Gifted
[Warning: spoiler alert. If you have not seen Gifted, read at your own risk.]
That's right, internet, it's me! I have returned! Now that I write blogs for my job, I've had far less time and motivation to do it for myself. But I think it will be good for me to pick up where I left off and try to keep updating my content. So here we go!
When my family suggested watching Gifted for our movie night, I knew very little aside from the fact that it was a custody battle over a genius child happening between her grandmother and her uncle (played by Chris Evans!). It had potential, and we couldn't agree on much else, so I agreed.
Interestingly, this movie touched on a topic that I have long been grappling with: how to deal with differences.
Young Mary is a child prodigy who is being raised by her uncle after her mother's death. Problems quickly arise when Frank decides to send Mary to a public school instead of continuing her education at home. She doesn't like the idea, but Frank thinks that she needs to make friends her own age and learn how to socialize. Frank's mother soon finds out and, despite never being involved in Mary's life, insists that the girl must go to a better school. She feels that this is a complete waste of her amazing intellect. At this point, the awful custody battle begins.
But this opposition brought a lot up for me. For example, teachers in elementary school suggested once or twice that I might be gifted (not nearly as gifted as Mary, though!) and should test to find out. I didn't think that was necessary. More than anything, I didn't want to the results of the testing to change anything. A part of me feared that they would want me to take a different path in my schooling than my friends would. I also knew that the expectations placed on me might change. It's not that I was underselling myself or avoiding the challenge. Rather, I wanted to avoid the elitist and competitive world that I might have been pushed into. Luckily, the testing never happened, so all of these problems were avoided.
As you can probably guess, I sided with Frank in this movie. Of course, that is what the writers intended, and for good reason!
We have a tendency to react in two polar opposite ways when we realize that people are different. For one, we draw attention to it. Whether gifted or developmentally delayed, we single children out in order to tailor education and experiences to suit them. At the same time, we insist that they need to be treated like normal children. The problem is that it's nearly impossible to do both.
How do we make a gifted child feel normal when we don't let them have the same kind of education as their peers? What about children with autism? How can we do that for them?
My schools all had a special education program, and I always wondered how we were supposed to make the students in this program feel normal when they had their own classes, learning aids, teaching assistants, and special exceptions. It's certainly not easy to do. At the same time, if we didn't give them any of these things, they might fall behind. That would hardly help them to feel normal.
I realize that "normal" is an ideal, and it is a word that I don't like to use, but it is one that comes up in relation to this issue all the time. It comes up in the film quite a bit.
In the end, the film presents the best solution it can: a compromise. Mary takes some university classes because that is what she wants, and she goes to elementary school because that is what her uncle knows she needs for proper social development. Perhaps the most important thing to take away from their solution is that we need to acknowledge what the child in question wants. If she is okay with learning at the level of her peers, then she should be allowed. But if she finds that to be too difficult (or easy, in this case) then it is worth considering other options.
There is definitely a lot to consider in this film about how to deal with differences. I think that what we need to take away from this is that we need to acknowledge a person's differences insofar as they need assistance or exceptions, but not to the point that we are drawing unnecessary attention to them. It's a fine balance, so we need to go about it carefully. And remember that people who are different are still people. They still have a voice. Listen to them.
That's right, internet, it's me! I have returned! Now that I write blogs for my job, I've had far less time and motivation to do it for myself. But I think it will be good for me to pick up where I left off and try to keep updating my content. So here we go!
When my family suggested watching Gifted for our movie night, I knew very little aside from the fact that it was a custody battle over a genius child happening between her grandmother and her uncle (played by Chris Evans!). It had potential, and we couldn't agree on much else, so I agreed.
Interestingly, this movie touched on a topic that I have long been grappling with: how to deal with differences.
Young Mary is a child prodigy who is being raised by her uncle after her mother's death. Problems quickly arise when Frank decides to send Mary to a public school instead of continuing her education at home. She doesn't like the idea, but Frank thinks that she needs to make friends her own age and learn how to socialize. Frank's mother soon finds out and, despite never being involved in Mary's life, insists that the girl must go to a better school. She feels that this is a complete waste of her amazing intellect. At this point, the awful custody battle begins.
But this opposition brought a lot up for me. For example, teachers in elementary school suggested once or twice that I might be gifted (not nearly as gifted as Mary, though!) and should test to find out. I didn't think that was necessary. More than anything, I didn't want to the results of the testing to change anything. A part of me feared that they would want me to take a different path in my schooling than my friends would. I also knew that the expectations placed on me might change. It's not that I was underselling myself or avoiding the challenge. Rather, I wanted to avoid the elitist and competitive world that I might have been pushed into. Luckily, the testing never happened, so all of these problems were avoided.
As you can probably guess, I sided with Frank in this movie. Of course, that is what the writers intended, and for good reason!
We have a tendency to react in two polar opposite ways when we realize that people are different. For one, we draw attention to it. Whether gifted or developmentally delayed, we single children out in order to tailor education and experiences to suit them. At the same time, we insist that they need to be treated like normal children. The problem is that it's nearly impossible to do both.
How do we make a gifted child feel normal when we don't let them have the same kind of education as their peers? What about children with autism? How can we do that for them?
My schools all had a special education program, and I always wondered how we were supposed to make the students in this program feel normal when they had their own classes, learning aids, teaching assistants, and special exceptions. It's certainly not easy to do. At the same time, if we didn't give them any of these things, they might fall behind. That would hardly help them to feel normal.
I realize that "normal" is an ideal, and it is a word that I don't like to use, but it is one that comes up in relation to this issue all the time. It comes up in the film quite a bit.
In the end, the film presents the best solution it can: a compromise. Mary takes some university classes because that is what she wants, and she goes to elementary school because that is what her uncle knows she needs for proper social development. Perhaps the most important thing to take away from their solution is that we need to acknowledge what the child in question wants. If she is okay with learning at the level of her peers, then she should be allowed. But if she finds that to be too difficult (or easy, in this case) then it is worth considering other options.
There is definitely a lot to consider in this film about how to deal with differences. I think that what we need to take away from this is that we need to acknowledge a person's differences insofar as they need assistance or exceptions, but not to the point that we are drawing unnecessary attention to them. It's a fine balance, so we need to go about it carefully. And remember that people who are different are still people. They still have a voice. Listen to them.
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