I’m an educator, and have expertise in the area of gifted education. I have thought about trying to found a private school for the gifted, or lobbying the school boards to create programs. But I’m busy with my work, and I don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest in a new project of this scale.

But someone needs to do it. And quickly. Ideally, the EMSB, Lester Pearson School Board, and French school boards will consider creating magnet schools for the gifted, or pull-out programs to serve their gifted students. By addressing the special needs of gifted learners in Quebec, they can still follow the Quebec Education Plan but structure it in thematic ways and enrich it to meet the needs of gifted students in Quebec.

Surely, educators in this province must realize that a highly or profoundly gifted student may not be recognized as gifted, or even as academically competent, because they learned — early on — that school is boring, and tuned out.

It’s a truism of giftedness studies that the bright student who receives A’s, follows the classroom directions, and is organized is much more likely to be recognized as an able student than are some gifted students, who may display more divergent and creative behaviour that is not appreciated in the classroom because it disrupts the orderly routine.

And, as the articles I’ve posted previously demonstrate, such gifted students are at high risk of alienation from school, and dropout. Which is, I’m sure most educators would agree, a waste of talent.

Someone, anyone, please consider schools or programs for the gifted in Quebec! Consult with schools in Alberta (Westmount Charter School) and Ontario (e.g., PACE) who have done so, and create havens where gifted minds can flourish, not flop!

And if you’re out there and are considering this, or are in the process of doing so, please post an update or two here.

From grades three through five, I was teased quite a bit. I had friends, but there were a few kids (for some reason, 8-10 year olds can be merciless) who enjoyed targeting the weird kid who daydreamed all the time. Teachers didn’t know what to make of me. I wasn’t interested in classwork, rarely did homework, and stared out the window a lot. I also wrote short stories that were at the high school level. They didn’t identify me as gifted — merely as an uninterested daydreamer who didn’t put “effort into her work.” Quebec never did have any gifted identification criteria or programs, so it is probably no surprise that many unidentified gifted kids are languishing in Quebec elementary schools even now. And some might even be getting poor or spotty grades, as I did, simply because they’ve stopped being interested or have been mislabeled as poor students, leading to the Pygmalion Effect. Others might present as behaviour problems due to sheer boredom and a feeling of being misunderstood.

Quebec still does not formally recognize giftedness or provide gifted programs as do several other provinces. The reasoning is that teachers must cater to every child’s special needs, whether gifted or not, so these kids will get the education they need. In reality, though, teachers struggle to manage classes of 30 students or more, and how much time, really, can an overworked, underpaid teacher devote to special needs students?

Returning to my own experiences in Quebec ‘s education system, high school was a very different story. The courses were hit or miss, but fortunately, I was in the French immersion program, and was placed in enriched math. Finally, our school was among only a few in Montreal to have an experimental and diverse English program called the APEX program. Instead of suffering through English 101, we were streamed beginning in grade nine. There were five levels — the first two being remedial, the third being average, and the fourth and fifth being advanced. I was soon placed in the advanced classes, so I took courses including Shakespeare, Satire, and a Self-Directed Study course that allowed me to work on my own and produce a term paper or two.

I excelled in most classes, and — on the whole — enjoyed a good deal of my high school experience. I was a typical HG/PG kid — head in the clouds, preferring to read alone in the library rather than hang out in groups, and I tended not to know much about the social norms of larger groups. Nor did I care about fashion or makeup.

I liked classical music, and ran to the library over recess and lunch to read books on Egyptology and Latin translations of Alice in Wonderland. I was enthused about quantum physics even though I never studied it in school, and when I got home, I sometimes avoided my homework so that I could read the astrophysics textbook I’d taken out of the library. Quarks fascinated me for a long time. I also invented codes and ciphers; one day, a teacher returned the coded sheet I’d accidentally left in my homework assignment. She’d placed a few question marks at the top. I think it amused her which was, on the whole, a good thing. In short, I was a little on the different side.

It was okay, though. Unlike some highly gifted kids, who are teased mercilessly, shoved into lockers, and considered freaks for being different, I think I was generally liked by many, even if I wasn’t a member of the popular group. Nor did I care much. I had my friends, and I liked pretty much everyone in my class even though we never became close. I had a party once, and nearly my entire class showed up, which does say something. Looking back, I probably missed a lot of social cues that made it clear that I was liked, and my aloofness likely kept me from being popular. But since popularity wasn’t a priority for me at the time, that was my modus vivendi.

So, on the whole, a pretty tolerable experience once I got to high school. I was one of the lucky ones. Later on, a friend told me that the French immersion program at my school was a kind of de facto gifted program. In many ways the advanced levels of APEX English were also a form of gifted streaming without the name. But that was just good fortune.

I’ve shared my own experience because I cannot imagine that it’s not shared by many gifted kids who don’t have access to appropriate programs — this is particularly true of HG/PG students. These experiences took place a long time ago. They no longer affect me, but I sometimes wonder what things would have been like had gifted programs existed.

In reality, gifted programs should be in place to cater to kids with special needs. Because too many gifted students end up with K-11 programs that echo my elementary school experiences, and they never come to associate school with interesting learning content. As we’ve read, a good number of gifted students drop out and become underemployed. (I can only wonder what the Quebec stats are.) Which is, I’m sure you’ll agree, a real waste of promise.

Parents of gifted students in Canada — particularly in provinces such as Quebec, without gifted programs — should, I believe, advocate for such programs. Anyone with me here?

Here, the author asks the question “Why do gifted children struggle academically?” Among the reasons offered “is the lack of interest that gifted children have at school because the curriculum doesn’t meet their needs. The result is that they either become a disturbing force in the classroom or completely apathetic.”

Given these alarming findings, among others, is it not time for the Quebec Education Ministry to shift to a model that resembles that of provinces such as British Columbia and Alberta and allows for the specific funding of gifted programs?

For the purposes of this blog, I’m using the terms ‘gifted’ and ‘giftedness’ not as value judgments, but as referring to children and adults who are significantly above average intellectually. You don’t have to be a psychologist to know that the seven year old who has memorized the schematics of every single blueprint of the Starship Enterprise is different from most children his age. It’s plainly obvious that a three year old child is gifted when she is reading — at a third grade level. All children are special, and have their areas of strength and uniqueness, but the term ‘gifted’ has its place in the same way as does ‘developmentally delayed’, one of several terms referring to those with IQs significantly lower than the mean. And students in both ‘categories’ deserve schooling that meets their unique needs.

And contrary to popular belief, despite the stereotype of the pushy parent attempting to turn their child into a ‘genius’, in fact, parents are excellent at detecting signs of giftedness in their children. Parents are often the first to notice these gifts, and bring them to the attention of educators.

For some, it’s not all that obvious. Certain gifted children whose educational experiences haven’t matched their abilities have learned how to tune out in the classroom, making it difficult to properly assess their gifts. Some may even have been labeled ‘behaviour problems’. A lucky few within this group are eventually identified as gifted — some profoundly gifted. Still others are finally identified as having a dual-exceptionality — for example, giftedness and a learning disability (LD) that masks aspects of the giftedness. However, the years of educational mismatch cannot be recaptured or retrieved.

Perhaps you’re such a former child, or perhaps you’re a parent reading this and nodding your head as you think of your own son or daughter.

Even for those parents who have the resources available for such services as IQ testing, a certificate proving that your child’s IQ is above 130 (a commonly used cutoff point) may not be sufficient to ensure that a student’s needs will be met. Services for the gifted in Canada are not uniform across the country. Some provinces have more appropriate services than others. And other provinces, such as Quebec, don’t officially offer services for the gifted at all. (More on this at a later date.)

Several studies have shown that there is a significant drop-out rate among the gifted, and this danger appears to rise with the degree of giftedness. (See this article for more information.) Why is this? Why is a nontrivial proportion of the gifted population choosing to opt out of the system?

Nobody disputes the vital importance of designing special educational programs and/or plans for students with developmental delays. However, the gifted (a group deemed high-risk due to their own special needs) aren’t always accorded such assistance.

What are Canadian provinces, school boards, schools, and individual educators doing to try to remedy the situation? If you’re a parent or an educator, or a former gifted student, I’m very much interested in your comments.