Father of a 3.5 year old brought up using tons of "targeted talking" here: our son has a vocabulary and logical comprehension skills that are significantly beyond his peer group. As a result I'd noticed in the past that he prefers engaging with other adults in conversation over kids his age.
Yesterday was his first PTA meeting and the feedback from his teacher seemed to confirm it too. She narrated an incident when the class was being told about rocket firecracker that light Indian skies during the Diwali festival and our son was explaining to her why a rocket goes up ("it burns gunpowder"), or why it stops after a while ("the gunpowder runs out") and then why it falls back to earth ("gravity"). The rest of his class was more fascinated with the talk about firecrackers.
Her nuanced point was that our son tends to get ahead of ideas and actions by engaging in a to-and-fro conversation about the logic/explanation behind them, thus at times preventing him from enjoying or taking in the idea or action itself or talking with other kids his age.
One of her suggestions was to "explain less" and let our son figure out things on his own (easier said than done, because he's extremely inquisitive and persistent).
The larger point I'm trying to make is that high vocabulary can also act as a barrier in kids engaging with others their age. The article also hints at it, in a manner:
> Newell is proud that her daughter can spell her first and last names, recite her address and phone number, recognize and spell colors, and count to 200. She’s also frustrated that more of Alona’s peers can’t do the same.
Could the teachers statement be rephrased in terms that the kid is developing analytical skills so quickly that they are dominating over the more "experiential" part of socializing with others? It seems that this kind of thing persists into adulthood, because I notice that it is hard to experience and analyze at the same time. For example, it is hard to read a book to experience the story and analyze the narrative structure at the same time. A similar point is described in "Gödel, Escher, Bach" that one can either listen to a musical piece as a whole (experientally) or as individual pieces, such as notes (analytically), but not both at the same time.
While I tend to think analytical skills are more important, it is probably not good to entirely neglect the skills to experience and "live in the moment" either, since that seems to be the foundation of many social skills.
"Daddy? Why does the firecracker go up?"
"That's a very interesting question! Why don't we try to find out. Let's remove individual parts of the firecracker one at a time and find out what makes it go!"
Right, being too far ahead of the curve can become an emotional handicap all its own. Too bad we can't put kids like that together in the same schools.
I'm not sure whether you meant that sarcastically. If you did, I'm not at all a supporter of segregated schooling of any kind, be it class, 'abilities' or even neighbourhoods. There's value in kids growing up in a heterogeneous and diverse environment, and my comment was only meant to highlight how having an advanced vocabulary can sometimes hinder that.
Do you feel the same way about segregating individual classes by age? Having an advanced vocabulary is much less of an impediment if you're in a heterogenous and diverse environment which includes a diversity of ages.
Fundamentally, yes. But practically, I can appreciate schools who find it the least-worst filter to group children into classrooms. Our son's school has weekly mixed-age sessions, but I don't think they can become the norm.
My parents were from very disadvantaged backgrounds HOWEVER they did talk to me, a LOT.
I don't know if they knew what they were doing per se, but that's what they did.
Everyone always and still does consider me "smart." I went to college, became a software engineer, etc... Always had a curiosity for everything.
I never realized how exceptional I was until now. All my friends and family that have kids, their kids don't seem to talk hardly at all. They really aren't asked many questions at all. They aren't asked to recite their address, phone number, spell their name, count to 100. The difference between them and me at their age is very dramatic. I know how I acted at that age because videos exist of me since birth.
The barrier is something I noticed in people who like to learn for learning's sake. The more I learn, the more I set myself apart from the crowd. I find that seeking out others who like to learn is the only solution (aside from becoming a teacher of some sort, which I'd guess is a bit more lonely yet at the same time self-gratifying).
Knowledge is like money, the more you have the less you have in common with the gen. pop.
Yesterday was his first PTA meeting and the feedback from his teacher seemed to confirm it too. She narrated an incident when the class was being told about rocket firecracker that light Indian skies during the Diwali festival and our son was explaining to her why a rocket goes up ("it burns gunpowder"), or why it stops after a while ("the gunpowder runs out") and then why it falls back to earth ("gravity"). The rest of his class was more fascinated with the talk about firecrackers.
Her nuanced point was that our son tends to get ahead of ideas and actions by engaging in a to-and-fro conversation about the logic/explanation behind them, thus at times preventing him from enjoying or taking in the idea or action itself or talking with other kids his age.
One of her suggestions was to "explain less" and let our son figure out things on his own (easier said than done, because he's extremely inquisitive and persistent).
The larger point I'm trying to make is that high vocabulary can also act as a barrier in kids engaging with others their age. The article also hints at it, in a manner:
> Newell is proud that her daughter can spell her first and last names, recite her address and phone number, recognize and spell colors, and count to 200. She’s also frustrated that more of Alona’s peers can’t do the same.