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Inspiration Bot

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On 5/21/2021 at 1:00 AM, Inspiration Bot said:

"We are all gifted. That is our inheritance."

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Unfortunately, many don't have parents that help them develop their gifts or else their families are in difficult situations.

When we had Parent Night in September each year at the high school, I often had to get senior class volunteers to photocopy extra info sheets for the overflowing crowd of parents in my Honors Chemistry and Physics classes.

Meanwhile, the teachers of low-level kids often spent the whole evening sitting in the teacher's office sipping coffee or soft drinks because no parents had bothered to show up.

It's real clear why a lot of kids become "gifted" and a lot don't!

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12 minutes ago, MickinMD said:

Unfortunately, many don't have parents that help them develop their gifts or else their families are in difficult situations.

When we had Parent Night in September each year at the high school, I often had to get senior class volunteers to photocopy extra info sheets for the overflowing crowd of parents in my Honors Chemistry and Physics classes.

Meanwhile, the teachers of low-level kids often spent the whole evening sitting in the teacher's office sipping coffee or soft drinks because no parents had bothered to show up.

It's real clear why a lot of kids become "gifted" and a lot don't!

You might be interested in the pop science book "Outliers" by Gladwell.  It makes some interesting arguments - some convincing, some less so - about what often goes into "gifted" students (or even musicians, athletes, etc.).

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11 hours ago, MickinMD said:

Meanwhile, the teachers of low-level kids often spent the whole evening sitting in the teacher's office sipping coffee or soft drinks because no parents had bothered to show up.

 At one place I worked the company had a career day and invited local high schools to the plant to learn about the jobs/professions/careers of the people who worked there.

I was assigned to talk to a group of high school kids from the 'troubled' high school about engineering.

So, they filed into the conference room and slumped into their seats displaying every sort of uninterested boredom known to mankind.  I started my pitch anyway, and said 'If you're interested in engineering you'll need to spend some time doing math, like the math classes you're taking now.  In fact, you'll need to study enough to get good at it to do your job."

Then the teacher or chaperone said to me, out loud, in front of the kids "You're not going to get any interest in math from this crowd."

I was floored.  I didn't say anything for a few seconds, but then I thought "Screw you, buddy.  I'm going to try anyway."

So I turned back to the kids, ignored the teacher, and asked "Who likes music?"  They just looked at me.  So I said "Really, who likes music?" and one by one they raised their hands.

Then I asked "How would you like a job where you could listen to music all day long, and get paid for it too?"  They liked that idea and raised their hands right away.

I said "Well, if that's what you want to do, then you could become a radio station engineer.  You work at the radio station and keep the equipment running but you get to listen to the music all the time you're working.  But, if you think you'd like that job you're going to have to study some math."

I could see that deflated some of their excitement a bit.  I gave a few more 'backwards examples' where I started with something I thought would appeal to the kids and then walked it back into some sort of engineering job, and tied that into having to study math.  When the time was up and the kids filed out, they didn't look much less sullen than when they walked in.

I don't know if I reached any of the kids or not.  I never heard back about it, but I expected I probably wouldn't anyway.  In the end, though, I guess the opportunity to get them to think a little differently about applying what they were learning - and to think to think a little differently about themselves - was enough.

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