Every morning of the school closure during the Covid-19 pandemic, my mother and I compare notes as to what our morning news programs have told us. We are always baffled at how two news teams in the same country can have such different stories. For instance, one morning last week, she spoke of protests to open the schools back up because no one can put their workers back to work until the kids aren’t at home. My news team didn’t cover that; instead, they covered the fact that four more states had decided to close school for the remainder of the school year. Both of our news teams said that the peak had not been reached yet, but mine did a story on a doctor who ran antibody tests on people of his city and found that, not the 1,000 reported cases of Covid-19 had occurred, but 80,000 cases. I got really excited that maybe the peak had been reached because we were dealing with this virus long before we knew it. Then I spoke to a doctor who said that the antibodies can be present for coronavirus but not be this strain of corona. With all of the “information” out there, it’s hard to know what is truth and what is a spin. Add to that the rumors that local fold tell, and you have a recipe for a lot of misinformation.
This last week a fellow local private Catholic school shut its doors for forever. It is very sad because the school has been there longer than Oklahoma has been a state! As I interviewed students and parents seeking to move their children to our school, I was shocked to hear one parent ask if we now had actual graduations. I couldn’t figure out what she meant. She said, “Well, I know you used to give GED’s. So, you’re accredited?” I quickly let her know that we have never given GED’s; we have always had diplomas. Furthermore, we require diplomas of distinction, a classification of diploma Oklahoma offers. And as for accreditation, we are accredited by the same institution that accredits public, private, vocational, charter, and university schools in 77 countries including the U.S. Not only did we receive the highest score they have seen in some time, we were given an award last year for being the Oklahoma school that best exemplifies the accreditation standards. She got way more information than she bargained for. Her response was, “I guess it was just a nasty rumor.” Yep.
The truth is, I hadn’t heard that one. I had heard other derogatory names and all of them had rolled off my back. I don’t know why this one got to me. Maybe because we have been so proud of what we have built here that it was hard to know our town thinks otherwise… those who have actually heard of us, that is.
Rumors affect people very deeply. And I need to warn you, parents of gifted, that your kids are capable of some pretty nasty rumor-spreading. It is a tool in the arsenal of “winning.” I remember as a kid, arguing with my mother about anything and everything. I knew I was not being nice, but, in my head, I kept thinking But she’s wrong!, and I couldn’t stop, even though I was being really mean, because she was wrong. As a principal of gifted students, I am glad I remember this about myself. It helps me when I am dealing with a student who is arguing unfairly. I acknowledge that they feel the other person is wrong, but I admonish that that is no excuse for being mean. While the gifted student may soften his answer for that encounter, an enemy has been born, and many gifted will then eagerly spread anything bad heard about that person, whether its truth or not.
You have no idea the drama that plays out every day in a gifted and talented secondary school! For gifted middle schoolers, it’s about power and romance and friendships. I know, all teens fight about these things; gifted just don’t move on as quickly. In high school, the students hurt deeply inside. Every insult causes a night of self-examination that leads into an intense loneliness that causes many of their answers to come out as retorts. Then they get in trouble for disrespect, and a whole new round of self-loathing begins.
If this sounds familiar, your gifted teen is in need of a place to talk. I encourage you to find someone - a youth pastor, a counselor - someone to whom your teen can talk about life and its issues. Because your teen is gifted, he/she will internalize messages incorrectly and develop negative thinking in a way that cannot be overcome without help.
“... but words will never hurt me” comes from the babblings of a parent trying to not have to put up with drama. Words hurt the gifted child twofold because he already hates that he cannot solve the world’s problems. It’s too easy just to believe the rumors and remain uninvolved and unengaged.
Michelle