All gifted children (and parents) love a good analogy and I believe I have a new one.
Inspiration Behind Analogy
My son never seemed to like the water. Since age 9 months as we tried to walk into a pool with him on a hip, he’d scream. He screamed through Mom and Tot class as the oldest, age 4, in the class. He was told he could not return and had to “graduate” to the next level, despite this apparent hatred or fear of water. Yet he loved baths. He never wanted out of the bath. We figured in time he'd decide to give swimming a try.
Everyone said, “ Oh get him around his peers who are swimming. He’ll see he’s missing out on the fun and will decide to get moving.” – Strike. He would stand on the side of the pool or the steps of the pool screaming at his friends to “get back here” or hed try to climb in my lap, crying that no one would play with him. I wouldn’t let him in my lap, but he would not swim. – Strike.
Everyone said, “Get him in private lessons. He just needs some extra instruction and time to get comfortable and feel a bit more in control.” Nine months of lessons and we were asked to leave. - Strike.
Everyone said, “Give him a big reward to work toward that he definitely want to swim for.” We went on a cruise, beaches, boats, water parks – all Strikes.
Interestingly enough, I’ve seen my son swim. He swam about 3 feet with the private swim instructor. I saw him. She saw him. He did it. I thought he’d be happy. When he came up for air, he was screaming, “Nooo…” When the instructor said, “You swam, you swam!” and when I said, “I saw you – you swam!” He very bluntly looked at me and said, “but I didn’t WANT to swim.”
Even more interesting on the cruise we took, we went to several beaches and my son encountered his first “lazy river”. He sat on the sand and let the surf spin him in circles. He was in heaven letting the current push him around. In the lazy river, he even picked up his feet – awkwardly moving his hands and feet. “I’m swimming!” He had just turned 7 years old.
It was this 4 year process and experience with my son together with a comment at a parent support group that has brought my analogy to a head. The woman in the group said, “but my son is drowning.” in reference to his level of happiness in public school.
The Analogy
Swimming Pool
If public school is like a swimming pool, then the purpose of the swimming pool is a place for children to learn to swim. The definition of swimming has been identified as keeping ones head above water without the aid of a flotation device.
A gifted child placed in a swimming pool will stand in the 3” level of water and will flap his arms and announce, I’m swimming, as measured by the established: head above water, no flotation device. He is recognized by the public school as having accomplished the goal: he can swim.
But then a particular “swimming pool guard" changed the definition of swimming THIS particular child: When in water too deep to stand. This part of the analogy was when we learned that my son's Kindergarten teacher was grading my son's accomplishments on a curve. "He can't just get a 3 in everything (3 = mastering a skill); other children work so hard to even earn a 2. He has to learn to work hard for his grades." He was 5 years old. He had either mastered his shapes and colors or he had not; comparing him to the other children was beyond our comprehension.
A gifted child placed in a swimming pool in water too deep to stand in will move his arms and legs in the manner in which he learned back in the shallow end. “I’m swimming,” he says quietly as he barely treads water, bobs under the water level for a few moments, and comes up gasping for air, “I’m swimming.”
As a parent, on the side of the swimming pool, you try trust the guard that he/she knows what she’s doing. The parents’ know that their child is NOT swimming - he is drowning, but the guard knows what drowning looks like and that is not drowning; your child is swimming. OR, if it looks like drowning, the guard, based on past prejudice believes the child to be just faking drowning or to be too lazy to try harder. After all, the guard reasons, we all know he knows how to swim – we saw him do it before - we checked him off the list.
Ocean Waters
A gifted child placed in an ocean, a moving current, and he is free to choose his own depth of water: from barely to his ankles to up to his neck where he has to jump to stay above the waves. He lifts his feet, he moves his arms and legs – he’s swimming. At least HE thinks he’s swimming. They said at the swimming pool (public school) that if he was in water too deep to touch, moving his arms and legs and keeping his head above water then that = swimming.
But unlike the pool, the child does not struggle to keep from drowning. It may not be swimming, technically, but he is not drowning, not distressed, not scared. The child is moving his arms and legs to keep up with the current – he’s MOVING – he’s making progress – he’s getting somewhere. He doesn’t always end up exactly where he planned, but the smile on his face shows what he’s learned along the way.
Drowning at Swimming Pool?
The painful part of this analogy is when the gifted child is in the deep end of the pool. The parent is very aware the child is drowning; sometimes even the child has become aware and is wearing down, losing enthusiasm. The parent, in this analogy, is now faced with a choice: locate the swimming pool guard to request a flotation device; locate the owner of the swimming pool and explain that his/her child requires a moving current in order to swim (stagnant water will not work for him) or jump in the pool to save your child from drowning.
The Conclusion
As you can see these are the choices for the parents of a 'drowning' gifted child in a public school:
• request accommodations each year from each teacher and get different answers each time all the while your child struggles, treads water, drowns…
• attempt to educate administrators, principals, and “the system” to change the entire design of the school system (swimming pool) and accept the new paradigm of MOVING water – hoping to crack this impossible bureaucracy before your child gives up and stops moving his arms and legs to even give the appearance of swimming…
• pull your child out of the public school system and find his ocean… (homeschool, private school, other)
How can I justify advocating for the accommodation and incorporation of gifted children into the public school systems while my child would pay the price for the “patience and due diligence” of a “rational and reasonable” time frame provided in the state’s gifted education improvement plan. Can I sacrafise the safety of my own child for improved gifted education for the next generation?
I couldn't.