Monday, October 30, 2006
Don Mendell's response to Lesson 2
It seems that gifted kids are skipping steps in the learning process as we know it. But it is likely that a "perfect storm" of nature and nurture is in play. A child that seizes a concept out of the billions of points of stimuli, and the brain quickly erects a servicable scaffolding for the absorbtion of ideas that relate to the schema, no matter how remotely. Meanwhile "regular folks" continue to trial-and-error their way, picking through the vast piles of seemingly random ideas to find occasional tidbits for developing an ability.
The gifted child in a physiological sense probably has a portion of the brain that is unusually large or over-developed in some manner. I say "probably" because we really haven't discovered specific neuron clusters (brain formations) that are directly responsible for particular skills, not to mention excelling in those skills to the degree that we consider gifted. I do not doubt that someday we will know alot more about the biological differences that are likely causal to childhood giftedness. I am theorizing that whatever brain advantage one may have toward genius, there must also be some nurturing, igniting or corroberating environmental and experiencial factors present.
Having attended a seminar conducted by a Chicago-based brain surgeon who's name escapes me. I was interested to hear that at age 2 yrs. that children's brains are in a state of mega-adaptation which involves neuron cell migration and specialization at a frantic pace that returns to a much slower rate of growth at about 6 yrs. This doctor implored educators and parents to enrich the learning that happens to children at this stage. I came away feeling that I had been exposed to a link to understanding not only giftedness but all learning. Also, I feel that our attempts (and difficulties) in defining giftedness relate to the struggle associated with efforts to understand, break down or categorize a process that is natural to the point of being elemental.
The gifted child in a physiological sense probably has a portion of the brain that is unusually large or over-developed in some manner. I say "probably" because we really haven't discovered specific neuron clusters (brain formations) that are directly responsible for particular skills, not to mention excelling in those skills to the degree that we consider gifted. I do not doubt that someday we will know alot more about the biological differences that are likely causal to childhood giftedness. I am theorizing that whatever brain advantage one may have toward genius, there must also be some nurturing, igniting or corroberating environmental and experiencial factors present.
Having attended a seminar conducted by a Chicago-based brain surgeon who's name escapes me. I was interested to hear that at age 2 yrs. that children's brains are in a state of mega-adaptation which involves neuron cell migration and specialization at a frantic pace that returns to a much slower rate of growth at about 6 yrs. This doctor implored educators and parents to enrich the learning that happens to children at this stage. I came away feeling that I had been exposed to a link to understanding not only giftedness but all learning. Also, I feel that our attempts (and difficulties) in defining giftedness relate to the struggle associated with efforts to understand, break down or categorize a process that is natural to the point of being elemental.
# posted by MSAD 48 Gifted and Talented Program @ 12:44 PM 
