Does AAP create unhelpful elitism and separation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, and the reasoning is to provide a cohort to the students. If it's just some kids going to advanced math, that's not a cohort, or at least not a cohort as is currently being provided. All those posters who say that AAP was great socially for their child because they found their people, that's a cohort.

You may be correct that cohorts provide no value to any gifted student and that schools shouldn't provide that. That's what you're arguing for.

Now we're back to the elitism argument. If the argument is that kids "need AAP" to find their cohort, that's saying that AAP kids and non-AAP kids are not peers. It's pretty elitist to feel as if your child cannot possibly find peers among the gen ed kids, and it's also elitist to feel as if a middle-of-the-road AAP kid is different at all from a bright gen ed kid who missed the cut.

Exactly. This mindset isn't just "my kid is better at math than yours so needs extra work to challenge him" it's "my kid shouldn't even have to eat lunch with yours."

And, let's face it - learning to interact and socialize with a variety of different people is a good life skill. If extremely high intelligence makes one incapable of relating to or befriending people who might be smart in other ways or bring different qualities to the table, I think there will be a rude awakening when it comes time to enter the work force.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Google the emotional needs of gifted kids and asynchronous development.

Being gifted is effectively a special need in that there are huge challenges these kids face related to the fact that they have such high intelligence.

Having a been a gifted kid, and having spent most of my time in undifferentiated classrooms where I truly was a freak to everyone else, I can tell you that those programs are a good thing.

I had similar experiences as a child, but I don't think this really applies to FCPS. If you're just barely in the 99th percentile (nationally) in a grade with 60 kids in flyover country, then you're going to be the smartest kid in the grade and a bit of a freak. If you're just barely in the 99th percentile (nationally) in FCPS, you probably aren't even the smartest kid in your classroom. It's one thing when you really, truly have no peer group in your grade. It's another thing when 15-20% of the kids in your grade are placed in AAP, since 15-20% of the grade should be a perfectly adequate peer group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, and the reasoning is to provide a cohort to the students. If it's just some kids going to advanced math, that's not a cohort, or at least not a cohort as is currently being provided. All those posters who say that AAP was great socially for their child because they found their people, that's a cohort.

You may be correct that cohorts provide no value to any gifted student and that schools shouldn't provide that. That's what you're arguing for.

Now we're back to the elitism argument. If the argument is that kids "need AAP" to find their cohort, that's saying that AAP kids and non-AAP kids are not peers. It's pretty elitist to feel as if your child cannot possibly find peers among the gen ed kids, and it's also elitist to feel as if a middle-of-the-road AAP kid is different at all from a bright gen ed kid who missed the cut.

Exactly. This mindset isn't just "my kid is better at math than yours so needs extra work to challenge him" it's "my kid shouldn't even have to eat lunch with yours."

And, let's face it - learning to interact and socialize with a variety of different people is a good life skill. If extremely high intelligence makes one incapable of relating to or befriending people who might be smart in other ways or bring different qualities to the table, I think there will be a rude awakening when it comes time to enter the work force.

I'm not for or against AAP and generally think social skills are a good thing to have, but I don't necessarily agree with the work force argument.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, and the reasoning is to provide a cohort to the students. If it's just some kids going to advanced math, that's not a cohort, or at least not a cohort as is currently being provided. All those posters who say that AAP was great socially for their child because they found their people, that's a cohort.

You may be correct that cohorts provide no value to any gifted student and that schools shouldn't provide that. That's what you're arguing for.

Now we're back to the elitism argument. If the argument is that kids "need AAP" to find their cohort, that's saying that AAP kids and non-AAP kids are not peers. It's pretty elitist to feel as if your child cannot possibly find peers among the gen ed kids, and it's also elitist to feel as if a middle-of-the-road AAP kid is different at all from a bright gen ed kid who missed the cut.

Exactly. This mindset isn't just "my kid is better at math than yours so needs extra work to challenge him" it's "my kid shouldn't even have to eat lunch with yours."

And, let's face it - learning to interact and socialize with a variety of different people is a good life skill. If extremely high intelligence makes one incapable of relating to or befriending people who might be smart in other ways or bring different qualities to the table, I think there will be a rude awakening when it comes time to enter the work force.

I'm not for or against AAP and generally think social skills are a good thing to have, but I don't necessarily agree with the work force argument.

AAP in elementary and high school isn't that significant towards shaping long-term social skills, but have you seen TJ kids? Many of them lack any ability to interact with "people who might be smart in other ways or bring different qualities to the table," and will definitely have a hard time in the work place. It's not a knock on the kids themselves; it's very much a result of the rarefied environment they've inhabited for such a long time by the time they graduate. And their parents contribute to this by perpetuating all sorts of myths about how their kids would have been adrift in any other environment.

[Anonymous]

Look, this bubble wrapping of children does them no good. It may be a difficult lesson to learn for some kids, but they will eventually learn that people vary in their strengths. I have kids in AAP and in gen ed. It does my gen ed kid no good to pretend we all have the same strengths, and it would do my aap kids no good to force them to sit in a classroom, bored, while the teacher paced the lessons for the average kid.

I had the experience in school of both being in a TAG program, and then after a move, not being in the TAG program. I was not crippled by being ‘not smart enough’ in the school that didn’t feel I was qualified. My education was greatly benefited by being in the program in the other school and having access to instruction that strengthened my critical thinking skills.

Having resources and an environment that challenges fast learners does not have to come at the expense of the general education classes. Why must we assume it does?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look, this bubble wrapping of children does them no good. It may be a difficult lesson to learn for some kids, but they will eventually learn that people vary in their strengths. I have kids in AAP and in gen ed. It does my gen ed kid no good to pretend we all have the same strengths, and it would do my aap kids no good to force them to sit in a classroom, bored, while the teacher paced the lessons for the average kid.

I had the experience in school of both being in a TAG program, and then after a move, not being in the TAG program. I was not crippled by being ‘not smart enough’ in the school that didn’t feel I was qualified. My education was greatly benefited by being in the program in the other school and having access to instruction that strengthened my critical thinking skills.

Having resources and an environment that challenges fast learners does not have to come at the expense of the general education classes. Why must we assume it does?

If we are talking about bubble wrapping, it does no good socially isolate the smarter kids throughout elementary school, then toss them back into the mix in middle school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:it would do my aap kids no good to force them to sit in a classroom, bored, while the teacher paced the lessons for the average kid.

No one is advocating getting rid of differentiation. If, hypothetically, a base school qualifies 20 kids for the center, some of us are having trouble seeing why their needs can't be met at the base school, with the top 20 kids in math being grouped together for advanced math class, and the top 20 kids in language arts being grouped together for the language arts block. There's no reason AAP and gen ed kids need to be separated for homeroom, lunch, recess, or specials. At each school, there might be a couple kids who are truly outliers and would be poorly served by this model. But those same kids are already poorly served by AAP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look, this bubble wrapping of children does them no good. It may be a difficult lesson to learn for some kids, but they will eventually learn that people vary in their strengths. I have kids in AAP and in gen ed. It does my gen ed kid no good to pretend we all have the same strengths, and it would do my aap kids no good to force them to sit in a classroom, bored, while the teacher paced the lessons for the average kid.

I had the experience in school of both being in a TAG program, and then after a move, not being in the TAG program. I was not crippled by being ‘not smart enough’ in the school that didn’t feel I was qualified. My education was greatly benefited by being in the program in the other school and having access to instruction that strengthened my critical thinking skills.

Having resources and an environment that challenges fast learners does not have to come at the expense of the general education classes. Why must we assume it does?

If we are talking about bubble wrapping, it does no good socially isolate the smarter kids throughout elementary school, then toss them back into the mix in middle school.

How is it socially isolating them? They are in a class full of other students, and it gives them an opportunity to have instruction that is structured to fulfill their needs. If you don’t want them in that class, don’t enroll them!

I don’t know about you, but my kids are involved in tons of activities outside of school where they work with kids from all intellectual capacities.

I honestly don’t understand what the problem is. Should we tell our athletically gifted children that they shouldn’t play on teams with others who match their level because it will be too isolating for them? They need to learn how to play basketball with all levels of players. Or maybe the kids on competition dance teams should bring in some kids who didn’t qualify in the auditions because they may be too isolated by working with other dancers at a similiar skill level...

Or maybe we should disband college honors colleges that require participation in honor colllege courses, only available to member of the honors college. I will never know how to carry on a philosophical discussion with people who didn’t qualify for my honors courses because I was isolated and could only have discourse with my honors cohort.. *sarcasm*

[Anonymous]

What about the base school that has two kids that would qualify? That’s why the center model started but then it was only the top 5 or 6% back then. Agree the system isn’t right but how do you fix it? Seems we ended up where we are because of pressure from parents to expand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Google the emotional needs of gifted kids and asynchronous development.

Being gifted is effectively a special need in that there are huge challenges these kids face related to the fact that they have such high intelligence.

Having a been a gifted kid, and having spent most of my time in undifferentiated classrooms where I truly was a freak to everyone else, I can tell you that those programs are a good thing.

I think people either have experience with this and know what you're talking about, or they don't. And they don't believe it.

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:it would do my aap kids no good to force them to sit in a classroom, bored, while the teacher paced the lessons for the average kid.

No one is advocating getting rid of differentiation. If, hypothetically, a base school qualifies 20 kids for the center, some of us are having trouble seeing why their needs can't be met at the base school, with the top 20 kids in math being grouped together for advanced math class, and the top 20 kids in language arts being grouped together for the language arts block. There's no reason AAP and gen ed kids need to be separated for homeroom, lunch, recess, or specials. At each school, there might be a couple kids who are truly outliers and would be poorly served by this model. But those same kids are already poorly served by AAP.

Our local elementary school is currently doing this and it isn’t working. They are actively looking for a solution. History : they had self contained aap classrooms for years, and changed to a model that integrates the aap kids with gen ed for science and history (supposedly aap curriculum for those areas), and pullouts for laungage arts and math. Here’s the problem. The kids are wasting time switching classes over and over. Kids are being shuffled to and from teacher to teacher, and are not able to form solid relationships with any of the teachers. Kids get lost in the shuffle.

The supposed ‘AAP’ science and history instruction that all student are receiving is virtually indistinguishable from the regular instruction the gen ed kids were recievinf before this change was made. Teachers are teaching to the average student in those areas, and the aap kids are bored and disengaging. The level 4 services the kids are supposed to be recievinf is basically level 3 services. The motivation for this change was to better serve the gen ed student, and to give them access to the resources the level 4 students receive. It’s done nothing but devalue the instruction the level 4 students receive. So we are benefitting the gen ed kids at the expense of the AAP kids.

It’s probably obvious that I send my AAP kid to the center.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:it would do my aap kids no good to force them to sit in a classroom, bored, while the teacher paced the lessons for the average kid.

No one is advocating getting rid of differentiation. If, hypothetically, a base school qualifies 20 kids for the center, some of us are having trouble seeing why their needs can't be met at the base school, with the top 20 kids in math being grouped together for advanced math class, and the top 20 kids in language arts being grouped together for the language arts block. There's no reason AAP and gen ed kids need to be separated for homeroom, lunch, recess, or specials. At each school, there might be a couple kids who are truly outliers and would be poorly served by this model. But those same kids are already poorly served by AAP.

so how do you group the 20 kids who are advanced in everything?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:it would do my aap kids no good to force them to sit in a classroom, bored, while the teacher paced the lessons for the average kid.

No one is advocating getting rid of differentiation. If, hypothetically, a base school qualifies 20 kids for the center, some of us are having trouble seeing why their needs can't be met at the base school, with the top 20 kids in math being grouped together for advanced math class, and the top 20 kids in language arts being grouped together for the language arts block. There's no reason AAP and gen ed kids need to be separated for homeroom, lunch, recess, or specials. At each school, there might be a couple kids who are truly outliers and would be poorly served by this model. But those same kids are already poorly served by AAP.

They are not. At the AAP centers the AAP and non-AAP kids do lunch, PE, and specials together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I honestly don’t understand what the problem is. Should we tell our athletically gifted children that they shouldn’t play on teams with others who match their level because it will be too isolating for them? They need to learn how to play basketball with all levels of players. Or maybe the kids on competition dance teams should bring in some kids who didn’t qualify in the auditions because they may be too isolated by working with other dancers at a similiar skill level...

Oh good grief. No one is saying that gifted children shouldn't be instructed in core classes at an appropriate level. Your analogy would be more AAP-appropriate if the kids on competition dance teams didn't take art class with the kids who didn't make the cut on dance team. Or that kids on the swim team need "gifted swimmer only" times to enjoy the leisure pool. Or that kids are going to be picked for the middle school competition basketball team based on how well they play the game as a 2nd grader.

There is no reason at all to apply a semi-permanent label to kids in 2nd grade, and then separate AAP kids from gen ed kids in things like homeroom, lunch, or specials.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Our local elementary school is currently doing this and it isn’t working. They are actively looking for a solution. History : they had self contained aap classrooms for years, and changed to a model that integrates the aap kids with gen ed for science and history (supposedly aap curriculum for those areas), and pullouts for laungage arts and math. Here’s the problem. The kids are wasting time switching classes over and over. Kids are being shuffled to and from teacher to teacher, and are not able to form solid relationships with any of the teachers. Kids get lost in the shuffle.

The supposed ‘AAP’ science and history instruction that all student are receiving is virtually indistinguishable from the regular instruction the gen ed kids were recievinf before this change was made. Teachers are teaching to the average student in those areas, and the aap kids are bored and disengaging. The level 4 services the kids are supposed to be recievinf is basically level 3 services. The motivation for this change was to better serve the gen ed student, and to give them access to the resources the level 4 students receive. It’s done nothing but devalue the instruction the level 4 students receive. So we are benefitting the gen ed kids at the expense of the AAP kids.

It’s probably obvious that I send my AAP kid to the center.

For clarification: Is your local elementary school the center school that your AAP kid is at? Or is your local elementary school a base school or a school with Local Level IV? I was a bit confused by your post.