Fifteen Years: The Evolution of 2e—Dan Peters

I am sitting in Camp Summit, watching kids making sock puppets, engaging in LARP (live action role play), playing Dungeons & Dragons, and building a Rube Goldberg contraption. They are all gifted and twice-exceptional children and adolescents, and with very few exceptions, one cannot tell who is “2e” and who isn’t. Why? Because they are interacting with like-minded peers and using their strengths — creativity, divergent thinking, abstract reasoning, and negotiating and debating skills with, of course, a strong orientation toward justice and fairness.

Here we value individuality and “structured flexibility.” The structure reduces anxiety by providing predictability and allowing kids to set their expectations. The flexibility provides choice, making it possible to change one’s mind, to be open to other’s ideas, and to adjust to circumstances that arise moment by moment, as they often do. These 2e kids are with their gifted peers, and their other exceptionalities are not getting in the way of them showing their strengths and talents.