Book Review: Genius Denied

I recently read the book Genius Denied: How to Stop Wasting our Brightest Young Minds, by Jan and Bob Davidson.  The authors demonstrate how American public schools are failing their brightest students; then they suggest how to fix the schools to address those problems.

The book begins by profiling a number of gifted students ("more able" in UK terms) and their struggles in the US public school system.  This part of the book is very depressing to read!

Interestingly, though homeschooling is obviously an excellent fit for gifted students--and many of the children profiled here did end up happily homeschooled--the authors don't promote homeschooling as a solution, instead focusing on how public and private schools can be fixed to address the needs of gifted children.

Still, I think this book is an excellent read for those who have begun to suspect that school settings are not always a good "fit" for children who fall outside the norm in some way. 

Children can be unusual learners for many reasons: perhaps because they are gifted (or "more able") and learn very quickly, or because they struggle with a learning disability, or because they are both gifted and struggle with a learning disability.  Or perhaps a child is just a late bloomer, and isn't ready to learn something at six, but would sail through it and quickly catch up to his peers if allowed to learn it at eight.  Or perhaps a child develops asynchronously, meaning he is at substantially different levels of ability in different subjects. 

Many of these unusual learners struggle in classrooms, where the instruction is usually, for obvious and practical reasons, geared towards the 'average' student.  The brightest students often struggle the most, however, because while most school districts in the US provide "special education" for children with learning disabilities, fewer districts have gifted education programs, and what programs there are are usually highly inadequate--an hour per week of "enrichment time," for example.  And when money runs short, gifted programming is usually the first to be cut.

I would recommend this book, especially to US parents.  You can see summarized excerpts of the book on the Davidsons' website, here (the rest of their site may also be of interest).

Why we home educate

I've recently posted this on my blog but since it explains the pivotal reasoning around our decision to home educate, I will re-post it here.

We haven't always home educated. Our older three went to nursery aged either two or three and have then been to academic private schools. As time has gone on, we have become convicted of the need to "Provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nuture and admonition of the Lord" (Ephesians 6 v4) and that we should "train up a child in the way he should go" (Proverbs 22v6) and of the admonition on Deut 6v6-7 "And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou riset up.".

We had also been increasingly convicted of our compromises in having the children in school. We were, perhaps, not interventional enough and Christians we love and respect have the courage and ability to challenge over more issues. We felt compromised by attempts at "worship" in school-nativity plays, "hymns" sung which certainly weren't reformed, the children being asked to colour pictures that were irreverent and depicted the Lord even when a travesty of Christianity was taught, other religions being taught as more than equal to Christianity, the Lord's name being taken in vain by children all the time and there being no rebuke for this. I haven't arrived at evolution and the non-teaching of creation as a credible alternative, atheistic geography and population teaching, sex education from an amoral perspective etc etc.
We had spoken to staff about issues such as witches in books, about the issue of irreverent pictures, about amoral sex education and about trips/orchestra on the Lord's Day. Our older children have missed several trips due to them being over the Lord's Day.

Almost eighteen months ago now, we withdrew our second son from school and made plans to home educate him and the younger two. We didn't have a Christian school alternative. We made the decision to leave the older two in school due to the fact that they were closer to the end of their education and major exams.
The last eighteen months haven't been easy. It isn't easy taking a child out of school, buying curriculum for a child several years into school, researching ways of teaching and explaining. It hasn't been easy starting home education with a baby and toddler. It hasn't been easy facing opposition to our decision. God hasn't promised us an easy ride.

We have been blessed with encouragements; the many people who pray for us often older people with little personnal experience of home education, the home educators and Christian teachers both in the state sector and in Christian schools who have spent time and effort talking us through curricula and methods of teaching subjects from phonics to art to Latin nouns.

We know that home educating is not a guarantee that our children will be converted, anymore than not home educating is a guarantee that they won't. God is sovereign. We can only cry to Him for mercy on our children. We realise that we can teach our children at home but still teach them from a worldy and not Christian world view. Our job is to be faithful and to follow His Word as closely as we can.