Brainology for gifted students?

[RanchGirl]

jnbrdsly's thread led to a mention of Brainology which is on special with Homeschool Buyer's Co-op. I was really intrigued. I love the idea and the research behind it. I want my kids to work hard and take pride in their efforts, not just coast along hardly putting in any effort (one of the main reasons we homeschool). I want them to be resilient when facing challenges and disappointments, and willing to work hard even when the answers don't come right away, or ever. We talk about tackling hard problems and treating the brain like a muscle that needs to work hard to grow, various memory techniques to improve memory/learning, etc.

 

So would Brainology help them take ownership of these ideas I am usually preaching to them? I thought so, but when I looked further into it, the implementation of this awesome idea didn't wow me.

 

Here's a video on their website with samples from the program:

http://www.mindsetworks.com/brainology/

 

Here's a demo of the actual program. Unfortunately everything is disabled for the demo except the place where you discuss your challenges.

http://www.mindsetworks.com/webnav/demo.aspx

 

Homeschool Buyer's Co-op lists it on their highschool page, but not their gifted page, but I'm not sure how much stock to place in that. We certainly don't restrict ourselves to materials designed for the gifted. http://www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org/gifted/

 

The cartoons in the demo are completely annoying, painfully so. My kids might be more tolerant than I am, but in the demo there is a list of challenges that includes things like:

I'm too far behind in class

I don't have a quiet place to work

I forget things that I read or hear in class

I don't know how to take notes

I lose papers, notes or assignments

There's nobody to help me

I'm just not a good student

Some subjects are very hard for me to learn

I get very nervous when I take a test

 

I don't think my children would check any of those boxes. What would happen then? Is it primarily for kids who are struggling or average in school to improve their study habits?

 

Has anyone tried Brainology with a gifted student?

[jenbrdsly]

jnbrdsly's thread led to a mention of Brainology which is on special with Homeschool Buyer's Co-op. I was really intrigued. I love the idea and the research behind it. I want my kids to work hard and take pride in their efforts, not just coast along hardly putting in any effort (one of the main reasons we homeschool). I want them to be resilient when facing challenges and disappointments, and willing to work hard even when the answers don't come right away, or ever. We talk about tackling hard problems and treating the brain like a muscle that needs to work hard to grow, various memory techniques to improve memory/learning, etc.

 

So would Brainology help them take ownership of these ideas I am usually preaching to them? I thought so, but when I looked further into it, the implementation of this awesome idea didn't wow me.

 

Here's a video on their website with samples from the program:

http://www.mindsetworks.com/brainology/

 

Here's a demo of the actual program. Unfortunately everything is disabled for the demo except the place where you discuss your challenges.

http://www.mindsetworks.com/webnav/demo.aspx

 

Homeschool Buyer's Co-op lists it on their highschool page, but not their gifted page, but I'm not sure how much stock to place in that. We certainly don't restrict ourselves to materials designed for the gifted. http://www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org/gifted/

 

The cartoons in the demo are completely annoying, painfully so. My kids might be more tolerant than I am, but in the demo there is a list of challenges that includes things like:

I'm too far behind in class

I don't have a quiet place to work

I forget things that I read or hear in class

I don't know how to take notes

I lose papers, notes or assignments

There's nobody to help me

I'm just not a good student

Some subjects are very hard for me to learn

I get very nervous when I take a test

 

I don't think my children would check any of those boxes. What would happen then? Is it primarily for kids who are struggling or average in school to improve their study habits?

 

Has anyone tried Brainology with a gifted student?

 

 

Really good questions... :lurk5:

[RanchGirl]

Jen, did you look at the video/demo? Do you get the same impression from them? Maybe I'm way off base...

[KAR120C]

I haven't looked that far into it, but it doesn't tempt me at all.

 

For resilience, I think a long term diet of challenge is going to be better than anything they could package as a workshop. Homeschooling is ideal for that - you can "tune" the challenge to the kid, ramp it up when things get easy and back off when it's overwhelming. DS has never coasted through anything here - what would be the point? And he has several experiences of disappointment and missing the cut every year. Not everything he does, of course, but plenty.

 

Now if you just wanted a bit to reinforce what you've been doing, I think I'd get one of the articles that came out a few years ago... I think it was 2008 or 2009 when Dweck was first hitting the popular press. Maybe Newsweek? If you search for "Dweck" on this board there was a fair bit of discussion back then, and you could probably find the article for your kids to read.

 

ETA: Okay it was NYT in 2007, not Newsweek in 2008... lol http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/

Edited May 2, 2012 by KAR120C
found the article

[rachsr]

Thank you for posting the article - it was a very interesting read at lunch time. I come from a culture that does not hand out "praise" easily - I might have been overcompensating for that with my kids ;-).

[jenbrdsly]

RanchGirl, I just watched this demo: http://www.mindsetworks.com/brainology/. I was also thinking about your questions some more. Imo, gifted kids often think in absolutes. I'm really good at this. I'm awful at this. This is easy. This is stupid etc. There can sometimes be crazy extremes. Like for example, if my son gets 8 out of 10 on a spelling test he loudly announces "I'm horrible at this. I'm such a stupid speller."

So even though all those questions you listed are really crazy and don't apply to my son at all (except for getting nervous about tests), there are lots of times when he thinks all of those things apply to him. Does that make sense?

I think also that gifted kids can view their intelligence as fixed. "I'm smart. That's just the way it is." We as parents need to teach them that they can keep stretching their brain, and become smarter; that it's okay for gifted children to work hard learning too.

Anyhow, I'm not sure if I'll have my son do Brainology or not. But I think I might have him at least do the free two week trial this month. That price is right!

Kar120C thanks for sharing the article about praise. One of the schools I taught about went through a two year reform on Emotional Intelligence, and encouraging effort instead of saying "You're really smart at that," was one of our big things. It's good to hear a reminder.

Edited May 2, 2012 by jenbrdsly

[KAR120C]

RanchGirl, I just watched this demo: http://www.mindsetworks.com/brainology/. I was also thinking about your questions some more. Imo, gifted kids often think in absolutes. I'm really good at this. I'm awful at this. This is easy. This is stupid etc. There can sometimes be crazy extremes. Like for example, if my son gets 8 out of 10 on a spelling test he loudly announces "I'm horrible at this. I'm such a stupid speller."

Is it rare that he misses a word? Or is he constantly getting a couple wrong?

[jenbrdsly]

Is it rare that he misses a word? Or is he constantly getting a couple wrong?

 

 

Rare. Usually he gets perfect scores. Really, the teacher should have put him into the next group (there are three spelling lists in the class). I haven't pushed it though, because they use spelling for handwriting as well, and my son's handwriting needs a LOT of work. Plus, we do AAS at home, so..

 

Also, the teacher will mark a word wrong if it has a capital letter at the beginning instead of a lower case letter. In all other respects though, this teacher is wonderful. Every child in America should be so lucky.

[nmoira]

Imo, gifted kids often think in absolutes. I'm really good at this. I'm awful at this. This is easy. This is stupid etc. There can sometimes be crazy extremes. Like for example, if my son gets 8 out of 10 on a spelling test he loudly announces "I'm horrible at this. I'm such a stupid speller."

This is DD the Elder. She's progressing through beginning algebra with nary a hitch (and this after my putting it off for more than a year), but she'll melt into puddles of "I'm stupid" after messing up one string of factorizations in a single problem. While she manages her perfectionist tendencies much better than she used to (thank you Carol Dweck!), I've noticed it rearing its ugly head again on the eve of puberty, occasionally with a vengeance. After a particularly bad bout last week, I did something I'd promised myself I'd never do and pulled out a 4th grade math text to show her what most of her age peers are doing.

[KAR120C]

Rare. Usually he gets perfect scores. Really, the teacher should have put him into the next group (there are three spelling lists in the class). I haven't pushed it though, because they use spelling for handwriting as well, and my son's handwriting needs a LOT of work. Plus, we do AAS at home, so..

 

Also, the teacher will mark a word wrong if it has a capital letter at the beginning instead of a lower case letter. In all other respects though, this teacher is wonderful. Every child in America should be so lucky.

If he almost never gets one wrong, he's not learning resilience. And even worse, if he gets marked wrong for silly mistakes like a capital letter, what he's being tested for here is perfection. So it's no wonder, really, that he's so hard on himself. Getting one or two wrong in that situation is just telling him he makes silly mistakes, not giving him something of substance to aspire to.

 

If you were homeschooling, I'd strongly suggest separating handwriting practice from spelling (because it could be much more frustrating to have something he's otherwise very good at dragged down by something unrelated). Practice handwriting with a straight handwriting book (copywork and/or letter formation depending on where he is with that, but no spelling, no grammar, no composition, etc.) Practice spelling at a level where he could actually expect to get only 80% regularly, but where he has no expectation of perfection... even if that means ramping it way up to ridiculously difficult words. Spelling Bee stuff, if he's interested in that.

[jenbrdsly]

If he almost never gets one wrong, he's not learning resilience. And even worse, if he gets marked wrong for silly mistakes like a capital letter, what he's being tested for here is perfection. So it's no wonder, really, that he's so hard on himself. Getting one or two wrong in that situation is just telling him he makes silly mistakes, not giving him something of substance to aspire to.

 

If you were homeschooling, I'd strongly suggest separating handwriting practice from spelling (because it could be much more frustrating to have something he's otherwise very good at dragged down by something unrelated). Practice handwriting with a straight handwriting book (copywork and/or letter formation depending on where he is with that, but no spelling, no grammar, no composition, etc.) Practice spelling at a level where he could actually expect to get only 80% regularly, but where he has no expectation of perfection... even if that means ramping it way up to ridiculously difficult words. Spelling Bee stuff, if he's interested in that.

 

 

They do D'Nelian at school. Spelling isn't really an issue I'm ready to pick a battle on though, because we do AAS at home anyway. At school he does Evan Moore a grade up for spelling, and Daily Oral Language Review a grade up for grammar. At home we do MCT for grammar.