TPP 086: Dr. Michael Postma of SENG on the Plight of Gifted and 2e Kids

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What personal experiences shaped Dr. Postma’s view on gifted and twice‑exceptional education?

Dr. Michael Postma 0:00
You know, the one thing I always emphasize is empathy. I've always said when I hired teachers in the past, I said, I can teach you all the skills, but I can't teach you empathy. And if you don't have the empathy, it's very difficult to teach one of these children.
Debbie Reber 0:16
Welcome to the Tilt Parenting Podcast, a podcast featuring interviews and conversations aimed at inspiring, informing and supporting parents raising differently wired kids. I'm your host, Debbie Reber. And today I'm talking with Dr. Michael Posma, a writer, consultant and presenter specializing in the education and well-being of twice exceptional and intellectually gifted students and their families. Dr. Posma is the executive director of SANG, which stands for Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted, an organization whose mission it is to empower families and communities to guide gifted and talented individuals to reach their goals intellectually, physically, emotionally, socially, and spiritually.
Debbie Reber 0:58
He's also the author of the new book, The Inconvenient Student, Critical Issues in the Identification and Education of Twice-Exceptional Students. Thank you so much for having me. Before our conversation, I wanted to invite you to sign up for my Tilt Parenting newsletter. Every Thursday, I send out a short email, including a quick note from me, a link to that week's podcast and bonus after the show video, and links to five must-read articles from the news that week that are relevant to parents of differently wired kids. To sign up, just visit TiltParenting.com and fill in the form that says, Join the Tilt Revolution. I also wanted to give a shout out to Susan Windsor Jones. Susan is the newest supporter of the podcast and her generous donation is helping me cover the production costs associated with making a weekly podcast.
Debbie Reber 2:09
So thank you, Susan. And if you would like to join Susan, please consider supporting the podcast through Patreon. Patreon is a simple membership platform that allows people to make a small monthly contribution as little as $2 a month to fund our show. If you want to help visit patreon.com slash tilt parenting. Thanks so much. And now here's my conversation with Dr. Michael Posma. Welcome to the podcast, Michael.
Dr. Michael Postma 2:39
Thanks for having me.
Debbie Reber 2:41
Well, I'm really looking forward to having you on the show. A lot of the listeners of the Tilt Parenting podcast have gifted children. And I know that you're the new executive director of SANG. So I'm thrilled to be able to bring you onto the show. And we have a lot to talk about today. So I would love to actually start by hearing about just your background. Tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do. And I'm always curious to know people's personal why for the work that they do in the world.
Dr. Michael Postma 3:10
OK, I'll give you the condensed version of this because it's a long story. But I grew up in Canada and back in the day, we didn't have a lot of programming for gifted or for twice exceptional students. And I grew up with ADD, some Asperger's and got through school. No problem, because, as you know, gifted kids can camouflage quite easily. But part of the issue was the social-emotional development wasn't there and that asynchronous piece really affected me to a point where I struggled with depression for quite some time, even up through my adulthood. And it was then that when I started discovering exactly who I was that I moved into the realm of gifted education because I There was a lot being done at that time, but not a lot in terms of those that were a little bit different, that were not your typical gifted achieving type student.
Dr. Michael Postma 4:14
And so that kind of motivated me to go into the industry and get my master's degree in it. And eventually did my doctoral work in leadership and in critical pedagogy as related to gifted education. But that's kind of the background as to where I'm coming from. And then having my own children and realizing that they were not your typical GT children themselves really opened my eyes and really pushed me into that direction of writing and speaking.

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