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Oh, You are Soooo Funny... Gifted kids as comedians and class clowns, by Kathleen Casper

9/26/2016

1 Comment

 
My Joey was a handful as a young child. He was smart and had a wicked sense of humor that helped him entertain himself when life was boring. But that same sense of humor also meant I got phone calls from teachers almost every single day.

Some gifted kids have, as psychologist, Dr. Edward Amend says, “a different perspective, creative thinking, and a unique sense of humor,” and that sometimes can alienate children and create rifts between peers when it’s misunderstood (Amend, Characteristics of Gifted Children: A Closer Look). Sometimes that sense of humor may isolate them, but it also can help them become class clowns, which may get them in trouble, but they gain points with their classmates who may or may not be gifted if they freak out their teachers or parents along the way.

For example, once my son, Joey had a crush on the student teacher who was assigned to teach his class (I think it was when he was in 2nd grade…) This is normally not a big deal, as many kids develop crushes on pretty teachers, but Joey had a teenaged brother who must have egged him on in less appropriate ways. So, Joey didn’t just have a crush on the teacher, but he gave her notes that said things that were inappropriate to the point that the teacher felt she had to call me again and again- “Today Joey gave the student teacher a note with his phone number on it, saying to call him if she wants to go on a date.” “Today Joey gave the student teacher a note saying he wants to kiss her.” “Today Joey gave the student teacher a note saying he wants to buy her a thong bathing suit and take her to the beach.” Yeah, that was my son… using his brilliant mind to cause trouble. His friends thought he was hilarious. So did his big brother.

It didn’t end there. In middle school I got phone calls from the PE teacher on a regular basis. He was failing PE. How does one possibly fail PE? Well, both of my middle children (Joey and his older sister,) managed to do that because they thought it was funny. Joey didn’t want to wear shorts when it was cold. He didn’t want to run laps. He didn’t want to hula hoop. Whatever it was they were supposed to do, Joey refused. Not because it was hard to do, or because he really cared either way- but because he thought the PE teacher’s accent was hilarious and he loved making him mad and hearing him revert to that accent and call me all upset and then make Joey get on the phone with me in front of all of his friends. I got really sick of hearing from both of them that year. But my office mates laughed every time I got a call- they came to look forward to them too. Joey was not scoring points with his teachers, but he certainly was amusing people around him.

And then there was the time he wanted to get out of going to his next class in middle school, so he called the 911 emergency number from his teacher’s desk phone. He said he didn’t think it would really dial, since you have to first dial “9” to make calls from inside the school. But yeah, it went through. And Joey ended up at home for the rest of the week on suspension for that one. His friends loved getting to mess around in the field while the fire department checked out the school, and they thought he was some kind of brave hero when they found out he was the one who called. They thought it was hilarious. Joey won again.

And another call I received from a teacher during his middle school years was when he did something inappropriate in science class. They were supposed to be playing charades- each team could write down science words on slips of paper, and the other team had to act them out. Joey wrote “boner” on a piece of paper. His teacher read it and immediately called me. He spent a couple more days at home for that one. He acted mad that the teacher would be upset- he said it was totally a science word and she should’ve set better parameters for the game if she didn’t mean ANY science word. So of course he scored major popularity points with that scenario. (We still have that discipline referral form somewhere- it was a classic one, we all were impressed the teacher really wrote the word “boner”.)

The problem was that Joey had a great sense of adult humor. But he was a child. And in order to keep a sense of order and not expose other children to material considered “inappropriate” for that age group, teachers had to censor my kid on a regular basis. And MY problem was, I had to keep a straight face while I was lecturing my son to not do whatever dumb thing he was doing at the time. In reality, the things he did and his arguments about why he shouldn’t be in trouble for them were really silly. He usually had a good excuse or argument, or at least he found a funny loophole. His intellect caused him to always see the grey areas- the ways the teachers failed to set the rules to prevent his actions, or the weaknesses of the punishment that usually ended up being more pleasant than following the rules (like getting to stay home for several days under “suspension.”) He was clever, and he saw school days as game time- he saw boundaries and rules as challenges. Just as many gifted kids do.

I’ve heard of gifted kids who have had similar disciplinary issues in the schools from drawing pictures of violent things or playing violently with sticks on the playground. Again, these kids think it’s funny, and often they are playing out things they have heard about or seen on television. There are a lot of things that smart kids pick up on that other kids don’t even notice. They ask a ton of questions at young ages and they know how to research things on their cell phones and are exposed to ideas and themes that less literate kids may never encounter.

Do you know or have a child who has an inappropriate sense of humor? Or maybe humor that is mis-timed and words come out in ways they don’t mean it or are interpreted wrong? Are they sarcastic and people think they are rude? Or are they passive aggressive in ways they think are funny but just make people frustrated?

Gifted children are wise beyond their years and often are exposed to things that parents of other children and teachers and other adults may think are not age-appropriate. It’s hard to keep our kids from being exposed to adult content when they read at adult reading-levels, or they are enamored with shows for their main content, such as the medical theme of the television show, Grey’s Anatomy (that my ten-year-old daughter currently is obsessed with… she wants to be a doctor, and she loves the characters… it just so happens they have sex scenes in every episode and she now has heard about more adult medical issues than I ever knew about, even at 20!)

It’s almost impossible to keep our bright children from learning “inappropriate” things. Even cartoons have sexual innuendos… movies are full of violence… video games and the internet expose them to new concepts that lead to new questions and Google searches. We can’t protect them from the world, but we can do our best to keep them from making fools out of themselves in public. Although, as my children have shown me over and over again, there’s only so much we can control. If they decide to use their knowledge and their humor to be the class clowns, they will not only do so, but they will be so good at it that we will get a lot of teacher phone calls and hopefully they will manage not to get kicked out of class too many times.

I am a teacher, and I understand the need to keep order in school. I understand the need to not expose other kids to “bad” things that their parents will freak out about. But I also recognize humor and see when a child is pushing buttons to get their friends to laugh, to get attention from the teachers, and get out of having to do work. Joey was great at avoiding work- he got out of going to school for days at a time.

It wasn’t going to work to hassle my Joey into behaving. What worked best with him was having a teacher who would laugh and tease him right back. “Oh, you want to be silly? Well, then I will laugh with you for a minute, express to you why you can’t do that in my classroom, and then give you an outlet for humor.” They could make him the class announcer in the mornings… make him a school yearbook photographer… encourage him to join theater classes where he can make everyone laugh in a more appropriate forum. But don’t yell at him or freak out about his attempts to shock you, and then hope he won’t do it again. Because he will do it more and more… every, single time.

One danger of gifted children being funny and acting out in ways that cause them to get in trouble in school is that they could lose their formal “gifted” eligibility in some programs. Often districts and states identify children as gifted only if they are high performing in academics. Children who stand out as trouble-makers may not be identified for gifted evaluation at all, or even if they are, they may be held as ineligible for services if they have disciplinary issues. Luckily some districts have processes set up to find gifted troublemakers, such as Pinellas County, Florida’s school district where students with disciplinary issues are screened for gifted characteristics and needs on a regular basis (https://www.districtadministration.com/article/how-schools-maximize-gifted-talent). But many schools and districts do not serve kids who have behavioral issues that distract them from the highest academic performance. Think about all the kids you know who seem really smart, but who play around at school and don’t reach their potential. Many of those kids could be gifted and under-served or not even identified.

Let’s face it, gifted kids have enough social challenges in their lives- trying to find other kids who understand them; trying to sit still in classes that they find excruciatingly boring; working in groups with other kids who aren’t as intense or who approach learning in different ways… They often use humor to lighten the mood and to connect with others. We need to help them find outlets for the need to be silly or to take the pressure off for a moment with laughter.

There’s definitely better ways for kids to get attention than to have the whole fire department show up at the school, or to constantly have power struggles with teachers. But if they don’t have other outlets for their silliness, or they feel inappropriate humor is their key to being “cool” with their classmates then we will see this happen more and more.

What we need to ensure is that our silly gifted kids have challenging and interesting things to apply themselves to each day, and teachers who understand gifted traits and can see past the silly stuff in order to encourage and serve them even when the kids are doing their best to distract everyone with their jokes. When learning is highly engaging and suits the personalities and needs of the students, inappropriate humor falls by the wayside as the children’s energy is absorbed in more appropriate ways. This takes extra planning time in some cases, and teachers may have to stay on their toes in order to keep shifting the discussions and pushing the kids to think even deeper. But it also takes a lot of effort to deal with class clown behaviors that disrupt learning.
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And, although I did like knowing what was going on at school when I got my daily phone calls about Joey’s actions, I would have rather not had all that drama. There are better ways for parents and teachers to communicate on a regular basis about our little clowns, (and I’m sure there would have been much more engaging topics to discuss than how entertaining my child was when he pulled the fire alarm or wanted to buy his teacher a fancy bikini… thanks for the memories, Joey!)
 
 
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My Little Gifted Renegades: Under-supported Middle School Gifted Children

6/30/2015

6 Comments

 

 By Kathleen Casper
 
 
The way this blond teenager stares at me as if she knows I know what she is thinking- with smeared mascara, too much and too wild, the scars of life written in wisdom across her face- while she is sneaking back into my classroom yet again, makes me want to smile. But I have to play the tough teacher who follows the rules.
 
"Hey, what are you doing in here again, you are supposed to be in another class right now...?"
 
We play this game every day. No, almost every hour.
 
"I hate that stupid teacher," the normal rant begins. "She kicked me out. I'm just going to drop out and become a crackhead bum and hate the whole freakin' world if you try to make me go back in that (bleepin' bleep's) room. Can't I just stay here? I will work on the research project... I will write an essay... Maybe I can even retake a test or something...?"
 
I get the other students started on their work and then I go back to where my wild one is flopped across a desk, head down with one eye peeking out.
 
I have become the haven for a few of these middle school kids who don't otherwise survive well in other classes. The fighters. The depressed lot. And the kids who hate the world and are already finding ways to quit. They come to me because I reach out to them and offer them a safe place to just be. To sit and listen to my goofy stories, to hear me wax poetic about The Hunger Games, to bear witness to my terrible drawings on the board of Capitol buildings with pointy tops and missing columns.
 
They are not in my classroom because they want to do Civics all day. They come to be loved and respected and to feel like they have a friend. They come to Civics class because I happen to be teaching that subject. But I teach that subject to show them the way out of their box- the ways they can connect with the world and create new futures. And they love that I love Civics, and they love that I adore them that much too.
 
I worry about these kids- the ones who used to run to the office crying (and usually in trouble with one or more teachers), on average, three to five times a week, complaining about how much they hated school and life; the ones who spent more time in the office or suspended or wandering the school hallways than in classrooms; the ones whose faces and body language show distrust and hurt, and their first reaction is usually to either withdraw immediately and shut down, or to put up a huge, distracting fight.
 
Their lives are more and more chaotic because they don't want to play the system's games. They face years of declining performance in classes they don't want to engage in, with people who will more and more likely shun them because they are outliers and renegades while the majority of the world follows in line, but they question and challenge, and finally just give up and stop engaging.
 
These are the gifted children who have not been tested for services, or even if they were it would be hard to find a tester who could get beneath their rough surfaces and find the gem of intellect under the exterior walls. They have grit and wit and most importantly deep passions and empathy and an overwhelming desire for fairness. (Classic gifted traits.) And yet these characteristics push them further and further away from mainstream, and our education programs are not built for these personalities so they sink in the ocean of school. Their drowning rate increases every day, exponentially. Unless they can find a safe haven like they do in my classroom.
 
"You are going to get me in trouble," I sigh. This is the same conversation every time.
 
"No, it's ok, the teacher thinks I'm in the bathroom. I just will never come back."
 
"You know you can't stay here..." I say. Her big raccoon eyes stare back into mine, looking as if her very life depends on my answer. And some days I wonder how much it really does- the desperation may not just be because of the class she is escaping from... With kids you never know what else is going on.
 
"If you don't let me stay I will just leave campus. I'm not going back there. That (bleepin bleep) told me she hopes I will fail. She said I can't be in there anyway because I told her I hated her stupid class..."
 
The line between counseling her on what is appropriate and helping her function better in life is blurry because she already knows the rules and the consequences. She has tried to sit in class and put up with boredom and teacher biases and following rules that don't make any sense for years. She knows the system and she follows it easily in my classroom. And I know without a doubt that she is not returning to that other room even if I send her back.
 
I sigh again. "Go tell the teacher where you are going to stay with me. At least she won't put out an APB or put your face on milk cartons. Then you have to work hard if you are staying in here."
 
Her eyes light up and she rushes to the door, turning around to grin at me before she leaves. Sometimes she actually stays gone and doesn't return to me for at least an hour or more- maybe the teachers convince her to stay, or something is going on socially in the classroom that's more interesting than my classroom would be. Sometimes I find her standing in the hallway just outside the other classroom and when I ask why she didn't come back she tells me the other teacher is so mad that she didn't want to get me in trouble if she came to me anyway, against orders.
 
But most of the time she comes back and she works. She puts her pencil to paper and her academic abilities she was trying so hard to hide from the other teachers shine through. And if anyone is goofing around, she tells them to shut up, or she throws something near them. And the other kids roll their eyes because they are used to her absolute loyalty for me, and they get quieter and love me more because they know someday they may need to rely on my care for them too and they see my light shining through the way I gently prod this student to stay in school and to work hard for me.
 
I am not popular with some of the other teachers who see my safe haven classroom as a place that goes against their firm rules. They see the devotion my students express towards me as evidence that I am too willing to bend and to allow bad behaviors. They would not accept the cussing or the disregard for authority that I must see through in order to reach the child on the other side. And the teachers who these kids run out on are the same teachers who I usually dislike and would never stay put in their classrooms either, even now as an adult.
 
I work closely with the administration, letting them know when I have frequent fliers, and they talk with the kids and hear how much my care for these students is impacting their whole school experience. And I am lucky to work with an administrative team whose goals are not to create compliant robots, but to really understand these students as individuals and to help them enjoy learning.
 
These are not bad kids. They are students who want to do big things and make a difference in the world. They want to help wild animals and stop war and feed hungry children. They want to talk about things that need to change but they don't know who to talk to. And they are the ones when I asked my classes where they would go for a field trip if they could choose anywhere, who answered that they really want to visit colleges, because somehow they believe me and what they've heard, that college will help them do all those things they ever dreamed of doing to make change in the world. If only they can get through middle and high school...
 
I want to find them paths that lead to the lives they hope for. If they can stay in school ... If they can avoid the dangers on the streets they are drawn to when they feel bad about themselves... If they can avoid being yet another drop out or player in the juvenile justice system...
 
I wake up each day eager to see these kids. There are many students who I enjoy because they are pleasant and they do what they need to do to make the system work well. They hand in homework, they are quiet when I ask them to be, they participate in class discussions, and they usually smile and seem content. But it's the students who have the wild sparkle in their eyes, whose intensities glow in the darkness just beyond their stares, with lightning-like emotions and passion for life that is almost palpable, who make teaching the most rewarding career ever. These are the future leaders who will make a big impact. They are the ones with the drive that will move mountains and the boldness to ask the real questions that will move society forward. But if we cannot harness it just slightly enough so that the student carrying that passion will stay engaged, we will lose all of it quickly.
 
The key is caring about these wild souls- understanding that their amazing abilities lie under layers of complexities that they must learn to accept of themselves before they can ever find enough confidence in themselves to expose the more vulnerable pieces to others.
 
There is little written on gifted middle school kids. Perhaps because the formative years begin so early in a child's life and so the stress has been on impacting younger students. But the middle school years are a crucial time for educators to step up and be facilitators for the students' growth and development. Some call these "the lost years" because students tend to regress during this time due to an assortment of issues, much attributed to the body's hormonal growth and development, and sometimes attributed to the lack of effective teaching strategies. Students also become quite lost during these years, and like the Theory of Positive Disintegration, in order for them to come out of this growth period with new confidence and skills we should be the guides who stand nearby to help them remember where they should be going.
 
This is a text written from my heart, with the goal of helping other teachers understand these wild gifted souls during the formidable lost years. The hope is that by focusing on helping the children who challenge us the most, and who create the biggest disruptions, to see that they are incredible and have such bright minds and amazing hearts, that we will change our systems and even ourselves and the ways we respond to challenges too.
 
If we all become the safe havens and loving facilitators these kids need, and question "the way it's always been" so that we create better ways to reach all kids, we may reach some  students who otherwise would fall through the cracks. And by changing the way our education system thinks about smart children (and who is gifted other than just high performers,) we can change the climates in our schools and in our communities, and maybe even the world.
 
It all starts with connecting with just one kid, and sometimes that is more than enough for that one. We become their hope and their safe place, and maybe they will hold onto what we give them for long enough to find their own way through the toughest spots.
 

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I Really Can See You... Finding Hidden Giftedness in Middle School Kids Who Otherwise could be Lost

2/3/2015

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By Kathleen Casper

This 13 year old kid who I will call "G" came into my life like a tornado- twirling into the classroom with so much noise and such a force that the entire room changed course. I had to wait to continue my directions about the new lesson, while G made his way around and between each row of tables and chairs, contacting every student in the room with either his words, his feet, or his swinging backpack. And once he settled down, landing in his own chair, the rest of the one hour of class was sprinkled and melded by his bursts of energy yelling out answers, falling when he tipped his chair too far backwards, throwing wadded up paper across the room towards the trash can when he couldn't get his words on the page just right, and generally ensuring he remained the center of attention until we were all saved by the bell.

"That kid shouldn't be in advanced classes," one teacher told me after she experienced the G storm. "That kid won't do any work," another teacher said later. "We need to put him in detention or maybe even in-school suspension if he won't do what we say," yet another conversation concluded.

I watched this bundle of raw energy for a couple days. They were right- he didn't have the skills to be in the highest levels of some subject area classes. As with many districts, ours mistakenly assumed gifted kids were all high achievers and made gifted classes into acceleration and fast-paced instruction that he couldn't handle since he'd obviously spent many years perfecting the art of not complying with doing assignments, or really paying much attention to anything other than opportunities to cause a scene.

"I think he is gifted," I stated at an informal meeting in the teacher lounge at lunchtime. "He is so emotional and intense and can't sit still."

"Gifted at what?" Another teacher asked. "I don't think that child is gifted at anything."

"No," I tried to explain, "not talented per say, but gifted. As in, he has gifted social-emotional characteristics and he is super smart."

The teacher shook her head. "Gifted kids should be good at something," she stated. "He doesn't seem to have high abilities in any subject." The consensus from the other teachers was that G was gifted at nothing... At DOING nothing. And they wanted to get his schedule changed.

That afternoon I pulled G aside and showed him a book I had. It was a book for the parents of gifted kids. "This is for parents," I told him. "But I think you can look at it and see things that you might identify with."

He took the book and looked at me suspiciously. "I don't want to be in gifted classes," he said adamantly. "They are way too much work."

I shook my head, "G, if you read this and think you might be gifted, as I believe, we can find a way to work with your gifted issues without making you suffer through that," I promised. He took the book home, still looking at me sideways.

I asked him the next day what he thought of the book. He said he was reading it still.

For days I asked about the book. He kept saying he was reading it. I started wondering if he lost it and just didn't want to admit it.

And then I got an email that said something that made me concernced, but also made me giggle a little and see a sliver of hope.

"I refuse to keep this kid in my class after the events of today," my fellow teaching teammate stated. "He is rude and disruptive and when I tried to get him to leave my room, he told me he doesn't care what I do because he is gifted and that Ms. Casper told him he was. And I am very upset at the insubordination and I do not know if he is gifted or not but it's not the place of a teacher to diagnose him anyway."

I was thrilled to see that G was taking this stuff seriously. And that he was making statements about something that could make a huge difference in the way he viewed his entire life, if only he could find appropriate ways to discuss the issue without making other teachers mad. I pulled him aside later when he came to my classroom.

"G, you can't be rude and disrupt the class and then blame me," I said sternly, trying not to laugh.

He nodded, "I know, but she isn't nice to me and doesn't understand me."

"She isn't going to if you act like that," I explained. But I could tell he had a break through. This kid had recognized something of himself in the descriptions in that book and he was hungry for help.

Slowly, by way of joking with him and gently redirecting his outbursts and negative self-talk, I weaseled my way into a role model role for him. When he was kicked out of other classrooms he came to my room. When he felt stressed about things other kids said or did, he came to me to talk about it. As his base of trust grew, he reached out to the other teachers, explaining his concerns better, with the advice I coached him with. And the other teachers made accommodations for his intensities, letting him sit where the noise wasn't overwhelming, giving him calm down time between classes as needed, making him into a helper so he could wiggle on walks to deliver messages... Slowly but surely G worked through many of his behavioral issues with our team of educators working beside him. The process was not perfect, and some days he reverted back to his old habits of clowning around. But the child who often spent many of his days in tears or hiding behind crossed arms on his desk before was starting to flourish.

He was a very bright child with gifted characteristics, and although the formal gifted program was not yet ready to support him (as it needed a lot of work to support most of our at-risk gifted population,) we were creating the social emotional supports he and many other kids in his same situation needed. We were taking our unidentified and under-represented kids from diverse racial and socio-economic backgrounds and giving them the support they needed to soar.

So what did this situation teach us about under served gifted kids in general?

First of all, it taught us that when an intense gifted middle schooler is under-served or isn't even identified, someone is going to suffer. It's very likely all the teachers that student encounters during his day will suffer. The other kids will suffer . And there's no doubt at all that the student himself will suffer. In fact, even the child's community will lose out.

It's probable that the teachers will think he is hyperactive and ask the parents to come to a conference where they can discuss his inability to focus or sit still. The parents will attend the meeting and nod while they hear (yet again,) how their child is not succeeding in the classroom. The teachers will say how bright the child is and how disappointed they are that he isn't living up to his potential. And the parents may agree that more needs to be done, and will decide to take the kid in for diagnosis by a doctor. The teachers will later talk with the principal and school counselor (if they haven't already,) and they will agree to set up meetings for the creation of a 504 Plan or behavioral plans, and the child will be "that" student that the next year's teachers all hope isn't on their class list.

In class, other kids will stress the outbursts or unpredictable behaviors of the unidentified gifted student, if the child is one who tried to make his needs known by raising his voice. Or if he struggles to find the right balance between being friends with the others, or being the class clown. Perhaps he has burned a lot of bridges with other students with his quirky gifted characteristics, or he is so disappointed with the way he never fits in that he is just angry or still trying too hard to be liked, that he isn't. Or maybe he is so good at being silly that the other kids enjoy him and that adds to the chaos of the classroom, when he knows just what to say to set off the flood of drama or big laughs in the middle of a lesson.

Or maybe the other kids won't even know him well at all if he is the type of kid to hide behind the veil of silence. Maybe he puts his head down a lot, or sleeps all day to avoid the chaos of middle school life or classwork he has checked out of months before and now can't catch up to. Maybe he has had such bad habits since his early childhood years when things were too easy that he never learned to struggle, and he is now afraid to ask the questions he needs to know in order to get back on track and follow the daily lessons. Or perhaps the work is still easy and he refuses to engage.

The community will miss out on the joys of having a brilliant kid who graduates and goes on to do amazing things if the unidentified gifted student isn't nurtured in the right direction. He may choose to drop out, or to take up bad habits such as self-medicating his anxiety or tendency to be depressed with drugs or alcohol. Or maybe he will be resilient, and work really hard to make it through school, while learning how to get through the tough parts. Maybe he will still graduate and go to college or do something productive with his life- but imagine how much more he might have been.

The world misses out when teachers miss the opportunity to reach through the cracks and boost a special person up to be a leader, to make grand discoveries or to help others find their own places in the scheme of humanity.

In other words, by missing one child in our attempts to identify and support gifted students, we may impact the entire universe. And at the least, we miss out on changing one child's world.

When we worked with G on his issues, we also learned something else that was just as important...

We learned that by helping a child understand the powerful energy inside him or her, that they are much more able to harness that tornado and use it to do amazing things. That by teaching a gifted child that they are not alone- that their confusing and sometimes overwhelming feelings stem from the way their brains developed and the way they see the world so differently than other kids- you give them hope and help them build back up their self confidence. Gifted kids who don't understand why they are different are often so buried under their own negative self-talk, that they need help digging their way out.

But once they understand that there are others like them, and they learn coping skills, they have a chance to push their lives in a positive direction, and they can use their new skills to help get them there.

And when the child uses this new knowledge to change their own view of themselves, other people notice and react positively to the different attitude and self-confidence. Even if they don't understand what gifted kids need, or how gifted kids act, by encouraging the child to advocate effectively and strongly with appropriate behaviors, the people around him or her will react in ways that reinforce the positive changes.

So in essence, having one person believe in that one child enough to show them resources and lead them to the "water trough," and provide that stable and safe place in the world for the child to start again from, amazing things can be put into motion.

Some people say that early childhood is when kids are most able to absorb new information and learn the most. And by middle school the kids have acquired bad habits that will be hard to change. But I think it is never too late to help a child recognize their own traits and needs. Middle school kids are old enough to have habits that may be harder to change, but they also are smart and independent enough to take information and make it their own.

G isn't the only person who has ever changed their outlook on life after recognizing they might actually be gifted. He is just one of the ones I think might have fallen trough the cracks if I hadn't found him. And I know there are so many others like him out there, just waiting for us to reach out and see them for who they really are.

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    Kathleen Casper

    Kathleen Casper is the Florida Association for the Gifted (FLAG) president. She recently left the position of the state gifted education specialist at the Florida Department of Education and is excited to now be working as a gifted education consultant and providing support to gifted preschool and homeschool children and families. She also continues working virtually as a part time attorney specializing in family and education law for clients in Washington State and federal courts in WA and FL.

    Kathleen is an award winning educator in both Florida and Washington State, certified in multiple endorsement areas including gifted education, and has taught from K-12 in many schools and programs. She spent many years on the board of SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted, www.SENGifted.org) as a director as well as the secretary on the executive committee. She was on the conference planning committee for the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) while planning the 2016 conference in Florida. She is the former vice president of the Washington Association for Educators of the Talented and Gifted (www.waetag.net), the former legislative committee chair of FLAG, as well as the former Highly Capable Facilitator for Tacoma Public Schools.

    Please join us on the OneWorldGiffted Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/Oneworld-Gifted-475374679239353/

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