Ask the students at the Academy for Gifted Children to tell you about Marco Polo, and they'll likely expand the discussion to include the Silk Road, Genghis Khan, Nepal and Shangri-La.
The older kids might also tell you stories about scuba diving in the Caribbean to study marine biology, or visiting Harvard and MIT to get a glimpse of the Ivy League schools where they soon may be going for the next stage of their education.
Like other private schools that cater to students with extraordinary abilities, the Academy for Gifted Children, located in Richmond Hill just outside Toronto, strives to provide an experience rich enough to satisfy the intense learning needs of its pupils.
"We have a very different program that focuses on greater depth and breadth and higher-level thinking skills," says Barbara Rosenberg, director of the academy, which teaches students from grades 1 to 12. "It truly is an enriching experience."
While there is no standard definition for the term "gifted child," educators and psychologists generally agree that gifted kids are those with intellectual capabilities that far exceed those of their peers. Many of these students excel or focus intensely on a particular area of interest, such as math, science, or language.
For parents of exceptional students, finding schools that can help their children develop to their full potential is often a challenge, says Ken Affolder, principal of Choice School in Richmond, near Vancouver.
"There are really very few schools that focus on gifted children," Mr. Affolder says. "Some public schools have gifted programs, but what that usually means is that a gifted student gets to go to a separate classroom for three or so periods a week for some specialized education."
Even regular private schools are generally not equipped to give gifted children the extra attention they need, although some — such as Willow Academy in Toronto — will modify their regular curriculum to meet the needs of students who have been identified as gifted by a psychologist.Amy Mair, whose son, Ethan, is a Choice School student, points to what she considers to be the main advantages of enrolling her child in a private gifted program: small class sizes, the chance to be with other gifted children, and educators who understand that highly intelligent kids can sometimes be slow in developing certain skills.
Ethan, who is in Grade 1, is in a class of 10 children. This low teacher-to-student ratio allows teachers to spend more time with each pupil, his mother says.
"They work in small groups, so if Ethan happens to be performing a couple of levels ahead in a certain subject, then the teacher can help him with that," Ms. Mair says. "Similarly, if he needs help — which he does with writing — then they also have the time and resources to give him the attention he needs."
Before Choice, Ethan didn't always play well with his classmates and often seemed unhappy, says Ms. Mair. But now that he's with students who share many of his interests, he enjoys going to school.
"He and his friends talk about deep-sea animals to an extreme," she says. "One of the things that unifies the kids at Choice is there tends to be an intense desire to learn."
Mr. Affolder says gifted children tend to be highly energetic and often find it hard to sit still for long periods. Some are easily frustrated when they can't make their advanced ideas understood by other people.
To help these kids release their excess energy and frustrations, Choice built a "core room" where students can do stretches and exercises — under the supervision of Choice staff — whenever they start to feel anxious.
Choice also lets students get up and move around in the middle of a class lecture, says Mr. Affolder.
"We teach them to do this in a way that doesn't bother anybody," he says.
