Forum Index
»
Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)
Magnet school teachers' attitudes toward CTY
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
I saw a statement in another forum to the effect that "MoCo magnet school teachers hate CTY." As the parent of 2 magnet kids, I had noticed that the magnets seem indifferent to CTY. They certainly don't send home flyers encouraging kids to apply. But I hadn't heard that they actively dislike the program.
Can anybody verify this, or offer any insight or explanation? Off the top of my head, I suspect that the high price of some of the programs might strike public school teachers as so steep that it becomes another extra-curricular for rich kids. On the other hand, CTY's mission is to study giftedness and offer support to kids and their families. |
Anonymous
| What is CTY? |
Anonymous
| It's the Johns Hopkins program "Center for Talented Youth." |
Anonymous
| CTY offers their program free of charge to children who qualify for free lunches at school. It is not only for "rich kids". Check out their website. |
Anonymous
| One of the things I find slightly off putting about CTY is that it implies that schools aren't able to serve the needs of these "talented" kids. While my DS loved the summer program he went to we find that his school also challenges him. So maybe magnet schools find that CTY is unnecessary since the program is already sufficiently challenging? |
Anonymous
|
My wife teaches in an MCPS magnet and our children have gone through MCPS magnets as well. We've never taken a second look at CTY because DW thinks it is hyped-up, overpriced hooey, and after taking a look myself, I agree.
|
Anonymous
If you haven't tried it personally, how would you really know? |
Anonymous
FREE! |
Anonymous
|
True, but the free lunch program has a pretty low income bar. Some of the CTY summer programs are north of $1,000. There are some family trips that cost several thousand. Plus some are in the DC area but others need you to get to Boston or California. (Does anybody know if the free tuition includes airfare?) If you're middle class like us, you might still think twice.
DC is in CTY, but so far we've found that non-academic activities, like cooking classes or sailing at the Washington Marina, seem to make just as much sense. |
Anonymous
I wouldn't know. The original question was, what is the attitude of magnet program teachers. I responded to that question. |
Anonymous
|
As a parent interested in gifted education, I have heard of and looked into CTY, but haven't really understood the role of of the school in the CTY participation of a student.
Is the school expected to work with CTY or is it something participating students do on their own? If CTY is deemed extra-curricular, then can you expect your child's teachers to support/promote it at school? I'm confused... |
Anonymous
|
Cty parent here. We found it to be a great benefit to our DC who is too young to participate in the centers or magnets. It helped us to realize what our DC's needs may be in comparison to same grade peers.
Having said that, we hope that our DC will be able to be a part of the centers and magnets when old enough. If that were to happen, we will likely not take part in Cty in the same capacity that we have been. In the meantime, we are very grateful that such a program as Cty exists. |
Anonymous
The kids are expected to do it on their own. A lot of it is summer camps or one-day sessions on political or other topics. There are some online courses, but the presumption is your kid would be doing the online courses because these courses aren't available in the school. |
Anonymous
|
Our child did a CTY course locally one summer after 2nd grade coming from a DCPS school which did not differentiate at all and could not even begin to meet our child's needs. It was a critical experience for our child. It was the first time she was ever around kids who were interested in or excited about learning. It was the first time she had a teacher that fed that interest instead of trying to squelch it. It changed the way she had begun to think of herself. She was beginning to think that she was a geek and beginning to hide her interests, but participation at CTY stopped that.
We moved to a MoCo school the next year and subsequently got into a elementary magnet program. The HGC program does a much better job at meeting her basic academic needs. But, the thing I think CTY is still useful for is feeding interests or passions. If your child really loves math or history, what he/she is getting at school might not be enough. That's where CTY can still help us. As far as the magnet teachers go, I don't believe they have any particular view on CTY. The only instance where CTY might cause a "problem" is in math, where if a child is taking a specific CTY math class and this duplicates what is offered in school, the kid is going to be bored and it may be difficult for a teacher to manage that. But, frankly, if a kid was interested enough to take a CTY math class, he/she was going to be bored in a regular school-based math class anyway. IMO, better to let the child advance on his/her own terms and figure out how to fill gaps or provide new work than holding him/her back so he can fit the available track. Otherwise, CTY classes don't really duplicate what kids do at school, so it shouldn't be viewed as a problem or something for teachers to "hate". |
Anonymous
I wonder what makes this particular magnet teacher's attitude so negative towards CTY? |