It makes me wonder what other factors contribute to a child breaking free from the “Matthew Effect?”(p 60)
Short Answer: Resilience
I use the framework of my GT training a lot because it - teaching the gifted and talented - focuses on what should be good teaching for every child - not just the top 5%. Sooo...let me quote some stuff from a book called The Social and Emotional Development of Gifted Children by Maureen Neihart et al.
Resilience can be defined as the ability to achieve emotional health and social competence in spite of a history of adversity or stress.
Risk factors and protective factors are individual and contextual variables that shift developmental pathways toward positive or negative outcomes.
...the consistent finding that the single most powerful predictor of positive outcomes for vulnerable children is a relationship with a caring adult (p.114).
Gifted children's problem solving abilities, intellectual curiosity, concern about moral issues, sense of humor, and self-efficacy contribute to their resilience (p117).
It is now that I must post links to some articles about talented women and how they develop professionally later in life than men, as a shout out to all the women 'of a certain age' that are
enrolled in this class. Because resilience is what got us here, (or insanity).
http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/PDF_files/I%27m%20Not%20Gifted.pdf
http://www.trailblazercoaching.com/articles/Gifted-Women.pdf
Beth, Not sure how you got into my head enough to know that I really NEEDED to read those articles. Thank-you! (The stark raving perfectionist in me is feeling ever-so validated!)
ReplyDeleteDo you think there's a thin barrier between brilliance and insanity or is it possible to teeter continually on the brink? ;-)
I link the brink, personally. Sometimes I like to be in the room, sometimes I like to be outside looking in.
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