Gifted programs, options

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no public school system (or even private) that would ever be able to adequately meet the needs of a profoundly gifted student. “Gifted” programs are typically only providing curriculum that is one year advanced and only meets the needs of high achievers. This is why most profoundly gifted students are homeschooled. Your best bet would be to put your child in a Montessori school.

Montessori is often disastrous for profoundly gifted kids.

Plenty of kids in this category do well in public or private school.

PG kids generally do not do well in most public and private schools because their academic, social, and emotional needs are not adequately met and they usually don't have peers, which can lead to many different issues. Montessori works for some PG kids if it's done well and truly meets them where they are at and at the appropriate pace, but often this only works as a good option until about 2nd grade, unless the Montessori school allows them to work with the upper elementary students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does your child also have a disability?

He has an ADHD diagnosis.

If his ADHD requires specialized instruction, you can try to get an IEP or 504 for that. You aren't getting anything for giftedness.

Makes sense. Thanks. I don't think his ADHD requires specialized instruction exactly, its more that the ADHD makes his "giftedness" more of a challenge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Private schools might be better equipped to differentiate for your child. They have smaller class sizes and more resources. DCPS will do absolutely nothing for your child.

They won't differentiate but the baseline standard will be much higher at the top privates.

My kids are not profoundly gifted but I would say they maxed out the DCPS curriculum (Algebra 2 in 8th, 99% PARCC scores, each subject every time they were tested 3rd through 8th, 98-99% in all subjects in middle school.

They went on to a "Big3" high schools (Sidwell, NCS) and they were/are probably at the 85% in their respective classes in terms of academic ability. These schools draw from all over the DMV (far and wide) and get some real academic outliers. Profoundly gifted? No; but a decent peer cohort of impressively bright and motivated kids.

. Looking for a “decent peer cohort of impressively bright and motivated kids” without paying 30-45K in tuition and parking your kid in a cocoon environment populated by a gaggle of self-involved rich kids? Try any one of the dozen DCPS elementary schools with an at-risk percentage in the single digits. For middle school, if you have lottery luck, BASIS. Outside school, have your kid play an instrument, attend heritage language schools on weekends, host au pairs to help them learn a language if you can swing it, get them involved in competitive chess, robotics, math and science competitions. Send them to Mathnasium where the sky’s the limit on the math challenge they can take on. Your kid doesn’t need to be sheltered in a private school with wealthy peers to thrive intellectually or socially in this city or any other. -Signed triple Ivy grad who graduated from an ordinary small town HS

[Anonymous]

Good grief, don’t pay for Sidwell, OP. Move to MoCo for test in GT from 4th grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good grief, don’t pay for Sidwell, OP. Move to MoCo for test in GT from 4th grade.

But isn’t everyone at Sidwell profoundly gifted?

[Anonymous]

Public schools don't only teach academics; they teach kids how to manage relationships with diverse groups of kids and adults, and that's something you can't get with homeschooling or segregated programs for gifted kids.

Public gifted programs often have student bodies which are diverse in every way except IQ and even then there's a range. I think adults who attended such programs are, in the aggregate, every bit as good at managing relationships with other adults as adults who attended regular schools in which they were always the best at anything academic--and often at other things as well.

Too often, profoundly gifted kids are well aware of how "special" they are at a very early age. So are other kids and especially teachers. Often they don't meet anyone as smart as they are until they go to college--and sometimes not even then. Too often, the result is that these people get all their self-worth from their aptitudes rather than from their achievements. They don't learn to work at anything--because everything comes so easily.

we had a kid in our neighborhood who was the superstar of the local public elementary. Then he got into a selective high school where he was above-average but not at the very top of the class. He spent the first semester of 9th grade throwing up almost every time he got a test back with less than an A and that wasn't unusual. He was studying every waking minute but for the first time he had classmates who were smarter than he was. His whole identity was based on being the smartest person in the room--and suddenly he no longer was. It was really hard on him emotionally.

Eventually he settled in --and he began to make friends, real friends. He didn't have close friends in elementary and middle school. I don't mean he couldn't get along with his classmates; he did. But he really didn't share his intellectual interests with them--and they were well aware that he was much smarter than he was. That changed in high school.

I don't think it's necessary to be in a segregated gifted classroom for that to happen. As long as a profoundly gifted kid has some kids who can compete with him/her, all is well. But there are lots of cases in which the truly profoundly gifted kid has no intellectual equal and IMO that isn't good for kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good grief, don’t pay for Sidwell, OP. Move to MoCo for test in GT from 4th grade.

But isn’t everyone at Sidwell profoundly gifted?

No, just profoundly lucky. Sidwell admits at age 4, around 5 years before GT testing can sort the sheep from the goats intellectually. If you're admitted at age 4 and maintain passing grades thereafter, and you're free to stay until age 18.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Public schools don't only teach academics; they teach kids how to manage relationships with diverse groups of kids and adults, and that's something you can't get with homeschooling or segregated programs for gifted kids.

Public gifted programs often have student bodies which are diverse in every way except IQ and even then there's a range. I think adults who attended such programs are, in the aggregate, every bit as good at managing relationships with other adults as adults who attended regular schools in which they were always the best at anything academic--and often at other things as well.

Too often, profoundly gifted kids are well aware of how "special" they are at a very early age. So are other kids and especially teachers. Often they don't meet anyone as smart as they are until they go to college--and sometimes not even then. Too often, the result is that these people get all their self-worth from their aptitudes rather than from their achievements. They don't learn to work at anything--because everything comes so easily.

we had a kid in our neighborhood who was the superstar of the local public elementary. Then he got into a selective high school where he was above-average but not at the very top of the class. He spent the first semester of 9th grade throwing up almost every time he got a test back with less than an A and that wasn't unusual. He was studying every waking minute but for the first time he had classmates who were smarter than he was. His whole identity was based on being the smartest person in the room--and suddenly he no longer was. It was really hard on him emotionally.

Eventually he settled in --and he began to make friends, real friends. He didn't have close friends in elementary and middle school. I don't mean he couldn't get along with his classmates; he did. But he really didn't share his intellectual interests with them--and they were well aware that he was much smarter than he was. That changed in high school.

I don't think it's necessary to be in a segregated gifted classroom for that to happen. As long as a profoundly gifted kid has some kids who can compete with him/her, all is well. But there are lots of cases in which the truly profoundly gifted kid has no intellectual equal and IMO that isn't good for kids.

The Terman case from California where groups of highly gifted public school kids statewide, identified and provided with strong GT support from the 1920s to the 1950s, were followed from elementary school into old age provides great insight. What researchers have found with the Terman kids is that being told that they were highly gifted from a young age encouraged them to make conservative choices academically and professionally later on, so as not to disappoint the adults who'd put great faith in their abilities. In a nutshell, they became accountants and dentists rather than entrepreneurs. None of the Terman kids has won a Nobel Prize or become a self-made billionaire. Meanwhile, a group of Cal public school kids including Steve Spielberg, George Lucas, a bunch of prominent scientists and many Silicon Valley exs were passed over by the Terman selection committee, not considered remotely gifted as kids, yet went on to do unbelievable things. https://www.nytimes.com/1984/04/23/style/study-of-gifted-from-childhood-to-old-age.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good grief, don’t pay for Sidwell, OP. Move to MoCo for test in GT from 4th grade.

But isn’t everyone at Sidwell profoundly gifted?

No! I hope you’re being sarcastic. There is a whole lot of mediocrity in privates. But it’s rich mediocrity. We pulled our kids from a big 3 and put them in DCPS. Imagine paying all that money and being told your kid is bored in school and falling asleep in class while pulling A with little effort? DCPS has been much better because my kids could accelerate math.

[Anonymous]

People who think any GT program is designed to meet the needs of a highly gifted or profoundly gifted child must not understand the world of difference between having an above average IQ and having and IQ of 160+. The gifted programs won’t cut it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People who think any GT program is designed to meet the needs of a highly gifted or profoundly gifted child must not understand the world of difference between having an above average IQ and having and IQ of 160+. The gifted programs won’t cut it.

it’s called being 2E and many many parents are in the same boat. if the child is truly profoundly gifted then they will have ample time to develop those gifts. meanwhile the goal for primary/secondary school is for the child to have a good childhood, develop life skills, address challenges, have fun, make friends. As many of us have found, DCPS had zero formal resources for 2E but sometimes you can find small pockets of support on a school-by-school basis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Public schools don't only teach academics; they teach kids how to manage relationships with diverse groups of kids and adults, and that's something you can't get with homeschooling or segregated programs for gifted kids.

Public gifted programs often have student bodies which are diverse in every way except IQ and even then there's a range. I think adults who attended such programs are, in the aggregate, every bit as good at managing relationships with other adults as adults who attended regular schools in which they were always the best at anything academic--and often at other things as well.

Too often, profoundly gifted kids are well aware of how "special" they are at a very early age. So are other kids and especially teachers. Often they don't meet anyone as smart as they are until they go to college--and sometimes not even then. Too often, the result is that these people get all their self-worth from their aptitudes rather than from their achievements. They don't learn to work at anything--because everything comes so easily.

we had a kid in our neighborhood who was the superstar of the local public elementary. Then he got into a selective high school where he was above-average but not at the very top of the class. He spent the first semester of 9th grade throwing up almost every time he got a test back with less than an A and that wasn't unusual. He was studying every waking minute but for the first time he had classmates who were smarter than he was. His whole identity was based on being the smartest person in the room--and suddenly he no longer was. It was really hard on him emotionally.

Eventually he settled in --and he began to make friends, real friends. He didn't have close friends in elementary and middle school. I don't mean he couldn't get along with his classmates; he did. But he really didn't share his intellectual interests with them--and they were well aware that he was much smarter than he was. That changed in high school.

I don't think it's necessary to be in a segregated gifted classroom for that to happen. As long as a profoundly gifted kid has some kids who can compete with him/her, all is well. But there are lots of cases in which the truly profoundly gifted kid has no intellectual equal and IMO that isn't good for kids.

The Terman case from California where groups of highly gifted public school kids statewide, identified and provided with strong GT support from the 1920s to the 1950s, were followed from elementary school into old age provides great insight. What researchers have found with the Terman kids is that being told that they were highly gifted from a young age encouraged them to make conservative choices academically and professionally later on, so as not to disappoint the adults who'd put great faith in their abilities. In a nutshell, they became accountants and dentists rather than entrepreneurs. None of the Terman kids has won a Nobel Prize or become a self-made billionaire. Meanwhile, a group of Cal public school kids including Steve Spielberg, George Lucas, a bunch of prominent scientists and many Silicon Valley exs were passed over by the Terman selection committee, not considered remotely gifted as kids, yet went on to do unbelievable things. https://www.nytimes.com/1984/04/23/style/study-of-gifted-from-childhood-to-old-age.html

The article doesn't say that. Do you have other references?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Public schools don't only teach academics; they teach kids how to manage relationships with diverse groups of kids and adults, and that's something you can't get with homeschooling or segregated programs for gifted kids.

Public gifted programs often have student bodies which are diverse in every way except IQ and even then there's a range. I think adults who attended such programs are, in the aggregate, every bit as good at managing relationships with other adults as adults who attended regular schools in which they were always the best at anything academic--and often at other things as well.

Too often, profoundly gifted kids are well aware of how "special" they are at a very early age. So are other kids and especially teachers. Often they don't meet anyone as smart as they are until they go to college--and sometimes not even then. Too often, the result is that these people get all their self-worth from their aptitudes rather than from their achievements. They don't learn to work at anything--because everything comes so easily.

we had a kid in our neighborhood who was the superstar of the local public elementary. Then he got into a selective high school where he was above-average but not at the very top of the class. He spent the first semester of 9th grade throwing up almost every time he got a test back with less than an A and that wasn't unusual. He was studying every waking minute but for the first time he had classmates who were smarter than he was. His whole identity was based on being the smartest person in the room--and suddenly he no longer was. It was really hard on him emotionally.

Eventually he settled in --and he began to make friends, real friends. He didn't have close friends in elementary and middle school. I don't mean he couldn't get along with his classmates; he did. But he really didn't share his intellectual interests with them--and they were well aware that he was much smarter than he was. That changed in high school.

I don't think it's necessary to be in a segregated gifted classroom for that to happen. As long as a profoundly gifted kid has some kids who can compete with him/her, all is well. But there are lots of cases in which the truly profoundly gifted kid has no intellectual equal and IMO that isn't good for kids.

NP and I agree with most of your post but wonder if that kid who was a superstar in ES was actually profoundly gifted if they struggled in 9th grade. Even at a selective high school, profoundly gifted kids should have quite an easy time in 9th grade.

[Anonymous]

Search California Mentally Gifted Minors program, 1920s - 1960s.

https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED060585

[Anonymous]

Can you negotiate informally for your kid to be able to work on their own projects as long as they are related in some way to the curriculum & are not disruptive?