What y’all think ‘gifted child’ discourse is saying: I used to be special and now I’m not and that makes me sad.
What ‘gifted child’ discourse is ACTUALLY saying: The way many educational systems treat children who’ve been identified as ‘gifted’ is actively harmful in that it a. obliges kids to give up socialising with their same-age peers in favour of constantly courting the approval of adult ‘mentors’ who mostly don’t give a shit about them, b. demands that they tie their entire identity to a set of standards that’s not merely unsustainable, but intentionally so, because its unstated purpose is to weed out the ‘unworthy’ rather than to provide useful goals for self-improvement, and c. denies them opportunities to learn useful life skills in favour of training them up in an excruciatingly narrow academic skill-set that’s basically useless outside of an institutional career path that the vast majority of them will never be allowed to pursue.
d. contributes to the disregard for or denial of mental health and stress-related issues and neurodivergency in kids, because “you’re gifted and getting perfect grades so you can’t possibly be autistic/have adhd/be suffering from anxiety, depression, cptsd, etc.!” (Either that or in the case of autism especially, your neurodivergence is considered solely as part of the academics-related “gift” so you don’t get any help for the symptoms related to socializing, overstimulation, etc.)
e. leads to kids labeled gifted getting punished, belittled, ignored, and/or bullied (even worse) rather than helped when they make a mistake or don’t understand something. “You’re gifted, you just weren’t trying hard enough!” “Ooo, who’s gifted NOW if you couldn’t get a 100 on the test?”
f. Ties their identities to “inherent” intelligence and comprehension skills which not only don’t matter outside of an academic setting but also fall apart early on in the education process (like middle or high school) as merely knowing and understanding the answers becomes of secondary importance to skills like time management, organization, and following prompts, which gifted children were never actively encouraged to learn.
g. Perpetuates the myth that intelligence and comprehension are inherent attributes that don’t need to be cultivated rather than skills that anyone can gain- or lose- depending on the amount of work or engagement they put in.
Tag: :))))
The Western world will tell a white person that learning a new language and becoming bilingual will present new opportunities for them and promise a high-paying, competitive job. Meanwhile, Latinx people who grew up bilingual in Spanish and English, or learned English later on, will be offered a job that is lower paying than jobs of the same title offering to monolingual people. A bilingual, non-white person will be looked down on for code-switching or forgetting a word in their second language, but a white person will be told that it’s okay and just “part of the process.”
The Western world doesn’t care if someone is bilingual unless they’re white.
White second-language learners and bilinguals, myself included, should understand what kind of privelige we carry even in situations like these.
you know, i always rolled my eyes at media that go like “follow your dreams! believe in yourself! you can achieve anything you set your mind to!” because… as a crazy traumatized dyke, this really didnt apply to me, or what i thought was “the real world”… but in the hindsight?? my abusive mother did literally all she could think of to deter me from writing and studying literature, from hardcore manipulation to physical abuse & outright refusal to let me do what i love – throwing my books out of the window into the muddy garden, forcing me to be held back a year in highschool even tho i had the best grades of the whole school because she didnt want me to go into the literary section, forcefully going through my writings (and telling me it was shitty), forbidding me to see my writer friend & be involved in writing seminars, etc. –
she persuaded me i had no literary talent whatsoever, be it in creative writing or in text analysis, and all…
but i persisted and now im a literature major and im going to write for the Comédie-Française lmao
so, yea, believe in your dreams, i guess!
im just DYING to see her face when im gonna tell her, “hey mom! ive been chosen to write at the Comédie-Française with 15 other writers! My texts are gonna be read in public by the very comedians you idolize, on the very building you worship!”
She’s The Most Elitist Person of the year & is a really big fan of cultural institutions (for my non-french followers: its the oldest theater in France, and now, alongside with the Académie Française, is a cultural monument. Both were funded by Louis XIV and represent the typical french intellectualism)… shes gonna be big mad lmao
medusa-avenging-squad 