THE OTHER SIDE
The challenge of the exceptional Anuradha C
M
y last piece in Teacher Plus was about the solemn and disturbing problem of educating special children with learning disabilities. While doing the research for that article, I came across a startling fact. While a great many number of parents are struggling to handle the education of children with learning deficiencies, a sizable number are affected by its opposite – how to educate a high IQ child who is naturally endowed with above normal learning abilities!
Illustration: Boopathy Srinivasan
It is often argued that a problem of plenty is a good problem to have. So if a child seems extra smart, then that’s a matter for rejoicing. That’s the common assumption. However, when we dig deeper into the situation, we realize one critical inadequacy of our education system – it is designed with the average student in mind. So sub-par and above par cases are both outliers. And hence both categories face difficulties.
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While the problems of special children are more obvious, the hurdles faced by these high IQ or ‘gifted’ children often go undetected. Especially because the problems are not academic in nature. How do you spot a gifted child? Defining common characteristics of such gifted children is in itself an arduous task. That’s because the gifts that these children seem to be born with are varied. Some children have astounding memory, some are wizards with numbers while some others are extraordinarily quick learners. The primary definition of a gifted child is one whose intelligence puts them in the top 2% of the population. But a high IQ score isn’t the only way to tell that a child is gifted. For instance, an IQ score may not be the right measure to judge excellent musical abilities in a gifted child.
