Saturday, December 06, 2008

The gifted eat sausages and salad

Last week we took the plunge and went to a Tasmanian Association for the Gifted barbecue get-together. The boys are both super-smart, have been tested for early entry at kinder and so on.

Elf and I are not sure quite where we stand on "giftedness". Are gifted people special and need to be streamed with like minds to some degree? Is everyone gifted in one way or another and no-one should be singled out? We have an open mind and wish to hear what TAG have to say. If the boys make some good friends among the other kids we will certainly view it more positively.

Interestingly it is a purely state-school-focussed group, and it's function is largely to exert leverage on government education policy and on school principals to devote specific resources to gifted kids. Presumably private school parents have the leverage of their huge fees to achieve what they want for their children.

Anyway. The barby was pleasant. The people were nice. Everyone was nametagged. One of the mums was named Hermione and many of the kids had names that proclaimed loudly "Mum and Dad read a lot of books". A lot of the kids spoke in a very correct way that Marcus sometimes does (other times he's a terrible mumbler). I was expecting the kids would be divided into teams and asked to build suspension bridges arcoss the creek, or something - but there were no organised activities.

I was drawn into a game of hide and seek with our boys and a tiny girl named Kariah. When it was her turn she needed a little coaching. "Cover your eyes and count to ten while we hide", I advised her. "Um, I'll count to a mill... a thous... um, eleven".

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