Looks like a serious conversation broke out here.
I attempted to take a light hearted poke at a Mom and she responded, as did another. Remind me to be careful around Mom With Kids. I shouldn’t poke them.
I don’t think there is a difference between smart kids and gifted kids. I think the gummit has foisted “gifted” as a feel good term and made it political.
So I poked around a little bit and found this:
the Daily Mail: “Her parents knew Georgia Brown was bright. After all, she could count to ten, recognised her colours and was even starting to dabble with French.
But it was only when their bubbly little two-year-old took an IQ test that her towering intellect was confirmed.”
Georgia has become the youngest female member of Mensa after scoring a genius-rated IQ of 152.
This puts her in the same intellectual league, proportionate to her age, as physicist Stephen Hawking.
According to an expert in gifted children, Georgia is the brightest two-year-old she has ever met. Parents Martin and Lucy Brown have always regarded their youngest child as a remarkably quick learner.
She was crawling at five months and walking at nine months.
By 14 months, she was getting herself dressed.
“She spoke really early - by 18 months she was having proper conversations,” Mrs Brown said.
“She would say, ‘Hello I’m Georgia, I’m one’. She was also putting her shoes on and putting them on the right feet.” read more
So will the gummit declare her gifted? If the gummit gives us gifted kids can they still grow up to be geniuses? Or are they eternally gifted? Can a smart kid be a genius? Or are they just nerds? Would an artist qualify as gifted? How about an athlete? (Think Tiger.)
Inquiring minds want to know.
I sure am glad I never had to deal with such weighty issues in our family.
UPDATE: I had to deal with the Geek, Nerd, Dork issue. (Used to link to junk site.)
But back then there weren’t so many choices. Guys were either jocks or not. I played in the band, guess which I was.
Sheesh. Some people. My attitude is, if someone doesn’t like what I write, they don’t have to read it.
I was a gifted child and a musical child prodigy… and I have two gifted sons. Yadda-yadda. Poke away!
Labels stink but it sure can be hard to stop using them.
Gretchen C is right about IQ and money/occupation. People think high IQ guarantees high income. Many gifted kids grow up to be nice, normal people doing ordinairy things, but I bet their mothers didn’t have them doing tricks on tv.
BTW: Gretchen, if you don’t care about labels, why in the heck did you take the Mensa test if you already knew you were gifted? Mensa is just a big club of know-it-alls who like to say they are members of Mensa.
@Prairie, it’s the Jon Benet deal with intelligent kids that I dislike.
You’re post flamed Gretchen, and I don’t want this to become nasty.
Remember Ann Landers punishment? (Three lashes with wet noodle.)
Today on the BBC show World Have Your Say? The question was about this new musical opening up in England called Jihad: The Musical and it’s supposed to be a comedy. Well, a lot of Muslims are upset and don’t find the humor funny at all.
http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/edinburgh.cfm?id=1186232007
Everyone is sensitive somewhere.
@PrairieGourmet, thanks. Now if Gretchen tells you to fuck off, she means it in a nice way.
First one is: I hope it doesn’t bomb.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/worldhaveyoursay/2007/07/joking_about_jihadists_1.html
I mention it mostly ironically — i.e., that it doesn’t freakin’ make a difference necessarily. I know lots of millionaires who can’t read and write so well. Likewise, I know lots of genuises who make well under six figures. As Douglas Adams said, Hey ho, it’s a funny old world.
Plus, as I’ve said, I’m an equal opportunity insulter. And my favorite persons to insult are myself, and lawyers such as my husband, and my supposedly gifted kids. The hallmark of learning the ways of the world is learning to laugh at oneself and one’s own.
My nephew tested gifted as well. Yet the school refuses to do an IEP for him or give him the extra help he needs. In fact, last year his first grade teacher actually told him (the child who is reading on a 5th grade level) to slow down and not work so fast because it made the other kids feel bad. Sometimes that label doesn’t do much more than frustrate.