How is a gifted student doing at school? There is an acceptance in the school for extra talent in art, music and sport but not in academic subjects. A particularly gifted student may be nicknamed "study horse" and try to hide his giftedness by deliberately giving wrong answers or underachieving. This risks giving the gifted student an unnecessarily negative development of skills.
A gifted student tends to be seen by school staff and principals as difficult rather than as an asset. This is what researcher Malin Ekesryd Nordström says, who recently received her doctorate at the Department of Education at Umeå University. Malin Ekesryd Nordström previously worked as a special education teacher and highlights that the understanding and handling of special talent varies among the school's staff.
Although preschool often serves as a favorable environment for these children, there are gaps in communication during the transition to primary school.
This can lead to understimulation and dissatisfaction in school. Stress and high workload among staff also contribute to a focus on problems rather than opportunities for a gifted student. The thesis' conclusions underline the need for increased awareness and educational support to promote the development of these students.
Easily bored as the focus is on those with the most difficulties. Unfortunately, this happens when the focus is on putting everyone over the approved limit while we have too few resources.
Resources are essential.
It gets even worse if the schools participate in a market with point calculations in the evening papers - then you easily give top marks even to those who learn nothing at all, so that the school gets a high mark in the ranking.
But apart from that, you will certainly be understimulated if you already know what is being taught. I slept through first and second grade, or drew old men in the books, because I already knew everything. It would probably have been better if the teachers had given me "reading books" as it was once called. Because there actually were, early on. Nils Holgersson was written as a "wide reading book" in geography as early as 1906.
However, this is insanely difficult, say pedagogic experts. In a normal fifth grade, there are students at a skill level between the ages of eight and fourteen. In addition to all the different interests that kids can have. Probably the whole idea of year classes is a mistake. Perhaps it is better to let them acquire what the curriculum believes you should be able to do as a citizen at the pace it takes, each subject separately. And if they are completely hopeless at the age of thirteen or fourteen, let them work with something they can do and then apply to a folk college when they have realized that you have to know something if you want to get anywhere in life. Although I have already written that.
One of my friends worked as a teacher for hopeless high school cases, and he once told me how easy it was to get even those students to learn if they understood what it was good for. So feel free to dedicate the pedagogical expertise to them and let those who can already cope on their own - but feel free to give them tasks that are a little difficult. That's how you stimulate everyone.
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