Convincing a principal of a boy's giftedness was fruitless ... my most memorable failure!
My head is full of stories of children that I worked with in my educational job with the government system. Some are more memorable than others, Brad was one of those kids.
He was always in trouble, having played big time in the classroom for all his primary school years. So by the time I came along to take on his case he had the worse behaviour reputation with teachers and the principal. It was really amazing to me as a guidance officer that teachers in the previous six years had not referred Brad for a guidance assessment. This is what happens to trouble makers, to naughty kids who buck the system. Teachers only focus on behaviours!
Brad was a naughty kid.
His mum and dad were grateful that he was on my case load at last, it had been a tough fight for them to persuade the school to get answers for Brad's failure with learning. Regrettably the school could not get past Brad's oversized label as trouble maker.
The test results gave explanations straightaway for Brad's acting out classroom behaviours, he had a verbal comprehension, reading/writing disability that stopped him from understanding teacher instructions and doing his language based work. He had dyslexia. But, the most interesting part of the results of the intelligence test was that Brad demonstrated superior skills with deductive reasoning, he had high level ability with non-verbal reasoning. Wow, this lad had a dooser of a cognitive and learning profile. No wonder he acted out, he saw himself as a failure, a dumb learner. What a traversity!
The parents were relieved to hear that there were answers and of course wanted teachers to accommodate Brad's learning style. Which is what occurred. But and there is a but, Brad actually showed to be in the gifted range of thinking and therefore needed to be supported as a gifted learner as well as a student with a learning disability. It is not a common profile and understandably a challenging one for the school to process. In Brad's case it was too hard for the principal to accept.
I tried unsuccessfully to convince the principal to give permission for Brad to participate in a short gifted learning program that was being run in the district. I believed that this would have been boosted Brad's low self-esteem. But no, he would not listen. Brad's primary school years were nearly over. and he could move onto high school thank goodness. He as supported well in this section of schooling, but Brad wanted to leave as soon as possible. And he did.
Brad's dad was a builder and at the end of year 9, Brad took on an apprenticeship with his father.
If only Brad had been assessed earlier on in primary school, he may have had a very different school life. Maybe his career might have taken a very different path.
Happiness guys
Cheers
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Howdy there angiemitchell! oh man... Brad may have been a brilliant doctor or inventor or scientist if he'd been gotten to earlier so he could have stayed on. That's too bad.
Yes janton, if only! Funny how these memories flash in.
Hi dear. I read your article and thought it was pretty interesting. Then started to comment, but I kept writing and it evolved to a separate article. Thanks for inspiring it. Here it is https://steemit.com/steemiteducation/@empathetic/my-soft-spot-for-troublemakers-a-comment-that-became-a-post
Oh wow what a story! Thanks for sharing it and helping others understand and see the different perspective when things are not what they seem. Hopefully one day when he’s older he may have a strike of inspiration and change career! It’s not too late yet!
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