a replacement for soft skills.
> 
> Gosh. Is... strange to think about how much better things might have been if my parents found places like that - and without that kinda flaw.


Oh, I see. Yeah the school my daughters go to is a public school, but most of the student body are from various gifted and talented programs from around the county. As a kid, I've been to a private school and IMO the main benefit was learning how to act like a rich kid. 😄 I've also did one semester at a Catholic School and aside from the strictness and possible punishment for breaking rules the education was surprisingly good. I like where my kids are now though as the program as the girls are in is kind of a blend of a Montessori School while also being structured so that the kids don't go crazy from being in an unstructured environment all day.


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## Electra (Oct 24, 2014)

A loving, empahic, sympahic atitude?


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## chad86tsi (Dec 27, 2016)

Scoobyscoob said:


> Well, I suppose I'll reserve judgement after asking my kids what each of them think of being in such a program. From what I've seen with one of my daughters, kids in a dedicated gifted and talented program do receive more individual attention due to smaller class sizes and sure maybe cover topics that're considered advanced for the kids' ages, but otherwise how good the program is for the kids will depend on how good the teachers are.
> 
> I see, well I was thinking about my kids when I wrote what I did but I hope everything works out well for your son.
> 
> I don't have an interest in defining what giftedness means so you'll want to hit up someone else to engage you on that topic. I definitely would not pull my kids from their gifted and talented program, but school itself is about learning a lot of soft skills like how to socialize and how to work with other people who may very well be difficult to work with.


We mainstreamed our kid as much as possible. He was offered to skip 2 grades when he was in 6th grade, we told them "no !, he needs to stay with his same-age peers". He's in a college class for math, and high school class for orchestra, but the rest of his classes are with his fellow 8th graders. He's getting his needs mostly met, and completely met where it matters to him. 

TAG designation guarantees a lot of services that schools suck at actually offering. In my area, it's has a high percent of first generation ESL immigrants and lower functioning students, he has very few actual peers to track with. 

Being gifted can be a curse if your gifts can't be nurtured, and this is more likely to be a function of where you live.


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## Scoobyscoob (Sep 4, 2016)

chad86tsi said:


> We mainstreamed our kid as much as possible. He was offered to skip 2 grades when he was in 6th grade, we told them "no !, he needs to stay with his same-age peers". He's in a college class for math, and high school class for orchestra, but the rest of his classes are with his fellow 8th graders. He's getting his needs mostly met, and completely met where it matters to him.
> 
> TAG designation guarantees a lot of services that schools suck at actually offering. In my area, it's has a high percent of first generation ESL immigrants and lower functioning students, he has very few actual peers to track with.
> 
> Being gifted can be a curse if your gifts can't be nurtured, and this is more likely to be a function of where you live.


That's good, thanks for sharing. 👍

A lot of first generation immigrants who move here may very well have been working professionals in the country they came from. You're saying, "lower functioning" in an odd and I'd say incorrect way. Most kids who're sent to a gifted and talented program because of social reasons. Getting bullied, harassed, not caring to socialize with other kids, being quiet all the time, etcetcetc, there could be a million reasons why an otherwise bright kid might be sent to a gifted and talented program, and usually it's to be around intellectual peers precisely because they might be getting picked on in the regular classes.

Being gifted is a blessing not a curse, having bad parents can make it seem like a curse though.


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## chad86tsi (Dec 27, 2016)

Scoobyscoob said:


> That's good, thanks for sharing. 👍
> 
> A lot of first generation immigrants who move here may very well have been working professionals in the country they came from. You're saying, "lower functioning" in an odd and I'd say incorrect way. Most kids who're sent to a gifted and talented program because of social reasons. Getting bullied, harassed, not caring to socialize with other kids, being quiet all the time, etcetcetc, there could be a million reasons why an otherwise bright kid might be sent to a gifted and talented program, and usually it's to be around intellectual peers precisely because they might be getting picked on in the regular classes.
> 
> Being gifted is a blessing not a curse, having bad parents can make it seem like a curse though.


Lower functioning = the "trailer park" kids with >90 IQ's and deadbeat single-parent households. The kind I grew up in where school was a place you send your kids to so you can work, and homework is something the teacher sends home but never comes back. Kids that function below the norm/standard. These kids come in all colors so I don't define them my any other measure than their functional ability succeed in society as-designed. This also includes the slow-and-low kids that don't quite qualify for special education but aren't meeting standards, and can't. These lower functioning kids are a a disproportionately sized group in this district. Economic status is the best way to correlate them together as a common-cause cohort.

By law, talented and gifted kids are supposed to get the same specialized education attention as those that we think of as "Special education" kids. It's actually 2 ends of the spectrum with the same rules/laws. Being two standard deviations either direction of the norm in specific objective subject areas, though this is not a hard and fast rule. The high end of this spectrum is often overlooked and/or neglected. Here where I live, there is nowhere unique to send them to. There are in other larger districts not too far away. One can be gifted but may not be identified or nurtured.


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## Scoobyscoob (Sep 4, 2016)

chad86tsi said:


> Lower functioning = the "trailer park" kids with >90 IQ's and deadbeat single-parent households. The kind I grew up in where school was a place you send your kids to so you can work, and homework is something the teacher sends home but never comes back. Kids that function below the norm/standard. These kids come in all colors so I don't define them my any other measure than their functional ability succeed in society as-designed. This also includes the slow-and-low kids that don't quite qualify for special education but aren't meeting standards, and can't. These lower functioning kids are a a disproportionately sized group in this district. Economic status is the best way to correlate them together as a common-cause cohort.
> 
> By law, talented and gifted kids are supposed to get the same specialized education attention as those that we think of as "Special education" kids. It's actually 2 ends of the spectrum with the same rules/laws. The high end is often overlooked and/or neglected. Here where I live, there is nowhere unique to send them to. There are in other larger districts not too far away. One can be gifted but may not be identified or nurtured.


Ah okay, I thought you said they were being sent to TAG programs. Yeah it's very difficult for those kids and watching them struggle must be the hardest part of being a teacher. However, feeling bad for those kids doesn't mean the high IQ kids should be stifled as that's just discrimination of a different kind.

The issue is funding. I've had a number of conversations with one of my daughter's teacher who actually went to school to specialize in meeting the special needs of gifted and talented kids, and there's simply more money being spent on children in the remedial classes. I purposely wanted sent my kids to the larger school district because I don't want them to suffer from a more provincial line of thinking when it comes to intelligent kids like I did growing up. I trust my wife to not have deviated from our plans so I'm sure the kids are still doing well enough, considering that they don't currently have their father with them because some people were jealous of our family.


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## chad86tsi (Dec 27, 2016)

Scoobyscoob said:


> Most kids who're sent to a gifted and talented program because of social reasons. Getting bullied, harassed, not caring to socialize with other kids, being quiet all the time, etcetcetc, there could be a million reasons why an otherwise bright kid might be sent to a gifted and talented program, and usually it's to be around intellectual peers precisely because they might be getting picked on in the regular classes.


I can't speak to your states interpretation of talented and gifted criteria, but here in Oregon you have to measure in the +97% in at least one of 1 of 3 subject areas. That is the criteria here, nothing else. You only need to qualify for one to get services for all though.: TAG Basics

These kids do often have social "fitting in" issues though so I can see a correlation can become apparent. My kid scored 99.9% in math but they were only willing to test in this one area, and only because we insisted. Had we not insisted, they never would have tested him, and the first teacher that he had after identification wanted nothing to do with accommodating it. 

Most of these laws that require serving Talented and gifted kids are federally protected, and only some of it's testing/definitions is left up to states to interpret.


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## Scoobyscoob (Sep 4, 2016)

chad86tsi said:


> I can't speak to your states interpretation of talented and gifted criteria, but here in Oregon you have to measure in the +97% in at least one of I 3 subject areas. That is the criteria here, nothing else. You only need to qualify for one to get services for all though.: TAG Basics
> 
> These kids do often have social "fitting in" issues though so I can see a correlation can become apparent. My kid scored 99.9% in math but they were only willing to test in this one area, and only because we insisted. Had we not insisted, they never would have tested him, and the first teacher that he had after identification wanted nothing to do with accommodating it.
> 
> Most of these laws that require serving Talented and gifted kids are federally protected, and only some of it's testing/definitions is left up to states to interpret.


In California in varies by school district but where I live, the kids have to qualify first then be recommended by the teacher to try out for the program. Then the kid is tested and if passed then will likely be interviewed and if passes the interview will be accepted. The interview isn't too involved, mostly just a few screener questions to keep sociopaths out of the program. That's a constant theme in education here too, keeping the sociopaths out.

I see. I wonder why he didn't want anything to do with setting your son up in the TAG program in your state.

Makes sense. It would make sense to keep tabs on where all the genius kids are so that they may be hired by the government first before possibly being scooped up by private industry.


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## chad86tsi (Dec 27, 2016)

Scoobyscoob said:


> I see. I wonder why he didn't want anything to do with setting your son up in the TAG program in your state.


First, they don't want to test them because then they find them. If they find them, then they need to serve them. There is little or no extra money/labor/time for this once found.

My wife being a career educator herself believed this teacher simply didn't compered a kid being -that- unique, and they probably figured we were just some pushy parents that thought our teachers-kid was "so special". My wife also believed that this teacher was just mediocre herself intellectually, hence the "not comprehending" it part. To this teacher, being gifted just meant school work was easy for him or something. His next teacher made up for all that harm/waste. 

Covid and school-at-home forced the system to let him go at his own pace and he was able to ascend to a level more commensurate with his potential without "breaking the process" along the way. This is when they suggested skipping grades. He'd still not be among intellectual peers, and certainly not emotional/development (age appropriate) peers.

Teachers don't often want to do extra work for just one kid, especially if they think that kid is "already smart enough". I get it. My kid got super depressed with that sucky lazy teacher. This is where I say being gifted is only good in the right environment.


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## Scoobyscoob (Sep 4, 2016)

chad86tsi said:


> First, they don't want to test them because then they find them. If they find them, then they need to serve them. There is little or no extra money/labor/time for this once found.
> 
> My wife being a career educator herself believed this teacher simply didn't compered a kid being -that- unique, and they probably figured we were just some pushy parents that thought our teachers-kid was "so special". My wife also believed that this teacher was just mediocre herself intellectually, hence the "not comprehending" it part. To this teacher, being gifted just meant school work was easy for him or something. His next teacher made up for all that harm/waste.
> 
> ...


I would've thought that the teacher didn't want to do extra work just to possibly end up losing who might quite possibly be her favorite student. 😄 People are people and sometimes it's not any more complicated than doing something for personal reasons.


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## FaeSoleil (9 mo ago)

Scoobyscoob said:


> A lot of first generation immigrants who move here may very well have been working professionals in the country they came from. You're saying, "lower functioning" in an odd and I'd say incorrect way. Most kids who're sent to a gifted and talented program because of social reasons. Getting bullied, harassed, not caring to socialize with other kids, being quiet all the time, etcetcetc, there could be a million reasons why an otherwise bright kid might be sent to a gifted and talented program, and usually it's to be around intellectual peers precisely because they might be getting picked on in the regular classes.





chad86tsi said:


> These kids do often have social "fitting in" issues though so I can see a correlation can become apparent. My kid scored 99.9% in math but they were only willing to test in this one area, and only because we insisted. Had we not insisted, they never would have tested him, and the first teacher that he had after identification wanted nothing to do with accommodating it.


My own experiences with this stuff make me kinda skeptical how well the system even works, tbh. To no fault of what it says on paper, but because nobody involved really _cares_. Looking back, my issues had nothing to do with me being gifted, and just me being gender-nonconforming in Texas and not willing to give into bullying/social pressure to not be like that. It definitely feels a bit like my teachers didn't actually understand the social context, and reduced it to "[FaeSoleil] doesn't fit in" without asking "why".

Gifted&Talented wasn't better in that regard; smarter kids still hold the same prejudices. I didn't have social skills to learn, I had biases to get away from. I could be of perfectly average intelligence and had have had the exact same problems.



chad86tsi said:


> We mainstreamed our kid as much as possible. He was offered to skip 2 grades when he was in 6th grade, we told them "no !, he needs to stay with his same-age peers". He's in a college class for math, and high school class for orchestra, but the rest of his classes are with his fellow 8th graders. He's getting his needs mostly met, and completely met where it matters to him.





chad86tsi said:


> Covid and school-at-home forced the system to let him go at his own pace and he was able to ascend to a level more commensurate with his potential without "breaking the process" along the way. This is when they suggested skipping grades. He'd still not be among intellectual peers, and certainly not emotional/development (age appropriate) peers.


I honestly wish my parents did let me take the chance to skip me a few grades in grade school like they offered. My mom had a lot of the same concerns about me needing to be around people my age. ... but, well, I was pretty heavily online at that point and routinely talked to people far older than me online; and paradoxically, they treated me more like a peer than people my age and some of them were great mentors for me when I was doing stuff like programming and game modding/design on my own time back then.

Kinda the best decision my parents ever made for me educationally was letting me at least just skip off to college early when I was 15. That was the first time I felt I was in an educational environment that worked for me. I didn't really _understand_ American History despite being taught it every year until I got a teacher in college who told the _story_ of history rather than asking us memorize a week's worth of facts week after week. Between two private schools and public school, I never got that before then.

I don't think the kinda hybrid approach you have for your kid would work so well for me (from experience), but... well. I'm one person of so many billions. I definitely wish my mom had that kinda... creativity and awareness as it sounds like you have rather than being as lost as she felt... 😅


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