Category: Education

Forging new teacher relationships for your twice-exceptional child

Posted on by Suki

Note: This article was originally published in the Winter, 2012 issue of the Gifted Education Communicator.

Parents of gifted children have it hard enough: each time our children interact with a new adult, whether a teacher in school, a camp counselor, or a new violin teacher, we have to be prepared to train yet another adult in how to work with gifted children.

Parents of twice-exceptional gifted children face a much higher barrier: Most teachers have never even heard of the term “twice-exceptional.” Not only will some of them have no training in giftedness, but most of them will believe that a child with learning differences could not possibly be gifted at the same time.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThe first hurdle parents face, therefore, is whether to mention the word “gifted” at all.

“Mention giftedness, and be mentally prepared for eye-rolling,” advises J. Marlow Schmauder, founder and executive director of the Asynchronous Scholars’ Fund (asynchronousscholars.org), “although there are definitely teachers out there who will respond with an open mind and intent to help.”

“Mentioning my child is gifted has never really helped,” says Linda Hickey, mom of a profoundly gifted six-year-old. “Even a teacher who was a developmental specialist and was the head teacher in a developmental preschool my son attended, and who claimed she has worked with lots of gifted kids, did not truly understand.”

Marté J. Matthews, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who works with families of gifted children in San Jose (martejmatthewsmft.com), suggests that it may be a matter of wording.

“Teachers are less likely to be receptive to parents using terms like ‘gifted’ or ‘twice-exceptional’ or criticizing every fault their child has,” Matthews explains. “’All or nothing’ descriptions tend to be a red flag for teachers that this parent is going to be a handful to deal with all year.”

Lyn Cavanagh-Olson, GATE Coordinator for the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, agrees that the starting place for parents should be to clarify their intent to support the teacher rather than to define their child and appear to predict failure.

“Most teachers welcome insight into their students,” Cavanagh-Olson says. “If parents approach the teacher not with demands but with information and support they will be doing their child a great service.”

Whether or not their training included giftedness, most teachers will likely have little understanding of twice-exceptionality. Linda C. Neumann, editor of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter (2enewsletter.com), says that parents need to be strong advocates for their 2e students.

“Teachers may not realize that a student’s strengths are helping compensate for the deficits and that this compensation can use up a lot of the child’s energy, making it hard to keep up a consistent level of performance,” Neumann explains. “If a teacher becomes aware of this situation right from the start, it can save the child from embarrassment, discouragement, and even worse, anxiety, depression, and loss of self-esteem.”

Offering information can backfire, however, if the parent implies that she believes that the teacher is inexperienced, or gives an overwhelming amount of information that the teacher will not be able to use. Parents need to draw on the teacher’s previous experience, be good listeners, and offer information in a non-threatening manner.

“Parents need to be respectful of the teacher’s time when sharing information,” Neumann advises. “Instead of saying, ‘You should read this book,’ or ‘You should read this 50-page report about my child,’ it’s better to provide the teacher with a brief summary of the situation and suggestions for accommodations and strategies.”

“Write out a short summary with the highlights of your child’s strengths and needs to share with your child’s teacher,” advises Matthews. “Bring the additional testing, grades and reports, but don’t lead with them.  Ask your teacher about successful approaches they have used with kids who ‘love math but avoid spelling’ or ‘tend to distract others when they need more intellectual challenge’.”

When giving advice about working with a 2e child, try to stay very specific. A generalization like “too many options overwhelm him” will not necessarily result in the teacher changing his strategies, but a specific suggestion like “please assign him to a learning station rather than asking him to choose” will help the teacher adapt in actual classroom situations.

“I will alert teachers of specific things they might want to watch out for with my son like how he gets wound up easy and gets really excited,” Hickey explains.

“Mention strategies you find helpful at home,” Schmauder suggests. “Provide fidgets and such similar assistive things from the start, if not against the rules.”

“Goal setting and organizational strategies are important for all students,” says Cavanagh-Olson. “But most 2e’s need specific instruction and tools, so if parents can share past success in these areas, most teachers will be open to building on what has worked in the past.”

In acting as advocates for their children, parents will benefit from refocusing from the negatives of the past to the positives they hope will come from the new relationship. Lyn Cavanagh-Olson says that parents she works with see greater success when they frame the discussion in the positive.

“The concept of 2e may be foreign to some teachers,” she says. “So stressing the need to focus on the child’s strengths and compensation strategies will keep the conversation constructive.”

“Often, the strengths aren’t easily recognized,” Neumann explains. “2e children can appear to be uninterested, lazy, distracted, or disruptive; and their inconsistency can make it look to others as though they can achieve when they want to, but they don’t always want to.”

Schmauder, who developed “The Healthcare Providers’ Guide to Gifted Children” for the Gifted Homeschoolers’ Forum (giftedhomeschoolers.org/professionalresources.html), is in the process of creating a similar brochure for educators.

“Tell the teacher you are so happy to have them be able to help your child succeed, and that you’re willing to help in any way, and that you appreciate their support,” Schmauder suggests.

Teachers say that this approach completely changes their ability to work with students. Rebecca Hein, who teaches cello and wrote a memoir about raising her two profoundly gifted children (caseofbrilliance.wordpress.com), offers testimony that learning about a student’s learning disability made a huge difference in how she approached teaching.

“I had a young Suzuki student whose progress was quite slow for her age,” Hein remembers. “I had no idea why until the mother finally told me. It was much easier for me to work with her, knowing that she had this particular issue in her learning. I was grateful to have the information because it helped both me and this little girl.”

Cavanagh-Olson has seen a lot of gifted students in her district suffer from their other exceptionalities. She reminds parents that 2e students need even more support after they have suffered difficulties in school.

“They often feel defeated about school because their deficits have defined them. Focusing on the whole child with the balance tipped toward their strengths is a good vision for parents and students to work toward.”

New teacher checklist:

  • Set up a brief meeting to talk about your child’s learning needs
  • Offer a short summary of your child’s strengths and weaknesses
  • Do not overwhelm with information, but be prepared to offer other resources such as testing/diagnostic results, articles that define your child’s exceptionality, and suggestions for modified teaching strategies
  • Be a good listener, and make it clear that you want to draw on the new teacher’s experience
  • Offer specific advice that has worked in other classrooms
  • Be your child’s advocate, focusing on success
  • Offer strong support to your child

 

 

2e Resource List

Resources regarding twice-exceptional children and adults are changing daily, with new research, treatment options, and understanding of what comprises giftedness and learning disabilities. Hopefully some of the resources below will be helpful as you seek to understand your 2e children and students.

Books:

  • Academic Advocacy for Gifted Children: A Parent’s Complete Guide by Barbara Jackson Gilman MS
    This general guide helps parents navigate advocating for their gifted students in school, and offers advice on homeschooling when advocacy fails.
  • Helping Gifted Children Soar by Carol Strip & Gretchen Hirsch
    This book is a general guide for parents and teachers on the educational needs of gifted children. It offers a basis for understanding the educational and emotional needs of gifted children, with some mentions of issues specific to twice-exceptional students.
  • Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults by James T. Webb et al
    Because giftedness itself often leads to behaviors shared by such disabilities as ADHD and autism, this book is an important guide for parents and educators of the gifted. Misdiagnosis is common in gifted children because so few psychologists and therapists are trained to recognize the traits of giftedness separate from disorders that present similar behaviors.
  • Smart Kids with Learning Difficulties by Rich Weinfeld et al
    This is a straightforward guide to navigating the public and private school experience with a gifted, learning disabled child. The book includes information on a range of disabilities including Asperger’s, ADHD, Dyslexia, and social/emotional difficulties. Each chapter includes tips for educators, parents, and students, and is accompanied by helpful worksheets and guides for identifying and solving problems faced by students in school.
  • Successful Strategies for Twice-Exceptional Students by Frances A. Karnes and Kristin R. Stephens
    This resource book useful for parents, teachers, and homeschoolers, offers focused advice for a variety of learning challenges. Rather than starting with the source of the disability (e.g. autism or ADHD), the book is organized by the educational needs themselves: difficulties with mathematics, writing, reading, spoken language, and social-emotional issues.
  • Teaching Kids with Learning Difficulties in the Regular Classroom by Susan Winebrenner
    This book addresses a wide range of learning difficulties that teachers may encounter in the general education classroom. Winebrenner addresses twice-exceptional students early in the book and emphasizes teaching to the strengths of all children, regardless of ability.
  • Twice-Exceptional Gifted Children by Beverly A. Trail
    This book aimed at educators presents detailed research about the characteristics and learning needs of twice-exceptional students in school. It offers concrete guides for identifying needs, selecting strategies, and developing a comprehensive plan for each student.
  • Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual-Spatial Learner by Linda Kreger Silverman
    Though the visual-spatial learning style is not defined as a disability, it can manifest itself as one when a VS learner is placed in an inappropriate educational environment. Silverman’s book offers tips for identifying, teaching, and parenting VS learners.

Websites:

  • Davidson Institute for Talent Development Database: http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/browse_by_topic_articles.aspx
    The Davidson Institute offers this enormous database of articles about all aspects of giftedness. On this page, take a look at the far right column to see the list of twice-exceptional topics that they have categorized: ADHD, Asperger’s/Autism, Asynchrony, Dylexia/Dysgraphia, Learning Disabilities, and Sensory Integration. The breadth of this collection may seem daunting, but you can find unexpected gems here.
  • Gifted Homeschoolers’ Forum: http://www.giftedhomeschoolers.org/2eresources.html
    Whether or not you homeschool your child, this resource page will point you to many organizations, websites, support groups, and books about your child’s specific disability.
  • Hoagies’ Gifted 2e Page: http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/twice_exceptional.htm

Hoagies’ offers their own comprehensive list of 2e resources, with links to websites, books, and magazines with a variety of approaches and target audiences.

An online database of articles, webinars, and speeches on all topics of giftedness.

Specific articles available for download:

  • “The Paradox of Giftedness and Autism,” from the University of Iowa: http://www.education.uiowa.edu/belinblank/pdfs/pip.pdf
    Designed for educators, this detailed discussion of educating gifted children with Autism/Asperger Syndrome will be also helpful for parents who wish to offer specific tips to teachers working with their children.
  • “Strategies for Teaching Twice-Exceptional Students,” by Susan Winebrenner: http://www.2enewsletter.com/article_strategies_winebrenner.html
    This article offers tips for parents and educators that can help students with a variety of exceptionalities succeed in a classroom setting.

Newsletters/magazines:

  • 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter: http://www.2enewsletter.com
    2e offers a free semi-monthly e-mail briefing as well as a fee-based semi-monthly PDF newsletter. The magazine’s accessible articles are written by expert educators, psychologists, and others who work with gifted children with learning challenges. 2e also offers a series of Spotlight on 2e booklets, which cover a variety of issues of concern to parents and educators.
  • Smart Kids with Learning Disabilities Newsletter: http://www.smartkidswithld.org
    This newsletter offers short articles on news, research, and support for parents and teachers of children with learning disabilities.

In person:

SENG groups are run by a facilitator (a parent, teacher, or counselor) who has been trained by SENG. This can be an excellent way to connect with local resources, including learning more about other parents’ experiences with your schools and teachers.

For twice-exceptional kids:

  • Free Spirit Publishing’s books for kids: http://www.freespirit.com/
    Free Spirit offers lively books written for kids on a variety of topics of interest to twice-exceptional learners: ADHD, autism, anxiety & fear, etiquette & manners, social skills, and more.
  • The Gifted Kids’ Survival Guide by Judy Galbraith
    For kids 10 and under, this book helps kids understand giftedness and why they may feel different from other kids.
  • The Gifted Teens’ Survival Guide by Judy Galbraith and Jim Delisle
    This is a general-use manual for gifted teens. It covers what giftedness is, how different gifted children’s lives look, school, homeschool, college, and careers. There is a lot of good advice in the book, which encourages teens to see themselves as a full person rather than an IQ. The book also covers topics such as sexuality and depression.
  • How to Talk to an Autistic Kid by Daniel Stefansky
    This touching book is short and to the point. Written for neuro-typical children who interact with kids with autism, it could also be used to help an autistic child understand better how others perceive him and what he can do to help them understand him. The book is most suitable for adolescents and teens.
  • Neuroscience for Kids website: http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/neurok.html
    This fun, free newsletter features links to interesting articles that help children understand their brains.
  • The Smart Teens’ Guide to Living with Intensity by Lisa Rivero
    Rivero’s book is like an owner’s manual for the teen gifted brain. It presents teens with information on what intensity is and how to manage their emotional and social lives. It also helps teens learn about learning and how to become more self-directed in their studies.

 

Rethinking the education problem

Posted on by Suki

Judging from the mainstream education news you read, the US is in big trouble. Our students are falling behind. Little countries like Finland and Singapore are going to take over the world with their fantastically well-educated populations. Our public schools are so broken, we should pay corporations and churches to educate our youth instead.

If you only read general interest press, what you don’t read are articles like this one in Education Week, which highlights the startling research that shows we’re doing just fine… most of us, that is. The article focuses on new data that compares students’ achievements in math and science by state rather than aggregated from the whole country. The result is what anyone who is paying attention could tell you: our poorest, most culturally conservative, and/or most economically and linguistically diverse states are, indeed, suffering when compared on a world stage.

Map
When you break down American math and science achievement by region or by socioeconomic factors, you find that American education is not failing—it’s just failing some students in some places. See the study here.

But here’s the good news: in our states where education is well-funded, where kids are relatively well-fed, and where educators aren’t expected to push non-English speaking students through curriculum not designed for their success, we’re doing just fine. More than fine, really. States like Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Vermont “outperformed all but five of 47 countries, provinces, and jurisdictions abroad in mathematics.” In science, top scorers included Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire.

So are our schools failing or not? It depends on where the school is and who the students are.

I think that in order to understand public education in the United States, you have to understand the United States first. Unlike Finland or Singapore, we are not a small country with a single, central government. Unlike Korea and Finland, we do not have a highly homogenous culture and only one educational approach. Unlike all these countries, we have a huge immigrant population and an enduring underclass of children whose first five years are so drastically different from upper class kids’ preschool years that to expect them to perform well in the same kindergarten classroom is simply silly.

The United States is a republic of states which until recently were left on their own to determine their approach to public education. The differences in how children were educated in this country were very wide until No Child Left Behind, and great differences persist today in the quality of educational approach, even as the core curriculum is becoming more standardized. Thinking of it this way, it’s no surprise that some states vastly outperform others—the same way that some teachers vastly outperform others and some schools do the same.

It’s also very clear, when looking at the list of states that achieve near the top in math and science, that socioeconomic factors matter. The deep South, with its enduring poverty, conservative approach to education, and poor economies supported by handouts from richer states, is not represented in that list.

Also performing badly are some of the band of states along the border with Mexico, burdened as they are with educating large numbers of kids who arrive in kindergarten lacking the English language skills, physical health, and stimulating home environments provided by middle class, educated families.

What this means to me is that we need to stop trying to look at the question of whether the United States as a whole is succeeding in educating our children well. That question is meaningless and doesn’t deserve to be answered. What we need to start doing is to pay more attention to the different educational needs of different populations:

  • Every study has confirmed the huge effects of poverty on parenting and academic achievement. There is no excuse for us to be talking about cutting expenses like free breakfasts for poor kids if our real intent is to educate all children well. Good education starts with breakfast.
  • Every educator can tell you that the combination of poverty and immigrant status creates important differences in the needs that children have at school. Yes, we can all point to poor Mexican-Americans who grew up to be judges, but in general, a population of kids with linguistic, cultural, and economic barriers to American-style education needs to be educated differently than kids without these factors. We need to fully fund the education of these kids, and educate them as a resource for rather than a liability to our country.
  • We need to be frank about the way some of our states are run. States with progressive approaches to education see money being sucked out in the form of federal taxes, which then go out to states sticking with old-fashioned, outmoded educational approaches.

I’d like to see Americans answering the question of how we’re educating kids with a lot more nuance and understanding of where we are coming from, and how we are different from other countries. No other high-achieving country has the burdens we have. No other country of our size has the governmental system that we have. When comparing American schoolchildren to Finnish schoolchildren, I’d like to see the comparison of well-fed, well-educated, middle class Americans only. What sense is there in comparing a Finnish student to an Alabama youth who had never touched a book before kindergarten and arrives hungry to school each day? What sense is there comparing a Korean raised in a highly educated, largely homogenous culture to a poor immigrant American whose parents are struggling just to keep their family intact and fed?

American education is not a melting pot. It’s a beautiful, ugly, creative, hodgepodge, well-constructed, fraying-at-some-edges patchwork quilt. If we really want to “fix” education in America, we need to get to work fixing what’s wrong with the quilt, rather than cutting out what’s right.

Homeschooling Mom’s Bill of Rights

Posted on by Suki

First, my disclaimer: There are some fathers who are the primary homeschooling parent, but this piece specifically addresses a “mom thing.” As women, many of us have been socialized to feel that it’s our job to take care of everyone else to the detriment of our own health and happiness. Homeschooling dads, please feel free to see yourself in here, too, but I won’t apologize for addressing the moms on this issue.

When I was a teenager, we had something we said in our house that needs a bit of translation. Our mom would make yet another self-sacrificing gesture and one of us would inevitably say, “But I like burnt toast!” That was our way of pointing out that our mom was very quick to deny her own needs in deference to all of ours, and there were lots to defer to. My mom deferred to the needs of a husband, five kids, and sometimes even our menagerie of pets. We teased her that when our old toaster didn’t spit out the toast at the right time and some kid whined, she’d always say, “Give it to me—I like burnt toast.”

Homeschooling moms all want to be Supermom, but we have to take care of ourselves first. Totally excellent illustration by Hannah Carpenter.

Homeschooling moms eat a lot of metaphorical burnt toast. We feel indebted to our spouses for earning the money that allows us to stay home with the kids, so we defer to them. We feel responsible for our kids’ happiness even more than other moms since we have taken on such a central role, so we defer to our kids when we should be taking care of ourselves. We find ourselves so used to taking on other people’s burdens, we often even do it for other homeschooling moms, agreeing to take care of another kid when really, it’s the last thing we need to have another bundle of wants in the house, or agreeing to go on yet another fieldtrip because we don’t want to be the spoilsport.

A lot of what we do is necessary for the job: Many a woman has given up a hard-earned career, or cut back drastically, because of taking on homeschooling. Many a mom has given up a beloved pastime that used to happen during school hours. Many a homeschooling family has had to cut back expenses, which often translates into the mom losing her yoga class, her writing retreat, or her much-appreciated pedicures.

Household economies and the limits of time may be unavoidable, but there is a dark side to all this giving: sometimes Mom gives so much, it actually negatively affects not only her family’s happiness, but their homeschooling success as well.

The way I see it, homeschooling is like the ultra-marathon of parenting. If you aren’t in top shape, eating right, taking care of yourself, you’re not going to make it to the finish line. And so often, a mom deny her own needs, thinking that it will help her family. But instead it injures her family, just like the marathoner who cut down on warm-up time or has been grabbing quick junkfood instead of eating right.

Of course, each mom’s needs are different, but here are what I see as the non-negotiable…

Homeschooling Mom’s Bill of Rights

I have the right to keep my body healthy

I will find some way to negotiate support from my spouse or friends so that I can go out of the house for fresh air and exercise, without kids tagging along. I will take the time to fix myself a decent lunch after making sure the maniacs have been taken care of. I will go to the doctor when I need to, and if I’m sick and need to stay in bed, I will.

I have the right to express myself creatively

I need time off to be the person I was before I was a homeschooler, that person I need to keep intact for when homeschooling is done. My children need to see me modeling a healthy approach to self-expression, whether I create art, dance, or enjoy cooking gourmet meals for adult friends.

I have the right to adult time

Time with the adults I enjoy connecting with is important, whether those adults are other homeschoolers separate from their kids, adults I am continuing friendships with apart from our children, or adults who share common interests. I don’t have to drag our children along when an outing is for me. It’s important that I model healthy self-respect to my children so that they can do the same when they have their own children.

I have the right to love my spouse separately from my children

I chose my spouse as an adult human, not as a baby-producing mechanism, and in order to maintain a healthy relationship, my spouse and I need time to relate as adult humans separate from our children. It will not hurt our children to spend time with friends or at Grandma’s house—it will teach them how to maintain a healthy, loving relationship with their own spouses when they are adults.

I have the right to ask for help from my spouse and children

I will not try to do everything that needs to be done, even though I know that I can do it best. I will negotiate with my family the best way for us to get household chores done so that we can all live in our home comfortably and safely. I will not do other family members’ jobs “just to get them done.” I will insist that we all share the burdens and joys of living in a happy home.

I have the right to be a full person outside of homeschooling

Though homeschooling often intertwines with identity for all of us, I understand that someday homeschooling will end, and I will be left with the me that is left over. If I don’t nurture that person during every day of my homeschooling, I risk being left with a vacuum to fill. I acknowledge that once my children move on, I will need my healthy body, my creative self, my friendships, and my relationship with my spouse to have survived intact.

As a homeschooler, it is my job to put on the oxygen mask first so that I can be the best, strongest, happiest, healthiest mom I am capable of being.

Talk to your kids

Posted on by Suki

When my children were small, we were fortunate that our lives intersected briefly with a wonderful woman who was temporarily working as a babysitter. She was a refugee and had gone from being a respected professional in her native tongue to a naive beginner in America. As such, she had the unusual experience of being able to learn from the ground up again, something that most of us are not brave enough to do once we’re adults and have established ourselves in a profession.

Since childcare is an easy occupation to enter when you are a newly arrived foreigner in this country, she made money by working in preschools and babysitting while improving her English so that she could go back to the field she had her degree in, social work. Never having paid much attention to the raising of children, it was fascinating to be included in her process both of learning how to care for children in any culture, and also in looking back at the culture she’d come from with a more critical eye.

One day she told me that the thing that had most impressed her about the interactions in our family was that we talked to our children like they were people. “In my country,” she said, “we just tell them to do things and we tell them in a special voice you use for children.”

She mimicked the sing-songy voice that you’ll hear coming from parents of many cultures. She was right that this voice, as sweet as it may have been intended to sound, is usually used to issue orders.

“OK, Benny, it’s time to take your medicine!” we coo at our kids. “Now Susie, you know we don’t treat our friends that way.”

It turns out that our social-worker-turned-babysitter was on to something that researchers have found marks a huge difference in how families raise their children. Working class families are more likely to exchange only functional speech with their children: Get dressed. Don’t talk that way. Do it like this. Middle class families are more likely to have conversations with their children in which back and forth is expected: What did you do in school today? Do you think Ramona did the right thing when she pulled that girl’s hair? What an interesting idea about stars—I’ve never thought of it that way.

There are, of course, many explanations for this difference, and many examples of families that don’t fit the mold. But mountains of research show that not only is this difference real, but its effects are felt throughout our society.

In general, children of middle class parents hear more vocabulary, get asked more questions, and are listened to more than children in families with lower socioeconomic factors. And this difference isn’t just a matter of how we talk—it explains many of the persistent gaps between the well-off and the poor in this country, especially when you’re looking at families who seem “entrenched” in their class. You find them in any community in this country: The family that never seems to get its kids through high school and keep them out of jail. The family that seems to produce well-educated, functional adults time and again. And both of these families for generations have attended the same public schools, had the same teachers, should have had the same opportunities for advancement.

It’s very fashionable to blame teachers and schools for our societal ills, but it’s also very misguided. Yes, of course, our schools can always do better, and individual teachers are not always a credit to their profession. But when you consider just this one factor—the huge effect that family speech has on children’s achievements later on—it negates pretty much every argument for penalizing teachers financially when they can’t make their kids’ test scores go up.

A teacher friend of mine likes to point out that test scores are tightly correlated to zip codes. That is, unless a neighborhood experiences gentrification or an economic slide, you can pretty much predict a school’s scores by looking at which neighborhoods its students come from. The poor have been priced out of Palo Alto, thus test scores are high. And since the people who clean the houses of those affluent residents of Palo Alto often live in East Palo Alto, their scores are lower.

The frustrating thing about this difference is its persistence: year in and year out, dedicated educators work to help children rise out of the life that they were born into. And though they have successes, year in and year out they see the majority of their students grow up and produce children who are much the same as they were. And in our current edupolitical climate, teachers get unfairly blamed for this persistent gap, as if all of the other factors acting on kids outside of the classroom are unimportant.

The research, however, is clear: What happens at home is deeply tied to children’s achievement at school. (PDF fact sheet) Although teachers can do a lot, they can’t do everything. If we really want to work on the achievement gap, we can’t put it all on the shoulders of overworked, underpaid people who should be our heroes rather than our punching bags. We need a more comprehensive view of child-rearing and education in our society.

A question of scale

Posted on by Suki

This year my son and I decided to use a new and unusual history curriculum in our homeschool. The Big History Project is an attempt to reshape history to be meaningful to kids in the age of information. Rather than focusing just on the wars and conquests of the past, this curriculum attempts to help students understand a context for human history and make sense of their place in it.

One of the first concepts Big History covers is the question of scale. What does it mean to be human in an unfathomably huge and ancient universe? What is our role as a species? What is the importance of the individual and of our achievements?

Orion Nebula
The Orion Nebula as seen by the Hubble Telescope

I was thinking about how to represent this in a way that makes sense to me. I think a lot about what it means for a human consciousness to be trapped inside a biological body. Our consciousness is so vast—unlike (as far as we know) other animals, we can conceive of the universe. We can imagine a million years into the future or the past. We can study fossils and recreate the life they lived in words, static art, and film.

This vastness of our consciousness leads us, however, to have difficulty in placing our lives in context. Especially when we are children, what’s happening in our heads naturally feels as if it’s the center of things. One of the most fascinating parts of being a parent for me was watching my children define who they are within their own bodies.

First, you have a baby who has only recently separated from being part of someone else’s body. The baby has a desperate need to be touched, as if that little consciousness can’t yet conceive of being its own person. I remember with both of my babies the day they pulled their heads back from nursing and looked up at me with a new curiosity—Hello! Who are you? Who am I?

Then the baby starts to look and move around. Everything in the baby’s life revolves around the baby. Having siblings perhaps makes it a little easier to sense that you’re not the center of the universe, but your needs are still very selfish—throughout the toddler years and for some kids, well into childhood, there is a selfishness in fulfilling desires and satisfying needs. Babies don’t ask, “Is it right that my mother has to drop everything to feed me?” Toddlers don’t ask, “Is this a convenient time for me to throw a tantrum?”

I see the primary years as the time when kids are negotiating these questions: Where do I leave off and other people begin? What rights do other people have over me? What right do I have to influence and involve other people? They start to learn by trial and error (and sometimes with adult help!) how far their consciousness extends and how much they are able to influence the world around them. During this time, kids start to comprehend the true scale of things and realize that their consciousness, though vast, is just one of billions.

And then the teen years. So many parents have trouble dealing with this time when their kids seem to take antagonistic positions just to prove that they are separate, autonomous beings. I agree that it’s hard, but it’s also a thrill to watch a child fully separate and develop into his own person, to start to understand his own consciousness and what he wants to do in this frustratingly brief turn we all get. A successful end to the teen years, it seems to me, is one in which the new adult is prepared to harness the vast consciousness to pursue goals within the limits of her human life. I know that I didn’t end my teens this way, but I hope I can guide my children as well as I can toward that understanding as their eventual goal.

If you’re interested in exploring the topic of scale, here are some cool resources we’ve used:

Now available