Being different

"I think the biggest thing I would make all School Psychs do is to be forced to take a class for an *entire* semester with students of a 65 IQ or to actually live in a house for Down's Syndrome Adults for the entire semester.
I would make it a requirement that they attend the house activities and that they eat their meals and do the food shopping with the house "family", everything would have to be that they were assimilated into the group. I would require this so that they could experience *first hand* what a PG person goes thru in living their everyday lives. Yes, people with 50 points less IQ are kind and considerate and have worth and can be fun to play ball with and run races and watch tv. But there cannot be a deep conversation most likely. The 115 IQ person or 105 or whatever, WILL feel like an outsider, WILL feel bored when made to sit in the class day after day after day while the other students are learning to carry decimal places for checkbook balancing or whathaveyou. This is the best way to have someone of average intelligence understand what it is like to be a person of much higher IQ. It can be fine and fun some days, but some days it can be excruciating and not worth getting up for. Then, I would have that same person be allowed for 2 hours, once a week, to be with same IQ peers, but ONLY for 2 hours (to mimic a pullout class). I think this would be the best experience for anyone going into gifted education or psychological counselling for the gt and especially anyone who will be responsible for the educational decisions of a gifted population." - AL