Click on the title of this post for a link to the 2010 Gifted Awareness week Competition
For Gifted Awareness Week, the students were asked to think about what being gifted means to them, whether practically, at school or home or emotionally. Their thoughts are below:
Being gifted is a gift.
It is not something to be embarrassed about, but sometimes people are. I sometimes thought that I was different as people didn't understand my different way of thinking. When I was assessed and i found out I was gifted, I realised that was the reason that i thought differently to others. Being different to others doesn't bother me as long as people don't judge me for that
To me, being gifted means: Coming to STAR. STAR gives me a chance to not hide my giftedness, to challenge myself and to take risks that I would not usually take.
When I was little I thought that I was smart but when I did the Gifted assessment, it all came together. Now, if i get something wrong, people say, "You're supposed to be smart", but when I get something right, they say "well, you do have an advantage". If I don't listen and have to ask my friend what the teacher said, they say "You should listen!" They expect me to always be listening because since I am usually quiet, I listen lots. I am quiet because if I answer a question wrong, everybody says "OOOhh, you got something wrong". if anyone else gets something wrong, people don't notice. I'm only human, I'm not perfect!
I like being gifted and thinking deeply about things.
This is what being gifted means to me- other people may expect too much of me, but it is what I expect of me that truly counts.
I've never really thought about it, I guess that I always thought I was different and I always found work easy. People were always asking me questions and just expecting that I should know the answer or copying my work. Teachers thought I knew too much, so whenever they asked a question, I would put my hand up but they would never ask me. Instead, they would ask someone without their hand up. I have always enjoyed reading, Art and Music but find maths and Writing boring. Since the teachers thought I was 'so smart' I never got to do the things I wanted. School was like this until mum got me assessed, now all the teachers give me extra work and expect all my work to be excellent. If I get something wrong, they think it is really bad. I really enjoy the STAR programme because I can be different.
When I was young, I always thought I was different. At the age of 4, I could read most of the Dr Seuss books and could do easy addition and subtraction maths equations. When I started school, there were 3 other pupils that had the same ability as me but were 11 months older than me. After 6 months at school, I moved up to Year One with that group. Now I am in my own Maths group but in all of my other subjects I am normally in a group with 3 other students.
Being gifted is enjoyable but sometimes it gets in my way. I don't want to stand out too much. The main thing that motivates me to do my absolute best is competition with other bright kids. Sometimes I wish I wasn't gifted, but most of the time I think its brilliant.
Good things about being gifted: I could go far in life, my teacher likes me
Bad things about being gifted: Getting teased about being bright. Getting called a 'nerd' or a 'geek'. Having really high expectations.
To me it means to have a better understanding. When I was younger, I was the youngest in my class but I was always performing at the top of the class. When I first found out I was gifted and took the test, there were some areas where I was doing work as the average 27 year old would.
