The author is the proud parent of The Most Complex Child on the Planet[TM]. This has been confirmed by numerous teachers, administrators, doctors, therapists, specialists, friends, family members, and random strangers on the street. She has accepted her son's complexity (mostly) and is trying to work with it instead of against it. Now she is…

Overexcitabilities (OEs) are part of a larger theory, the Theory of Positive Disintegration (TPD), postulated by Polish World War I and II survivor Kazimierz Dabrowski. Simply put, an OE is a stimulus-response that is different from the norm; it is a heightened ability to both receive and respond to stimuli. Originally translated as…

Social-emotional development is a fundamental part of a child's overall well-being. Healthy development forms a critical foundation for building positive relationships and a strong self-esteem. Social-emotional development includes the ability to express and manage emotions and to establish secure relationships. All children have a natural desire…

Once upon a time, a student well advanced past grade level in math would have had few choices. Advanced students would invariably outpace the skills of their elementary teachers, and due to age wouldn't have options such as going to the middle school or community college for classes. Soon thereafter, students would enter middle school only to find…

A major impediment to fostering critical thinking in STEM programs is, ironically, state science standards. In 2012, the Thomas Fordham Foundation completed a review of multiple aspects of US state science standards and determined states averaged a "C-" overall, with only six states earning an "A." This article is about how teachers (whether in a…

How do teachers teach gifted students whose emotional age trails their chronological age? How can they integrate those students into their classes so that these students mature while not detracting from the learning of the other students? In this article, the author offers pieces of advice on teaching gifted students whose emotional ages trail…

Tier 1, the first level of instruction in the RtI (Response to Intervention) framework, is designed to meet the needs of 80% of students within the regular classroom. The only way to accomplish this goal is to use differentiation. Differentiation is not a singular process; it is rather a complicated process of adapting instructional strategies so…

Parents who homeschool gifted children often find the daily practice of home education very different from what they had imagined. Gifted children are complex in both personality and learning styles. Parents who say that homeschooling works well for their gifted children have learned from others or discovered on their own several secrets that make…

While resources for the gifted are not abundant, many schools do offer classes, programs, services, and/or clubs that broaden student learning beyond the curriculum. What can educators do to expand the horizons of gifted children--to open their minds to new worlds of knowledge and understanding? Programs for gifted students, particularly those…

Most educators who work with gifted students acknowledge the importance of creativity and have found various ways to include it as part of the gifted education curriculum. In many cases, however, developing creativity is still viewed as something separate from academic learning. Students with undemonstrated creative potential often are excluded…

Even though creativity is often included as one criterion for identification of gifted students, its development is not standard practice in many schools. What can teachers do to address creativity in the classroom? How can a teacher add one more thing to an already overcrowded curriculum? Rather than adding, creativity should be embedded into the…

In the 1970s, Jose Antonio Abreu started the Venezuelan program that puts instruments into the hands of poor children and transforms their lives with free music education. Abreu, a musician and economist, sees in the arts not just a discipline and skill but a path to true selfhood. This is not the sort of talk one often finds in education.…

Why do so many gifted youngsters stop working hard as soon as they encounter real challenge? These children are happy to spend time at tasks where they knew they will do well but balk at situations for which success may not be guaranteed. In early grades, a gifted child is often praised for his/her innate abilities. Many adults believe that it is…

Parents and teachers occasionally express concern that their children are too focused on the discovery of mathematics. The author remembers clearly one upset father who told him, "Just teach my daughter what she needs to know. Don't worry if she understands why it works. She just needs to know how to get the right answer." The author agrees with…

Learning style, emotional health, and short term memory all act in concert to affect one's capacity to learn on any given day. However, with a few simple rules, lessons can be structured and delivered to meet more kids' needs more often. Current brain research gives teachers a new way to understand the "best practices" they have been taught. The…