Five Minute Friday: Stretch the Learning

When I learned about gifted education, I learned that I must differentiate learning. That means stretching the education that I give to my child. This involves not only upward learning, the moving up from one level to the next and so on, but also stretching outward.

Gifted children have a greater capacity to retain more information. In fact they often crave it. They have an inherent need to know more, not more than other people, just more. For instance, it isn’t enough that my son learn to name the organs of the body, he needed to learn each of their functions, the way they function and the system within the organ that makes it function. He didn’t just learn the major structures of the brain, but learned what each structure does, what it’s responsible for within the body and how each lobe interacts with the other lobes. He wasn’t satisfied until he understood it completely. Not because he wants to be smarter than other people, but because he needs to fully understand the topic he is learning.

Stretching education requires a great deal more prep work on my part. Sometimes I struggle to stretch for him. Sometimes, I just want to do the minimum required. Then I remember…. Education is not about me, the teacher, it is about him the student. In order for the student to stretch his mind, I must stretch my willingness to provide the BEST possible education.

Stop.