Growing Up Labeled Gifted, Feeling Held Back

Since February 2012, I’ve been posting off and on about how I felt about being labeled “gifted” as a child. Those posts are:

How Does it Feel to Be Labeled “Gifted?”

Looking Back on Growing Up As a Gifted Kid: The Open Classroom

Tales of a Fourth Grade Something

Growing Up Labeled “Gifted” – Vindication?

Junior High was 7th and 8th grade where I grew up. The gifted program offered was the MGM program. This was the same program I had been in when I was in 2nd grade in a different school district. I opted out because I would miss out on other electives and there were so many from which to choose! From what I understood, the kids in the MGM class basically played Dungeons and Dragons all day. They played other games that were considered educational, but at the time it didn’t seem like something I wanted to do during my elective period.

I ended up taking a lot of Home Ec type classes, plus ceramics, Mixed Media, oh, and Typing was a required “elective.” What I really wanted to do was to take Drama. Mom said, “no.” She wanted me to focus only on electives that might actually help me earn a living and learn life skills. For some reason, she didn’t think acting would be a solid steady career where a person could support oneself reliably. I didn’t care. I begged her every quarter when it came time choose new classes. I’m still not sure why ceramics was okay, but drama wasn’t okay. I was allowed to take Dance because it was good exercise.  I do know that one of the factors involved was that we (my mom and I, dad was opposed) belonged to a religion that basically frowned on higher education beyond high school. Trade school or vocational schools were okay because they didn’t take as long as a four year college.

The primary reason for this was because the only real goal one should have is to spend as much time as possible in the ministry. We were to follow the example of the apostles and first century Christians and put the preaching of the good news ahead of all other material things. What it all boiled down to is, what is more important? GOD? Or ANY thing else? When one is raised to believe in God and that the Bible is God’s word, the epic battle of God vs. Anything or Anyone, can only have one outcome.

They never actually came out said, “Don’t go to college.” They would always say it was a conscience matter and no one in the congregation should look down on someone if they chose to go to college. Still, the implication was there that if you went to college, you were spiritually weak.

By high school, there weren’t any programs for gifted students in 9th through 12 grades. They had honors classes, but that was about it. They didn’t have a drama class anymore thanks to the ongoing effects of California Proposition 13. If I complained about it to my dad, he would remind that thanks to Prop. 13, we got to keep our house. Ah, but I digress…

Because I wasn’t planning on going to college (I craved adult approval, and most of the adults in my life were in my congregation. These adults would be concerned with my spirituality if I made the decision to go to college), I didn’t bother working too hard to get good grades. I didn’t completely goof off though. Remember, I craved adult approval, and teachers were adults too. If I enjoyed a particular subject, I would manage to earn an “A.” If I didn’t enjoy the subject, I would get a “B” or a “C.” School wasn’t particularly difficult except when it came to math. The year I was to graduate was the last year they allowed students to only take two semester of math to graduate. I didn’t see the need to challenge myself.

I still hung out with some of the kids from the HAPP program and would feel a little envious watching them work toward scholarships and plan for college. I would remind myself that I was doing the right thing in God’s eyes. Sometimes I would wonder if my “giftedness” had been wasted on me since I wasn’t going to college. I wasn’t going to get a degree. Again, I would remind myself that I could use my “giftedness” in other ways. I could use it in the ministry work to help others.

At this point I feel the need to confess that I have been struggling with the writing of this. My twenty-one-year-old daughter happened to be in the room, and I asked her, half-joking, half whining, “Will you please write this for me?”

“What? Your article?” She asked.

“Yes. Will you please write my article that is supposed to be about my past?”

“How long is it supposed to be?”

“Not very long, I’m just having a hard time right now.”

“I think you’re probably over-thinking this.”

“Yes! You’re right! Of course I’m overthinking it! That is what I do! I overthink things!”

Which way do I go with this? I wanted to add that I did finally manage to coerce my mom into letting me try out for high school plays (we didn’t have a drama department, but we did have a drama club) and that by my junior year, I was cast as “Louise” (the French maid) in “Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Nile.” (Yes, the book and the film are “Death on the Nile,” but for some reason the play is titled as above). I struggled with seriously wanting to be an actor, but I believed I had no other options than to pursue only my spiritual goals.

I have more to say about this, but I’m realizing one of the reasons I’m having a difficult time is that I’m having to choose what to put in this post and what to save for another post so that this doesn’t become unreadably long. I’ll stop here and continue this at another time.

 

 

Emotional Intensity and Emotionally Drained

My computer is in the hospital. I am using a borrowed computer. The assistant principal Christine mentioned in her post who passed away this weekend was a favorite teacher of my oldest daughter less than ten years ago. She was also one of my favorites. We’ve also been having some other things going on in the background that I can’t talk about right now until I know more and I won’t know more until at least later today, though it could also be months from now.

My plan for today’s post was going to be about another recent emotional outburst from my youngest daughter, but for the life of me, I can’t even remember enough of it to put it down. My brain won’t let me access that information in enough detail. Something did happen a few minutes ago that made me wonder just how much my husband and I may be responsible for these outbursts (genetics aside). As I am writing this, it is just after dinner time. We almost never have a traditional dinner around the table. We haven’t for years. What normally happens is sometime between 5 and 6:30 p.m. I make sure that everyone who is going to be eating dinner at home is present and accounted for and then either I make something, or I make sure we have the type of food available so everyone can fend for themselves, or we get take out. Then we go to our favorite eating places–my husband and I on our bed in front of our favorite shows, our youngest on the couch in the family room in front of her favorite shows (or sometimes she joins us or sometimes her siblings join her). Once a week, each of the 21-year-old twins makes a meal for the family.

Tonight was one of those nights. We all dished up our lovely vegan lasagna. I took mine back to my room and my youngest took hers and followed me in there. My husband came out of the office where he had been watching blooper videos. He came into the bedroom with his food, but our daughter, who by now had finished eating and was playing a game with earbuds in, was taking up most of the space on the bed. He tried to get her to go or at least move. “Hey! Someone’s in my place!” he said, but she made a noise that sounded like, “Unnnh.”

We knew if we pushed the issue, she’d quite likely escalate to “Unnnnnnnh!” and then much more until my husband would have to physically remove her from the bed and then have to send her to her own bed. Oh, we are talking about an eleven-year-old girl with an above average command of the English language. I braced myself for the battle I thought was about to ensue. Instead, my husband just sighed and said somewhat defeatedly, “Just tell me when my place opens back up again.”

“You can force the issue,” I encouraged, trying to communicate he would have my full support. By now, he was halfway down the hall, “So can you!” He countered. “But it’s your space,” I responded, most likely on deaf ears –he was probably already in the office by now. So there sat our daughter. She had gotten her way over what her father wanted to happen. I thought, no wonder she loses it when we force the issue with her –she’s so used to getting her way! I tapped her to make sure she could hear me. “Hey, dad let you sit here because he decided he’d rather go watch the videos he was watching before instead of what I was watching. I don’t want you to think you just got your way because you were being stubborn.” She acknowledged the information then went back to her game. I guess we were both too tired to force the issue this time

Honor Roll Intensity

A few weeks ago, I received an email from my daughter’s 5th grade teacher informing me that there would be an awards assembly the following week and my daughter would be getting an award. She would be getting an award on the Silver Honor Roll this time, instead of the Gold Honor Roll because she got a “B” in math. I was a little confused, because the day before, my daughter had been looking up her grades on Edline and noticed she had a “B” in Social Studies, but “A’s” in everything else. Oh well, same end results either way.

I know my daughter. She would not be happy with Silver Honor Roll. I am pausing here for a minute, because I am wondering just how crazy that sounds. There are kids who would be thrilled to get the kind of grades it takes to make the Silver Honor Roll. There are kids who would be thrilled to make the grades it takes to almost make the Silver Honor Roll (They don’t have Bronze at her school). But I knew she would be upset about this turn of events, so I prepared ahead of time how I was going to tell her. I wanted to prevent an emotional melt down. Stop laughing –I still believe they can occasionally be prevented–let me keep my fantasy!  So I started with the “Good News.”

When she came home from school that day this is what I said: “I got an email from your teacher today. She said there’s going to be an awards assembly next Thursday.” She immediately threw herself onto my bed and began sobbing hysterically. “But, you’re getting an award!” I offered.

“But I’m not (sob!) going to be (sob!) on the Gold Honor Roll!” More sobbing ensued.

“The Silver Honor Roll is still an honor! We’re very proud of you!”

“But now I can never be on the Platinum Honor Roll because of that “B” in Social Studies!” More sobbing.

“What’s the Platin–oh.”  I got it. The Platinum Honor Roll. You get that at the end of the school year if you’ve made the Gold Honor Roll the previous two trimesters. That little extra incentive for the student to keep their grades up consistently. “Wait a minute,” I remembered, “Your teacher said you got that “B” in Math, not Social Studies.”

“No, I saw it yesterday,” she responded, “I have an “A” in Math. The “B” is Social Studies.”

“Let’s Look it up.”

So look it up we did, and there it was: She had straight “A’s” in all of her subjects. I emailed her teacher asking about this. Her teacher responded with an apology, explaining that the “B” in Math was a typo from her math teacher, and she ended up giving my daughter one extra point in Social Studies which bumped her grade up to an “A.” So, she would be getting the Gold Honor Roll award after all.

When I told my husband about our little crisis, he just put his hand over his heart and said (almost tongue in cheek) “Well, thank GOD!”

I had to admit, deep inside, when my daughter was sobbing over not being on Gold Honor Roll, even though she was still going to be on the Silver Honor Roll, I felt a little bit proud and also strangely relieved. It looked to me that she might follow the academic path of her older sister, rather than her older brother. It won’t be likely that we’ll ever have to beg, plead and cajole homework assignments out of her.  At least she cares! On the other hand, we’ll need to find ways to help her realize it isn’t the end of the world if she does a “B” from time to time.

But how do we do this? How do we balance her intense reactions to what she perceives as failures, while still wanting to encourage her to keep her grades up?

 

Growing Up Labeled “Gifted” – Vindication?

I was sitting on the school bus in front of my school waiting for the kids to straggle in from the other fifth grade classrooms (the sixth graders went on a different day). My friend, Tania and I whispered words of mutually agreed approval and occasional surprise as each student took a seat on the bus. “Oh yeah, of course he’s in,” or “Hunh, I didn’t know she’d be in, but okaaaay..” And off we went in the middle of the school day to the HAPP (High Academic Performance Program) building which was located in a portable building on the campus of another elementary school in the school district. Finally, after two years of waiting, I was back in a gifted program. I felt vindicated.

Every Tuesday we’d go our HAPP class and do a variety of projects. Some activities were boring and some were fun and creative. To be fair, some of the activities I considered boring were probably intended to be creative, like the “Thinking Program.” The teacher would read a problem from the Thinking Program book and we would either discuss a solution as a group or break off into smaller groups or individually and come with solutions to bring back to the group. Sometimes we had math problems to work out, which I never finished before the other students.

One day, after a disheartening round of math, I was sitting at a desk, doing some self-scrutiny. I was wondering if they got it wrong when they tested me. I remembered reading some material the HAPP teacher sent out to our parents explaining that there were different ways a student could be gifted. Mathematics was obviously not my way. I could still read better and certainly with more inflection than most of the kids in my school. I knew I was a better and more entertaining reader than many of the kids in my HAPP group. In fact, at least in my particular group, at the best, maybe a few students read as well as I did, including proper inflection and emotion. Just as I was coming back around to believing in myself again, I overheard one boy from our group disdainfully ask another boy using what can best be describe as a stage whisper, “Why is she even in here? She’s terrible at math!”  I felt a lump rise in my throat. I took his tone and word to mean that he felt I was ruining everything like the worst player on a team. I looked up at the ceiling to prevent the tears. That’s when I heard the other boy, a boy from my school who had been in every class with me since third grade say, “Because she’s a really good reader, so shut up!” While I don’t even remember who the boy was that complained about me, I will always remember the boy who stuck up for me.

 

We would also get a bit of homework to turn in the next time. It wasn’t a lot, but in addition to that, we had to make up whatever we missed in class that day. The highlight of the year was the talent show where my friend Tania and I played our violins outside the auditorium as the audience piled in. The downside of that evening was when I was supposed to read a paragraph or two explaining the next  act, but the spotlight shining on me, made my paper less opaque and made it more difficult to make out the words to read. I managed to stumble through it, demoralized that my chance to shine and show off my very best skills had been thwarted by technical issues. To make matters worse, my own mother questioned whether I had practiced reading through it enough. Was she kidding? One of the only things that got me through it was that I had read it so many times I practically had it memorized! O, for a time machine! I could have used a clipboard to hold the paper!

In Sixth grade, due to the students complaining about having to make up work they missed in class, and also, probably due to budget cuts, the HAPP teacher traveled from school to school so the students would miss less classroom time with the travel time now omitted. While this helped with homework, I think we all kind of missed our friends from the other schools. We did get to meet up with them when we went on field trips, one of the most memorable being the time we got to see the space shuttle Columbia while they were still building it –I think at or near a facility at Edward’s Airforce Base.

Things changed with the school district’s gifted program for Jr. High School. I’ll talk about that the next time I post an installment about my experiences growing up as a gifted child. If you wish to read my previous installments:

How Does it Feel to Be Labeled “Gifted?”

Looking Back on Growing Up As a Gifted Kid: The Open Classroom

Tales of a Fourth Grade Something

Donna Leonard

You can read my regular/irregular blog at http://manicmeanderings.blogspot.com/

 

Tales of a Fourth Grade Something

The continuing tales of growing up with the “gifted” label.  Earlier posts can be found here and here.

I loved my fourth grade teacher.  Miss Ranelletti. It was her first year teaching on her own. She loved us, and we loved her. This was also the year I was going to be in the gifted program. The year before, I was told I would have to wait until fourth grade.  By the time I entered the 4th grade, rules had changed, or perhaps budgets? The gifted program was now only for fifth and sixth graders. Of course it was!

Somehow, this year, it didn’t matter. Though I was in a traditional classroom filled only with students who were the same grade level as I was for the first time since kindergarten, it managed to be another creative and enriching school year. Having the “gifted” label lingering over my head made me feel like I ought to do very well and get some of the highest grades in the class. I didn’t expect to get the very highest grades, because I knew there were other “gifted” kids in my classroom.  I did end up in the highest reading, math and spelling groups. All other subjects were taught with the entire class.

It was a fun year. “Welcome Back Kotter” was a big hit and Miss Ranelletti let us call ourselves “The Sweathogs.”  She would occasionally allow  Arnold Horshack imitations with the “”Ooh-ooh-ooooh!” As we raised our hands in class. Not all the time. Just in certain, more casual situations. Not when the principal happened to be nearby, for example.

We were encouraged to express ourselves creatively, so if a few students wanted to write a little skit and perform in front of the class, she made time for that, right after lunch. I somehow managed to persuade one of my male classmates to be “Donny” to my “Marie” as we sang “A Little Bit of Country, A Little Bit of Rock and Roll.”

Looking back, I think the “gifted” label still helped me to excel in school. Back then, I wondered what it was like for the kids who didn’t meet those “standards.” Even for the ones who were otherwise good students, why didn’t they qualify for the gifted program? A few of us who knew we had qualified for the program, would sometimes quietly talk about certain students, “She’s really smart, why isn’t she ‘in’?”  I realized that a good portion of why I did well in school had nothing to do with hard work and dedication on my part. Some of it did, but I could see that some kids had to struggle more just to pass. I felt bad for them. Even though I did well, I did struggle with certain things a little bit, and could only imagine what it must feel like to have to struggle with everything all the time.  I thought of myself as one of the lucky ones. I wondered why I was so lucky to be “gifted.” I knew it wasn’t fair. Sometimes, I felt a little guilty, but usually, I was relieved.

Did you have a similar experience? If you were in the GT programs, did you have any feelings of guilt about the kids who struggled?

If you were one of the kids who struggled, did you have any feelings of resentment toward the kids who seemed to have a much easier time getting good grades?

We Interrupt This Previously Established Timeline…

I’m flashing forward from my experiences in third grade in the 1970′s to present-day and my twenty-year-old son.  He was diagnosed with ADD when he was fourteen-years-old.  (Okay, a bit of a flash back too).  For years we wondered if he had ADD or even ADHD. We had serious doubts because other than the fact that he could usually be found at the highest location on a playground, i.e., the very tip top of the tallest play structure, he did not seem to be any more “hyper-active” when compared to any of the other boys his age.

   In elementary school, even his teachers told us that he did not seem to be hyperactive, though he was a bit more talkative and social than preferred, but they still felt he fell within normal bounds for his age and gender.  In second grade, he and his twin sister were tested using the Raven Matrice.  He scored high enough to get him into a special class, which was separate from the regular GATE classes. His sister scored high enough to get into the GATE classroom, but not the special class. This was in San Diego. Then we moved about 45 miles north to the Temecula Valley and the GATE program was different.  He never ended up going to the separate class because we moved at the beginning of that school year.

Throughout elementary and middle school, he would win awards for being on the Silver Honor Roll, and his sister would get the Gold Honor Roll awards.  (I might talk more about this in future posts).

When high school became more of a struggle for him to get his homework in, we finally had him diagnosed and he was prescribed medication. He ended up taking it for a few months, and was thrilled when it seemed to give him the much needed ability to focus, but then gave up, very strongly refusing to take it anymore because of how it wreaked havoc on his appetite (a condition an underweight, under-tall 9th grader does not need!) and began making him too drowsy to pay attention in class no matter how many times we tried to tweak the dosage.  The rest of his high school career was filled with GPAs just high enough to be allowed to participate in school plays until his senior year when his grades spiraled out of control and he barely graduated.

After graduation, he was able to get work fairly quickly and seemed to be doing well, working as a runner/parking lot attendant/kitchen help for a local restaurant.  They were amazed at how well he got along with customers, and how quickly he got his work done.  While we were not surprised that the customers enjoyed his friendly personality, we wondered if his boss was sure she was talking about our son when it came to his work ethic.  At home, it was always a struggle to get him to do his chores –as it was/is the case for our other two children, and to be perfectly honest, my husband and I did our share of chore-dodging when were kids too, so it’s not like he didn’t come by that honestly.

After almost a year on the job, we started hearing stories from him about this new worker who would just rush in right in front of him and take jobs from him and not leave any work for anyone else to do.  He would also complain that though he was still working very hard, it seemed that every time he just happened to stop working just for a couple of seconds to catch his breath, that would be when his boss would see him and tell him to get back to work.  His schedule would change each month and would be printed up at work for him to write down.  There were several occasions where he wrote down the wrong days, which lead to his boss having to call and ask if he was coming in.  Eventually, even though they liked him, they had to let him go.

This lead to a long time of off and on unemployment for him.  He tried selling knives, he did odd jobs for a friend of his who worked for a property management company,  he was even a sign twirler for a while, until the business decided to cut back on the expense of having a sign twirler.  During this time, due to circumstances partially having to do with some things I have already mentioned in this post, and due to some other things that I won’t go into at this time, we decided we were doing more harm than good having him live at home rent free, so at the age of 19, we told him we loved him, and then we gave him 30 days notice to move out.  For a while, he crashed at the homes of various friends, and when that wasn’t possible, he was literally homeless and slept in a sleeping bag out in the wilderness (we aren’t sure exactly where).  He still had a mobile phone (which we paid for) and we told him he could use our address on job applications.  Finally, he was able to find a place to live for a few months, paying a small amount of rent that he earned with his sign-twirling  job.

When that place became unavailable to him due to his roommates moving out, and he was trying to find a new place to live, he lost his sign-twirling job.  So no money, no job, no place to live.  We let him move back in again because we felt we had seen some improvement and perhaps some slight signs of maturation on his part.  He has now been here a few weeks.  He will be turning twenty-one in a month and half.  He is unemployed, but looking for work.  By my own observation, he does not seem to be looking hard enough.

Last week, I read the post by Jen Merrill, Gifted, Creative, or ADHD?    In one of the comments, a young man told his story of living undiagnosed with ADHD.  This sounded like my son.  The young man went on to say how going on a particular medication has changed his life. While acknowledging it wasn’t magic, he explained how it helped him to be able to work to reach his full potential.  When I presented the idea of giving medication another try again to my son, he literally jumped back and almost shouting, said, “No!”  I persuaded him to at least listen to the comment from the young man who is twelve years older than my son.  He softened a bit, and has now agreed to get an appointment to talk to a doctor about the possibility of giving medication another try.  In future posts, I will update with his progress.

Donna Leonard

You can read my regular blog at Manic Meanderings

Looking Back on Growing Up As a Gifted Kid: The Open Classroom

This the continuing story of my experiences growing up with the “gifted” label. My first installment can be found here.

In 1973, my family and I moved to a different area and a different school district. I was put into an “Open Classroom” which was a mix of 3rd, 4th and 5th grade students, and two teachers.

This school district’s gifted program was called HAPP. (High Academic Performance Program).  Unlike the Mentally Gifted Minors program that I was involved with in 2nd grade, students didn’t go into HAPP until 4th grade.  I remember feeling as though I had been treated unjustly when I would watch some of the 4th and 5th graders from my class getting called away to do their HAPP activities. I asked my older classmates how I could get in the program, since I had already been in a gifted program at my old school. When they explained I had to wait till 4th grade, I wasn’t having any of it. I went to my teacher. Surely, she would listen to reason. I explained that I had already been in the gifted program at my old school and this was 2nd grade, so of course, I should be put in the gifted program here, now that I am a grade older.  My teacher explained that the HAPP program was for 4th – 6th grade. I tried to explain that even though I was technically in the 3rd grade, I should still get to go since I had already been tested and qualified for that program.  She said I would still have to wait till 4th grade. I walked away deciding adults were just stupid. I was seven-years-old.

I was sure my “giftedness” would wither away and die like an unused muscle if I didn’t get into that program somehow. I expressed my concerns to my mom. She said that when she was registering me for school, she explained that I had been in the gifted program at my old school, and that was why I was put in this open classroom. I was one of several third graders in a class also populated by fourth and fifth graders. The classroom environment was intended to give me the mental stimulation I might have otherwise missed out on in a traditional classroom.

In addition to the classroom being the size of two classrooms, and the students varying in ages from seven-years-old (at the beginning of the school year) to eleven-years-old. Instead of desks, there were tables and chairs, and couches and recliners. There were clipboards available if we needed a hard surface to do our assignments.  Every couple of months, we would split into groups of our choosing and make “Centers.” These were  little educational centers around the classroom that we would decorate with colorful butcher paper, construction paper,  corrugated trim and our own artwork. We had to display at least one book from the library that had to do with our subject (chosen by us, approved by a teacher). We had to have several educational activities available for the other students to do. Once we all finished building our centers, we would go around the classroom to each center and we had to complete a certain number of activities from a certain number of centers by the end of the week (or end of the month?)

As I am writing this, I am starting to remember the checklists. We still had to do regular classwork for math, reading, spelling, etc. Sometimes we would meet around a table at a scheduled time in a small group with a teacher. For other assignments, we could choose which ones to do first as long as they were all done and checked off the list by the end of the week.

I also remember Suzy, who was one of my best friends and a fourth grader in the same classroom. Sometime during the school year, her mother, who happened to be a 4th grade teacher, had her moved to a traditional classroom because she didn’t think Suzy was being taught what she needed to learn for 4th grade (this was Suzy’s explanation. I didn’t bother to question her mother at the time. I doubted she would feel the need to explain her decision to a 3rd grader). I felt sorry for Suzy because I thought her life was going to quickly become very boring. the next year, when I entered 4th grade in a traditional classroom, I somehow managed to be in all the highest math, spelling and reading groups, so I must’ve learned something in that open classroom environment!

Looking back on this now as an adult, I would have to agree 100%. I remember the 3rd grade as being the most creatively stimulating year of my school career I think it was a shame that most schools ended their “Open Classroom” programs just a few years later.

I will continue with my experiences about how being labeled “gifted” affected me later in school, in adulthood, and finally with raising three very different children, all who have been labeled as “gifted.”

Donna Leonard

You can read my regular blog at Manic Meanderings

How Does it Feel to Be Labeled “Gifted?”

I guess I should have seen it coming. Before I was even in Kindergarten, I remember playing with kids who were older than me. Their even older siblings and their moms would be amazed at how I spoke like an adult. I didn’t quite get what the big deal was, didn’t everyone talk this way? How did this make me feel? I liked being admired by grown-ups and by the older kids. It also felt a little awkward because I felt like this wasn’t something I had worked for or earned; it was something that just was. I couldn’t speak the way they expected the average 4-year old to speak if I tried!

In Kindergarten, I was in the highest reading group–yeah, I know, try not to drop your teeth in shock. One Friday, when school was almost out, my teacher announced that she wanted anyone who was having trouble with a particular word, should line up at her desk and she would write that word on their hands to help them remember it over the weekend! A school sanctioned temporary tattoo! Of course back then, in the early 1970′s, no one had temporary tattoos, but the concept felt the same at the time. As I watched kids line up, I wanted Mrs. Olsen to DRAW on my hand too, but there weren’t any words I was having a problem with. I got in line anyway, hoping I might get some inspiration from the other kids as they told the teacher what word to write. When it was my turn, Mrs. Olsen looked at me, tilted her head in slight confusion and said, “Donna?” Her tone said, “You? You are having a problem with a WORD? Oh, I don’t think so honey.” Because she was kind, she asked, “Okay, what’s your word?”

Even at age five, I caught the subtle unspoken exchange: Okay, I know you just want me to write on your hand, so I’ll play along this time. I answered, “Look.” She wrote the word on my hand and drew eyes with the double “o’s,” explaining that I could remember it, because it was “looking” at me. So, I got a little extra art work as my reward for lying! Maybe she viewed it as wanting to fit in with the other kids who hadn’t yet mastered all the reading words as quickly as I had? I hadn’t been labeled, “gifted” yet, but I knew that I usually did better with my school work than most of the kids in my class. How did this make me feel? Relieved, mostly. I observed how school life could be difficult and possibly embarrassing for the kids who did struggle –at least I imagined it was at least a bit embarrassing to have to read out loud and not know how to pronounce ANY of the words. And of course, my desire to gain adult approval was fulfilled.

In second grade, I was still in the highest reading and math groups. Sometimes I was in the second highest math group, which was okay, as long as I wasn’t in the lowest! That would have been humiliating for me. I never looked down on the kids in the lowest groups and was friends with some of them, but already, I had decided it would be humiliation for me to be put in a “lower” group. The teacher never came out and said what level the groups represented. We were called, the Red Group, The Blue Group, The Green Group, etc. But everyone knew what they really meant because of the level of work each group was assigned.

This year, they had an “Enrichment Group” also called “MGM” (Mentally Gifted Minors). The first week, my teacher called out the names of kids who were supposed to go to Enrichment. They left the class for a while to do other activities. My name wasn’t called. I was kind of upset because I was pretty sure if there was some class called “Enrichment,” I was supposed to be there! A week later, when my mom got a call from my teacher asking if I wanted to be in the Enrichment Program, all I could think was, “Yes!” and, “It’s about time!”

We moved to a different school district for third grade and things changed a bit with the Gifted Students programs.
I will continue with my experiences about how being labeled “gifted” affected me later in school, in adulthood, and finally with raising three very different children, all who have been labeled as “gifted.”

Donna Leonard

Manic Meanderings

Dear Gifted Me: Donna Susanne

Welcome to the first edition of DEAR GIFTED ME – Letters to our gifted selves. Using the wildly popular DEAR TEEN ME letters YA writers have been writing to their younger selves, these posts strive to remember and teach our younger selves something about growing up gifted. Our first installment comes from Donna Leonard. These posts will pop up from time to time. If you are interested in contributing one, be sure to let us know!

And now – take it away, Donna:

Dear Donna,

Stop comparing your insides to other people’s outsides! You deserve to be where you are. The summer before each year of Jr. High, practice your math! Yes, I know you hate it, and you might actually be a bit dyslexic when it comes to numbers. Otherwise, you will end up in math classes far below your abilities and will become so bored that your Math Pee-Chee folder will have more doodles on it than any other subject’s corresponding Pee-Chee folder. You do well with understanding mathematical concepts, but your hand will continually and randomly write down the wrong number, thus throwing off entire calculations. Sometimes even re-checking doesn’t help, but re-check anyway. Take Math classes all four years of high school, and while we are on the subject, do whatever it takes to get into college (Berkeley would be awesome!—hint, hint).

Don’t fall into the trap of putting forth a mediocre effort just because you can still get A’s and B’s this way. This will also get you C’s in certain classes and can hinder your chances of getting into the college of your choice. Get some classes, like Chemistry out of the way over the summer.

How far back in time do I get to go with this letter? If I can go back to when you were almost four-years-old, I would like to request that you not ask your mother any questions about God. This might actually prevent her from later joining a religion that frowns on higher education. YOU ARE GOING TO COLLEGE! Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. Even if this doesn’t work, you can still go to college, but you really have to push for it, and get plenty of scholarships and grants, because I am telling you right now, your parents aren’t saving one red cent toward any college fund. They do manage to keep a roof over your head, have plenty to eat, buy you new school clothes every year, and get braces for you. (Okay, the not “saving one red cent” thing isn’t exactly accurate. They do manage to sock away an entire couple hundred bucks in a school savings fund for me.)

Save your money (stop laughing!) Be an actor! Be a writer! Write novels! Write screenplays! Date John Cusack! (Oh, sorry, that one just kind of slipped in there…) They didn’t make a mistake when they said you were “gifted,” but even “gifted” people have to work hard for their success.

Did I mention, go to college? Don’t waste our mind!

Oh, one more thing: I am concerned that if I send this letter to my younger self, it might produce a time-travel paradox, wherein, if my younger self reads this and follows the instructions, my children might never exist. They are all amazing, bright, creative people! I would not trade getting married at eighteen, getting divorced while pregnant with ex-husband’s twins at 24, and being a single mom of twins for the first five years of their lives, if it means I would never know them, or the man I am married to now, or our ten-year-old daughter. It was all worth it, even if it has taken me decades to struggle with my self-confidence! So, this letter will have to remain unsent. The entire fabric of Time and Space depends upon it!

Donna Leonard