Mentoring Gifted Children
There are many reasons to establish a
mentoring relationship and many possible ways to structure one. A variety of gifted student populations can benefit from such a relationship, including
- those interested in career choice and development
- students needing help in affective areas
- young people wanting to pursue a specific area of interest in-depth
- those having progressed beyond the curriculum offered at school
- disadvantaged children
A mentoring relationship will not meet the needs of every gifted student. Before going through the work of setting up a mentorship, one must ask seriously if there is enough of a commitment on the part of both the mentor and the protégé to make it successful.
Some people suggest that the creation of a mentoring experience should wait until high school. I think that it depends on the goals of the program. One elementary school had a very successful mentoring program, but it required a great deal of time on the part of a parent volunteer to make it work. The following steps were taken:
- Teachers and parents were surveyed to find students who had a very strong interests in subjects that went beyond the scope of the curriculum. This was evidenced by a strong interest in a specific subject for a minimum of two years.
- The student was asked if he would like to participate in a mentoring program.
- The parent volunteer searched for someone who might address the needs of that student. The circle of possibilities started close, asking teachers and parents if they knew of anyone who might be appropriate and then branched out from there.
- Once a potential mentor was found, the mentor, protégé, and parent met to make certain that they felt comfortable with one another.
- An agreement was signed to meet outside of the school building and outside of school time for ten times. (Many of the mentoring relationships went on long beyond that, but it is important to have that initial limit so that no one feels trapped by a long commitment.)
- Legal issues between the school and mentor were discussed. (This may vary from district to district.)
- Parents needed to address any concerns they had about leaving their child with someone they don’t know well.
Some examples of successful mentorships at the school, included
- A child who was interested in snakes being paired with a herpetologist from the zoo.
- A student who was interested in cartooning being paired with a political cartoonist for a local newspaper.
- A boy gifted in music being paired with a jazz musician.
- A young person who was interested in computers working with an IT person.
- A person who was very interested in visual special math pairing with a person who specialized in this field.
Mentoring disadvantaged children may be approached in an entirely different way and for different reasons. When mentoring this group of children, an adult may act as a mentor in a specific area of interest or she may help the student to see the possibilities beyond the young person's limited environment. In
Mentoring Disadvantaged Gifted Children, Neil Satterfield explains how this group of children has grown and he provides resources for those who are interested in helping.
The mentoring of high school students takes on an entirely different face. Subject specific mentors require more and more expertise and mentoring for career decisions can be very important. When considering a mentoring program at high school, you may want to see the work being done by
Sigma Xi: The Scientific Research Society. Also, corporations are sometimes willing to work with adults to set up mentorship programs with talented youth.
Whatever population is mentored, whether it is a formal program or something more informal, it can be a valuable experience.
Be sure and hit the “Add Comment” button below and let us know if you, your child, or one of your students has had a positive mentoring experience and what you think made it positive. Please be respectful of other’s wishes for privacy by not leaving specific names.
Virtual Museums for Gifted Children
With the Internet today, the world is virtually at our fingertips. Gifted children are often interested in a wide variety of topics--many that would not normally be taught in school. Virtual museums allow students to pursue these topics by “visiting” collections around the world. Even by just browsing museums, a young person may become interested in a topic that he had not previously considered. You will see some overlap of topics or museums in the links below, but each is worth viewing.
This site provides links to online collections and exhibits covering a vast array of subjects, from classical art to architecture to mundane collectible objects. Links include MoMA (The Museum of Modern Art), The Smithsonian, a collection of advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955, and a museum of chocolate wrappers.
Here you will find links to The Getty, The Guggenheim, The Library of Congress, and also to digital art.
This is a specialty site that has great pictures and history.
If virtual museums pique your interest,
consider creating a virtual museum with gifted students. Look at the article,
Building a Virtual Museum Community, which describes how a school district and museum partnered to develop of a virtual museum devoted to local history at the turn of the 19
th Century. The article discusses strategies needed to cultivate such a relationship.
Geography and Gifted Education
When I started working as a gifted education specialist at one elementary school, I was told that there was a second grader at the school who was a whiz at geography. Peter was a whiz-kid! His father had introduced him to the subject before he ever started public school and he had been devouring it ever since. Ask him to locate any place on the map and he could point right to it. But he wasn’t just good at place names. He could tell you the climate, the animals, and the vegetation of the area. If asked to reason why a certain event might take place in a specific country or city, he would pause and then begin his sentence very slowly with, “Let’s see…” He would then take all the information he knew about the place and reason very logically why that event might have taken place there. He might also add, “But I would also like to know…” Peter was a phenomenal reader. At second grade, he was reading at a 12th grade level. This enabled him to research easily. Peter was gifted in geography.
I often wonder how many other kids might be gifted in geography if they were just exposed to it. After all, a child can’t get excited about something to which he has never been introduced. While most students in first or second grades are learning about their neighborhoods in school, Peter was exploring the world. Peter knew that geography was not a dry subject.
Geography is much more exciting than many people think, involving far more than places and locations. Geography helps us to understand the relationship of places and people. With a little searching adults will find that there are resources available to introduce young people to this subject.
To give you an idea of the scope of geography, check out the
definitions that were compiled from participants at the Geography Summit II which was held at Southwest Texas State University in 1996 and collected by Dr. Ed Fernald of the Florida Geographic Alliance.
Great Resources for Teaching
To help people gain a greater understanding of geography, in 1984 the Joint Committee on Geographic Education of the National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE) and the Association of American Geographers (AAG) developed
Five Themes of Geography. These themes include location, place, human/environment interaction, movement, and regions. Be sure and take a look at this site as it explains each of these themes and lists fun activities to teach them. More activities for teaching the Five Themes can be found at
Education World.
At the
National Geographic Xpeditions site, you will find not only the U.S. National Geography Standards, but lesson plans, activities, an atlas, and an interactive learning museum.
Want to know if you have a student who is
gifted in geography? The national curriculum of England has actually set up standards.
Finally, if you would like to pursue geography on a competitive basis, take a look at
GeoBee Challenge. This site includes information for kids, parents, and teachers, including information on the National Geographic Bee.
So, have lots of resources available to students, including maps, atlases, and globes. I have a large world map hanging in my kitchen. There’s no need for me to look for it or open it up when I want it. If I read about a place and I’m not sure where it is, I can look it up. If I’m doing a crossword puzzle and one of the questions pertains to geography, I can look it up. Have maps for everything. I live in a sports oriented state, so I have maps of bike trails, hiking trails, ski area trails, and cross-country ski trails. They are fun to study. Also interesting are topographical maps, relief maps, political maps, and weather maps. Each gives different kinds of information.
If you go to the zoo, get a map of the animal locations. If you go to a museum, get a map of the exhibit locations. Have your child make a map of your house. Talk about the arrangement of the rooms and how the present locations function in your house. Then have your child create a map of his ideal house. Have him explain why he placed the rooms where he did. Is it more functional that way?
Use maps when studying history. Observe border changes. Why do they change? How does geography influence where people settle? How does it affect where people move? Discuss geography in relationship to current events. How does geography affect alliances and conflicts throughout the world? Why do the names of countries change?
Teach students how to read legends. Understand longitude and latitude and time zones. How does geography affect climate? Make geography a part of everyday life both at home and at school.
Ratchet Science Fairs Up for Gifted Children
In many elementary, middle, and high schools, science fairs occur annually. These fairs offer gifted students a chance to explore areas of interest in depth. The fairs also provide opportunities for planning, academic discipline, and academic rigor. There is much information available on the Internet to help teachers, students, and parents work through the process. A sampling includes
Science Fair Central--For students, teachers, and parents. Student section includes a "soup to nuts" handbook, project ideas, links and books, questions and answers, and tip sheets. For teachers, there is a science fair organizer. For parents, there are tips on helping your young scientist.
Science Fair Projects--Includes a search tool that will help you find ideas for experiment. There are lists of topics for elementary, middle school, and high school science fair projects. Also included are links to useful sites.
Science Fairs Homepage--This site is designed to aid students in the most difficult aspect of their science fair experience; getting an idea. It lists projects in three categories: elementary, intermediate, and senior.
ScienceStuff.com--This website includes a sample science fair judging sheet to help the student and parent better understand how a project may be evaluated.