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http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
He was tested at the age of five at the urging of his
two pre-school teachers who wanted to advance him
to first grade after only one month in kindergarten.
We were told by the psychologist who met with him,
"I received answers from him that I have not
Today we believe that we may have made a
mistake. Many educational psychologists no longer
believe that skipping a child one grade is socially
problematic, and being pushed ahead one year might
have at least put him in a more appropriate
intellectual peer group. David is not "one of the
guys" anyway -- his interests are vastly different. He
would rather sit at the computer or read a book than
join Little League or go rollerblading. He dropped
karate but is studying painting and film.
What was one of the answers
David gave his tester at the age of five? When asked
what lights up the sky at night, rather than answer
the moon or the stars, he replied, "Fireflies."
More recently, David's six-year-old brother, brought
a Lego kit he had assembled for David's approval.
David barely disguised his disdain. "You put it
together according to the instructions," he
reprimanded him. "Of course I did," answered
Mitch, baffled. "Mitch," explained David, with great
patience, "nobody ever created anything great in this
world by following instructions. If everyone
followed instructions, we'd still be living with
machines from a hundred years ago." Mitch drank in
his words thirstily.
Several weeks later, I overheard Mitch telling a
friend of his that his grandparents would be coming
to visit, and they would be bringing him a new Lego
kit. He then glanced at David with pride and added,
"And we'll put it together -- not according to the
instructions."
I get through hard days by thinking: this child, like
the fireflies, will one day light up the
Jewish World Review Dec. 20, 1999 / 11 Teves, 5760
Fireflies light up
the sky at night
By Ellen Small
WE DID NOT NEED an official testing
process to reveal to us what we knew from the time
that our son was very young -- that he was a gifted
child who was not only precocious in his reading and
other cognitive abilities, but whose mind worked in
totally different ways from the minds of ordinary
children.
received in twenty-three years of testing children."
His suggestion: Keep David where he was, with his
peer group. "Sure you can skip him to first grade,"
he told us, "you can also skip him to second grade.
It doesn't matter. Wherever he'll be, he will sit in the
corner and read encyclopedias." We kept him where
he was.
It is not easy raising a child who walks to the beat of
a different drummer. I've gotten used to a kid who is
often accused by teachers of being in another world
("...but he has a wonderful imagination," they add
kindly), who reads way past midnight, whose
favorite outings are to the art museum and the
university library, who experiments with plants,
paints and my new espresso machine.
Ellen Small, who is writing under a pseudonym, is
an editor at Family Fishbowl webzine. Contact the author by clicking here.
