The Potential Trust, an educational charity which provides, promotes, and encourages whatever makes education more interesting and exciting for children of high learning potential, is asking for Mensans' help with a research study.
The trust would like your help in its work to bring about change that will benefit children with high learning potential (HLP) or dual/multiple exceptionality (DME).
There are children today trying to cope with the kinds of difficulties you might have had when you were a GIFTer. Not all of these would necessarily have been relevant to you – but maybe you had some difficulties at school, at home, with friendships or lack of them . . .
– Maybe a teacher felt threatened by your asking lots of questions, or even by questions the teacher couldn’t answer.
– Maybe school work was boring so you were thinking about other things when you were supposed to be attending to what was going on in class.
– Maybe you were already reading books normally read by a much older age group, or even adult fiction.
– Maybe you’d already mastered long division or trigonometry or whatever maths the class was being taught.- Maybe a teacher dismissed the possibility that you were capable of much more than they thought you could achieve.
– Maybe your parents wanted you to focus on academic achievement but you wanted to act, or paint, or dance, or join the local ice hockey team.
– Maybe you got into trouble for finding something the teacher said was funny but the teacher hadn’t intended to make a joke.
– Maybe you had a different sense of humour from most of your classmates so they didn’t get the jokes you made up.
– Maybe, maybe, maybe….
Only you would know so I’d like your help in compiling some answers to the questions below that might be helpful to the HLP and DME children of today.
Many thanks,
Anna
Trustee, the Potential Trust
www.thepotentialtrust.org.uk
