Dow

Gifted Children

 

There is a lot of talk swirling around about the Millennial generation, also known as Generation Y

 

 I find irony in the Y portion. I have several "why" questions I'd like to ask the parents who raised this generation, but that will have to wait for another time.

 In our attempt to ensure equality in school, it has been twisted into some bizarre moral compass that requires everyone to be labeled as special in some sort of capacity. Now that everyone is special, a different measuring stick had to be created. Hence the birth of Gifted and Talented classes.

 

 I think at one time GT had its purpose. It was to keep kids that were deemed "bright" engaged and challenged in school, without moving them up a grade. Now parents, in a Munchhausen by Proxy fashion, spend all their time prepping their offspring for the next grade, so that they may have bragging rights about how their kids are in GT.

 

Pretty soon the GT classes will be so full, that they will become the regular classroom. A new definition of GT will have to come about, or maybe it will just be the resurrection of an old school of thought, putting children in a grade they are academically suited for.

 I can say without a doubt, I have only meet one person I would consider as gifted and talented.

 

 Dow Rider.

 

 Dow was the older brother of my childhood friend Beth, a bright student in her own right, but nowhere the brilliance of her older brother. He was three years her senior and even at thirteen, I was in awe.

 

 Dow was gifted on many levels; math, science, music and literature. Of course, I think that his environment and lineage had something to do with that.

 

 I remember the Rider home vividly. A contemporary split level, the upper floor looked very much like a library. A wall to wall bookshelf ensconcing one side, had authors of current  and classics stuffed inside of it.

 

Every surface imaginable had either books, magazines and various newspapers on it. There were large overstuffed chairs, across from a leather couch, separated by a glass coffee table.  On the other side, one very large oak desk. This is where we would do our homework, not at the drab kitchen table. According to Beth's father, the kitchen table was somewhere to eat, not to learn.

 

 The Rider parental unit were an unusual pair.

 

 Mr. Rider, a professor of mathematics, was somewhat reserved. He had darker coloring, beard, glasses, corduroy jacket with patches and always smoking a pipe, as he reviewed one of his periodicals. Mrs. Rider, was of Danish heritage, with wheat blonde hair, piercing blue eyes and fair skin. She was also an accomplished attorney, vivacious and beautiful.  Both of them were avid runners. Beth favored her father, while Dow favored his mother in the looks department.  

 

 A handsome young man, athletic and a brilliant mind. A triple threat for sure.

 

 Dow entered public high school at what should have been his freshman year, on a junior level. By the middle of his sophomore year, he should have graduated, but his parents insisted he stay. They felt socially, he wasn't ready for college, much to Dow's dismay. He would argue that age didn't matter.

 

 Eventually he won out and started college just shy of 17, majoring in physics.

 

 By the time high school rolled around for Beth and me, she had been enrolled in a private school and I went to the regular high school. We would see each other occasionally. The last time being at Girls State where we were both selected to go and ended up rooming together. The family moved away after our senior year and I never saw Beth or her brother Dow again.

 

 I often wonder what it was like for him being in college at such a young age, trying to fit in, being thrust into a situation where your associations mean as much as your grades. Was it better to be with students who are mentally on your level, or to be with students that are physically your age

 

 I believe in the end, maturity comes with experience. Dow, although socially was probably miserable for a time, in the end was happier being there, having his mind challenged and challenging a few others as well, because that was the type of person he was.

 

 Gifted and talented, indeed.

 

 

 

Author's Note

I really did not have a relationship with Dow... he was the enigmatic older brother of my friend, who just happened to be a genius.

More to the point of my story is that children we deem as gifted and talented are really just "bright" overly prepped children of overachieving parents and that truly children prodigies are far and few between.

Reviews

[Creepy Swine Guy]

And children gain no self esteem from being told that they are "gifted". they just want to run and play and do the same things that the other kids are doing. Such classifications are usually for the benefit of their parents egos.

Nice write.

[Charles D. Moorer]

This is an interesting piece for what it does not say. You managed to keep yourself out and touched on only the briefest of contacts you had with Dow. What is your relationship, could it have been more fully explored? I kept waiting for something, some pivotal thing, to happen; it never did.