TAG, You're Not It

Our district was putting the squeeze on the elementary schools to get their testing done for gifted students. I volunteered to help my supervisor out, since it would give me more pratice administering an IQ test. I was only giving the verbal subtests, so I knew it wouldn't take me that long.

I forgot that one of the plusses of testing lower than average kids is that they often don't know what they don't know. (That was an overly PC way of saying, "They're to dumb to know they got something wrong.") Sometimes that innocence is truly bliss. The kid I tested started crying at the end of the test. When I asked him what was wrong, he told me that he knew he got the last few questions wrong. Well, it didn't take a genius, he answered "I don't know" to most of them. I really felt sorry for him. Who knows what kind of pressure he was feeling or put upon himself to do well. That made me depressed at the end of the day. I don't know if he will qualify, his verbal score was just a little short.

Why is verbal capability the sole factor for determining giftedness? I know about C-H-C theory and g but isn't there more than just verbal skills. The kid seems to be pretty sharp at math, hopefully he will get some enrichment. My supervisor believed that his verbal score would qualify him for at least enrichment. That's good, because he's a great kid and I would hate to see him get lost in the shuffle. He could do whatever he put his mind to.

BBC