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6 Ellul 5762 - August 14, 2002 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Home and Family
PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE
Relating to the Brighter Child

by R' Zvi Zobin

A major challenge facing every teacher is how to deal with the wide range of children in his class. If he relates to the faster children of the class, he will lose the slower ones. If he gives time to the slower children, the brighter ones will become bored and might start to make trouble.

Behaviorally, a gifted, creative child can display many of the characteristics which would categorize him as suffering from ADD or ADHD. Advice and remediation directed to ADD and ADHD children (including medication) can be counter- productive for -- and even destroy -- a gifted, creative child. Therefore, when going for advice, it is essential to ensure that the consultant is able to recognize the characteristics of a gifted, creative child and not simply relate to what seems to be problematic aspects of the child's behavior.

The ideal solution is to take the bright ones out of the class and give them private tutoring. The brighter child needs a more varied and faster-moving curriculum than a regular child. He also needs his own timetable which will allow him more physical exercise and more sleep at night.

It is easier to find tutors for bright students than to find tutors for slower students. Furthermore, it is better to have to find a tutor for one or two bright students during school time and direct the teaching to the main body of the class than to direct the teaching to the bright children and require many of the other students to have extra tutoring after school because they cannot keep up.

Another approach is to give the brighter students extra work to do while the teacher is dealing with the slower pupils. For example: while the teacher is going over the Chumash again, he can direct the brighter child to look at a Rashi, or if the teacher is repeating a gemora, he can tell a student to try and work out a Tosefos.

One melamed comes to class with difficult questions prepared for his brighter talmidim.

If a talmid knows how to use a word processor, he can be appointed the safra d'diyna, and he can take notes of the questions and answers which arise in class. Then he can make a weekly news-sheet of highlights from the class. For the end of the year he can prepare a collection of the best chiddushim. Appointing him to this position will help him pay attention during class and he will get a boost from seeing his name on the published booklets.

 

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