(…) But what did he see in the clear stream below? His own image; no longer a dark, gray bird, ugly and disagreeable to look at, but a graceful and beautiful swan.
(…) He now felt glad at having suffered sorrow and trouble, because it enabled him to enjoy so much better all the pleasure and happiness around him; for the great swans swam round the new-comer, and stroked his neck with their beaks, as a welcome.
(…) He had been persecuted and despised for his ugliness, and now he heard them say he was the most beautiful of all the birds. Even the elder-tree bent down its bows into the water before him, and the sun shone warm and bright. Then he rustled his feathers, curved his slender neck, and cried joyfully, from the depths of his heart, “I never dreamed of such happiness as this, while I was an ugly duckling.” (The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen)
To congregate or to not congregate? That is (one of) the question(s) for parents of gifted children. The answer came to us from the mouth of a 5th grade child reciting with pride and poise the original version of Macbeth.
Following the phone call that confirmed our son’s admission into the gifted program, the next step of the process took us on a tour of one of the local schools that offers congregated classes. The experience was fascinating. All of the sudden, the child that didn’t fit in his regular class, in his regular school, understood that somewhere, out there, there are a lot of other children just like him; the world (until now chimerical) where his intellectual peers get together unexpectedly became a reality.
On our school tour, I was watching my son’s reaction, hoping for a sign that this is, indeed, the right decision for him, for us. Between the books in the library, the computers lined up along the classroom walls and the car set in motion by balloon-propulsion, he explored the entire place as fast as he could. And between the Thomas H. Huxley quote posted on the board in the 3rd grade class (The great tragedy of Science is the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact), and the conversation that the 1st grade teacher was having with one of the students (not a monologue (teacher to student) but a discussion between intellectual peers), to me, it felt like we were coming “home”, to a place that, until now, we could only dream about and long for.
The 5th grade class opened our eyes to the large number of students with double exceptionality (gifted but also having to face the challenge of a learning disability) and also to the loving competition harbored by a group of children whose cognitive abilities are as limitless as their empathy. As my son expressed his wish to join the 1st grade class immediately, I can only dare to hope that our future inventor has, at last, found a haven for his bright mind and exceptional soul. Our ugly duckling has finally realized that he is, in fact, a beautiful swan.
