Why do gifted children need a peer group

[Anonymous]

This is the question I’m stumbling on in my appeal letter. My child is already getting part time services and I’m trying to justify the need for level IV, but I really don’t know what the benefit is. I’m just trying to do the best thing for my child and I think they would benefit from more challenging material (which so far we’ve been providing at home).
Can anyone help describe the reasons children thrive in a separate AAP class vs. clustered in a gen ed class? I feel like an idiot here, please help!
He has excellent test and HOPE scores, I think it’s the work samples that were bad so I’m resubmitting with a letter.

[Anonymous]

They thrive because they aren't stuck with the kids with special needs that are super disruptive?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They thrive because they aren't stuck with the kids with special needs that are super disruptive?

But you can't say that in the letter, of course.

Personally, I didn't say anything about needing a special peer group (sounds obnoxious). Just said needs full time services to continue to grow and thrive academically and gave lots of examples. I thought amount of examples was overkill and I was afraid I'd botched it but DC got in.

[Anonymous]

I guess it's the same way that special needs kids need other friends and how we group kids by age and sex in school and athletic abilities. It's nice to have other kids at the same level for academic endeavors. I grew up with a pull out program in elementary which was fine enough as a peer group. Eventually I was able to take more advanced classes in middle and high.

[Anonymous]

Preface: we don't live in a place that has gifted services, and I believe there is a benefit to students being mixed in classes until middle school.

Benefits I see: When my kids went to CTY camp, the benefit I noticed of being around a group of similarly gifted kids was that they were all willing to listen to each others' esoteric conversations about their deep dive interests, whether it was paleontology, space, mechanics, art history, whatever. Kids were interested in each other, happy to listen and learn, whereas at school, these conversations get you marked as weird. That's a social hit that goes one of two ways: you are either marked for life as "uncool" or you start to suppress your interests instead of exploring and expanding them hoping to fit in better. My kids were so happy to be themselves at CTY camp.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They thrive because they aren't stuck with the kids with special needs that are super disruptive?

There are plenty of kids with special needs in AAP who did not need an appeal to get in. It's too bad they will be stuck with those who could not get in on the first try.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They thrive because they aren't stuck with the kids with special needs that are super disruptive?

There are plenty of kids with special needs in AAP who did not need an appeal to get in. It's too bad they will be stuck with those who could not get in on the first try.

Not the sort of special needs in the general ed class - kids who can barely function on a 1st grade level but are in 5th grade; kids who start freaking out when noise is made and require much of the teacher's time to calm them down or evacuate the classroom. There are all sorts of special needs but only the very special are in the general ed classrooms.

[Anonymous]

I used peer group in my appeal letter last year. It was something along the lines of peers with similar interests.

[Anonymous]

Here are some resources that might be helpful to you:

Hoagie’s website covers all topics related to gifted children. They also have links to websites for enrichment for all subjects and ages.
https://www.hoagiesgifted.org/

https://www.hoagiesgifted.org/links.htm

Tamara Fisher was a teacher of, and advocate for, gifted education. She had a blog called Unwrapping the Gifted on the Education Week website. The number of articles you can access for free is limited, so keep that in mind when deciding which articles you want to read.
https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/unwrapping-the-gifted

The Davidson Institute also offers some free resources on gifted issues.
https://www.davidsongifted.org/resource-library/

[Anonymous]

OP, does your child have many friends in the classroom? Are they picked on for being a nerd or being weird? Are they making a point of not participating or not raising their hands because they don't want to stand out? Do they have a favorite book series or academic area that they'd love to discuss with other kids, but they can't because no one else is at that level?

Are they the type who goes along with the flow and doesn't put in much effort when the bar is low? If so, would they be much more motivated around high achieving peers? After many of the bright kids are placed in AAP, would your child still have many/any peers in gen ed?

[Anonymous]

It's not necessarily the peers. It's the curriculum.

Your child will not merely benefit from the advanced curriculum, they would suffer in some way without it.

You're child doesn't need a peer group for motivation or anything like that. They are not there to benefit from their peers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, does your child have many friends in the classroom? Are they picked on for being a nerd or being weird? Are they making a point of not participating or not raising their hands because they don't want to stand out? Do they have a favorite book series or academic area that they'd love to discuss with other kids, but they can't because no one else is at that level?

Are they the type who goes along with the flow and doesn't put in much effort when the bar is low? If so, would they be much more motivated around high achieving peers? After many of the bright kids are placed in AAP, would your child still have many/any peers in gen ed?

This is what I am most worried about - we are at a center school and it seems all of his closest friends are going to be in AAP next year. So while he has great peers at this point and doesn’t get made fun of/has great discussions with classmates, those kids are also very smart and will not be his peer group next year.
Thanks for all the advice!
-OP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, does your child have many friends in the classroom? Are they picked on for being a nerd or being weird? Are they making a point of not participating or not raising their hands because they don't want to stand out? Do they have a favorite book series or academic area that they'd love to discuss with other kids, but they can't because no one else is at that level?

Are they the type who goes along with the flow and doesn't put in much effort when the bar is low? If so, would they be much more motivated around high achieving peers? After many of the bright kids are placed in AAP, would your child still have many/any peers in gen ed?

This is what I am most worried about - we are at a center school and it seems all of his closest friends are going to be in AAP next year. So while he has great peers at this point and doesn’t get made fun of/has great discussions with classmates, those kids are also very smart and will not be his peer group next year.
Thanks for all the advice!
-OP

I completely understand the concern and had the exact same worry myself, but not sure that should go in the appeal. Also how do you know they are all going to AAP? I asked my dc if anyone talked about AAP and dc said no, so it's a mystery who is going.

You've gotten some good advice on this thread. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Every child needs a peer group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, does your child have many friends in the classroom? Are they picked on for being a nerd or being weird? Are they making a point of not participating or not raising their hands because they don't want to stand out? Do they have a favorite book series or academic area that they'd love to discuss with other kids, but they can't because no one else is at that level?

Are they the type who goes along with the flow and doesn't put in much effort when the bar is low? If so, would they be much more motivated around high achieving peers? After many of the bright kids are placed in AAP, would your child still have many/any peers in gen ed?

This is what I am most worried about - we are at a center school and it seems all of his closest friends are going to be in AAP next year. So while he has great peers at this point and doesn’t get made fun of/has great discussions with classmates, those kids are also very smart and will not be his peer group next year.
Thanks for all the advice!
-OP

I completely understand the concern and had the exact same worry myself, but not sure that should go in the appeal. Also how do you know they are all going to AAP? I asked my dc if anyone talked about AAP and dc said no, so it's a mystery who is going.

You've gotten some good advice on this thread. Good luck!

I had long told my child that he should not discuss his grades or AAP or LIII, we deferred, or other academic type things with his peers. We told him that education is not a competition but an individual pursuit. He didn't seem to pay much attention to who was in what group, if we asked, he would tell us which of his friends were in class with us but no one else. Then in fifth grade I realized that he just didn't tell us what he knew. He had a group of friends over and I heard several of the kids talking about who didn't belong in Advanced Math or Level III and who was really smart. I went out and ended the conversation. I told them that it isn't polite to discuss people's intelligence or what class they should or should not be in, I am well aware that most of the kids ignored said advice and simply didn't discuss the subject around me again. I was happy that DS did not engage in the conversation, but I get that he knew I would be disappointed to hear him commenting on other kids' abilities and I have no clue what he does when I am not there.

DS does let us know when things are bothering him and has told both of us when he is upset that we said/did something, he is not closed off to conversations with us. But he is smart enough to know that we would be disappointed if he was gossiping about other kids' abilities. It could be that kids are discussing it and your kid either doesn't care enough that the conversations fully register or your kid thinks that you might be unhappy to hear he was participating in those conversations and says nothing.

Your kids' classmates could very well be discussing who is in AAP and your child is either not paying attention or has their own reason for not telling you what they know.