What Teachers Can Learn From Famous People

Terry Pratchett is an internationally bestselling novelist and a multi-millionaire. At school, he was, according to his own words, "a non-decrypt student", a "dreamer", and a "goat". His principal open doubted Terry would achieve anything in life. At 17, Terry left school with 5 O-levels, and got a job at a local newspaper. at 35, he had his first Discworld novel published. 25 years later, he was knighted.

Thomas Edison, famous scientist and inventor (of, among many things, the electric light bulb), was thrown out of school at age 12 because he couldn't learn maths and was unable to focus. His teacher said, "he was too stupid to learn anything."

Tom Cruise, a world-famous movie producer, director, and actor, describes himself as a “functional illiterate” due to dyslexia. He wasn't a good student. Today, his estimated wealth is 380 million dollars.

Director of Jaws, Steven Spielberg, dropped out of high school because he was put in a "special education" class.

Benjamin Franklin, whose image graces the $100 bill, left school at age ten.

Bill Gates, a co-founder of Microsoft and the richest person in the world for a number of years, left Harvard in his junior year.

All these people succeeded despite, rather than because of, their teachers. And yet, a good teacher can ignite the imagination and instill a love of learning. Are you a good teacher? Find out.

Gifted Children Are Students Too

Whenever a country perceives its education system to be inadequate (or worse than that of its trading partners), the government steps in. Typically, two things happen:

• the Ministry of Education submits a proposal to lengthen the house children spend at school (by lowering the entry age, increasing the hours of school per week, reducing the holidays), and
• all the attention is focused on the underperforming students, while gifted students get largely ignored.

To see why increasing the school hours is not a good idea, have a look at this article. Our blog will focus on the paradox of gifted children.

At first, it's not a paradox at all: surely students who struggle need more teacher attention? Yes and no. Children who have trouble learning to read, for example, need more attention in order to learn to read. Most gifted children, on the other hand, will take to reading like the proverbial duck to water. This does not mean gifted children need the teacher less - they just need the teacher to teach them something they don't already know. 

In many parts of the world, especially among the English-speaking countries, there is an alarming trend to let gifted children cruise through school bored. Although they will pick up the 3 Rs, they will never reach their potential to become another Einstein or Stephen Hawking unless they are exposed to challenging materials at school, unless they learn how to love to learn, and unless they learn how to learn.

Basic skills come so easily to gifted children that many of them don't actually know how to learn something they don't grasp immediately. To them, the lesson is either immediately obvious or too difficult. While a less apt student is used to trying to understand the new concept until they get it, gifted children never learn that specific technique of trying and trying again.

The result? Instead of educating a bunch of brilliant scientists, doctors, entrepreneurs and inventors, a country that neglects its gifted students will end up with a lot of young adults incapable of growing the national economy.

Is your teenager gifted? Find out here.

Child Prodigies and Learning Styles

• Brian Greene (born February 9, 1963) could multiply 30-digit numbers at the age 5.
• Cameron Thompson (born 1997) began studying with the Open University when he was 11. He gained the Cert.Math(Open) qualification at the age of 13.
• Brianna and Brittany Winner published their first novel at 12 and became America's youngest multiple award winning authors. At the end of fourth grade they used a speech to text software to complete an 80,000-word novel.
• Akiane Kramarik born in 1994, sold paintings worth three million USD at age 7.

The list of child prodigies goes on and on, in fields such as astronomy, medicine, chemistry, art. We're talking extraordinary abilities here, something that most adults wouldn't be able to accomplish.

Inborn talent? Yes.

Hours and hours of practice? Yes.

Extraordinary inspiration? Probably.

Nevertheless, the children's learning styles have a role to play, too. Typically, a child prodigy's information processing style will be integrated between holistic and analytic, and their way of learning will be multi-sensory. What is your child's learning style? Find out today.




Here is a video clip of Akiane Kramarik painting and playing the piano. Below, one of her paintings.



School Programs for Gifted Children

Goes your child's school have a Gifted or Extending program for their pupils? And what does it mean?

A gifted child is not the same as a gifted learning. Children may be gifted in various ways: gifted in fast learning, gifted in music, gifted in people skills, gifted in making friends with animals, gifted in athletics. While most education institutions understand this and cater for students with after-school activites such as drama circles, music classes and sports, their "gifted" program dusing school hours is reserved for children who are gifted in fast learning. This makes sense, because the idea is that the child has already mastered what's required by the curriculum and is now sitting in class, bored.

Your child's learning style will tell you whether your child is a gifted learner. Find out.

Naturally, children who are ahead with the curriculum should not be given additional work to do in their own time, instead, they should be given different work do to during class, without increasing either the workload or the time they have to devote to learning. We wouldn't want children to feel that if they do their work quickly and correctly, they are simply given another worksheet to complete.



"Extension learning" in class or outside the class should naturally stretch beyond giving Year 6 work to those Year 5 pupils who are ahead. This only compounds the boredom problem when they get to Year 6. Extension and stimulation is all about branch-out learning, i.e. introducing students to things that are not in the curriculum, like studying the subject in extra depth or doing logical puzzles or writing scripts for movies.

Remember, gifted children can also fall into the category of kinesthetic or tactile learners. Children who learn differently usually underachieve, no matter how bright they are. What is your child's learning style?

Teaching The Non-Conforming Student

In last week's blog, we discussed the issues arising from parenting a non-conformist. Teaching a non-conforming student is even trickier, because you have a whole classroom of students, not only Johnny Non-Compliant.

There is no single magic solution. However, research suggests that the following techniques have a good chance of achieving positive results:

• be respectful towards the student
• be a person worthy of the student's respect
• give the student attention and positive reinforcement
• offer the student a face-saving "out" from any dispute they may be involved in
• try to satisfy as many Learning Style needs of theirs as you practically can, with the help of our LSA tools. 

Gifted students are often non-conforming, often due to their attitude of "I'm so smart I don't need to do this worksheet" or due to their history of being bored at school. If Johnny Non-Compliant is a bright child, you can overcome his frame of mind by stimulating his interests and creativity. Get him on your side by admitting that sometimes the tasks you ask him to do will be way below his capability, but you have a good reason for wanting him to do it anyway (to memorise something, to increase the speed of his performance, to teach him perseverance, to keep him busy). Ask him to help you tutor one of his peers - teaching something is often a good way of really understanding the concept on a deeper level.

ADHD, Learning Disabled or Gifted - The Misunderstood Learning Style

An academically gifted child is one who has a high aptitude for learning school subjects such as maths, natural and physical sciences, as well as languages. Gifted children's learning style follows a unique pattern of learning preferences, making school work easily accessible.

Because learning comes easily to such children, it's almost impossible to believe that they could be misdiagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder). Yet many gifted children go through their school career labelled difficult or inadequate learners.

Through no fault of theirs, many schools fail to address the needs of the gifted child. They:

• Do not support the child's interests.
• Discourage curious questioning.
• Do not value self-expression.
• Lack opportunities for critical thinking.
• Neglect the gifted child in favour of those who struggle to learn the syllabus.

And here comes the problem. A gifted child might become frustrated and start to exhibit the same signs as a person suffering from ADHD. Worse still, gifted children may even have learning disabilities, concealed by the fact that their superior reasoning ability enables them to cope with school in the first few years. Such overcompensation requires more energy and ultimately becomes demotivating.

Is your child gifted? Use our Learning style Analysis to find out.

Worksheets for Gifted Children

It’s ironic that gifted children can be among the most difficult students. They are often bored and blasé. They may switch off in class or become disruptive. Either way, they fail to achieve their brilliant potential. While teachers are coached to work with each child at their own level, some gifted children are too high up the scale to be catered for in the classroom environment. It doesn’t help that some gifted children also suffer from learning difficulties such as dyslexia.



Schools are seldom given any advice or resources to stimulate gifted children, and many parents consider home schooling when they realise their child is underperforming at school.


Home schooling is not for everyone. It takes an extremely dedicated parent to do it well.


On the plus side, home schooling provides the opportunity to better address the child's particular learning style.


Many parents choose a halfway measure: still send the child to school, but provide him or her with stimulating worksheets that allow the child to explore topics outside the school curriculum, and also to set aside special homework time to make sure the child is still on track with their school work.


Creating the special worksheets takes a lot of thought. You need to select something that will interest the child and at the same time will not be studied at school next year. You need to gauge your child’s skill level. Finally, you need to present the worksheet in a way most palatable to your child’s learning style.


For some children, this will mean lots of colours and pictures. For others, it may be a project made out of plasticine. It all depends on the child’s sensory modalities.


Find out more about your child’s learning needs here.

Learning Styles and a Gifted Teenager

Being a gifted learner is often a challenge, particularly when the education system doesn't match their abilities.

Because schoolwork comes so easily to them, sitting in class and doing repetitive homework may be boring. Depending on his or her Learning Style, as well as on the teacher’s attitude, a gifted teenager will most likely choose a way to pass the time by:
- moving about, even when not allowed to
- reading their own book (usually advanced for their age) during class
- playing the fool
- being insubordinate
- daydreaming.

Alternatively, they may fake or even develop headaches or stomach aches (psychosomatic illnesses) in order to avoid school altogether.

Furthermore, some children and teenagers may hide their true talents in an attempt to fit in with their peers (if their Learning Style shows a preference for pairs, peers and/or team learning). They may underachieve on purpose, or fail to reach their academic potential because they are not motivated at school (if their Learning Style shows the need for internal motivation).

If left in a classroom with a generalized curriculum, the gifted child will not progress to realize their full potential. They will feel neglected and understimulated. Gifted children need special programs to flourish and to develop their abilities.

Gifted children who feel supported and understood will have an easier time reaching their full potential. Determining their Learning Style is the first step.