Date: Tue, 01 Oct 2002 22:42:03 -0400
Subject: Re: PUPT: Re: critics


sure, feel free to send my email to the Reggio list. I keep meaning to subscribe to it, but being so disorganised, I lost the e-address & instructions to sign up.

As for the 3 yr old I worked with- she was very advanced for her age & the family was going through personal problems as well as dealing with an upcoming death in the family. There was a lot of stress & father was just dealing with it inappropriately.

I can understand that parents want the best for their kids & probably didn't get the type of education they wished for when they were children - they tend to overcompensate by pushing their children too hard or treating like they are little angels that can do no wrong.  Gifted & Talented children do deal with stresses & have special needs that often aren't addressed. They may not learn well in traditional settings (while above average bright kids excel) and often have behavior and/or medical problems that complicate their situations.  Their parents often think by treating them like little adults is the solution; however, they are neither 'normal kids' nor adults. In an extreme case, you get a child who breaks down due to pressure like the case here in Colorado. (name slips my mind...)

And a child's desire to be older than their ages & desire to quicken up their own childhood also adds to it.  Children just need to be encouraged that projects can be developed on all levels & the more sophisticated * abstract they think, can be adapted into various art projects.  By the time a child reaches age 9, they have already decided who 'excels' and 'doesn't excel' in art & other subjects...

I'm teaching a comic book art class to 9-12 yr olds now. Despite the 'recent discovery' of comic books here, we had a hard time getting kids to sign up!!  I usually teach teenagers this class (and with younger kids, I have to be age appropriate, so anatomy books can't be brought in & I have to be selective with the books)... but the arts in this town, are considered mostly for very little children and school aged children are not encouraged to be creative.  And they wonder why there are problems in the school system here!

I'm familiar with the Atlanta center.

I'm actually relocating to Massachusetts early next year & hope that I'll have better luck with employment there than here!  The job situation is terrible here & I'm really antsy to get professionally challenging jobs with professional incomes rather than meager pay at jobs that aren't very challenging.

Wayong


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