Unfortunately Gifted


Most students envy their gifted friends or classmates. For them the gifted students are lucky because they get good grades, have longer attention spans, are recognized by teachers,are always energetic and curious to know,do the work alone, know big words, and give extraordinary ideas.



However, did it come to your minds, as teachers and students, that gifted pupils might be extremely miserable?
Now think about it, because they do exceptional work and get good grades they will be under continuous pressure to keep up their perfection.Also, being able to do any task quickly and correctly might make them victims of boredom, while waiting for others.
In addition to that the majority of gifted students have few or no friends, why? they are left out because they are viewed different, they talk and act like grown ups, and are often labeled as "walking brains","nerds","books eaters"..
So don't judge a book by its cover. Gifted students are like other students; need proper attention, help and care.
For me, as a teacher the biggest challenge is to detect and be aware of who are the gifted, how to deal with them, how to help them fit in, and last but not least to remember them whenever I'm planning a lesson.


Enjoy browsing through this link http://www.ri.net/gifted_talented/character.html  to learn INTERESTING and MARVELOUS things about gifted students. Remember, you might be one and you're unaware of it.

Whiners, Naggers, and Whimpers 

I won't be surprised if ten years from now teachers started paying students for doing their assignments!
nowadays students nag and complain about any piece of work teachers assign.
For God's sake, assignments projects, presentations .. are not a way to punish or avenge students. They are found to apply, practice, and elaborate recently taught skills. Not to mention their necessity as a mean to assess students.
 It frustrates teachers to see students complain about duties. As if students are sending a message that they are not willing to work, are not hard workers, are dependent, and careless. Do teachers have to beg students to do what they're supposed to do?!
Students always strive to make the assignment or homework LESS, EASY, and SHORTER. 
As a teacher and student I say, " if you find out that you can't, don't have time, unwilling, or not qualified to register a course or take the educational path, then don't waste your time and the teachers' time". Instead of blaming professors, saying "don't teachers know we have other things to do?" put in mind that teachers are not fortune tellers and when they teach they do their best for you. At the same time they expect you to do your best too, and they won't be satisfied unless they see you give the work what it deserves to pass. 

Why would I hate technology?

It might sound weird to you if you hear me say “I hate technology”. You might say to yourself, is she still living in the Stone Age? Also, you might tell me if you hate technology why do you have a laptop, galaxy tab, blackberry, iPod, washing machine, drying machine…?

Well I would be retarded if I deny the great benefits of so many technological developments, especially those scientific ones that cured or solved big scientific dilemmas. Definitely technology has made doing many things easier and faster, like washing machines, microwaves..But please take two minutes to think about the following and tell me after that don’t you sometimes hate technology?

1-      I am driving the car, my sister is with me. She is as usual bbm text messaging the whole time, my kids are in the back seats watching a Tom and Jerry DVD(yes we have two DVD screens set on the back of the front seats) NOW, what would happen if I turned off the DVD? The kids would nag and want to leave the baby seats!!

What would happen if I ask Hanadi to stop texting and chat with me? She replies ok angrily and says what do you want to talk about? And absolutely there will not be anything to talk about because her mind will be busy of what she’s missing right now.

2-      It's Friday, time to visit parents, this scenario is the same if we went to see my mom or my mother in law, they always miss us and everything seems great, the whole family is gathered, until they MUST go inside and watch a series of their everyday rituals( Turkish films) one after the other. The problem is that I don’t watch such movies because I don’t have time and at the same time I think they are a waste of time. I prefer doing something more beneficial. So I can’t ruin their excitement; I try to tolerate. An hour is what I can usually bare, then the kids and I will be bored and we decide to leave. They refuse but even if they switch the TV off, we will feel guilty because in reality everybody around them, in the entire neighborhood, is doing the same and every day. Think of what can they do with this wasted time?

3-      As couples we gather on Saturdays in one of the cousins' houses. After an hour or so, the males separate from us and start their challenges on either the play station or the Wii. Then most of the females, including me, rebels. Imagine then the accompanied tense, voices, curses, and insults. Then, the strong men will seem to us like silly smurfs.

4-      A grade five student came to my friend, his science teacher, and asked her about gays!! That he wants to know what it means to be gay. My friend’s first reaction was "where did you hear about it?" TV was the reply. How would you explain it to a 9-10 years old kid?

I know that issues like rape, sex, lesbians, gays..have existed since the beginning of time but nowadays, because of the mass media,these issues are becoming people’s number one curiosity, obsession and have changed our values. What is forbidden in religion, or was shameful and immoral to talk about fifteen years ago is now considered freedom of choice that is to be respected, and naturally must exist. 

I believe knowing about these things changed our society and lead to the existence of so many acts that basically weren’t found in our society, or culture.

unfortunately, knowing what's happening in the world, specifically in the western societies, transformed our societies into a copy machine where the printed out copy is not at all as the original copy.

so it is not technology's fault it is our fault who misused technology. However, it is us who will suffer in the future and no other beings, because nature will pay back and revenge for the deformation  we caused.

I shared with you personal examples that don't apply to your life but try to generalize and you will find out that sometimes you really hate technology.

The University’s Regulations

I noticed that so many students in our LIU are complaining and nagging that the university is becoming like a school, and it is not taking into consideration that they are grown ups and that each student should be free to do what he/she believes is right.

Recently, some students’ IDs were taken away. The majority of the students whose IDs were taken away were caught smoking or maybe in an intimate, inappropriate condition with their lovers. The university understands that as university students you have rights and freedoms to be respected but, with LIMITS, because if you think of it what is normal for you might be immoral or a sin for others, whose beliefs, also, should be respected. In addition to that, ignoring bad, immoral, and careless behaviors for a time makes them usual and acceptable behaviors and after sometime we will unconsciously lose our manners, beliefs and limits.

  

 I object

Whenever students are asked to list the characteristics of their best teacher, they automatically put down the following as one of the important characteristics: “treats students equally”.

I used to think that this is very important; as a teacher you have to treat your students equally to be fair, but the other day I discovered that students shouldn’t be treated equally if I want to be really fair. Why? Since students are not similar and they don’t all have similar life circumstances, problems, responsibilities, or needs.

Take for example one of my students who came to class 10 minutes late, because I believed in equality I treated her like everybody else; so she wasn’t allowed to come in. The irony is that, her class and roommate told me that I would feel pity for her if I knew what she’s going through, but I didn’t take that seriously and my reply was that she is like everybody else she should set coming to class on time as her priority; especially this wasn’t her first time. In the end I discovered that she has a severe case of migraine, she spends nights of intolerable headaches and barely sleeps, sometimes very few hours a week.

This case changed my opinion. Yes students should be equally respected but shouldn't be equally treated, and we should understand their differences and treat them as they deserve and need, not as their friends are treated because they will never be equal entities.