Category: Books

Review: Getting gifted homeschoolers (almost) right

Posted on by Suki

The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl
by Stacy McAnulty
Random House, 2018

As a teacher of gifted learners, I am always interested in how they are portrayed in kids’ books. Generations of smart kids had to see themselves portrayed as clueless, clumsy, antisocial idiot savants. The Great Brain aside, it was definitely not cool to be smart.

And then there’s what mainstream writers do to homeschoolers. They’re weirdo Christian separatists who have never learned how to behave in polite society. At least sometimes they get to be vampires, too.

Stereotypes don’t come from nowhere—there’s almost always a kernel of truth. But it’s a writer’s job to go beyond the stereotype and find the real person.

Stacy McAnulty does just that in The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl.

This middle grade novel presents us with a familiar gifted homeschooler: Lucy is very weird. Struck by lightning when she was younger, she’s now a middle schooler who’s never been to school, whose OCD makes her stick out in any crowd, and who is immediately the target of Maddie, the alpha dog bully of her grade. Lucy is in school because her grandmother, who’s her guardian, believes she needs to be socialized. Yet another homeschooler/gifted kid stereotype.

But that’s where the stereotypes end, and the real child emerges.

First of all, Lucy does not buy her grandmother’s arguments for a minute. She knows that she’s not the problem—other kids and adults are the problem. Her grandmother (a wonderful character despite her stereotypical belief in the fallacy of socialization) has raised her well. She’s a self-possessed, thoughtful kid who makes the thoroughly believable choice not to let anyone know just how smart she is.

As she tells the girl who becomes her best friend, Windy, her OCD already makes it clear she’s weird. She doesn’t need any other baggage.

Charmingly, Lucy thinks her way through the problem and calculates how to get through this mandatory year of socialization. Just the fact that she’s able to do this disproves her grandmother’s opinion that she needs to be socialized—she gets what the other kids and the teachers need, and she sets about giving it to them.

She purposely becomes an A student, good enough to get into the college she wants to attend—but not a perfect A student. She calculates how to do just well enough not to gain too much attention.

She knows she’s not going to be acceptable to most of the other kids, so she doesn’t try. She presses on fulfilling her own needs for order (she has to sit and stand three times before sitting down in class) and cleanliness (the kids call her “the cleaning lady” because she wipes down every surface she comes into contact with using disposable wipes she carries in her backpack). But she’s thoughtful and kind to the other students, and soon at least two of them notice and accept her.

The miscalculation in the title does not refer to her attempt to deceive the others—she fits in well enough that the kids and teachers don’t guess just how smart she is until various circumstances lead to her unmasking. Her miscalculation is that she’ll be able to ride out this year without forming real friendships, experiencing real growth, and actually learning something (though not necessarily what her teachers think she’s learning).

I loved how realistic Lucy is, how all the characters (even the bully) are well-drawn and sympathetic, and how the book gets past almost all of the usual stereotypes and gifted homeschooler tropes.

I finished with only one question: Why does it take a strike of lightning to make Lucy smart? Why can’t she just be a generic smart kid, born that way? I know that the lightning offered a fun opportunity for characterization. But it’s a bit like writing a story about a white kid who wakes up Black and has to face racism. Why not just write about a Black kid?

Gifted kids are real. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some of them do have disabilities (called twice-exceptionalities in the gifted world). Some of them are socially awkward.

But they’re all people, and they deserve to be integrated into our schools—and our literature—as fully human and deserving of the same care and respect as everyone else. The fact that the author chose to make Lucy homeschooled gets at an ugly truth: Our society can be very, very nasty to kids who don’t fit in. Teachers largely don’t like being corrected. (Lucy actually keeps her mouth shut when her math teacher makes a mistake on a problem, for good reason.) Kids don’t like being bested, especially when it’s so easy for the gifted kid to do it. (Lucy is careful not to be the best at anything.)

But gifted kids are not an accident, not a strike of lightning. They’re just one side of the wonderful rainbow of human variability. Let’s just accept them and move on.

So yes, this is a great book for your gifted kid, but when they ask why they are the way they are, make sure they know that they are no accident. They are exactly the way they’re supposed to be.

Related:

The Search For The Girl Scientist In Literature

Books Featuring Homeschoolers

“I Am Jazz” Community Reading

Posted on by Suki

This month Santa Cruz families will come together to read a book at the library. Yes, this happens all the time, but not with this book and this message.

“I am Jazz” was published in 2014, co-written by 14-year-old Jazz Jennings, a transgender activist whose life had been profiled in a television documentary. Although the book deals with Jazz’s life and challenges in a child-appropriate manner, it attracted the attention of anti-LGBTQ groups. After a group succeeded in forcing a Wisconsin school to cancel a reading, the community came together, packing 600 people into the public library for a reading.

Each year since that event, communities have hosted readings to foster awareness and acceptance of transgender children. Awareness of transgender people has increased since then—Jennings is now a popular YouTube personality—but the challenges of being transgender, and parenting a transgender child, have not gone away.

 

A more accepting world

“What I get from the book is how happy Jazz is to be affirmed,” says Michelle Brandt, one of the organizers of the event and the mother of a transgender man who came out at 15. “I see that comfort and joy about being yourself, and not having to hide, to be affirmed and seen.”

Psychologists confirm that affirmation of a child’s gender is the top thing that adults can do to alleviate the common problems exhibited by transgender children, including self-harm and suicidal ideation. Children whose families and communities use their gender of identification and a gender-appropriate name show fewer signs of psychological distress and have overall happier childhood experiences.

Introducing this book to the broader community, organizers say, is a way to create a more accepting world for their children.

“The book is a big deal to our family,” explains a mom of a young trans child. “I read it two years ago when my child was questioning her gender. It was like her coming-out book. It wasn’t until I read the book to her that she said, ‘That’s me, I’m a girl.’ It put language in a kid-friendly way to her lived experience and allowed her to feel comfortable claiming that she was transgender.”

 

A G-rated kids’ book

Brandt is the director of the TransFamily Support Group of Santa Cruz, one of the groups sponsoring the reading. She points out that kids already know their gender—families don’t have to fear taking their kids to this G-rated event about inclusion and acceptance.

“I’d like parents to leave with a broader understanding of gender as a spectrum and more comfort with having gender discussions with their kids,” Brandt explains.

Jamie Joy, Youth Program Coordinator at the Diversity Center of Santa Cruz, another sponsor of the event, also hopes that the event will draw parents from the broader community who don’t necessarily have transgender children.

“Talking about gender with young kids is so important because they are already receiving messages that reinforce harmful stereotypes,” Joy explains. “Books like “I am Jazz” are a great way to connect with kids and help them understand the beauty of diversity. The more we teach our youth about celebrating difference, the less violence and bullying there will be in our community.”

The emphasis at the reading will be on community and fun.

“We’ll talk about gender stereotypes, read family-friendly kids’ books, and do an interactive activity around gender,” Joy explains. “I want the parents to walk away knowing their kids can be who they want to be, or give them a little more freedom to not perpetuate the whole girls-have-to-wear-pink and boys-don’t-cry thing.”

 

Transition in place

The organizers point out that community support is the point of this gathering, and they are grateful for our public library’s willingness to host the event. Community support is of vital importance to trans children. Because of the typical arc of children’s understanding of their gender and parents’ comfort with transitions, most children don’t transition until after they’ve been in school. Without support from the adults around them, the result is often that children’s education gets disrupted.

“It’s more comfortable for kids to transition in place,” Brandt explains. “You’re the same person, and the only reason you’d have to leave your school is if you’re not being affirmed in your gender when you transition.”

Santa Cruz’s self-identity is of a liberal, accepting place, but even here it is common for trans kids to leave their current school environment when they transition due to lack of support by the adults and students around them.

 

Understanding is key

Although it can be uncomfortable for families with transgender or questioning kids to put themselves in the public eye, the event organizers believe that it’s necessary that at least some families ‘come out of the closet.’ The more our community understands the needs of transgender people, the more information and resources will be available.

Michelle Brandt points out that with more information, she would have known that she had a transgender boy when he was four, rather than the ‘tomboy’ she thought she was raising.

“I would have liked to have more information about the gender spectrum,” Brandt says. “I would have liked to have more information about what the options were for transition. You’re not on a path that is so predetermined as you think it is. With enough information, I could have had a conversation with him as a boy instead of ‘Isn’t that sweet, my gender nonconforming girl?’”

Above all, a public reading of “I Am Jazz” should help parents understand that supporting their children is not forcing change. Gender differences are a natural part of the spectrum of humanity, and affirming children’s gender identity will only make our society a safer, healthier place for everyone.

“The Diversity Center hopes to educate and support people of all ages and identities in understanding gender as a spectrum rather than a binary,” Jamie Joy explains. “We do this through community events as well as trainings and presentations. Please reach out to us if you want to learn more!”

 

Details:

National “I Am Jazz” Community Reading

Friday, December 7, 3:30-4:30 pm

Santa Cruz Public Libraries Downtown Branch

Second Floor Meeting Room

 

Resources:

  • Interested in more details about the scientific understanding of gender? Check out our companion article, “Gender is Not a Binary.”
  • The Transfamily Support Group of Santa Cruz has monthly meetings and a website of resources to support the families of transgender youth and adults. Find more information at http://www.transfamiliesca.org/
  • The Diversity Center of Santa Cruz County offers support and information for those on the gender spectrum and their families. Find more information at http://www.diversitycenter.org/
  • The Santa Cruz Public Libraries host a wide variety of community events. Find more information at https://www.santacruzpl.org/

Support your teen with goal-setting

Posted on by Suki

[Disclaimer: I didn’t write this because I have somehow perfected the art of raising a teen. I’m writing this because the teen-me watched in horror as the adult-me parented my teens exactly how the teen-me knew I shouldn’t. The teen-me was positively screaming in my ear, but did I listen? Well, I did my best!]

My new book is about goal-setting for teens, and I wrote it directly for teens, not parents. The reason for that is that from what I’ve seen, teens pretty much won’t do anything well unless they feel invested in it.

But teens also need the adults in their lives. Though there are those rare teens who seem to be able to handle everything on their own, most teens need—and actually want—guidance. It’s just that the sort of guidance parents tend to offer is, shall we say, not exactly what they’re looking for.

So how do we support our teens?

Give them agency

In traditional cultures, teens were young adults. They got to take up a spear or build a fire. But our culture is significantly more complex. As much as we might wish that our teens will do well in life with a fine spear and good aim, they need education, a driver’s license, and lots of experience sorting real from fake Nigerian princes.

So they do still need our guidance, and few are ready to be modern “adults” at 14. But they also need to feel growing independence as they go into their teen years. They need to feel trusted with real jobs (even though they might complain about them). Lots of destructive teen behavior comes from their need to make a mark in some way.

Follow their lead

We all knew when our babies were learning to walk that we needed to let them fall. It’s so much harder to let our teens fail when their failure might make a permanent change in their life path.

College professors are reporting that more and more, young students are coming to them and asking how they can make sure they get an A, as if success is more important than learning. This attitude leads to kids who have an instinct always to play it safe and to guard what they have. Perhaps this might make for success in getting into college, but it’s not a good recipe for success in life.

Help them find a direction (for now)

If we’re going to let our kids lead, we have to feel like they are going somewhere. And lots of teens really don’t know where they are going. Goal-setting is a way to help them have a direction, even if it’s just for the next week. And having a direction is important, even if, halfway up the path, we decide to go a different way.

Enter goal-setting

That’s why I fixed on goal-setting as a way to communicate with my kids. I figured if I could get them to articulate goals, even the most minor ones, we’d share a common language for moving forward. I didn’t find a book I liked, so in the spirit of being a lifelong learner, I wrote one myself!

I also use the book (in its previous nascent form and now as a published book) in goal-setting classes I teach online at Athena’s Advanced Academy. It’s fun to work with teens who aren’t my own and find out that just like mine, they thrive when they feel that they have agency, choices, and a direction.

Math Stories: Fun, Deep Learning for Elementary Students

Posted on by Suki

Readers: This is an update and consolidation of previous posts on this topic. Hopefully I’ve gotten all the resources in here!

It started one night when my seven-year-old daughter explained to her father how you can determine the number of faces in a geometric solid from the number of points. I’d ordered a Sir Cumference book from the library on the many recommendations I’d seen, and for the fact that my daughter was obsessed with knights.

Sir Cumference was our introduction to math stories.

It didn’t occur to me that this would be an efficient way to teach math. Since then, I’ve been on a quest for math stories.

First, a definition: What I’m calling math “stories” are books in which the story is more, or at least as important as the math it contains. I’m not confusing them with “story problems,” the bane of many a standardized test-taker. A math story is a really great story that happens to contain math.

It’s also a very effective way to spark interest in and understanding of math in elementary-aged kids.

The first books we tried, the wonderful Sir Cumference series, are picture books about medieval times peopled with wonderfully named characters: Lady Di of Ameter, Geo of Metry, and of course Sir Cumference himself.

The books have the lush pictures and captivating storylines you’d expect from picture books, but they also teach math concepts in a deep way.

In learning about pi, that confusing number associated with circles, Radius (Sir C.’s son, of course) actually experiments with a pie. The shape of King Arthur’s table leads to a discussion of circles and their particular attributes.

The success of Sir Cumference led us to seek out more math stories. A friend recommended The Adventures of Penrose the Mathematical Cat. Author Theoni Pappas has written a number of math books for a range of ages and abilities. They all seem to center around the idea that if people just understood all of math’s lovable attributes, they’d love the discipline as well.

We instantly fell in love with Penrose. If you have a cat, you will recognize Penrose in an instant. He learns mathematics because his mistress (Pappas) is always looking at her math papers. So like any good cat, what does he do? He inserts himself between his mistress and the papers. Fun and learning follow.

The charm of Penrose is, first, that he is a real cat. Though the illustrations are in pen and ink, there’s a photo in the beginning of the book of the real Penrose, poised in mid-play amongst his mistress’s papers.

The fictional Penrose not only enjoys getting attention, but also gaining knowledge. He starts to wonder about what’s on the papers, and soon the numbers and shapes come alive and talk to him.

This is a consistent metaphor in the books, and is a good metaphor for what happens to a child charmed by Penrose. At the end of each story there is a small box with an intriguing question. My daughter, who screams in frustration at a page of math problems, took the initiative in finding paper and pencil to answer the first chapter’s conundrum.

We’re on to our third Pappas book now, hungrily lapping up Penrose’s forays into tessellation, prime numbers, and equiangular spirals.

We were on a roll. Someone else suggested The Number Devil. There are a couple of caveats about this book: First, this is a playful take on religion, with a Number Heaven/Hell and the Number Devils that live there, so beware if this doesn’t fit with your world view. Also, this book starts with the main character, Robert, having nightmares, and given that our household was being turned upside-down at that point with nighttime wakings, I was leery of adding more ideas for bad things that happen at night.

I decided, however, to give it a try, and it was a hit. Not only did Robert’s nightmares not scare my daughter, but the Number Devil soon invades the dreams and drives away all the bad thoughts. They are replaced by dreams of number theory, explained through colorful language and ever-changing scenery.

We loved the Number Devil not just for the math but for the fiction.

The book has a therapeutic as well as didactic approach: Robert’s fears of the big, scary world and also of his detested math teacher, Mr. Bockel, are replaced by musings about the beauty of numbers. By the end of the book, Robert becomes a number devil himself, having earned a place in Number Heaven (or Hell, depending on how you look at it) and a license to think about the cool stuff that number philosophers have thought about since ancient times.

This may all beg the question: What did my daughter get from this? Is she learning useful skills?

First, I have to say that all this reading will probably not translate directly to any increase in her testable numbers. Standardized tests look for mastery of skills; these books encourage excitement about ideas. Standardized tests focus on grade-level standards; these books throw that all out the window and figure kids should learn about the cool stuff… leave the boring, repetitive stuff for another day.

What math stories do is introduce kids to the big, enticing ideas that make all the work on boring stuff like multiplication facts worth the effort. A child who is excited by triangles is going to learn soon enough that having to pull out a calculator or multiplication chart over and over to remember 3×3 just delays the pay-off.

Math stories also teach math concepts in a deeper way, embedding them in a narrative that fits into the way children learn in the real world, through experience and need.

If you’re looking for math stories for older children, check out the British Murderous Maths series (which I’m happy to see is now available in the US) and Theoni Pappas’s The Joy of Mathematics, both of which teach the history and ideas behind the math that kids will need to tackle in late elementary and middle school.

Resources

  • Living Math is a website full of great math resources

Here are various math stories that we read and enjoyed or that other readers have recommended:

Book review: Raising Human Beings

Posted on by Suki

Raising Human Beings: Creating a Collaborative Partnership with your Child
Dr. Ross Greene
Scribner, 2016

There are times when I fervently wish that all human beings were raised to understand the value of empathy, cooperation, and collaboration. This is one of those times.

I’ve been meaning to write a review of Raising Human Beings: Creating a Collaborative Partnership with your Child by Dr. Ross Greene ever since it came out. Uncharacteristically, I bought this book in hardcover. Perhaps that’s because when my younger child was 10, I believe that I joined with a zeitgeist of parents around the country who willed Raising Human Beings into reality. Collectively, we had read Greene’s The Explosive Child because we had a child of that description, then realized that it was also the perfect manual for raising any human being, explosive or otherwise.

Dr. Greene apparently heard our collective cry for a book aimed at all parents outlining his approach, which so improved the lives of families trying to raise difficult children. He heard us, and Raising Human Beings was born.

Greene starts from a place of simple logic: All children want to do well if they can. As much as we want to impute devious motives to our misbehaving children, they are misbehaving not because they want to

Drive

   Us

     Out

        Of

            Our

                  Minds,
but because they simply need something. Sometimes they have no idea what they need. Sometimes they think they need something completely different than what they really need. But they have a need nonetheless.

Greene’s approach is to teach parents to work with their little human beings starting not from an assumption of misbehavior, but from a place of empathy and compassion. Our little human beings are works in progress. They need our guidance to learn how to work within this complicated, confusing world. As parents, it’s our job to raise our children, not to beat them down or lord over them.

All of us want to raise the best human beings we can, but many of us fall back on the flawed reasoning that informed previous generations of parents. Dr. Greene calls this Plan A, and he understands why you use it. It’s quick, dirty, and seems (sometimes) effective. It feels good to say “because I said so.” Getting angry can be cathartic.

But Plan A isn’t what our kids need in this world. We live in a Plan B world. In this world, you’ll do best if you know how to figure out what other people need, understand your own needs, and learn to collaborate so everyone gets their needs met as well as possible.

Plan B is complicated, slow, and frustrating. I would venture to predict that most parents actually give up on it somewhere before actual full realization of the approach (I certainly did). But I feel very confident that all families will benefit from however much of this approach you can implement in your particular family situation.

I can’t recommend this book highly enough. If you have a particularly tough nut to crack, get The Explosive Child instead or in addition. It will improve your lives, and you will send out into the world healthy human beings who understand the value of empathy, cooperation, and collaboration.

And we could all use a few more of those around.

Now available