Chapter 1 - Introduction
How do I define giftedness? I think this is an important question to ask myself as I continue this book study. The GT kids I have worked with in my classroom are all different. This isn't a surprise to anyone since ALL kids are different, but I think it's an important thing to remember as we figure out how to reverse underachievement. It won't look the same for every kid.
As teachers, we know the students who are identified as gifted, but I believe there are those kiddos, who we need to keep in mind, who have not been identified. Using the five interrelated concepts of challenge, choice, interest, enjoyment, and personal meaning shouldn't be for the GT specialists' classroom only. It's important to make sure challenge, choice, interest, enjoyment, and personal meaning are intertwined into everything we do in the general education classroom for ALL learners.
Chapter 2 - What is Underachievement?
When I think about the underachievers I've worked with over the years, there is one specific student that comes to mind. He is brilliant and gifted in so many areas. He was and is hard to work with sometimes. He would argue about why he didn't need to do an assignment because he was beyond that specific concept. He would put other students down because he believed he was smarter than the rest. He was a difficult student to handle. He was the "defiant underachiever". (I'm jumping ahead to chapter 3...oops!) School was often pointless to him. He didn't work to his full potential...but, I wonder what I could've done differently to reach him. Ugh. It's difficult admitting that. Had I given him more of a challenge, more choices, something he was interested in, enjoyed, or had personal meaning to him, would I have helped reverse that?
Chapter 3 - Characteristics of Underachievers
This chapter was fascinating to me. I was surprised by how many different types of underachievers were listed. Especially after giving my simple definition on the Flipgrid of what I felt underachievement meant. As I read through the different types and their descriptions, I thought about the students that I've worked with that fit into each category. It's interesting that most of those kids fit into more than one of those descriptions. I feel that Passive Paul, Perfectionist Pearl, Rebellious Rebecca, Social Sally, and Academic Alice are all types I have worked with more than once. I'm hoping that we'll be able to dig deeper into the different types of underachievers and what we can do differently for each of them.
It was interesting to read about the four key influences of the underachiever. Gender, peers, family dynamics, poverty and the underserved populations are influences that we have to think about for every student, but to apply it to the gifted underachiever is important as we try to figure out how to best help these students.
It was mentioned more than once that 7th grade is critical for boys while 8th-9th grade is critical for girls. As most of us in this group are elementary teachers, it's vital for us to identify our underachievers and do everything we can to make sure our kids go on to middle school working to their full potential.
One of the most important things said in this chapter was, "Students' attitudes toward school and the relationship they see between school and their future success and prosperity influence their academic achievement." We spend more time with our students than their parents do. I believe it's my responsibility to make sure my students believe that the hard work they do now will influence their future for the better.
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