Am I the only parent with a high IQ child who does not care to scramble for the best schools?

[Anonymous]

I also am not scrambling. IME the important time to really focus on that is high school. Prior to those years kids are happy to be at school, should be learning to make friends, get along in the world, etc. I think it's VERY damaging socially to gifted kids to separate them out and make them different from everyone else. When they go off in the real world, they will have ot get along with EVERYONE regardless of IQ or G&T status. I don't like G&T at all - even within G&T there are many different kinds of giftedness. Music and artistic ability or writing ability differs from science and math ability. We all need to relax. All this testing of 4 yr olds, 3 yr olds, it's just ridiculous. Kids SHOULD be pasting and cutting in prek and k. If our kid can read, then FINE! But they can still enjoy coloring - they can write a book while they're at it! THey can develop leadership skills by helping others and the teacher. I don't think kids should be taught to feel that they are better than the other kids. And this is exactly what goes on when we start labeling. My G&T class in elementary and middle school was full of spoiled entitled brats who didn't think they had to do anything and thought they were better than everyone else. There was so much making fun of other kids. It was horrible. There is also home - we, as parents, need to supplement our kid's education. Schools simply cannot be all things to all kids. That's the reality of it.

[Anonymous]

10:01: Sorry your G&T class was counterproductive. My pull-out was fabulous, really the bright part of my life in elementary school. I otherwise spent a lot of time doing independent studies or being bored, but my gifted teacher was amazing, and the other kids were a great group. For many years I wanted to be a teacher of gifted kids!

We're not "scrambling" for schools--so far we're really happy with our MoCo elementary. And I agree that kids need to learn to socialize and enjoy being kids. But I am will be vigilant about my children's academic needs, as well.

As for separating kids out--if children need accommodation, they need accommodation. And that won't "make them different from everyone else." Some gifted kids really are different than the rest of the crowd already--they know it, and their peers know it. Requiring them to learn the same lessons as everyone else isn't going to change the fact that they are fundamentally different. They should certainly learn to get along with everyone, but they shouldn't be forced to learn at someone else's speed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He is "gifted" yes, but what is so wrong with not talking about it all the time, and just sending his little gifted tail to MCPS, and waiting to hear what the teachers want me to do with (to) him.
I want him to just have fun as a child, learn the basics and not get on anyone's nerves. When he is 11, we can talk about life, grades, birds, bees, SATs, Colleges and all that.

You sound like a reasonable human being. We're taking the same approach.

Children need encouragement and an awareness of their potential. But the motivation MUST come from them, or all the pushing will backfire.

I speak from personal experience. My mother pushed me all my life, so I performed to make her happy. She needed something to tell her friends, and I was constantly working on that next thing.

She didn't stop pushing until I was safely out of grad school. In the absence of her ambition, I had no idea what would make me happy. Took me 10 years and a lot of delayed adolescent-type angst to figure it out.

[Anonymous]

I loathed elementary school. There was seldom a day when any material was presented that I had not already learned, on my own. Any new material that was presented, I was able to learn pretty much immediately. My days were filled with doing every "alternate" activity the teacher made available (mostly busywork and worksheets) and solo trips to the library to read, read, read. This despite the fact that I took my chair to the next grade level up every day for language arts and math instruction, up till 5th grade.

In that school district and back then, there were no G/T or TAG classes. I was a good little girl, and I knew my job was to just go to school and not protest, be a teacher pleaser. I never acted out b/c the instruction was excruciatingly slow. I knew that that was the way it was. My parents could not afford private school -- and I'm not sure the privates in our area would have been any better.

Any scrambling I am doing (and it isn't to get my kids into the fancy private schools around here, which I can't afford for them, either) isn't due to a desire to "push" my kids, but just an attempt to have them avoid feeling as I did for 6 years, that school was a dull, dull place to go and be bored to tears, for the most part. (Art was fun.)

[Anonymous]

If you have a child in Montgomery County schools, the latest report on second grade testing indicates that 40% of all Montgomery County second graders who were tested (I'm not sure if ESOL or LD kids were tested) are testing in the "gifted" range, with some schools having 70% of children identified as "gfted". So if you send your "gifted" child to some of those schools, chances are, they will just fit right in with the majority of the class, and their needs WILL be the same as a lot of the other kids.

http://themorechild.wordpress.com/2008/12/07/not-yetfound-in-any-stores

(The above blog has a link to the document)

40.9% of students were identified as gifted in Montgomery County. (snip)
Highest ID rate: Bannockburn ES with 72.4% identified as GT
Lowest ID rate: Watkins Mill ES with 13.3% identified as GT

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has there been any study to show that differentiation of kids before age 10 changes long term outcome?

I don't know what the research shows, but I think that an important consideration is about quality of life for the child. And I am talking primarily about children who score in the "highly gifted" range, not just the bright or "gifted" child who can often do well in any number of settings. As a child who tested as HG at the age of 12 and was finally appropriately placed, I can say that my experience in a number of different settings was very telling. One of the biggest factors in my quality of life as an elementary school aged child was teacher attitude - and the reality is that many teachers in non-differentiated settings do not have the time/patience or interest/attitude necessary to make the educational life of an HG child nurturing and supportive. I actually experienced scapegoating at a number of different schools in non-differentiated settings, not from other children with whom I did fine at that age but rather from the teachers.

Just a thought I wanted to pass along.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I also am not scrambling. IME the important time to really focus on that is high school. Prior to those years kids are happy to be at school, should be learning to make friends, get along in the world, etc. I think it's VERY damaging socially to gifted kids to separate them out and make them different from everyone else. When they go off in the real world, they will have ot get along with EVERYONE regardless of IQ or G&T status. I don't like G&T at all - even within G&T there are many different kinds of giftedness. Music and artistic ability or writing ability differs from science and math ability. We all need to relax. All this testing of 4 yr olds, 3 yr olds, it's just ridiculous. Kids SHOULD be pasting and cutting in prek and k. If our kid can read, then FINE! But they can still enjoy coloring - they can write a book while they're at it! THey can develop leadership skills by helping others and the teacher. I don't think kids should be taught to feel that they are better than the other kids. And this is exactly what goes on when we start labeling. My G&T class in elementary and middle school was full of spoiled entitled brats who didn't think they had to do anything and thought they were better than everyone else. There was so much making fun of other kids. It was horrible. There is also home - we, as parents, need to supplement our kid's education. Schools simply cannot be all things to all kids. That's the reality of it.

Sorry, but I pay taxes too and if my kids needs special services because he/she is so far ahead of others academically that they don't fit into a regular classroom then there has to be an alternate way to meet his/her needs, just like there is for learning disabled or other special education kids. EVERY child has a right to learn and be challenged in school. And assigning them to teach others doesn't qualify as learning or being challenged.

And by the way, it is a huge myth that gifted kids have to be in a class with other kids to learn to get along with non-gifted kids. My gifted child had to spend her early childhood years with non-gifted peers -- from preschool all the way thru second grade. She knows very well how to get along with other kids. She made many wonderful friends then. But, she also learned that to get along with some (not all) kids and teachers, she had to hide an essential part of herself. Now she deserves a chance to be educated IN school. Even if she is in a separate GT program (which is actually pretty rare even in MCPS -- most kids are served by in school GT which involves differentiations w/i class or in a pull out group), she still has specials like music, art, etc. w/ "regular" kids, and she meets them in after/before school programs and at recess.

I'm sorry you view GT as teaching kids to "feel that they are better than other kids." They are not better, just different -- typically working at least 2 years above grade level, needing very little repetition to learn material.

I'm sorry your GT experience meant that kids felt they didn't have to work and were better than others and that they were allowed to make fun of others -- that simply shouldn't happen. But, please don't generalize your experience to the whole or say that something done badly means it shouldn't be done at all. Gifted classes should in fact make GT kids work -- that's the whole point. And the work should be hard enough that even GT kids have the experience of not being able to learn something easily and quickly; after all it is precisely the experience of struggling to master material that will teach them that in an essential way they are no different than their peers. Everyone has an obligation to work hard to develop themselves to their full potential.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I also am not scrambling. IME the important time to really focus on that is high school. Prior to those years kids are happy to be at school, should be learning to make friends, get along in the world, etc. I think it's VERY damaging socially to gifted kids to separate them out and make them different from everyone else. When they go off in the real world, they will have ot get along with EVERYONE regardless of IQ or G&T status. I don't like G&T at all - even within G&T there are many different kinds of giftedness. Music and artistic ability or writing ability differs from science and math ability. We all need to relax. All this testing of 4 yr olds, 3 yr olds, it's just ridiculous. Kids SHOULD be pasting and cutting in prek and k. If our kid can read, then FINE! But they can still enjoy coloring - they can write a book while they're at it! THey can develop leadership skills by helping others and the teacher. I don't think kids should be taught to feel that they are better than the other kids. And this is exactly what goes on when we start labeling. My G&T class in elementary and middle school was full of spoiled entitled brats who didn't think they had to do anything and thought they were better than everyone else. There was so much making fun of other kids. It was horrible. There is also home - we, as parents, need to supplement our kid's education. Schools simply cannot be all things to all kids. That's the reality of it.

Sorry, but I pay taxes too and if my kids needs special services because he/she is so far ahead of others academically that they don't fit into a regular classroom then there has to be an alternate way to meet his/her needs, just like there is for learning disabled or other special education kids. EVERY child has a right to learn and be challenged in school. And assigning them to teach others doesn't qualify as learning or being challenged.

And by the way, it is a huge myth that gifted kids have to be in a class with other kids to learn to get along with non-gifted kids. My gifted child had to spend her early childhood years with non-gifted peers -- from preschool all the way thru second grade. She knows very well how to get along with other kids. She made many wonderful friends then. But, she also learned that to get along with some (not all) kids and teachers, she had to hide an essential part of herself. Now she deserves a chance to be educated IN school. Even if she is in a separate GT program (which is actually pretty rare even in MCPS -- most kids are served by in school GT which involves differentiations w/i class or in a pull out group), she still has specials like music, art, etc. w/ "regular" kids, and she meets them in after/before school programs and at recess.

I'm sorry you view GT as teaching kids to "feel that they are better than other kids." They are not better, just different -- typically working at least 2 years above grade level, needing very little repetition to learn material.

I'm sorry your GT experience meant that kids felt they didn't have to work and were better than others and that they were allowed to make fun of others -- that simply shouldn't happen. But, please don't generalize your experience to the whole or say that something done badly means it shouldn't be done at all. Gifted classes should in fact make GT kids work -- that's the whole point. And the work should be hard enough that even GT kids have the experience of not being able to learn something easily and quickly; after all it is precisely the experience of struggling to master material that will teach them that in an essential way they are no different than their peers. Everyone has an obligation to work hard to develop themselves to their full potential.

very nice, PP! What a lucky little girl!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has there been any study to show that differentiation of kids before age 10 changes long term outcome?

I don't know what the research shows, but I think that an important consideration is about quality of life for the child. And I am talking primarily about children who score in the "highly gifted" range, not just the bright or "gifted" child who can often do well in any number of settings. As a child who tested as HG at the age of 12 and was finally appropriately placed, I can say that my experience in a number of different settings was very telling. One of the biggest factors in my quality of life as an elementary school aged child was teacher attitude - and the reality is that many teachers in non-differentiated settings do not have the time/patience or interest/attitude necessary to make the educational life of an HG child nurturing and supportive. I actually experienced scapegoating at a number of different schools in non-differentiated settings, not from other children with whom I did fine at that age but rather from the teachers.

Just a thought I wanted to pass along.

If the HG kids are not pushed to read early, and taken to extra enrichment classes, they seem to fit in better with their peers, and I am not sure that theer is any evidence that this is harmful in the long run. They will excel when they are placed in appropruate classes by age 12. I don't think that it has to be earlier than that.

[Anonymous]

Most highly gifted children are not pushed to read; they teach themselves. There will always be some parents who push their children, gifted or not, but it is wrong to believe that the proportion of pushy parents is higher among families with gifted children than among families with "regular" children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has there been any study to show that differentiation of kids before age 10 changes long term outcome?

I don't know what the research shows, but I think that an important consideration is about quality of life for the child. And I am talking primarily about children who score in the "highly gifted" range, not just the bright or "gifted" child who can often do well in any number of settings. As a child who tested as HG at the age of 12 and was finally appropriately placed, I can say that my experience in a number of different settings was very telling. One of the biggest factors in my quality of life as an elementary school aged child was teacher attitude - and the reality is that many teachers in non-differentiated settings do not have the time/patience or interest/attitude necessary to make the educational life of an HG child nurturing and supportive. I actually experienced scapegoating at a number of different schools in non-differentiated settings, not from other children with whom I did fine at that age but rather from the teachers.

Just a thought I wanted to pass along.

If the HG kids are not pushed to read early, and taken to extra enrichment classes, they seem to fit in better with their peers, and I am not sure that theer is any evidence that this is harmful in the long run. They will excel when they are placed in appropruate classes by age 12. I don't think that it has to be earlier than that.

I mean no disrespect, but this comment is woefully ignorant when it comes to truly highly gifted children. As another PP stated, these children *teach themselves* to read (as ours did before age three); they are not pushed (at least, we certainly didn't.) And to suggest that highly gifted children don't need intellectual challenge or an appropriate education before the age of twelve is not only ignorant, but actually cruel. (I'm not suggesting that the poster was intentionally cruel, just saying that this kind of misguided thinking on the topic leads to a cruel outcome for those children.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most highly gifted children are not pushed to read; they teach themselves. There will always be some parents who push their children, gifted or not, but it is wrong to believe that the proportion of pushy parents is higher among families with gifted children than among families with "regular" children.

I beg to differ. As an educator at the secondary level, I've been exposed to many "pushy" parents whose children were in my honors or AP classes. This is not to say that I intend to demean parents of children in my on level classes. In fact, I've known many who really care, but their approach is much different. They tend to work with the teacher in a more cooperative manner, whereas parents of "gifted" students had a tendency to tell me what works best for their child in the classroom. In most cases, those parents found it difficult to accept that their "gifted" child had received anything lower than an A.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: If the HG kids are not pushed to read early, and taken to extra enrichment classes, they seem to fit in better with their peers, and I am not sure that theer is any evidence that this is harmful in the long run. They will excel when they are placed in appropruate classes by age 12. I don't think that it has to be earlier than that.

My child might SEEM to fit in better with her peers today if I had not answered the questions she was driving herself to ask about the world as a 2- or 3-year-old. But I don't believe she would be happier. I will never be convinced that I should have tried to stall her drive for learning for the sake of fitting in.

For info on the emotional needs of gifted children, check out http://www.sengifted.org/

Also, look at http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/, the most-often recommended web page on gifted issues. Let me know if you can find ANYONE on there recommending that parents and teachers wait to address gifted kids interests and educational drive until they are 12.

Would you similarly recommend that parents with children who are skilled athletes should wait to enroll them in sports teams until the other kids catch up, oh, around age 12? Take a look at "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut: "THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal.…"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I beg to differ. As an educator at the secondary level, I've been exposed to many "pushy" parents whose children were in my honors or AP classes. This is not to say that I intend to demean parents of children in my on level classes. In fact, I've known many who really care, but their approach is much different. They tend to work with the teacher in a more cooperative manner, whereas parents of "gifted" students had a tendency to tell me what works best for their child in the classroom. In most cases, those parents found it difficult to accept that their "gifted" child had received anything lower than an A.

I'm curious about your pedagogy. Do you run into kids you think are truly gifted? What sort of needs do you see them as having, and how do you address them? What exactly are the parents recommending that is different than what you are doing?

[Anonymous]

If the HG kids are not pushed to read early, and taken to extra enrichment classes, they seem to fit in better with their peers, and I am not sure that theer is any evidence that this is harmful in the long run. They will excel when they are placed in appropruate classes by age 12. I don't think that it has to be earlier than that.

This is so utterly misguided and scary, I don't even know where to begin. Would you say the same thing about a child who is on the other end of the developmental spectrum?