Ungroup

This now already old classification of the different types of gifted people might help parents and educators to better understand attitudes and behaviours that can be just a sign of giftedness.  If every teacher would read this list even if only once in their lifetime, I believe that much talent would be saved in the long run.   Many attitudes that are considered disrespectful or unfocused, that often get their “perpetrators” punished for them, have an origin on a uniddentyfied talent.  From my experience I got to conclude that the problem many gifted children face is that their lack of adaptability and compliance makes tutors think they are being defied on their authority.  And sometimes it is true.  But for a reason…

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Authors: Betts, G., Neihart M.

Published in:  Gifted Child Quarterly

National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC)

1988

Type I - The Successful.  Perhaps as many as 90% of identified gifted students in school programs are Type I’s. Children who demonstrate the behavior, feelings, and needs classified as Type I’s have learned the system.

Type II - The Challenging.  Type II’s are the divergently gifted. Many school systems fail to identify Type II gifted children.

Type III - The Underground.  The Type III gifted child is known as “the underground gifted.” Generally, these are middle school females although males may also want to hide their giftedness.

Type IV - The Dropouts.  Type IV gifted students are angry.  Type IV students are frequently gifted children who were identified very late, perhaps not until high school.

Type V - The Double-Labeled.  Type V students often do not exhibit behaviors that schools look for in the gifted.

Type VI – The Autonomous Learner.   Type VI students are independent and self-directed.

PROFILES OF THE GIFTED & TALENTED
Figure 1

I have been playing video-games since I was 7.  I spent many thousands of hours playing them, and I still play when I have time.  But besides not having time for them, there is something that worries me about current video-games.  The arrival of Microsoft into the video-game market has also brought a stronger presence of Western, specially American, video-game developers in what was once a Japanese dominated market.  And even if so many teenagers and young adults are so happy about this entrance, as a father I am not so happy.

These American video-games are generally much more violent than the Japanese ones.  According to the Wikipedia, this is the list of the top 10 selling games for the original Sony Playstation:

• Gran Turismo (10.85M) – Driving Simulator
• Final Fantasy VII (9.8M) – Role-Playing Game
• Gran Turismo 2 (9.37M) – Driving Simulator
• Tomb Raider II (8M) – Adventure/exploration
• Metal Gear Solid (7M) – Stealh
• Tomb Raider (7M) – Adventure/Exploration
• Crash Bandicoot (6.8M) – Platforms
• Final Fantasy VIII (6M) – Role-Playing Game
• Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped (5.7M) – Platforms
• Final Fantasy IX (5.30M) – Role-Playing Game

Of the total 10, all are Japanese but the Tomb Rider games, that were produced in the UK.

This is the top 10 for the current Microsoft Xbox360:

• Halo 3 (8.1M) – Shooter
• Gears of War (5M)- Shooter
• Gears of War 2 (5M)- Shooter
• Grand Theft Auto IV (4.3M)- Crime Simulator
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (4.2M)- Shooter
• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (4.172M)- Shooter
• Call of Duty: World at War (3.35M)- Shooter
• Forza Motorsport 2 (2.674M)- Driving Simulator
• Fable II (2.6M)- Role-Playing Game

All games are produced in America except Fable II, from the UK.

If you check other sources with more updated numbers, the top ten gets yet another shooter, but my point is clear enough with this data: So called adult games are basically violent games, many of them with very graphic violence. Worst of all, these games are played by young children.  Do you want your 8 years old son to spend hours simulating killing? That’s what many kids are doing today.  And many times with “creative” weapons like chainsaws, as it is for instance the star weapon in the Gears of War franchise.

Something is really wrong in a society that exposes children to so much violence and lets them play with so violent games with blood aplenty.  I dislike that game producers like developing such games, but the consumer always has the last word.  And so far when I visit the video-game section at the local Fnac all I see are children playing these violent games with their parents around or even joining them.  Something to think about.

I have one recurring fear that I believe I share with many other parents. It is the fear of spoiling our child till the point of making of him (or her) the kind of “monster” we so easily criticized before being parents. Have you ever said to a friend or partner something like “When I have a child, I will never let him behave like that in a restaurant”? I have. Or “I like children if they are well-mannered. I cannot put up with those kids revolving around themselves like beasts and shouting and whining for anything” . Or “I don’t remember being allowed as an infant to behave like nowadays kids do” This last one is probably the truest. Since it refers to our memory. Probably we were not as well-behaved as we want to remember and chances are we were neither as toughly raised as we recall. Truth is, even if we for sure could do better today as parents, raising a child is always easier from the outside.

To comfort ourselves a bit (or not) I found this very unscientific list of the 10 signs you are raising a “little beast”:

10_Signs_Your_Toddler_is_a_Brat

I don’t know if not qualifying saves your child from being a brat, but it looks like if you can identify a few of these, then, well, then I think you have a challenge…