Page 2/The Battalion/Tuesday, August 30, 1983
Gifted child’s life
often a dilemma
by Children’s Express
United Press International
(Editor’s Note: Children’s Express, a
privately funded news service, is real
world journalism reported entirely by
children 13 years of age or under whose
tape-recorded interviews, discussions,
reports and commentary are edited by
teenagers and adults.)
NEW YORK — Many gifted children
id
others become
lity to express things
with your body very well, like with your
hands — leadership ability, or creative
ability.
Krueger feels that “the kids who are
very talented in the arts, who are very
talented in their schoolwork, should be
treated just as specially as the kids who
are in the first-string football team.”
The Association is concerned about
these gifted children because “their
potential to make very significant contri
butions to our society, to our world, is
what will make a great deal of differ
ence.” N
A lot of teachers are intimidated by
gifted kids. It happens when the teacher
doesn’t know something and the child
will correct his or her mistakes. There are
cases where parents are threatened, too.
“You find bright kids in every type of
home,” Krueger said, “and some parents
don’t care. Some parents are not neces
sarily all that bright themselves. They’re
very frightened of the kids.”
We also talked with Krueger about
gif ted kids who all of a sudden take dive
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in school. He told us how “a woman at
John Hopkins University found out that
the achievement of girls with mathema
tical ability suddenly took a big dive at
about the age of 12 or 13.
When she talked with these girls, she
discovered it was the fear they had about
being different, that girls don’t become
scientists or mathematicians. To con
form, they started not to achieve.
shut themselves out an<
juvenile delinquents.
Mark Krueger, who is a Director of
the American 1 Association for Gifted
Children, says, “It’s real hard for a bright
kid who may be in the fourth grade but
who reads at a ninth grade level and likes
being around sixth or seventh graders.
There are very real emotional and ad
justment problems, and the problems are
all the more serious when there’s only
one gifted kid in the classroom.
“Studies have been done which show
most dramatically that there’s any num
ber of bright kids who don’t get the sort
of attention that they need in school.”
Everyone is gifted in some sense. But
the gifted we talked about in our inter
view’ with Krueger is another kind. It’s
not a typical thing. According to his fi
gures, only 3 to 5 percent of all kids are
gifted witn “an unusual ability.”
The way he broke it down was into
“Or imagine what it’s like fora 14-year-
old boy at an inner city school,” Krueger
added, “where it’s hard enough to get
people to come to school, much less to
create a thriving atmosphere, and to have
serious aspirations of going to college.”
Being considered gifted creates such
problems for the kids socially. When
Krueger asked us if we would want our
friends to think of us as gifted, we told
him, “No,” because we’d probably be tre
ated differently.
As Krueger said, “Most people, re
gardless of their age, want to blend in. In
‘On Being Gifted’ — a book we spon
sored in which for the first time kids
came together to talk about what it’s like
to be gifted — the most important feeling
these kids had was their uncomfortable
ness with being singled out. One of them
said, ‘Call us nifty, call us talented, but
don’t call us gifted.’
“The other thing,” Krueger pointed
out, “is that you can’t tell if a person is
very good at something until you give
him an opportunity. So the idea that
there are not gifted kids in black com
munities, on Indian reservations, or
among women is absolutely ridiculous.
In many of those places, there are no art
programs, no programs that allow kids to
solve problems, to think creatively, to
take chemistry. We feel very strongly that
you’ve got to give every kid a chance be
fore you can say he’s not gifted.”
A child should do what he’s capable of
doing. Gifted children should be able to
go at their own level and do what they can
do and not have to follow what everyone
else does so they can learn. However
teacher training works, teachers should
be taught how to handle gifted children,
at least a little.
“Maybe in the some classrooms you’ll
have kids working at different levels and
on different things,” Krueger said, “and
it may very well be that a kid who is three
years ahead of his class in reading is
working at his grade level in math. One
thing we find is that bright kids are not
uniformly bright.
“There are a lot of ways of teaching
gifted kids. The point is that something
has to be done to address gifted kids’
needs, that they just not be ignored in the
raegular classroom.
“It’s also part of the teachers’, adminis
trators’ and parents’ responsibility to
make sure that bright kids don’t feel su
perior to everyone else, that they under
stand they have a responsibility to use
their talents to help other people,” Krue
ger said.
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First lady keeps low profile
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by Helen Thomas
United Press International
LOS ANGELES — The Reagan’s
have been catching up with the carriage
trade during their stay in California.
The president and his wife, Nancy,
are part of a closely knit group of friends
called the “Kitchen Cabinet” that, socially
speaking, few outsiders are allowed to
penetrate.
The wives of the all-male members of
the Kitchen Cabinet are Mrs. Reagan’s
chums, and when they are 3,000 miles
away, the_y talk by telephone.
The first lady has stayed out of the
limelight during her August days in Los
Angeles, but she made one public
appearance in honor of her late father,
Dr. Loyal Davis.
Mrs. Reagan unveiled a plaque at the
John Tracy Clinic for the Deaf in Los
Angeles in her one public outing.
Tracy is the deaf son of the late actor
Spencer Tracy, who was a good friend of
Mrs. Reagan’s mother, Edith Davis, when
they were both in show business.
In her remarks, Mrs. Reagan said Dr.
Davis played an important part in help
ing get the clinic started “in its early pre
carious days.”
Otherwise, the first lady has been very
private, but she undoubtedly has been in
touch with her two designers, Galanos
and Adolfo, to make her fall selections.
Mrs. Reagan has to prepare her war
drobe for the two-week Asian
she will take with the president
November.
She will have her own solo activities in
some of the countries in the five-nation
tour.
An advance team will head across the
Pacific this Sunday to nail down plans for
Reagan’s trip. Tlie White House con
tinues to insist Reagan will visit the Phi
lippines, despite die assassination of
opposition leader Benigno Aquino.
Several leading papers have said edi
torially that he should not go.
Reagan himself seemed to indicate
that a final decision had not been made,
but presidential spokesman Larry
Speakes insists present plans have not
changed, and he will go to Manila.
Michael McManus, assistant to the
president, says the advance team will be
sifting through the many invitations for
presidential appearances when Reagan
visits the Philippines, Indonesia, Thai
land, Japan and Korea. But many of his
potential hosts will be disappointed be
cause Reagan’s time in each country is
very limited.
Sever*
present
icluding
Detroit in 1 on ’ Ieli &
lican Convention in
Cameron was thrust in Reagansm
But the little blond boy begantotn
Reagan acknowledged at thetimt!
he was a stranger to tlie littleboybea
he had been on the campaign trail w
long and had not had a cliancetn
acquainted with him.
rnation;
Bi
of
When Reagan speaks at big met
bers of tl:
Although the Reagan’s have been on
the West Coast for two weeks, aides said
they knew of no plans to see his grand
children, Cameron, 4, and Ashley, 5
months.
Michael Reagan, father of the chil
dren, has publicly complained on several
occasions that Reagan has not yet met his
new granddaughter and that there is no
grandfatherly relationship with the tots.
Observers said that during the Repub-
onsume
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Reporters have found that ...
chartered White I louse planecanbe h e dam
carious. ’^'J ^da. 1
Shortly after their United Aiii ate s the
plane took off for Seattle, the)
announced that he would have lo
reverse thrusters to get the planeI:
He did and the passengers had a
rough landing.
When the plane took off again; t T
turn to Los Angeles, the pilotS \0
brakes while still on the groundwlw 1 .
was told there might be a maiuwdfi C ri |
wing. L1I1
Shortly afterward, the
announced they were taking offai
One of the reporters aboad shouted
we have a choice?”
Healthy veggie burger
lacks fast food appeal
Slouch
By Jim Earl [“This
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The I
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members of the audience area
take pictures but are warned notnB/ s to , bc
flash bulbs. T he flashes play havot bu.
the teleprompter mirrors Reaganiis 10m i 5 i s -
the lecturn when he speaks.
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by Dick West
United Press International
WASHINGTON —- Militant vegeta
rians claim they are eryoying some suc
cess at pressuring fast food franchises to
offer meatless alternatives to burgers
with all-beef patties.
Good luck to them, but I do wish the
anti-meat protesters would make the
alternative names a bit more appetizing.
It’s not that I have anything against
the health food movement. Nor does my
aversion reflect some misguided sense of
macho, such as a feeling that real men
don’t eat bean sprouts.
Fast food customers should have
“a hot, satisfying and quickly pre
pared transition alternative avail
able. ”
I simply resent the apparent reluct
ance of the “eat no meat’' crowd to let
vegetables stand on their own roots, so to
speak.
The campaign to bring the world
more fast food fruit and vegetable dishes
is being pushed by a coalition of health
and humane organizations.
Fast food customers, they insist,
should have “a hot, satisfying and quickly
prepared transition alternative avail
able.”
Although I can sympathize with their
basic objective, do they have to call the
transition alternative a “veggie burger?”
I’m sure I try as diligently as you and
your gourmet friends to stay abreast of
’ m
land, but I don’t think I could ever bring
myself to go into a fast food outlet and
order a “veggie burger.”
The coalition’s beau ideal, apparently,
is ersatz flesh — vegetables that Iook,
smell and taste like meat.
Why is it you never hear of anyone
trying to disguise meat as a vegetable?
Surely that type of camouflage now falls
within the realm of the technologically
feasible.
One possibility is lunch meat that has
been left in the refrigerator so long it is
beginning to turn green. Here we nave
the potential for a dish of pseudo
broccoli that would fool all but tne most
discerning vegetable fans.
Or how about a slice of liver, shredded
and tinted with green cake coloring so
that it closely resembles a fern? Or httle
meat balls treated with a chemical preser
vative until they simulate radishes?
I’ll concede a “veggie burger” prob
ably would stand a better chance of com
mercial acceptance than would a McCas-
serole. Still, that name simply doesn’t
hack it, conjuring up, as it does, visions of
fermented lentils, soy beans and tofu
ground into a beef-like patty, fried in
sunflower oil and served on a sesame
seed bun.
Whatever the ingredients, the first
step toward promoting vegetable-like
meat dishes to first class fast food citizen
ship is finding attractive names for them.
If I were plotting strategy for the
vegetarians, I would look to the spread
ing wave of Tex-Mex carryouts.
“Broccoli burritos” sound like a savory
alternative, as do “zucchini tamales” and
“eggplant enchiladas.”
Technology has been defined as “the
knack of so arranging the world that we
don’t have to experience it.”
If you accept that definition, you
bee
fcd Gloe
Officer R
ingof;
Hesaic
befighte
the culinary trends sweeping across our so that we
might also approve of arranging spinach
don’t have to taste it.
“That’s a very good question, Squirt, and when you’re older $
more mature, you’ll understand why it’s necessary to tear up^ W*-
roads and streets every time classes begin.”-