Re: a 'disability' or not ?
 

yes, she is being helped by harnessing her talents, if you want to take it a step further why shouldnt students who are not doing 'well' be given private tuition what about the rest of the class who are average ?

this does happen in some cases......

if she is brighter she should be able to move up a year, the case being put forward is she is a scientific and maths 'genius' it doesent cover other areas......

and thats what they should stick to doing


yes so he should pay for this, its saying to the taxpayer, (look my child is cleverer then yours so she gets special treatment)

she already has a head start......


i have nothing against someone wishing to excel there childs education, but YOU must pay for that.............

Re: a 'disability' or not ?
 

IMHO the council certainly should not pay. Surely, at this point, the child has an idea of what areas interest her. Given that, why doesn't a company or organisation step in and sponsor her education. In return, she could sign a contract (or her father could) which will tie her to the company who sponsors her for a couple of years.

Football teams do this with talented kids, so why can't companies do it with the academically talented? This way, she'll get the best education and the company will get a talented employee.

Re: a 'disability' or not ?
 

Where does it all stop? In every class there are, by definition, pupils that are above average ability and pupils that are below average. If tuition is aimed at the average student then every pupil that is above average is being held back by the system and those below average are struggling to achieve, unless they all have one to one tuition. How far above or below average would a pupil have to be, to be classed as having special needs?

Re: a 'disability' or not ?
 

excellent idea, now to find a company that would invest these days :rolleyes:

Re: a 'disability' or not ?
 

Well, that's the real problem isn't it? Companies in this country do not think beyond tomorrow. They leave training to the state, take little interest in further education, moan about the calibre of new recruits, and couldn't give a stuff about their current employees.

Re: a 'disability' or not ?
 

While I accept that in a better world,we would find a way to inspire and fund above average or gifted kids,I would have to say that this child has no claim to special funding in any way.

As the father of a special needs child(my son is autistic with severe hyperactivity and learning disability) i would have to say that I would like for my son to get the special support that he requires,which has been an ongoing battle regarding resorces for the past 5 1/2 years.
I dont want to sound like a winer who wants to sponge society for stuff,but I do feel that we must cater to the needs of kids with accepted disabilities before we pander to the children of "above average" abilities.
I would say however that it is the job of our wonderful government to get off their collective backsides and do something to fund our children ....of all abilities,as they are the future of our society and often the most forgotten.

Re: a 'disability' or not ?
 

well said, im sure its hard for you :(

Re: a 'disability' or not ?
 

:tu: Very well said i agree with you :)

Re: a 'disability' or not ?
 

...and what if (as in most cases) the cost is prohibitive?
I am not arguing that bright kids should get extra tuition/funding....just the exceptionally gifted ones.

Re: a 'disability' or not ?
 

How do you decide the threshold standard for "exceptionally gifted". And in what types of gift?

Re: a 'disability' or not ?
 

http://aca.ninemsn.com.au/stories/539.asp

To quote.

"With a child like Mark you can tell as soon as they walk in, 'that's a bright child'. They just have this sort of intensity, and maybe they're not so good at relating to people," she says.

"It means he's not like other kids, basically. His needs are way different than a normal six year old. He will never fit perfectly into a class where he's with aged peers. That's in a nutshell what being profoundly gifted means."

To put that score in perspective, the average child Mark's age has an IQ of 100. Gifted children are around the 130 level. At 200, Mark is a genius †� even to other child geniuses.

But his mother worries about the labels that have already come with the IQ score, that of "socially isolated" and "eccentric professor".

"Nobody wants that for their child, to grow up with that image. I want him to be able to communicate with other people, but not to be frustrated academically, so it's really hard to find a balance," she says.

Helen Dudeney from the Talented and Gifted Children Association says Mark is one in a million with such a high IQ. She deals mostly with the kids that are two in every hundred †� still rare and still difficult for the public education system to handle.

"The lack of coping comes because teachers aren't trained in teaching gifted children. They're not trained in identification and what to do when identification happens," says Dudeney.

Helen believes it's also vitally important for those children to be recognised and supported in their talents, in much the same way those gifted in sport are given extra attention."


We are not talking about bright children here.We are talking about genius children.They have as much propensity to get into mischief as those who are considered 'special needs' by the members of this site.In fact a bored genius is a waste as they will switch off and become alienated from society and we maybe denied another Einstein or Hawking.

Incog.

Re: a 'disability' or not ?
 

Ah the first post that suggests that having the gift of genius can be a double edged sword that if not "treated" could become a hindrance to proper balanced development. I can now see an argument that the child, if the educational development is not appropriate, can suffer mental anguish and potentially therefore the genius is a disability as it prevents a "normal" development.

However this is all very tenous, and ultimately seeks to blame society for everyone who doesn't turn out well balanced.

In practice I beleive society has accepted that it needs to assist those with a disability to participate and integrate as far as practical with society to gain a quality of life and equality with their peers if at all possible. I beleive however that the generally accepted view of disability is that something is missing or not present, not that you have something that performs better than others.

Re: a 'disability' or not ?
 

As a teacher I just want the tools to do the job.If I'm not trained or qualified to recognise and deal with a genius child then I want as a teacher and a parent for the state to provide for that child.Our children are a national resource and to put efforts into the less able and average but to ignore the special needs of the super bright is cruel and a complete waste.Yes if the parents have the money to give the necessary education to such a child that's fine.However we are talking about children from homes that do not have the ability to provide the extra special education such a child needs.

I simply do not understand the attitude that such children can cope so lets just ignore the problem.It's the same attitude that was prevalent about those suffering from dyslexia in the 60's,70's and 80's.

The fact is that there are very few genius children as they are quite rare(wish those with ADHD were as rare) and the cost of providing appropriate education would not be as prohibitive as you might imagine.

Seeing a child that cannot cope with relationships with their peer group just because they are so intelligent is heartbreaking.

Incog.

Re: a 'disability' or not ?
 

that should be privately funded, why should other members of the public pay for someone elses child to get on to a accelerated learning program, in a private school ?

if the parents cannot achieve funding then simply moving them up a class or two can retain there sanity.........

Re: a 'disability' or not ?
 

Would you pay for your child to go to a school like that ???

I think that you would find the costs rather prohibitive !!!