Teaching style can be seen as a continuum, with permissive teaching on the left, authoritarian teaching on the right, and authoritative teaching in the middle. When a teacher is too permissive she has no boundaries and no expectations for her students. I’ve been in gifted classrooms like this; it’s a toxic garden of meltdowns. If a teacher is too authoritarian, the boundaries and expectations are immovable and set in place without taking a child’s needs into account. These teachers aren’t long for the gifted world. An authoritative teacher does her best to stay somewhere in the middle – remaining flexible and kind while communicating why she has high standards for her students. This is no easy task: there are days when I find myself leaning more to the left or right. I gently course correct, trying not to be too hard on my gifted, perfectionistic self, and do better.