Are our schools equipped to handle the struggles of brilliant children?

Parents might dream of having brilliant children, but like those with learning disabilities, intellectually gifted children also struggle — dealing with issues such as under-stimulation, boredom, and social isolation — yet their challenges are often underrated and misunderstood. While programs abound for learning-challenged children, are mainstream schools equipped to handle this other group of special needs?

When she was just a toddler of 18 months, Bracha Klein* was talking like a four-year-old. Her full sentences, complex vocabulary, and conversational skills wowed the adults around her. She could listen to stories for hours; her mother found herself hiding books under the couch cushions to avoid having to read them to her. And when Bracha was three, her morah pulled Mrs. Klein aside one morning before playgroup and told her, “You know she’s reading already, right?”

Actually, Mrs. Klein didn’t. But Bracha had somehow taught herself to read when her mother wasn’t paying attention. Bracha was way ahead of the curve intellectually, although socially and behaviorally, she was just a regular three-year-old — temper tantrums and all.

“I realized early on that she needed alternative schooling,” says Bracha’s mother. An Orthodox progressive education school had just opened in their Tristate area community, and Mrs. Klein hoped it would be a good fit. With its small class sizes, flexible curriculum, and teachers who gave her extra activities (like learning the alphabet backwards), Bracha thrived.

But in fourth grade, the alternative school closed down, leaving Bracha no choice but to transfer to the local Bais Yaakov. Over the next few years, Bracha’s school performance took a nosedive. By eighth grade, she refused to do her work, failed test after test, and spent so much time in the hallway that she was given an office job. Nobody seemed to know what to do with her — least of all Bracha herself. The former child prodigy had turned into a problem child, and Mrs. Klein became a regular sight in the principal’s office.

Just before eighth-grade graduation, Mrs. Klein was called in for a final meeting with administrators. “We are really sorry,” they told her. “We kept trying to squish your square peg of a child into a round hole. We didn’t know what we were doing.”