Bright & Quirky Child Summit 2021: Tame The Overwhelm was a 5-day free online summit which aimed to help twice exceptional (2e) children - gifted children with ADHD, autism, learning differences like dyslexia, anxiety and/or depression. The conference featured 28 educators and psychologists who shared science-informed actionable strategies that promote social, emotional, and academic thriving even in tough times. The summit was hosted by Debbie Steinberg Kuntz, a licensed marriage and family therapist as well as the Founder of Bright & Quirky. Day 3 focused on thriving and learning.
How to Know When It's Time to Change Schools or Homeschool - Colleen Kessler, MEd
Colleen Kessler believes that you are the absolute best teacher there is for your gifted, twice-exceptional, or otherwise quirky kiddo. The author of more than a dozen books for parents, teachers, and children, award-winning educator, educational coach and consultant, and passionate advocate for the needs of differently-wired kids, Colleen has a B.S. in elementary education, a M.Ed. in gifted studies, and is the founder of the popular podcast and website Raising Lifelong Learners. Her newest book, Raising Resilient Sons: A Boy Mom’s Guide to Building a Strong, Confident, and Emotionally Intelligent Family, was just released from Ulysses Press. Colleen lives in Northeast Ohio with her reading specialist husband, four delightfully quirky kiddos, pug puppy, and an ever-changing assortment of small animals and insects.
Colleen left her teaching job to become a freelance author writing books on education for gifted children. Although she was a gifted specialist, she did not realise her own son was gifted till his preschool teacher pointed out that he was thinking at a much deeper level than his peers during storytelling sessions. He started getting into trouble in public school because he was bored in class, and his love of learning diminished as he got punished for his behaviour. Colleen sent him for testing and fount out that he was profoundly gifted as well as had anxiety and ADHD. It was not feasible to send her son to a gifted school which was a 50 minute drive away, as she had a nursing baby and a toddler to take care of. However, she knew that his current learning environment was not conducive to the way his brain was wired. Eventually, she decided to homeschool him. She took things year by year, and child by child. 11 years on, all her children have had a good homeschooling experience, and she has become an advocate for homeschooling bright and quirky children. She believes homeschooling is an opportunity to meet bright and quirky children where they are at, nurture their hearts and heads, and keep moving them forward in a way that makes sense for them.
Parents should look out for signs that their bright and quirky children are not thriving in their current learning environment. Younger children tend to show behaviour problems. Whereas they used to be interested in everything, they start to lose their spark and become sad or dejected. They stop asking or answering questions, and they start to get into trouble in school all the time. They complain about school or find ways to skip school, such as by having stomachaches. Older children tend to become underachievers. They start to get depressed and withdrawn, either complaining about not having friends who get them or not complaining at all. They shut down and choose to stop doing school work, either because the work is too easy and pointless, or because the work is no longer as easy and they do not want to risk failing despite trying hard, as they are used to being perfectionists in control and with excellent performance. Debbie agreed that teenagers may check out because they feel overwhelmed. This is what Brendan Mahan and Jessica McCabe call the ‘wall of awful’. When we do tasks, we face an emotional barrier. Every time we fail at a task, we get a failure brick, alongside bricks for other negative emotions such as disappointment, rejection, worry, guilt, and shame. These bricks pile up to become a significant emotional barrier to doing the task again.
Distance learning during the pandemic is very different from homeschooling. With distance learning, teachers are trying to teach through technology even though they were trained to teach in-person, and students are being made to follow a fixed curriculum and spend a fixed amount of time in front of the computer. On the other hand, homeschooling is more flexible. Homeschooling gives children the freedom to work at different levels for different subjects, which can be particularly useful for twice exceptional children since they tend to have asynchronous development. For example, they can take a longer duration to work through subjects they struggle in, and take a shorter duration to work through the subjects they excel in or even further explore these subjects. Homeschooling also allows them to learn using different modalities, such as visiting museums, watching documentaries and TED talks, or having in-depth conversations. Homeschooling also teaches them to have autonomy and not expect instant gratification or feedback, as they have to work independently until their parents are free to check in or help them with the areas they are stuck at.
Although homeschooling has grown in popularity, it is still seen as an alternative choice. Parents tend to be overwhelmed about having to manage their children’s education and are worried about negatively impacting their children. Collen advised parents considering homeschooling to keep an open mind that these changes do not have to be permanent and are not a matter of life and death. If parents find that homeschooling is not working, they can always return to a more traditional approach and re-enroll the child in the same or different school. For example, the child might show a desire to return to school, or the child might have an interest in something the parents cannot provide. The children’s education will not be messed up; bright and quirky children in particular will look for things to learn from whatever opportunities they are given.
Parents tend to worry that they are not trained as teachers and do not have confidence in specific subjects. In fact, Colleen shared that her past experience as a teacher sometimes interfered with her ability to homeschool her children, as she kept trying to force her children to study in the traditional way. When she let go of these conventions, her children did better in homeschool. Parents may also worry that they do not have time to relearn and teach the content, especially if they are working full-time. However, there are many different programmes and resources available, such that teaching can be outsourced, with children only asking parents questions if they have any. Younger children can often teach themselves independently up till the end of elementary school. For example, Colleen assigns her children to work through textbook and workbook lessons sequentially on their own, alongside watching video lessons and using computer-based programmes. Colleen recommends the interactive online math curriculum Art of Problem Solving and comic-based online math curriculum Beast Academy for gifted children who love math. Older children in high school can take different kinds of classes depending on their personalities. Some take self-paced online classes that involve prerecorded videos. Others who need more accountability choose to meet up with a tutor once a week and obtain material to work through for the rest of the week before the next meeting.
There may also be partial or hybrid homeschooling options, where children are homeschooled part-time and attend traditional public schooling part-time. They may have already learnt whatever is required for a certain subject, or they may want to spend more time exploring an area that they are particularly passionate about. In such cases, the student can go to public school in the morning and stay home in the afternoon. If some of the teachers are more open minded, parents can also negotiate with them on different ways to extend children’s learning. Colleen has a free printable on 50 ideas for deschooling, with creative ways for parents and teachers to adjust a curriculum .
Parents of young children should focus on fanning the fuels of their passion, finding things that interest them and encouraging them to love learning. As they get into middle school and high school, parents can start discussing with them about their future plans to tailor homeschooling towards where they will be going in terms of college or career. For example, Colleen’s son knew that he wanted to do a computer science degree, so they backwards engineered the requirements he would need to fulfill in order to apply for and be accepted into his desired college programme. Colleen designed his high school history course such that he would read the textbook unit on the first 2 days of the weeks, then watch documentaries on the topic from multiple perspectives on the next 2 days of the week, then debate about the topic in order to demonstrate critical thinking and application skills on the last day of the week. This allowed Colleen to write his high school transcript that he had credit for World History 1, because he covered the necessary material with the expected rigour although he did it in a non-traditional way. He also cleared some college credit for subjects unrelated to computer engineering, including history, via the College Board’s College-Level Examination Programme.
Every country has different rules and regulations regarding homeschooling, so it is important to know the relevant laws. Parents should take note of which authorities they have to notify and what assessment they have to do every year. In the United States of America, parents can refer to the Home School Legal Defense Association for different states’ laws.
Links for Singaporeans interested in homeschooling:
All blogposts on Bright & Quirky Child Summit 2021:
Day 1 Talk 4 A Quick, Shareable Overview of Twice Exceptional (2e) Kids - Dan Peters, PhD
Day 2 Talk 8 Understanding High IQ Kids With ADHD and Co-Occurring Diagnoses - Thomas E. Brown, PhD
Day 3 Talk 13 How to Know When It's Time to Change Schools or Homeschool - Colleen Kessler, MEd
Day 4 Talk 17 How to Help Bright Kids Avoid Autistic Burnout - Kieran Rose
Day 4 Talk 19 How Different Kinds of Minds Can Become Inventors and Engineers - Temple Grandin, PhD
Watch this space for more blogposts from the Bright & Quirky Child Summit 2021!
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