A Quest to Address the Emotional Needs of Gifted

Its bothered me that I havent been able to address the social/emotional needs of my gifted kids the way I would like.

Last school year, I worked with the schools psychologist to present my gifted fifth-graders with a workshop on perfectionism. However, due to time constraints, testing, and other challenges (excuses, excuses), I have not been able to focus on more than academic needs.

But all thats going to change! I recently came up with a projectwhich is in the experimental stageswhich I believe will allow me to weave some affective curriculum into my existing program for the gifted. Even if you are not a teacher of the gifted, please read on since I think general education teachers, guidance counselors, and school psychologists may also find this approach useful for a variety of students.

Okay, enough teasing. Here is how it works: I have created a Web quest for my students to complete based on the work of Dr. Jim Delisle, who you may know from the book When Gifted Kids Dont Have All the Answers. The Internet-based search prompts students to explore and understand The Eight Great Gripes of Gifted Kids, which are common complaints discovered by Delisle after he interviewed some 2,000 gifted youngsters. You can read more about the gripes by visiting http://gateresources.blogspot.com/2008/04/eight-great-gripes-of-gifted-k....

There are a number of free templates teachers can access to create web quests such as zunal.com or check out webquest.org for a list. I decided to use Zunal since I find the site user friendly. (To view my Gifted Gripe Web Quest, visit http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=226071 )

The template requires you to create an introduction, directions, assessment, and a conclusion.

Using this program, I took Delisies Great Gifted Gripes and designed the quest so my students will visit attached links and seek answers connected to each of the gripes. They will navigate through articles, web sites, and other resources created by gifted education researchers, psychologists and other experts. The goal is for my students to become self-aware of the social-emotional challenges that gifted children often experience and to acquire various strategies and techniques for dealing with these challenges. Students will record answers using Microsoft Word and be evaluated on the depth of their answers, use of resources, teamwork, and other factors. The unit will culminate with a roundtable discussion, where students will have the option of sharing their findings.

Students will work on the project 30-45 minutes per week, which means they may have to cut back somewhat on independent reading or research. While some may not agree with this, I believe that the children-many already high-performing readers- will greatly benefit from taking some time during the week to explore topics such as perfectionism and boredom. As Dr. James Webb, founder of Supporting Emotional Needs of Gifted (SENG), stated in an interview, that the emotional aspect of the gifted is often overlooked but more important to the overall success of a child. For instance, you can have an effective academic program in place, but if the child lacks motivation or suffers from depression, he or she will not achieve. In addition, I think this web quest format has merit in regards to addressing social-emotional needs for any student, regardless of whether they are labeled gifted or not, since the content can be revised to fit a particular need or topic.

Using technology to weave social-emotional training into the curriculum may not be the panacea for schools, but its certainly a start. Please let me know what you think of this idea.

Thanks,
Steve