An Examination of Gifted Children in Literature: As Portrayed in The Questioneers series by Andrea Beaty
Karen Blumstein
MAGE Co-President & Parent Liaison
Elementary, Special Needs & Gifted Educator
Gifted Children Portrayed in Literature
As seen in Iggy Peck, Architect & Rosie Revere, Engineer By Andrea Beaty
Introduction
The Questioneers series by Andrea Beaty is a group of picture books that feature different students stories about their passion for learning. The series currently includes four titles, one of which spent seventy weeks on the New York Times Best Sellers List. The original series includes: Iggy Peck, Architect; Rosie Revere, Engineer; Ada Twist, Scientist; Sofia Valdez, Future Prez; and Aaron Slater, Illustrator. There are also companion chapter books and project workbooks for several of the tittles. For the purposes of this analysis, we will be examining Iggy Peck, Architect and Rosie Revere, Engineer and their stories of gifted and talented children who want to follow their passion but find road blocks in their educational settings or the emotional experiences they have while following their desire to learn. The themes of self-actualization, emotional sensitivity, and resilience are found in the stories during vignettes shared from toddlerhood and second grade for both of the main characters.
Significant Social/Emotional Characteristics
Iggy Peck – A Precocious Architect
Iggy Peck, Architect was inspired by the authors own son who showed an early passion for building. Like many Gifted and Talented children, the Iggy character showed early attributes of a precocious learner. By age two he was building towers out of whatever he could find, Iggy showed internal motivation, inner locus of control and a strong need for self-actualization (Hébert, 2007, pg 54). His mother praised his accomplishments even though she was also dismayed by his choice of building material (dirty diapers and glue), however that did not deter the resilient Iggy Peck as he was already off to build his next masterpiece. Iggy Peck lucky enough to have a stable home with parents that supported his passions and praised his creativity. As Maslow’s developmental theory states, “one’s physiological needs, and a need for safety, love, and self-esteem, must be met… if an individual is to reach self-actualization” (Hébert, 2007, pg 97) and in the story Iggy had these conditions met until he encountered a teacher that stifled his drive to pursue his passion. When Iggy reached second grade, his teacher Ms. Greer did not recognize the importance of her students need for following their passions or the value of creativity. The teacher let her preconceived notions of what students should do in her classroom restrict the growth and creativity of Iggy by banning the topic of architecture because of her own bias. Iggy showed his emotional sensitivity and depth, another common characteristic of gifted and talented students (Hébert, 2007, pg 55), when the teachers restrictions caused him stress and heartache. “With no chance to build, his interest was killed. Now second grade was a bore” (Beaty, 2007, pg 17). Luckily Iggy had intellectual peers in his classroom, the other Questioneers in the series, who supported his ideas and creativity when they used his inventive building skills to save the day after the class got stranded during a field trip. It was only after this crisis that the teacher was able to change her mindset and begin to embrace the children’s passionate learning styles in the classroom.
Rosie Revere – A Shy Engineer
After seeing the art created by illustrator David Roberts for Iggy Peck, Andrea Beaty was inspired to create stories for each of the children in Iggy Peck’s classroom and was drawn to the illustration of a shy looking girl that she named Rosie Revere. Like Iggy Peck, Rosie Revere was precocious from a young age. She showed an aptitude for engineering and a drive to follow her passion. However, Rosie did not have the same supportive environment or resiliency that Iggy Peck had. She built all kinds of inventions without abandon until her favorite uncle laughed at her attempt to create a special “snake scaring hat” for him, belittling her passion and crushing her spirit. This experience caused Rosie - an emotionally sensitive and deep young gifted child - to become shy, hide behind her hair, and only follow her passion for engineering in the privacy of her attic where no one could see. Like many gifted girls, Rosie hid her gifts in the classroom too, putting up a shy and quiet façade (Simster, 2005). It was only when Rosie’s Great-Great-Aunt Rose (aka Rosie the Riveter) came for a visit, shared her stories of building airplanes and her last bucket list thrill to fly that young Rosie dared to dream, create and then share her inventions again. Upon the test flight of Rosie’s helio-cheese-copter, built completely out of found materials and cans of cheese-whiz for propellant, the creation flew and sputtered before freezing and crashing to the ground. Great-Great-Aunt Rose laughed and slapped her knee at the sight, causing sensitive Rosie to think “Oh, no! Never! Not ever again will I try to build something to sputter or spin or build with a lever, a switch or a gear. And never will I be a great engineer” (Beaty, 2013, pg 21). It was then when her Great-Great-Aunt Rose gave her a big hug and praised her brilliant first try that young Rosie began to learn about resilience, a trait many gifted underachieving students need support in building (Hébert, 2007, pg 234). Together the pair worked on improving the invention and Rosie saw that “Life might have its failures, but this was not it. The only failure can come if you quit” (Beaty, 2013, pg 26).
Special Needs
Iggy Peck and Rosie Revere are two great examples of how gifted students can share some similar attributes but present quite differently in others, underlining the special thought that must be put into supporting the young gifted and talented population. Both children showed signs of asynchronous development in their early years as toddlers. They were creative in using found materials to build their passion projects and accomplishing tasks requiring higher order cognitive skills at a much earlier age than typically developing children (Rimm, Siegle,& Davis, 2018). They both sought out emotional support from family members, wanting validation and love for their bright and quirky approach to life. However, this is where their paths diverge because they respond very differently to negative feedback. Iggy wanted praise, but was not deterred from his pursuit of building after his mother admonished his use of dirty diapers as building materials. Rosie, on the other hand, was crushed by her favorite uncle’s laughter at her creation when she shared her work, knew he was insincere when he said “oh, I love it” between guffaws, and then completely hid her intelligence and passion for engineering for years because of her insecurity. These two children paint very different pictures of resilience in gifted children, but both are valid and important to be aware of when working with the spectrum of students found in the gifted population.
In their educational setting, kids like Iggy and Rosie have specialized needs due to their differences in development in comparison to their chronological age peers. For example, it is important that they are able to interact with intellectual peers (Hollingsworth, 1924 & 1942) (Silverman, 1990) who will be able to understand them, share interests and provide the give and take of conversation with vocabulary and concepts they can relate to effectively. Gifted children also seek deep and meaningful connections with friends at an earlier age than their typically developing peers (Gross, 2002), making the need for true peers to connect to all the more important. Luckily Iggy and Rosie do have intellectual peers in their classroom. So far in the series we know of five gifted and twice exceptional children in Ms. Greer’s second grade classroom, and I suspect there are more that we will meet given how the class interacts with each other in the currently published picture books.
While Iggy and Rosie have a class with intellectual peers, that is just a piece of their educational puzzle. Students like Iggy and Rosie need an educational approach that supports the student’s strengths, thirst for knowledge, and their social emotional needs given their asynchronous development. Educational models like the Schoolwide Enrichment Model (Renzulli & Reis, 1997), the Talent Centered Model (Baum, 2008), Sandra Kaplan’s approach to adding depth and complexity to a curriculum (Kaplan's Depth and Complexity Tools), or Carolyn Tomlinson’s approach to differentiated instruction (Tomlinson, 2017) would help the students work within Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development so they are properly challenged and engaged in learning. Both Iggy and Rosie would also benefit from a social skills curriculum like Responsive Classroom (ex. to help Iggy understand how to “read the room” rather than ignoring the displeased adults) and mindfulness training (ex. to help Rosie gain a growth mindset rather than seeing her first attempts as failures).
Significant People
In both stories we see the children’s family members and their teacher as significant people in their lives. The stories provide us with a view of the children during toddlerhood and then school age (second grade) as well as the adults that influenced them during those times. For these characters the family’s reaction to the child’s giftedness played a critical role in their development. Iggy’s self-esteem and drive for self-actualization was strong and his parents quickly became his biggest cheerleaders, which further supported a positive trajectory for Iggy’s social-emotional development because parental support plays a crucial role in the development of gifted and talented students (Neihart, Pfeiffer, & Cross, 2016) (Neumeister, Yssel, & Burney, 2013). Most of Rosie’s family supported her, except for her favorite uncle who laughed at her invention, an experience that became a detrimentally defining moment for Rosie. She went from an enthusiastic and passionate engineering toddler to a silent, shy girl who hid her talents away for fear of feeling that rejection again. This is a concerning and reoccurring theme for gifted girls as described by Simister in her article examining gender in gifted education: “A self-reinforcing cycle is set up and perpetuated, in which girls become increasingly less likely to develop their strengths and more content to hide within the confines of what is known and safe” (Simister, 2005, pg 91). The additional disappointment here is that this big change in her demeanor went on for years. We don’t know what steps may have been taken by family members to address it, but when we see that the support of Great-Great-Aunt Rose was able to turn things around it leads me to believe Rosie could have been better supported by her immediate family at an earlier age thereby improving her chances of being a happier and more engaged learner from the start.
Another significant character in these stories is the second grade teacher Mrs. Greer. While over the course of the series their teacher Ms. Greer has shown growth in her understanding of her gifted and talented students, she is clearly at the start in her knowledge of gifted and talented education. In the first book, Iggy Peck was denied the opportunity to follow his passion and use his creativity in the area of his strength, causing school to become a soul crushing experience. And even after Ms. Greer’s revelation at the end of Iggy Peck’s story that made her reevaluate her restrictive teaching practices, she still had at least one underachieving gifted student in her classroom who needed support because we see that Rosie was silent, unnoticed, and underachieving by purposefully hiding her strength as a passionate engineer until her Great-Great-Aunt intervened. She needed help building resilience, a willingness to take risks, and working in a growth mindset – all important attributes of gifted education that we will hopefully see Ms. Greer learn to use over the course of the series.
Critique
As a gifted and talented educator and the parent of a gifted child I am excited to see The Questioneers series by Andrea Beaty providing stories with young gifted children as the central characters in the picture book and beginning chapter book formats. The characters of Iggy and Rosie provide someone to relate to for young gifted children, both in their strengths and their challenges. My own son has connected with these books and the characters more than any other book we have read. Iggy Peck in particular has been iconic for him as a fellow lover of building and in the parallels to his educational experience. Even though Zachary struggles with anxiety, perfectionism and resilience, he had an incredibly positive experience as a student in preschool. However, when he entered Kindergarten he was confronted with a more restrictive classroom environment that didn’t keep him challenged, which made him recognize and struggle with his asynchronous development. It was Zac who made the connection between his life and Beaty’s books one afternoon this fall when said, “Mommy, I’m like an Iggy Peck, Junior.” How powerful for a young gifted child to see himself represented in a story, especially one that ends with the child winning the teacher over, given his situation at school.
During an interview shared on her website, Andrea Beaty explained her desire to depict kids following a growth mindset. Beaty wanted children to learn to try new things and follow their passion, which in many ways speaks to the theme of self-actualization found in her books. Despite their differences in approach, both Iggy and Rosie had a drive to follow their passion. If Iggy Peck and Rosie Revere were the only two books in the series I might cite concerns over reinforcing themes of boys being confident and girls being timid given the emotional themes found in the two characters.. However there are other characters in the series that do not reinforce these ideas and when you take a step back, rather than looking at each book in isolation, it is possible to see the series as a means of showing how giftedness can manifest in many ways and with a variety of special attributes that need to be considered and supported to address the challenges that these kids face.
Andrea Beaty’s Questioneers series provides educators, parents, and children the opportunity to learn about gifted students, passion for learning, and overcoming adversity when others do not understand your ways of thinking. They show how it’s important to build people up rather than knock people down. They are accessible, fun, and often provide opportunities to discuss many other themes thanks to the beautiful artwork that accompanies the witty rhyming storyline. As an educator and mom of a gifted child I will be watching this series with interest as it grows and shares more stories about the children in Mrs. Greer’s second grade.
Resources
· Baum, S. (2008). Talent centered model for twice exceptional students. In J. Renzulli and J. Gubbins (Eds.), Systems and models in gifted education. Mansfield Center, CT: Creative Learning Press.
· Beaty, A. (n.d.). The Questioneers – Read. Question. Think. Retrieved December 4, 2019, from https://questioneers.com/.
· Beaty, A. (2007). Iggy Peck, Architect. Abrams Books for Young Readers.
· Beaty, A. (2013). Rosie Revere, Engineer. New York: Abrams Books for Young Readers.
· Gross, M. U. M. (2002). Social and emotional issues for exceptionally intellectually gifted students. In M. Neihart, S. M. Reis, N. M. Robinson, & S. M. Moon (Eds.), The social and emotional development of gifted students: What do we know? (pp. 19–29). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.
· Hébert Thomas Paul. (2011). Understanding the social and emotional lives of gifted students. Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.
· Hollingworth, L. S. (1926). Gifted children: Their nature and nurture. New York City, NY: Macmillan Publishers.
· Hollingsworth, L. S. (1942). Children above 180 IQ Stanford Binet: Origin and development. Yonkers-on-Hudson, NY: World Book.
· Kaplan's Depth and Complexity Tools. (n.d.). Retrieved December 4, 2019, from https://www.romoland.net/cms/lib/CA01902709/Centricity/Domain/21/Kaplan-Depth-and-Complexity-1y4xdgk.pdf.
· NCTV17. (2019, December 4). AR Beaty Interview, Long Version. Retrieved December 4, 2019, from https://vimeo.com/82413319.
· Neihart, M., Pfeiffer, S. I., & Cross, T. L. (2016). The social and emotional development of gifted children: what do we know?
· Neumeister, K. S., Yssel, N., & Burney, V. H. (2013). The Influence of Primary Caregivers in Fostering Success in Twice-Exceptional Children. Gifted Child Quarterly, 57(4), 263–274. doi: 10.1177/0016986213500068
· Newitt, S. (2014, April 16). Asynchronous Development. Retrieved November 6, 2019, from http://gilbertgifted.blogspot.com/2014/04/asynchronous-development.html
· Renzulli, J. S., & Reis, S. M. (1997). The schoolwide enrichment model: A how-to guide for educational excellence. Mansfield, CT: Creative Learning Press.
· Rimm, S. B., Siegle, D. B., Davis, G. A. Education of the Gifted and Talented. [Yuzu]. Retrieved from https://reader.yuzu.com/#/books/9780134518848/
· Silverman, L. K. (1990). Social and emotional development of the gifted: The discoveries of Leta Hollingworth. Roeper Review, 12, 171–177.
· Simister, C. J. (2005). Bright Girls who Fail: The Limitations of the Active Passive Learner. Gifted Education International, 20(1), 88–97. doi: 10.1177/026142940502000111
· Tomlinson, C. A. (2017). Understanding differentiated instruction. Alexandria, VA.: ASCD.
