philmophlegm: (Tamar Bridges)
[personal profile] philmophlegm
Yesterday I had a meeting with a teacher from a local school* about the possibility of us doing some skills courses for pupils there - presentation skills, leadership, teambuilding, interview skills, making an impact - that sort of thing.

One of the ideas he threw at me at the end of the meeting (I think he thought of it there and then) was courses for parents, specifically parents of 'G&Ts'. In education-speak, G&Ts are Gifted & Talented children - gifted academically or talented musically, artistically or athletically. This teacher is Head of G&T at his school and he wondered if parents of G&T children would benefit from some advice on how to be the best parents they could to a G&T child.

There's plenty of this sort of advice on the internet. But since many of the people reading this were probably G&T children, I would be interested in hearing what did or didn't work for you. What did your parents do to help you? Did it work? Or was it counter-productive? I would be especially interested if, like me, you were G&T (I was G, I'm definitely not remotely T) but your parents weren't (mine have two O-levels between them). I'd also be interested in hearing from teachers and academics dealing with G&T students. And finally, I'd be interested in hearing the experiences of any parents who have G&T children.









* Non-selective state secondary. This one in fact.

Date: 2013-08-20 03:33 pm (UTC)
ckd: (cpu)
From: [personal profile] ckd
YES YES YES THIS SO MUCH THIS.

I was lucky; my parents encouraged me to try things and see what I enjoyed, then supported me in exploring those things more deeply.

When I was 9, there was a local association (Tacoma Area Council on Giftedness) that offered after-school and weekend classes in various things for kids. My parents showed me the list and asked if any of them looked interesting; I decided to try a BASIC programming class.

I loved it. Figuring out how to get a computer to do things? Absolute fun.

I took a second ("intermediate BASIC") class, then a third. My parents saved up and bought me a secondhand Apple II; I saved up and bought a secondhand 300 bps modem, leading me to discovering BBSes and FidoNet.

By the time I got to college, I knew I wanted to do things with computers and networks. Working at the help desk got me started on Unix; IRC taught me about TCP/IP.

A year after graduation, I talked my way into a system administration job--for the EFF.

These days, I work for a fairly large company that does one or two Internet-ish things, and I love it.

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