While it is
generally held that gifted students are among the best and the brightest among
today’s students, there are issues that make them special beyond their high
IQ’s. Because of their giftedness these students often. Have issues that
you might not expect.
Expectations
of Others
Gifted
students often have a hard time meeting expectation of parents and teachers who
think that because they are gifted they should be uniformly gifted. This
is not the case. In fact, it is not unusual for gifted students to have
what is called asynchronous development. Gifted students might be amazing
students in math, yet be merely average in language arts. It is even possible
for a gifted student to be below level in a subject. But just because they are
gifted the expectations of those around them to excel in everything puts an
incredible amount of pressure on students who already feel their difference.
It is
important for teachers, parents, and other involved adults to consider that a
gifted student might not have all the answers and might, in fact, need a little
bit of extra help in some subjects. It does not change the fact. That
they are gifted for them to need extra help in a subject. This leads to
another issue.
Expectations
of Self
By the time
a student discovers that they learn faster, or easier, or differently than
other students they have already been assigned a label. When that labelis
gifted not only are the expectations of the adults set, but often the student
has expectation that gifted means that they will not have to work as hard to
achieve top grades.