Alternatives for Gifted High School Students

Some high school students are ready to move on academically long before their peers. As stated in High School Alternatives for Gifted Teens, “It’s easy to find stories of 13-year-olds going off to college, but many gifted kids just aren’t ready to leave the nest early.” At the same time, they may have already finished or tested out of the regular high school curriculum. Author Suki Wessling suggests that students in this situation investigate

• Alternative schools
• Community college classes
• Private schools, if they can be flexible with your student
• The book, Serving Gifted Learners Beyond the Traditional Classroom: A Guide to Alternative Programs and Services 
• Online high school courses
• Homeschool 

In addition to the suggestions above, check out the OpenCourseware Consortium, which is a collaboration of higher education institutions and associated organizations from around the world creating open educational content that is free to the public.

A student who finishes high school early might also take a year or two to pursue her passions in a very focused manner, furthering her studies in music, theatre, art, dance, language, cultures, science, etc.

The best solution for finding answers to any education dilemma is often a combination of possibilities.

Free Guidebooks to Help Exceptionally Bright Children

The Davidson Institute serves profoundly gifted young people under the age of 18. As part of its mission, Davidson Institute professionals have written a series of guidebooks designed to assist families in finding the most appropriate educational settings for their exceptionally bright children. The guidebooks are excellent resources and can be downloaded at no cost. While the guidebooks are written for parents and students, teachers should also become familiar with them so that they can effectively advise families.

• Advocating for Exceptionally Gifted Young People—What should you know about your child? What should you know about gifted education? How should you formulate a plan? How should you approach your child’s school? How can you monitor your child’s education?
• Investigating Early College Entrance: A Guidebook for Parents and a Guidebook for Students—How does one assess whether a student is ready for early college entrance? How might early entrance impact the family? What about scholarships and other financial aid?
• Investigating Gap Year Opportunities—A gap year is a “break from formal education to become more immersed in another culture, to volunteer domestically or abroad, to gain experience and maturity…” It is becoming more common in the U.S., especially for students who graduate early from high school. This guidebook discusses possible options for a gap year, the pros and cons of taking a gap year, and what colleges think of students who pursue this option.
• Volunteerism and Community Service—This guidebook provides resources, strategies, and valuable information to think about when considering the who, what, where, when, how, and why questions associated with volunteering.
• Considering Homeschooling—Readers will find information on homeschool curriculum, applying to college, cost considerations, networking with other families, homeschool laws and more.
• Mentorships—How does one search for a mentor? What types of mentoring relationships are available? What characteristics should a great mentor have?

Questions about Child Prodigies

How Can You Tell If Your Child Is a Prodigy? features then 8-year-old Autumn de Forest, who developed into an early artist. Her 4-foot-by-5-foot canvases sell for as much as $25,000. Her talents were discovered quite by accident when she asked her father if she could use some leftover stain and wood from a home project on which he was working. You can see a video clip of and about Autumn.

If child prodigies were never given the opportunity to discover their talents, would we know that they had the potential to excel? By exposing a young person to as many physical activities, intellectual undertakings, and art forms as possible, you may find an area or areas where that child will excel. The youngster probably won’t be a prodigy, but he still will have the opportunity to find a strength that would otherwise be undiscovered.

When we think of prodigies, men’s names often come to mind. One doesn’t hear the names of women as often. Lynn T. Goldsmith explores this and other issues in her paper titled Girl Prodigies, Some Evidence and Some Speculations. Goldsmith cautions us when she states that prodigies are notable for their rapid mastery, but not necessarily for their lifelong contributions to the field. Many prodigies burn out and do not produce as we may expect. Conversely, most original adult contributors were not necessarily prodigies themselves.

Questions:

• Will a child naturally excel in an area or is it necessary to first expose him to that particular area of study?
• What are our obligations as adults to expose children to a wide variety of interests?
• Why are we far more aware of male prodigies than female prodigies?
• Since child prodigies don’t necessarily go on to produce as adults, does that make them just curiosities or something more important?

Grade-Skipping for Highly Gifted Students

The Washington Post opinion piece, Class Struggle: Why Grade-Skipping Should Be Back in Fashion, created quite a stir in gifted education blogs and forums and in reader comments. Some of the points writer Jay Mathews makes are that

• a generation or two ago, grade skipping was more acceptable
• students are far more ready to adjust to age differences when skipping a grade than we think they are
• grade-skipping is an economical and effective way to meet the needs of highly able students
• when a student has strong academic abilities in just one or two subjects, that student should move to a higher grade for those specific subjects and stay with his age-peer group for the rest of the day

According to the NAGC Position Statement on Acceleration, there is more research supporting this intervention than any other in the literature on gifted individuals. Several interventions fall under the umbrella of acceleration: not only grade-skipping, but also telescoping, early entrance into kindergarten or college, credit by examination, and acceleration in content areas through such programs as Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate at the high school level.

Australian author and scholar Miraca Gross is a strong proponent of radical acceleration for exceptionally and profoundly gifted children. She is well known for her longitudinal study of students with IQs over 160.

If you are a parent or educator who is interested in exploring the possibilities of grade-skipping for a student or students, go to the website for the Davidson Institute for Talent Development and search on the words grade skip. Also, take a look at the Iowa Acceleration Scale, which is a tool to help schools make effective decisions regarding a grade-skip.