s/o - DC privates are not filled with gifted kids
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Anonymous
Oh my gosh, no! I was that PP and definitely do not think that. In fact, if you read through the other thread, you'll see that the biggest concern most of us as parents have is that this kids never learn the key skills you need to succeed in life: how to tackle a challenge, fail, pick yourself up and try again. They coast through everything (potentially through high school as well) without ever learning how to really work at something, how to really try. And not one of us said a single word about Ivy accepts. These kids are in Lower School - leave that kind of discussion to the high school parents. |
Anonymous
The first poster is spot-one when she says that motivation and persistence are as important to success as IQ. There has been lots written about this starting with people like Malcolm Gladwell and moving up through academia. The second poster takes this and runs, turning it into an argument that "you need to help gifted kids because otherwise they won't learn the skills they need to live up to their potential." I buy this a bit, but not completely. Frankly, lots of gifted kids are very curious and would teach themselves with or without school. I know a lot of these gifted and motivated kids, who do incredible stuff on their own. The second poster doesn't deny that some gifted kids are unmotivated. Instead, she says that we need to kick these unmotivated gifted kids in the butts to help them realize their potentials. I'm not sure how I feel about this, and why unmotivated gifted kids should be given special treatment, and carefully aimed butt-kicks, as compared to unmotivated regular kids.... |
Anonymous
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Who cares? The questions are (a) is a particular school an intellectually interesting environment for *your* child and (b) does your child have a cohort that helps bring out his or her best?
There aren't generic answers to these questions, even if you control for IQ. A lot comes down to the kid's personality/interests and to the family's intellectual values/goals. My kid's wicked smart and has found her Big 3 school to be a much more stimulating environment than CTY. I know other kids who would be better off in a MoCo gifted magnet because what brings out their best is competition/structure rather than freedom/open-endedness. Bottom line: Know your kid. Consider all options. Be willing to switch if you think you guessed wrong the first time. Don't get hung up on "grades ahead" -- it's not a race and that's a meaningless standard over the long-term. If your gifted kid loves school and loves to do intellectual things for fun, you're on the right track. |
Anonymous
| It is ridiculous to believe that we should be grouping elementary school kids based upon percentile as some of the posters have suggested (put all of the 95-99% kids together etc..and our problems will be solved..... ). As the parent of one of the "profoundly gifted" in the mix (gag - I have never described my kid like this before but it seems necessary to make a point here), I can ASSURE you that in the early grades especially, this is not the way to go. All kids have a wide range of developmental needs. I'm sensing that many parents here need "proof" - aka tests, to prove that the money they are spending is justified. There are plenty of testing factories out there - but thankfully, the top independents don't work that way in the lower grades. Each school has their own curriculum and educational approach - if you take the time to know what your kid needs to thrive, and how they learn best (which may or may not mesh with your perfect-school fantasy), the benefit of a "good match" will be obvious. |
Anonymous
ITA. |
Anonymous
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I personally believe that some gifted kids can still be happy in a school that doesn't challenge them. They enjoy their friends and get many other positive things out of it. But, in my opinion you are doing a disservice to a gifted kid to not challenge them hardily. Letting a kid coast and get praise for their straight As that they didn't work hard to get is not good. Why should they deserve to have their name listed on the honor roll when they put in half the effort of the others? They absolutely shouldn't!
All kids need to learn how to work hard, fail and try again, have an awareness that there will always be someone smarter than them. These are the things that build character and prepare them for real life. |
Anonymous
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This is the OP of this thread....
For the record I don't for one minute believe that DC private schools are mediocre. They are top schools that should be respected. They have shown their merits many times over with their results. My point on the other thread is that parents shouldn't be complacent about their choices if their kid is found to be gifted (I'm not talking about profoundly gifted....just gifted 130-140). These private schools aren't meant to be considered gifted boutique programs which will cater to gifted kid's needs. Their aim is much broader than that and if you have an outlier you may need other accomodations for them. |
Anonymous
By the way....the OP posted this thread as well. |
Anonymous
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"My point on the other thread is that parents shouldn't be complacent about their choices if their kid is found to be gifted (I'm not talking about profoundly gifted....just gifted 130-140). These private schools aren't meant to be considered gifted boutique programs which will cater to gifted kid's needs. Their aim is much broader than that and if you have an outlier you may need other accomodations for them"
But are 130-140 kids really "outliers?" I have a 130 kid - he is smart, works above grade level, but I really don't see a huge difference between him and his classmates - its not like he's writing music compositions or anything, and there certainly are many things he needs to learn from his teacher. |
Anonymous
Most 130-140 kids are capable of working 2 to 5 years above grade level if given the opportunity. They are outliers because they are in the top 2% of the bell curve. To put it in perspective you should note that a person in the bottom 2% of the bell curve is just as different from the norm as the top 2%. That's great though that your child is adquately challenged and thriving in his class. That's what is important. |
Anonymous
| PPs, I've given up. People like the OP are bound and determined to believe that score means something - something vitally important. No matter how much we say it isn't so, they will not believe us. It doesn't matter how many of us have experience with having gifted children and have chosen to parent the child and not the label, and it doesn't matter how many of us are gifted or profoundly gifted ourselves and therefore may have some views on this topic that do not gel with the OP's. There is simply no getting through. I will quite happily leave my children to "languish" in the wonderful private school we have chosen for them and will breathe a sigh of relief that they do not attend OP's perfect school. |
Anonymous
Please don't think my opinions are a judgement on your choices. They are not. I don't know you or your kids. I just like to talk about gifted issues on forums. 
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Anonymous
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I came across the below quotation and it reminded me of this thread so I thought I'd share...
Because giftedness is not to be talked about, no one tells high-IQ children explicitly, forcefully and repeatedly that their intellectual talent is a gift. That they are not superior human beings, but lucky ones. That the gift brings with it obligations to... be worthy of it. That among those obligations, the most important and most difficult is to aim not just at academic accomplishment, but at wisdom. The encouragement of wisdom requires a special kind of education. It requires first of all recognition of one’s own intellectual limits and fallibilities–in a word, humility. This is perhaps the most conspicuously missing part of today’s education of the gifted. Many high-IQ students, especially those who avoid serious science and math, go from kindergarten through an advanced degree without ever having a teacher who is dissatisfied with their best work and without ever taking a course that forces them to say to themselves, “I can’t do this.” Humility requires that the gifted learn what it feels like to hit an intellectual wall, just as all of their less talented peers do, and that can come only from a curriculum and pedagogy designed especially for them. That level of demand cannot fairly be imposed on a classroom that includes children who do not have the ability to respond. The gifted need to have some classes with each other not to be coddled, but because that is the only setting in which their feet can be held to the fire. – Charles Murray |
Anonymous
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Interesting quote -- thanks for posting it! (Although, in case you don't know, lots of people think Murray's work on IQ is really racist.)
But I think he sells all kids (and/or good teachers) short in the sense that well-constructed assignments can be challenging but not overwhelming for kids at a variety of different levels. While ITA that intellectual humility (or maybe what I'd call a form of intellectual honesty -- being very aware of what you don't know) is crucial to the development of wisdom, I don't think that such humility comes from teachers being dissatisfied with a student's best work or from a demanding curriculum or from the experience of feeling incompetent. I think it comes from grappling with difficult issues and from treating your first "best take" as a launching pad for your next "best take." Basically, it involves an emphasis on learning and understanding as a continual process rather than as a finished product that meets or doesn't meet some official standard. And it requires people to be self-critical. So the attitude isn't "I can't do this" but "I worked hard to get here, but, having gotten here, I now see how I could do so much more/better." If you don't learn to love the process and only seek the extrinsic reward, you're unlikely to make the most of what your intellect has to offer. And, to circle back to my first point, lots of kids (regardless of their IQs) could (and should) be taught in ways that encourage them to love the process of learning. That's not a form of pedagogy that should be reserved for gifted kids. Murray would call this educational romanticism and maybe if we were at a point where most people were firing on all cylinders, intellectually speaking, he'd be right. But if we really are using only about 10% of our brainpower it seems like even "average" kids could do what "gifted" kids can do if we taught them in ways that sparked them to use more of the mental capacity available to them. |
Anonymous
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Charles Murray isn't a racist. He is a highly respected scholar with the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy. He's got a PhD from MIT and a BA from Harvard.
His views are uncomfortable for our nation's egalitarian principles but that does not mean they are without merit. |