Being brilliant by Ameila Avery

Teachers need to know how to recognise the bright sparks, says AMELIA AVERY.

I doubt teachers have heard a lot about how to identify gifted children in their classroom. It isn’t talked about enough in teacher training. I am not an all-around gifted kid, in fact, I’m barely gifted at all. However, I was moved up a year in school a term ago for an extra challenge, and I can visualise the whole day in my head. ‘Are you gifted? Are you one of those child geniuses who can do complex equations in their head? What’s your IQ? Are you like, Matilda or something?’ As an introvert, I haven’t had so much attention as I had that day in my life. The assumption floating around the school was that I was a gifted child, and it made me think; ‘What if I was gifted?’ There are four types of giftedness. The most common is Type One, the one most people are familiar with. It’s the type that is portrayed the most in the media too, and who can blame them. Type Ones make up 90 percent of the kids enrolled in gifted programmes. Through the many films and books developed using Type One as an exemplar, people have a certain idea about how type one’s act. Type Ones know what ‘sells’ at home and at school. They know exactly how to act to win people over. They excel in assignments and intelligence tests, explaining why many have an outstanding IQ of around 130. As a result of the visible high achievement, they are identified as gifted and usually placed in programs for gifted kids. They almost never get on teachers’ or parents’ bad sides because they are always seeking approval. But here’s the trouble. Type One’s almost never learn what a challenge is. They’ve never had one before. They fly through the school system with ease, and as a result, often become bored. Next are Type Twos – the challenging. The big problem with being a type two is that they are hardly ever identified, meaning their gifts and talents are often wasted. Type Twos are extremely creative and wonderfully sarcastic, often with a deadpan sense of humour. They don’t fit in with the school system. Their behaviour in class is sometimes the opposite to Type Ones. Their conversations usually involve fighting in the end, and they usually challenge the teacher in front of the class. Because of this, few Type Twos excel with honours or get any awards at end of year prizegiving. Lots of Type Twos are frustrated, and it’s easy to see why. The school system doesn’t identify their gifts and special abilities, and it can just feel so hard to get by when no one knows what you can really do. Type Threes are known as the ‘underdogs.’ These are the kids who hide their abilities to fit in socially at school. Unfortunately, there’s a stigma that being smart isn’t cool. I get this a lot. Suddenly when you get into high school, reading becomes uncool, liking math is weird, and being brilliant is a crime. Because of the damaging stigma, many Type Three’s will ditch their past passions at a drop of a hat, if it means they can fit in with a non-gifted friend group. Type Fours are angry, specifically with the adults in their life. The school system has made them feel extremely rejected due to it not meeting what they require. Many Type Fours exude their anger by acting depressed or acting defensively towards teachers. A lot of them are identified extremely late, in Year 12 or 13 when they really should have been identified in primary school. They feel so neglected by the system they can become bitter, and often aren’t liked by many people as a result. Their self-esteem tends to be extremely low. Next is Type Five. Type Fives are gifted, but they have a physical disability or intellectual disability. Because of their disability, they’re almost never put into gifted and talented programs at school and are often teachers’ last thought for students to be gifted. Schools usually focus on their weaknesses rather than their gifts. This makes these students feel powerless and frustrated, and in some cases, angry. They have low self-esteem due to how the education system treats them, and in a lot of cases they are often called weird or stupid by their peers. The last type is Type Six, aka the autonomous learner. These students are most like type one’s, as they also know how to win people over. However, different from all the other types, they use the school system to unleash new opportunities for growth. Since their needs are being met, they’re happy and have high self-esteem. They’re extremely independent and teachers love them. They happily take up leadership positions in school. Teachers need to know there is more to the word, ‘gifted.’ In the word comes six types, and there’s a chance one of them could be sitting in your classroom. Gifted is more than the stereotypical brainbox. It is more than memorising the entire periodic table at age five before reciting the first 100 digits of pi from memory. I hope that if there’s a student coming to mind as you read this, you talk to them about it. It could be a step to make their lives so much better.