Reflection on how to encourage the desire and commitment to work of gifted children

Two central questions: Is the problem well-identified? Is the problem anticipated?

I think everything boils down to indicators, analysis, and identification of the problem, if there is one. Sometimes, the evaluation of knowledge is the main issue and problem, especially in primary school. For the teacher, it’s simple: if an evaluation shows many errors, then the knowledge is insufficient. You will then be told that these results are moderated by the teacher. Ask how, in what way, and what is ultimately concluded and recorded in the school file.

Let's take an example from primary school, where a teacher indicates that the child does not know the difference between a number and a digit. Question the child orally; if they respond immediately and without error (the words might not be the expected ones, but the concept is well understood), you will have your answer.

Ask yourself, if the child knows the difference, where does the problem come from? The child does not understand or cannot manipulate the concept? It’s so simple that the child makes no effort or doesn't care because they know they know it (or does not activate cognition, as neurologists say)? But then, if the teacher concludes that the child does not master this subject, is the decision made to have them work on it again? This might be totally counterproductive, perhaps leading the child to realize that the teacher cannot properly evaluate or meet their expectations and teach them relevant and intelligent things. In short, this underscores the importance of finely defining where the problem lies and whether there is a problem at all.

Without further details in the teacher’s evaluation, the parent may feel they must understand that if the child gets an exercise wrong, or several, the teacher concludes the child doesn’t know or cannot manipulate the concept. And that’s not necessarily the case.

I also think that if the teacher tells the child they believe the child hasn’t acquired the knowledge while the problem lies elsewhere, this simply discredits the teacher. It shows they do not know or understand, and the child loses trust and no longer believes in the value of what they do, the teacher’s analysis, or what they can learn from them.

In such a situation, it is crucial to avoid making constraint the only solution since we know that the relationship with the teacher is paramount to achieving results, not just for the gifted but for all children. This is related to the Pygmalion effect.

Returning to problem analysis, without precision and discussion among co-educators, what are the teachers basing their statements on? For relevant evaluation, it seems essential to observe and question the child about what is happening or has happened under the right conditions.

Another example applies to some gifted children who have problems with writing and spelling or are at least reluctant to improve.

The same types of evaluation problems are validated by experience in dictation.

Try the test!

The child spells words perfectly aloud in a game. The next day, you use the same words in a dictation, and it’s a disaster. Then two days later, test them on writing about their grievances or ideas on a topic they care about, and they make almost no mistakes on the reused words. Even if it’s not scientific or statistical, after discussion, the problem lies in the exercise of dictation itself. The child sees no point in it, has no desire, lacks meaning, and doesn’t make an effort, which depends on their state of mind and how the activity is presented.

Of course, in class, the context changes everything, but still, why do they not bother to reread their work when they know it will help them correct some mistakes?

Desire – Interest – Stakes: an inseparable triptych of a learning plan.

You may also notice that pleasing the teacher, dad, or grandma no longer engages them. And we know that for the gifted, this dimension of attachment is a real motivator. Therefore, we must question the causes.

In my opinion, the teaching team needs to properly evaluate the problems the child might face, limiting repetitive evaluations that do not accurately reflect their knowledge. They should report to the parents precisely and respond to requests for details so that actions can also be taken at home.

Another typical problem that can be identified by the teacher and then addressed in a particular way:

"We lighten the workload because we understand that organizing is difficult for him."

Here, the parent is forced to interpret, as we will see, the phrase is quite vague! They might understand that the child, having organizational problems (unspecified or unidentified) during class exercises, is therefore given fewer exercises than others because otherwise, they don’t have time to finish?

The parent can logically cross-reference with other information or elements, like this possibly causing mentioned slowness or that “lack of attention” might be the origin.

I extrapolate a lot… But what is really happening, what does such a phrase actually say about what is going on and the analysis explanation?

The parent sometimes feels when confronted with such statements, seemingly indisputable, that the teacher's word is conflated with a “divine word.”

The reality of such a phrase is that for the parent who does not know what the teacher is referring to and who must trust blindly, it does not allow for any analysis. As a parent, one needs precise information, always with the spirit of what we all understand from the institution’s desire for co-education.

Once again, we need to delve deeper! And for that, we must bring out an arsenal of questions to clarify the situation: Is it really an organizational problem? Didn’t they also face a question they couldn’t understand? Did they understand what was expected? Could the direct cause be slowness instead? What is the origin of this slowness? Is it due to disinterest, difficulty, or lack of knowledge, and in what way? Is the child simply blocking on the implicit as often happens? Is it related to desire? Is it related to repetition? What task is lightened and how? What does the teacher find complicated? In what way does the teacher consider it an organizational problem?

And I have deliberately limited the number of questions one could envisage to understand the situation and find a solution to a problem that may not even exist.

Have you ever been called by your child struggling with an exercise whose question was incomprehensible or called for interpretation? Certainly, and me too. Should we conclude that the child has a problem? Of course not.

One question should also concern you: faced with parents advocating for certain actions, is the teacher identifying false problems to implement solutions, by principle, that are not costly for them, the teaching team, or the institution, and that will solve nothing, perhaps even exacerbate the problem, just so the parents think things are being analyzed, implemented, and are satisfied?

Really, this question is central.

Because co-education implies understanding each other, and to understand each other, the minimum necessary, among other things, is to communicate clearly and precisely with a common frame of reference.

The evaluation and analysis of a problem might be perfectly clear to the teacher in this example, but you’ll notice I can pose a number of questions to refine understanding of the situation.

As a parent, you must ensure that it is not the system and its processes that generate problems that do not actually exist.

Is spinning wheels not also an attempt to divert reflection from the crucial element of learning that the institution struggles to create: desire?

In the face of desire, the institution, like parents swimming in good intentions and wanting to prepare their children for future life, might take the only stance left to them or adopt the only possible strategy, illustrated by a discourse of constraint and submission like “we don’t always do what we want in life.” Unfortunately, with a gifted child, such a discourse obviously cannot hold, or at least not in the long term, especially when the sense of duty cannot be genuinely applied to the task demanded. And I would go further, even if, above all, we must not question the system, practices, and enter the debate, we cannot simply pretend that it cannot come from the system and that the problem must necessarily lie with the child.

We must not confuse “life is not always fair” (which is evident) with “we don’t always do what we want in life” (which is unrelated and a matter of choice).

The fundamental problem is most often that of analysis. Unfortunately, in this context, the teacher being an authority figure is not the best placed to ask the necessary questions for their analysis, which they likely master very little, to get answers that come as close to reality as possible.

Do you think your child would spontaneously say to their teacher: “I didn’t want to do the exercise because I’ve already done five like it!” or “it was too easy, I thought it wouldn’t teach me anything”?

In conclusion, the parent must be able to analyze by gathering data from their child and indicate why, in their view, the solution is to:

• Minimize perpetual repetition,
• Minimize biased evaluations,
• Minimize hasty conclusions,
• Maximize enriching and motivating novelty in underemphasized learning within the institution,

I am currently preparing an article on the issue of early class advancement, but we naturally arrive at it here. When the teaching team cannot sufficiently complicate the learning and no cross-level work is done, the parent anticipating will inevitably have to consider this issue.

Regarding the question of class skipping or cross-level work, the institution sometimes responds: “It is out of the question” “Class skipping remains exceptional.”

However, this is part of the recommendations in documents given to teachers and officials as “training,” so the parent is entitled to ask for explanations.

Often, they are satisfied not to give you any reasoned explanation. We then enter the realm of “that’s the way it is,” and in the end, the only argument that seems relevant is considering that the interests of children in the next grade would be very different from theirs, and it is a way to “make them grow up” too fast. On the question of class skipping, I have a very simple view outside of case-by-case study: will this class skipping be a solution to boredom and desire? Without the conducive environment allowing the gifted child to see their interest and be a demander, it is not necessarily a good thing, especially for the child who will expose their difference to others or at least their “scholar” status.

Of course, it depends on contexts and the child’s birth date. A class skip does not have the same impact at the grade level if the child is at the beginning or end of the year.

That said, cross-level work can be a subtle way to test the solution of class skipping.