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Gifted child uses talents globally

Parents of exceptionally intelligent children face unique education challenges

Clayton Goertemiller, 11, finishes playing a Beethoven sonata on piano in his Oakwood home. Goertemiller recently competed in the World Math Team Championships in Beijing, China.

Jan Underwood Clayton Goertemiller, 11, finishes playing a Beethoven sonata on piano in his Oakwood home. Goertemiller recently competed in the World Math Team Championships in Beijing, China.

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By Alex Stuckey, Staff Writer Updated 7:29 PM Thursday, December 9, 2010

OAKWOOD — By 18 months, Clayton Goertemiller loved games and puzzles like most children. The difference — Clayton completed the puzzles brown side up.

“We found it a little unusual,” said Julie Goertemiller, Clayton’s mother.

Clayton’s unexpected behaviors continued. By 2 years old, he taught himself to read, and by about 3 years old, he was writing.

Joe and Julie Goertemiller said they knew these behaviors were atypical for a child his age. What the parents soon found out was that Clayton was considered profoundly gifted and that his IQ was in the 99.9th percentile.

Now 11, Clayton Goertemiller used his gifted brain to help the United States primary team, children ages 8 to 13, place ninth out of 33 teams at the World Federation of National Mathematics Competition in Beijing, China, Nov. 25 to 28.

The early years

Surprised by Clayton’s mental abilities at age 3, the Goertemillers contacted Elizabeth Myers, a first-grade teacher at Harman Elementary School in Oakwood. She proctored a phonemes test that first-graders take. Clayton was tested operating at a second-grade level.

Once in kindergarten, the Goertemillers realized Clayton was not being challenged, so they moved him to first grade, she said.

“Halfway through, he was dying,” she added. “He was so bored.”

When Clayton reached third grade, the family had him evaluated and discovered his IQ.

When he turned 8, the family moved Clayton into sixth grade and seventh-grade math.

“The problem with moving him up into middle school so young is that his fellow students were at a different level of social maturity than Clayton,” Julie Goertemiller said. “We began to realize that the traditional approach at schooling did not work for (Clayton’s) level.”

The next year, the Goertemillers decided to homeschool their son.

Homeschooling to nurture his talents

Since Clayton began his homeschooling, he has become a Davidson Young Scholar. The national educational program supports profoundly gifted children and only accepted 1,800 children ages 5-16.

Clayton is also taking math online through the Art of Problem Solving Online School, science through Johns Hopkins University, Spanish at Wright State University, Latin through The Lukeion Project and piano through a master’s degree program at the University of Dayton.

He takes all of his other classes through his online homeschooling program, his mother said.

Clayton, who is particularly proficient in math, used his scores on the American Math Contest 8 — a test in middle-school mathematics that evaluates problem-solving skills — and his high ACT math scores to be placed on the United States World Federation of National Mathematics Competition team. One of six boys on the primary team, Clayton traveled to Beijing to participate in the competition.

This year’s competition was the first of its kind. Kelly Ren, a spokeswoman for Math Zoom Academy, which sponsored the U.S. team, said it is important for gifted students to participate in international competitions to prepare them for the global market.

“A strong mathematical foundation plus (gaining) skills working with diversified people from different cultures and backgrounds empower children to prepare for their competency in the global competition,” Ren said.

Clayton said he hopes to be a part of the U.S. team next year.

“I was really nervous about the competition,” he said. “But it was really fun.”

Challenges and solutions

Julie Goertemiller said the biggest challenge in raising a profoundly gifted child is maintaining interest in their studies.

“If he’s bored, he won’t want to do the work,” she said.

Fortunately, she added, this problem has been alleviated since he is homeschooled at the appropriate level.

Although Clayton is already taking college-level classes, the Goertemillers plan to wait until Clayton is the appropriate age to send him to college.

“We want him to be on the same social maturity level as his peers,” she said.

For parents who think they have a gifted child, Goertemiller suggested applying for the Davidson Young Scholars program because it is a good resource for getting in contact with experts and other families who have exceptionally-gifted children.

“The normal classroom doesn’t work, and you have to find the right resources to meet their needs,” she said.

Paul Zeitz, a math professor at the University of San Francisco who accompanied the U.S. team to Beijing, said there is no single method to helping gifted children learn.

“My preferred approach is enrichment and community,” said Zeitz, who added it is important to keep gifted children socialized and taking classes that challenge them.

Richard Rusczyk, founder of Art of Problem Solving in Alpine, Calif., where Clayton takes his online math courses, stressed the importance of challenging a child with exceptional abilities.

“I recommend that parents find suitable challenges for their children, and to try to find other children of similar interest and ability,” Rusczyk said.

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Tips for raising a gifted child

Raising and nurturing a gifted child can be an exciting yet daunting challenge. Here are some tips:

Understand the way that your child’s giftedness affects his or her needs. Intellectual, social, emotional and physical needs. For example, ideas forged by 8-year-old minds may be difficult to produce with 5-year-old hands.

Be a knowledgeable advocate. The brighter the child is, the greater is his or her emotional complexity and potential vulnerability. You might have to educate the educators.

Read aloud to your child. It is important that parents read to their gifted child often, even if the child is already capable of reading.

Help your child discover personal interests. Stimulation and support of interests are vital to the development of talents. Parents should expose their child to their own interests and encourage the child to learn about a wide variety of subjects, such as art, nature, music and sports, in addition to traditional academic subjects such as math, reading, and science.

Speak and listen to your child with consideration and respect. From the time he or she can talk, a gifted child is constantly asking questions and will often challenge authority. “Do it because I said so” doesn’t work. Generally, a gifted child will cooperate more with parents who take the time to explain requests than with more authoritarian parents.

Teach your child how to find information and resources in a variety of ways. Gifted children need to know, to learn, to solve and to ponder. There will be times when your child’s expertise on a topic will be greater than yours, and you will not be able to provide answers or solutions.

Be a welcome person in your child’s school or educational environment. If educators know you first as a willing volunteer, they will be more responsive when you want something for your child.

Become involved in a local, state or regional parent group or join an e-mail list. Parents of gifted children need opportunities to share parenting experiences and problem-solving strategies with one another. And it takes the persistence of large groups of parents to ensure that provisions for gifted children are kept firmly in place.

The key to raising gifted children is to respect their uniqueness, their opinions and ideas, and their dreams. It can be painful for parents when their children feel out of sync with others, but it is unwise to put too much emphasis on the importance of fitting in; children get enough of that message in the outside world. At home, children need to know that they are appreciated for being themselves.

Source: Council for Exceptional Children

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