bloodyrosemccoy: (Any Friends)
bloodyrosemccoy ([personal profile] bloodyrosemccoy) wrote2014-11-09 07:59 pm

That Label Again

I am having a whole lot of school flashbacks now that I'm here at the Space Place.

See, my basic job description is Tell Kids How Cool Space Is. Which is pretty great. But my coworker, the guy who tries to keep all us presenters headed in more or less the same direction, has pointed out that I am specifically good at telling gifted kids about space.

"Oh, that's common," my friend who is a bona fide teacher informed me. "You teach to your own type. It takes a conscious effort if you're teaching other types."

So I've embarked upon a crash course in figuring how to teach other types of learners. It is REALLY DIFFICULT, you guys. When I was a kid, a lot of the techniques teachers used in the classroom to try to drill some knowledge into our skulls struck me as patronizing, redundant, and stupid. My coworker assures me that had more to do with my own brain than the teachers', and that the techniques that simply annoy me--like making kids repeat vocabulary terms--are quite useful. I have no idea if that's true, because if it is my own brain, there's no way I can be objective. So I have to believe him for now and try to do a lot of education that seems to me to be counterintuitive. And I keep flashing back to being a kid who had to put with this nonsense.

It also reminds me of something that was a unique problem for a gifted kid--that unlike other types of special ed, having/being a gifted kid was seen as desirable. And that made it really hard to talk about the problems involved (like frustration with bafflingly obtuse peers,* social awkwardness, and boredom at school) without getting a lot of "CRY MOAR, EMOKID" responses. Even now, I am not sure if I should talk about my life experience because people think it's bragging, when I'm mostly trying to figure out why the hell life seems so different to me than it does to others. So the Space Place job has been surprisingly revelatory.

But! It's not all terrible! The cool thing is that we are also called upon to tailor our lesson plans for different learning styles--like, for example, GIFTED KIDS. Which means that my unique talents are useful! I offered to try finding resources to expand our current lesson plans for the kids with the same kinds of upside-down brains as my own. So I get to dig into gifted resources and try them out, and it's gonna be AWESOME. I may be weird, but at least I an use my weirdness to help other weird kids really enoy their Valuable Learning Experiences. And that's what's making the Space Place job so darn much fun.


*I must have been annoying as fuck as a kid, beause I simply didn't understand how other people couldn't grasp concepts that seemed so simple.

[identity profile] ellixis.livejournal.com 2014-11-10 09:02 am (UTC)(link)
I think that the "gifted and talented" programs should probably be renamed. Naming them that implies that we're normal kids with a bit extra on top, rather than kids who function and learn differently, and that's a disservice to everyone involved. (And everyone not involved, because it's the wrong impression and it gives that "extra-desirable" edge.) Semantics? Maybe. But semantics exist for a reason, and the language used to talk about individuals and teaching plans makes a difference in how people think about the subject and approach its challenges.

I must have been annoying as fuck as a kid, beause I simply didn't understand how other people couldn't grasp concepts that seemed so simple.

My mom still tells a story about me in kindergarten, when I was five: I had done the chicken-bone-in-vinegar experiment, and because I read and understood reading earlier than most kids, I understood the science behind it, or at least the kid-friendly simplified version. That was FASCINATING! So, naturally, I took it to show and tell, and I showed the class how the chicken bone was all bendy, and started explaining earnestly that it was bendy because I had put it in vinegar and the vinegar had leached the calcium out, and partway through my explanation I noticed that nobody was paying attention. This was a travesty. I stopped, frowned at the class, shook my rubbery chicken bone at them, and yelled, "YOU GUYS LISTEN! THIS IS INTERESTING!"

It didn't even occur to me till YEARS later that the average five-year-old probably doesn't possess the baseline scientific knowledge and logic required to follow along and understand what I was talking about, and I have a clear snapshot memory of the frustration of seeing blank and uninterested faces when I had brought along what I thought was amazing interesting stuff that everyone would think was cool.
Edited 2014-11-10 10:22 (UTC)

[identity profile] fractalwolf.livejournal.com 2014-11-10 12:19 pm (UTC)(link)
"I think that the "gifted and talented" programs should probably be renamed." Ugh, yes, a thousand times yes! Nothing is "just" semantics, especially when it comes to how people view/categorize children.

[identity profile] padparadscha.livejournal.com 2014-11-10 10:06 pm (UTC)(link)
HAHAHAHA that sounds like something I'd have done. "COME ON, GUYS, PAY ATTENTION! THIS IS COOL!"

I vaguely recall that they kept changing the name of the gifted programs because parents kept clamoring to get their kids in too. It never worked. And cramming other kids into the gifted classes is bad for everyone--for the gifted kids who are once again forced to slow down, and the other kids who are cool and great without being gifted who are expected to be something they're not. That's just not fair.