smart kid not really being fostered at a JKLM; what to do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one is getting 99% on parcc

of course they are. Just like someone is getting a 1%

[Anonymous]

OP, serious question: what private schools do you have in mind? Most are happy, meandering places until about 8th grade.

I head Holton can be quite challenging, and I know GDS is for the *self-starters* who are looking for math. Do a search on here for St. Anselms if you have a boy.

But overall, the usual suspect schools are rich and deep and interesting and provocative — but not pushy and accelerating in K-8. They're not interchangeable with DCPS or MoCo — my kids spend so much more time writing and public speaking and developing research than my friends' kids in publics in CCDC and Bethesda. their kids are pushed to accelerate in math and take Mandarin and get the special bus to BCC to demonstrate that acceleration.

rambling answer summary: "privates" are not a panacea **at this age** if you want pushing and unsolicited challenge.

[Anonymous]

I had the exact same child (except no sport interest) and I can only give you the advice my child's 4th grade teacher at the JKL school told me: he will get left behind at Deal because teachers there are either dealing with troublemakers or highly motivated children, and his cohort of friends will be in that latter group and he will be left in the dust. That's all I needed to hear. We entered the lottery and got the charter we wanted, but private was absolutely our next move. Motivation matters a great deal as they leave elementary, and if your child doesn't have it and doesn't really fit into a category, the teachers will move on. The shear numbers dictate that. Great yeachers who are given a chance in a smaller setting can pull your child's potential out.

[Anonymous]

I think about this often with my kid. She's been at the top of her class every year. I was bored out of my mind throughout elementary and middle school. It wasn't until I got into my high performing high school that I felt challenged. By then, I'd learned to coast by in school and didn't have much drive. I failed a lot because the concept of studying was foreign to me. I think I spent the first two years of high school blaming everyone else and the last two years trying to BS my way to graduation.

For a while I worried that this was my daughter's fate until I realized that my parents weren't involved in my schooling in any way. I'm very involved. I don't bother her teachers too much. I give her advanced work at home and try to place her in enrichment programs after school and on the weekends.

I read Gladwell's David and Goliath which made me consider whether or not my child's esteem and self concept is driven by the fact that she is one of the top performers. I need to figure out how to keep her from ending up like me when she gets to high school though.

[Anonymous]

I sometimes wonder what it is that you are all pushing your children for. Life? It does not require being an overachiever at age 12. Life, even med school... Not really that complicated. Encourage interests, show them the world, and enjoy yourself.

[Anonymous]

Enroll him in NySmith if you don't mind the long drive.
I'm being somewhat facetious but I know some NW DC parents who did that and seemed happy with their choice.
You haven't said if your kid is happy or bored and unsatisfied.
If your kid is happy, I would let him be. So much of ES is developing social and emotional skills.
Provide a lot of enriching activities at home and you should be fine.
You can have the kid take an online course or introduce him to computer programming.
Learning Adobe Photoshop can be a really fun and creative activity for some kids and there are many layers of complexity to it.
Take him to the Tech shop in Crystal City, VA.
Very cool place with 3D printers, laser cutters, etc. They offer some kids classes too.
Introduce him to a new sport like fencing or a game like chess or scrabble.
The possibilities are endless. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Maybe check out the Hopkins program for supersmart kids (Center for Talented Youth, I think it's called)? I think they have online courses and summer camps (all very expensive but maybe worth it--I don't really know, my kid is not at this level academically).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I sometimes wonder what it is that you are all pushing your children for. Life? It does not require being an overachiever at age 12. Life, even med school... Not really that complicated. Encourage interests, show them the world, and enjoy yourself.

As a teacher, I see a lot of "smart" kids lose interest in school after years of being bored. They develop a habit of phoning in their work. The parents can encourage them, but it's not really something they can monitor during the 6 hours the kids are at school. Most teachers are so concerned with making their growth numbers, that the kids who are on grade level or above are really an afterthought. Half the time they're partnered up with the kids who are struggling in order to help bring them up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I sometimes wonder what it is that you are all pushing your children for. Life? It does not require being an overachiever at age 12. Life, even med school... Not really that complicated. Encourage interests, show them the world, and enjoy yourself.

As a teacher, I see a lot of "smart" kids lose interest in school after years of being bored. They develop a habit of phoning in their work. The parents can encourage them, but it's not really something they can monitor during the 6 hours the kids are at school. Most teachers are so concerned with making their growth numbers, that the kids who are on grade level or above are really an afterthought. Half the time they're partnered up with the kids who are struggling in order to help bring them up.

Where do you teach?

[Anonymous]

OP,

Wish I had your problem. So let me daydream a bit, put myself in your shoes, and toy with this problem.

You say that your DC is not motivated and does not want to even do homework. If your DS were admitted to Sidwell, or a Cathedral School, for example...why would s/he be more motivated? Would the work be more difficult, and s/he'd need to work harder to keep up and avoid any consequences? Would coursework and assignments be more interesting? Would the other children be brighter, and s/he would be inspired to compete?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:have you thought about montgomery county? that is what my friend did who was in a similar situation

I'm in MCPS and it's working for us, but I don't think that's the answer for OP's child. MCPS has wonderful magnet opportunities but there are so many bright kids that the kids accepted tend to be:

A) Super smart

B) Highly self-motivated

C) Well coached

If I had a super smart, well-coached, but not highly self-motivated kid, I would not assume that MCPS was going to improve things. There's just too much competition for the magnet spots, which is a shame, because super smart kids who are not intrinsically self-motivated need what the magnets have to offer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had the exact same child (except no sport interest) and I can only give you the advice my child's 4th grade teacher at the JKL school told me: he will get left behind at Deal because teachers there are either dealing with troublemakers or highly motivated children, and his cohort of friends will be in that latter group and he will be left in the dust. That's all I needed to hear. We entered the lottery and got the charter we wanted, but private was absolutely our next move. Motivation matters a great deal as they leave elementary, and if your child doesn't have it and doesn't really fit into a category, the teachers will move on. The shear numbers dictate that. Great yeachers who are given a chance in a smaller setting can pull your child's potential out.

I have this child too and I can tell you that this is not at all what we have experienced at all at Deal. Mine went straight into very advanced math in 6th grade at Deal (and wasn't the only child in the class) and was happy with the ELA and science programs plus challenged by the language. We didn't need to supplement outside but only with Hopkins CYT programs. DC got into SWW and is one of the kids in the GW program. I still have kids at Deal and all have been pushed especially in math. In all the years we have spent at Deal we have found very few troublemakers but a ton of teachers willing to push kids and work with them afterschool or in the classroom to make sure their needs are being met.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I sometimes wonder what it is that you are all pushing your children for. Life? It does not require being an overachiever at age 12. Life, even med school... Not really that complicated. Encourage interests, show them the world, and enjoy yourself.

This. A million times this.

I have a PhD in a "challenging" field (I don't know which other word to use). If you can teach your child critical thinking, you will do them a tremendous service. This is a legitimate if. Even if you think yourself smart, many people lack true depth-of-thinking abilities. I work with dozens of other PhDs; not all of us have this skill. Teach you child to maintain competing, even contradictory, thoughts in his head simultaneously. Challenge him to present arguments he does not support/believe. Ask him "why he thinks that" whenever he presents to you a seemingly unsubstantiated claim.

Do these things and your child will be more than fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I sometimes wonder what it is that you are all pushing your children for. Life? It does not require being an overachiever at age 12. Life, even med school... Not really that complicated. Encourage interests, show them the world, and enjoy yourself.

This. A million times this.

I have a PhD in a "challenging" field (I don't know which other word to use). If you can teach your child critical thinking, you will do them a tremendous service. This is a legitimate if. Even if you think yourself smart, many people lack true depth-of-thinking abilities. I work with dozens of other PhDs; not all of us have this skill. Teach you child to maintain competing, even contradictory, thoughts in his head simultaneously. Challenge him to present arguments he does not support/believe. Ask him "why he thinks that" whenever he presents to you a seemingly unsubstantiated claim.

Do these things and your child will be more than fine.

OP here.
I think my issue is that at our JKLM there is an overwhelming sense that the goal is to bring the class cohort to the grade standard(s) at the end of the year and then NOTHING is fostered beyond this. I have a kid who sails through the grade objectives with no effort and no work needed outside of school. I wonder if in a different school his/her interest in math (he/she will tell you she/he LOVES math) would be nurtured a bit more or pushed. A teacher would say, "hey, you can do this material in your sleep, let's work with you on something more challenging. Or Have you ever thought about this?"
I.e. for this kid scoring at the top of the PARCC or meeting the objectives at school does not require critical thinking. How do I teach critical thinking or provide this for my child (preferably in the classroom)? And will they get it at Deal and Wilson in the later years? Or should we be looking at private school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I sometimes wonder what it is that you are all pushing your children for. Life? It does not require being an overachiever at age 12. Life, even med school... Not really that complicated. Encourage interests, show them the world, and enjoy yourself.

This. A million times this.

I have a PhD in a "challenging" field (I don't know which other word to use). If you can teach your child critical thinking, you will do them a tremendous service. This is a legitimate if. Even if you think yourself smart, many people lack true depth-of-thinking abilities. I work with dozens of other PhDs; not all of us have this skill. Teach you child to maintain competing, even contradictory, thoughts in his head simultaneously. Challenge him to present arguments he does not support/believe. Ask him "why he thinks that" whenever he presents to you a seemingly unsubstantiated claim.

Do these things and your child will be more than fine.

OP here.
I think my issue is that at our JKLM there is an overwhelming sense that the goal is to bring the class cohort to the grade standard(s) at the end of the year and then NOTHING is fostered beyond this. I have a kid who sails through the grade objectives with no effort and no work needed outside of school. I wonder if in a different school his/her interest in math (he/she will tell you she/he LOVES math) would be nurtured a bit more or pushed. A teacher would say, "hey, you can do this material in your sleep, let's work with you on something more challenging. Or Have you ever thought about this?"
I.e. for this kid scoring at the top of the PARCC or meeting the objectives at school does not require critical thinking. How do I teach critical thinking or provide this for my child (preferably in the classroom)? And will they get it at Deal and Wilson in the later years? Or should we be looking at private school?

My opinion (and only my opinion) from 20+ years or schooling: rare is the teacher who is able to teach these skills. Far from an indictment of the teacher's ability (although this is a hurdle that must be cleared), the reality of teaching to 10-25 kids at once necessarily makes the back-and-forth dialogue needed to foster these skills largely impossible. That means, the skill will come from you, if not only you then mainly you.

Some teachers can help, but they need to be able to take one student's comment/claim/belief, translate it into terms all of the others can simultaneously interpret, ensure they each internalize the comment/claim/belief as if it were their own, and then somehow manage to get the entire class to engage with the idea at a sufficient level at the same time. This is a very tall order.

You can achieve the same thing much easier just speaking with your child in the car and at the dinner table. They'll find you annoying, but (trust me) they'll quickly impersonate your Socrates to their friends. And the rest of the time they can play on the trampoline, light things on fire, and generally be a kid. Your gift works in the background.