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“Reed never fit in,” says Jennifer Aldred, one of his longtime schoolmates. “My heart broke for him.” Aldred recalls Reed’s math skills and his heavy computer, but what she remembers most about Reed was how he used to twist his slender body around the legs of his desk. He would tie himself into such knots that the caretaker would be summoned to rescue Reed by taking apart the desk with a screwdriver.

Reed’s entanglements serve as an apt metaphor for the school life of severely gifted children. For those who feel weird and wrong and struggle to find like minds among their peers, school itself can be a contortion. Reed’s exceptional life and early death inspired Aldred into a career in gifted education. She and her colleagues work to help children like Reed untwist. His tragedy reveals what can be at stake for these kids. Our most brilliant children are among our most vulnerable. The challenge of teaching them is finding a way to nurture their souls and ease the burden of their extraordinary minds.

“Giftedness is a tragic gift, and not a precursor to success,” says Janneke Frank, principal of Westmount Charter School and a local guru of gifted education. “The gifted don’t just think differently, they feel differently. And emotions can ricochet out of control sometimes.” To speak of giftedness as a disability seems counterintuitive. Part of the problem is simply semantic; the word “gifted” suggests an advantage and does not conjure up the intense challenges these children can face.