Gifted Academy

I need to start out this post by saying that I am not a Simpson's fan. I don't really care for it. I have probably not seen ten episodes in my life. I am telling you this so that when I tell you about a Simpson's episode I saw once that made an impact on me, you will understand what a big impact it was for me to still remember it and be thinking about it.


Did you ever see the episode when Bart writes his name on the test of the really smart kid (Milton?)? The test results come back as exceptionally gifted. In a conference with Bart's parents, the teacher recommends sending Bart to a special school for the gifted. At first Bart thinks this is so cool. The school allows the students the freedom to choose their own course of study at their own pace (I wonder whether this was based on unschooling or Montessori). To Bart that means a lot of freedom to do nothing.


Things turn out not so well for him. He's no longer the cool one on campus. He's the odd one out. The other kids tease him and torment him. The teacher doesn't understand him - she assumes everything he does is due to his extreme giftedness. Eventually he is able to transfer back to the regular school.


There were three things about this episode that made an impression on me. The first was seeing the school and thinking, "How cool would it be to go to a school like that." The second was seeing the tables turned on Bart. He knew how it was to be treated like he treated others who didn't fit in. There was a resonance there of knowing how that felt. Lastly, there was the fact that given the right circumstances, these exceptionally bright kids were no different than Bart. They had an opportunity to exert their superiority, and they took it. I am not sure whether this is more unnerving or comforting, knowing that deep down there are more similarities between people than we like to admit.


This was just a little bit of what was going through my head when I read this post by Kim Moldofsky about sending her sons to the Gifted Academy. She calls them gifted refugees. It made me feel lucky to have had the teachers I did who tried to challenge me and very lucky to have been drafted into programs for the gifted and/or creative from first grade up. All this despite going to a public school on the wrong side of the valley - very, very lucky. (And it always helps to have a mom who'll go to the school and talk to the teacher when she thinks her child needs to be moved up to the next math class.)


Her post made me sad for those kids who need to change schools because they are not lucky enough to have all of that. It made me even sadder for the kids who cannot change schools. And then there's those that get missed by the system. The saddest of all are probably the ones who are misdiagnosed by the system.


If the topic interests you at all, I would recommend heading over to Kim's blog and reading her post. It was a very emotional read for me. Kim's a great writer.