Norwood for student working several grade-leves ahead?

[Anonymous]

Interesting that no one has mentioned PEG at Mary Baldwin College in VA, one of the few programs in the country for HG+/PG high school aged students to enter college in a structured way: http://www.mbc.edu/early_college/peg/

[SAM2]

Anonymous wrote:... No one ever argued that the "big 3" was the only right path for a HG or PG kids. The argument has been whether acceleration in public gifted programs or homeschooling are the only way to challenge such students. And the testimony from some parents here is that some local privates are meeting their kids' needs. ("Big 3" was never a category -- Norwood was mentioned, progressive education was mentioned).

Basically, the debate has been between whether the ideal is to isolate and accelerate gifted kids vs. create a context in which kids are encouraged to go as deep and wide as their talents and drive take them. And part of the answer is [that it] depends on the kid, depends on the options available, depends on what the family wants from education.

There's also been a leitmotif which suggests that school isn't the only (or even necessarily the best) place to learn for some kids and that, at the extremes, special arrangements may be the way to go.

This perfectly summarizes where I thought the discussion was going. But there have been several recent posts that seem to take a far different course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that no one has mentioned PEG at Mary Baldwin College in VA, one of the few programs in the country for HG+/PG high school aged students to enter college in a structured way: http://www.mbc.edu/early_college/peg/

That may be because college came up in the context of a 6-8 y.o. boy and this is a program for girls in their teens.

Had an interesting conversation over the holidays with a friend who, like me, was taking college classes at a relatively early age. His experience (soured him on the subject he had loved most) was very different from mine and, after discussing it for awhile, I came away thinking gender had lots to do with it. It's probably a lot easier for a 12-14yo girl in a college class to blend in/be accepted than it is for a 12-14yo boy. And perhaps even easier (and/or less scary for parents!) when it's a womens' college.

All that said, both the Rutgers and Mary Baldwin programs seem to involve colleges competing for students they wouldn't attract otherwise. So the question becomes do you want your HG/PG kid to have a BA a second or third tier school in his/her teens or would you rather send that kid to a better university and have them emerge when, say, they're old enough to make a legally binding contract at least? Rutgers's supplement your HS education but don't go for a college degree approach seems preferable to me in that regard. And the next question is whether classes at a particular college available to a child are necessarily better than classes available at a particular HS available to a child. At least some of the best high schools in this area (public or private) certainly have some courses that are better/more challenging/demanding than what you'd get in the average college (much less community college). Which is part of the reason some schools are rethinking the emphasis on AP (it dumbs down their curriculum) and also why you'll hear recent grads say that their HS courses were more difficult than college.

[Anonymous]

Nobody has argued that hsing or acceleration are the ONLY way to challenge hg+. What's been said is that they are more likely to be a better fit more MOST of these kids, especially the more extreme ones.

Also, nobody is recommending "isolating" these kids, just providing them with the most appropriate social climate for their emotional well-being. The psychosocial development of the brightest kids tends to correspond more closely with their mental age than their chronological age, and they usually (not ALWAYS) have more in common with older kids than agemates.

http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10379.aspx

http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10017.aspx

http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10004.aspx

Yes, some very high IQ kids do well in private school. I have a child like this. Dc happens to be very social, unlike the majority of kids at the far end of the curve, and more interested in being silly and running around with agemates than engaging in intellectual conversations with them.

No, dc doesn't get enrichment outside of school.
I've never felt that enrichment was a good option. How can it benefit a kid to go to school all day and learn little to nothing, come home and do homework, and then do a bunch of CTY courses online or anything else that involves being taught? Kids need open ended activities, time to play, not be instruction 24/7. Mine, anyway. Maybe others thriving on constant structure.

It's the homeschooled kids and the ones taking college courses that have time to be kids and play with friends, not the ones trapped in school all day and then "enriched" until bedtime. They aren't isolated, unless their parents are hothousing them and making them do academics all day.

MOST hg+ don't thrive without significant acceleration of one kind or another, and many parents of such children learn this the hard way.

Either way, your kid will tell you if he or she is happy or unhappy. So if private school is your dream, give it a shot. Hopefully your kid won't cry every day after school and beg to be homeschooled so he can learn something and have somebody to have an intelligent conversation with, but don't be surprised if he does.

[Anonymous]

I'm the PP you're responding to and I should clarify that by isolation I didn't necessarily mean as individuals -- I meant isolating HG kids from other kids as in magnet programs. That's why I juxtaposed acceleration and isolation.

My kid is in 7th grade and has had intelligent conversations in private school from day one. I remember a tire swing debate in PreK about whether invisibility was an attribute of the object or the observer. And a bus conversation about whether eternal life could be achieved through serial organ transplants or whether, at a certain point, if a sufficient number of or specific organs had been replaced whether you could still be said to be you. And, no, private school wasn't my dream -- I was looking for the kind of environment that produces those kind of discussions was and I happened to find it in a particular private.

Preschool experiences (both conventional and Montessori) did raise the spectre of homeschooling, so I was highly motivated to find a school that was a good fit. And subsequent CTY experiences strongly suggest that MoCo gifted magnets would not have been one for my DC.

[Anonymous]

I'm glad you found the right environment for your dc.

[Anonymous]

Me too!

Which is why it seems counter-productive for posters to suggest that you can't find the right environment for this kind of kid in local privates. I did; you can.

Not to say it's the only place -- just to say it's really short-sighted to make a categorical decision re the appropriateness of public vs. private vs. homeschooling based on IQ. Cast your net broadly, strive for fit (personality, cohort, learning style), and look at individual schools as individual schools/distinctive learning environments rather than as banner-carriers for or signifiers in some ideological debate.

[Anonymous]

Some kids are not interested in the AA or BA degrees at 10 to 14 they simply want accommodation in the form of level higher and more rigorous subjects.

Accommodation requests for students at grade level (e.g.,prolonged time to take tests -- PSAT, SAT, AP -- and perform classroom assignments) is soaring in this country as parents build a dossier of supporting materials from a band of school counselors, psychologists and lawyers demanding this. I suspect this is a much larger cohort than the outliers we are describing here. But, if accommodations can be granted for students, even on grade level, to successfully get through school why is it so difficult for people to understand that others, albeit outliers, need accommodation also. They may not need 3 hours to take these exams many walk out of the room after an hour and a half having hit the ball out of the park (we all know of these types of kids who are done in 1/4 the time and walk out of the room with an A, I envied them in my days in school, much like some envy a star school athlete or performer).

Why should these kids not be allowed to move on towards geometry and trigonometry rather than suffer in classrooms wrestling with mastery of arithematic and fractions? Many of these kids don't want to wait until their later years in high school to take a first course in Physics (because of the archaic prerequisites of biology and chemistry in many traditional high schools today). In fact, given the tremendous progress in molecular biology and genomics today physics should be the starting foundational course for biology and chemistry (not the other way around). For this to happen students need a strong foundation and preparation in mathematics. If a student has to typically wait until the later years of high school to take their first basic course in Physics (after Biology, Chemistry and the curricular fluff further downstream in middle school) it's not surprising our present day difficulties competing in the global world.

Since many schools will not accommodate some kids on this logically acceptable path in today's world (while accommodating other children who want to slow down the process for their personal successful mastery) these kids opt out and find other ways to keep challenged and get to Algebra/Geo and Trig, Computer Programming and Physics classes before high school. They do not feel locked out of opportunities (or behind the 8 ball compared to their global colleagues) in other further downstream disciplines ... engineering, molecular biology, robotics, nanotechnology. I am not suggesting this pathway for all students but capable and willing students shouldn't find it so difficult to get on with it if that is their choice. They want accommodation in the educational system for these interests (even if the traditional thinking is this means 'acceleration' since a typical first Physics course in taken towards the end of high school when most kids are on the brink of adulthood and ready to vote).

The only accommodating environments where upper elementary and middle school students working 2 and higher grade levels above others can get to study Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Physics, Computer Science or higher is at home, in home school, public school, public school magnets, online courses, community colleges and local universities. I was discouraged when I toured the local private school scene a few years back. The flexibility just wasn't available or suited to our needs.

Some kids performing at 2 grade levels above the norm do need accommodations and direct pathways like others working below the norm or with other "disabilities". Presently, most of these kids cobble together a number of different ways to stay focused and in the game until ready to leave home and head to college at 17.

I see very well why some of these kids and families do not find the solutions at Norwood or a "Big 3" given their curricular organizational structure. And I have indicated before, these private institutions are not obligated to accommodate or cater to all students if they fall out of their target market pool. Fortunately, some public and online enterprises are beginning to serve up an educational menu, increasingly more flexible and attractive for this cohort and others and I predict in future our private schools will face mounting challenges and increasing competition for these students. In my relatively short time as a parent I see these other options and the internet gradually leveling the playing as our fine institutions of higher learning (including the Ivies, little threes, U of C, Stanford, MIT/Cal Tech, graduate /professional schools and the like) drop the 4- wall high school pig skin requirement for matriculation.

Some may wonder why there is little discussion about other subject areas? Do not miscontrue a lack of treatment to imply that music, art, languages, social studies, reading and writing are not important. These subjects are important for the creative mind and developing critical communications skills. In my personal experience, many families and children have had many more easily accessible alternatives/options to fill in the gaps because of poor schools and teachers. A child can read as deep and wide as possible (and "travel" the world) in the comfort of one's home without even setting foot in a library these days.

Private and public schools do cater to some students working 2 grade levels above the norm. There are trade offs families and students make when one considers the whole picture of offerings. A few students working at these levels find area private schools inadequate for their needs and the trade offs not worth taking. These students pursue other options in public school and magnet programs more accommodating to whole grade skipping and advancement and acceleration in certain subjects. Many of these kids also dual enroll (for credit or audit) in public colleges and on-line to tailor a more direct pathway for their abilities and interests.

I am not advocating dismantling area private school education just observing some ot these higher performing students logically reach a conclusion to dispense with this option due to lack of academic fit.

[Anonymous]

PP, it doesn't do any harm for parents of hg+ kids to look at private schools.

It is harmful when the administrations of private schools believe what you keep asserting, which is that they are already creating an environment in which most hg+, or at least eg and pg, kids will thrive. No, they aren't.

You are drawing on your n=1 experience, while denying a a vast amount of research that suggests that your child doesn't represent the norm for these kids, especially the brightest ones. Maybe since your child is so bright, it is hard to understand that others might be brighter, or have the same IQ, but be more advanced academically.

It would be easy for private schools to allow grade-skipping, for example, but they don't because they hold the same beliefs you hold. If school administrators would invest a small amount of time in reading the literature, they would learn that their beliefs are wrong, but they don't. I think this is because they don't want to change their beliefs, so they'd rather rely on random anecdotes that support them than research that would challenge them.

[Anonymous]

And I think those are my final words on the subject.

[Anonymous]

This is 12:15. I was responding to 11:39, not 12:04. Well put, 12:04.

[Anonymous]

PP, it doesn't do any harm for parents of hg+ kids to look at private schools.

It is harmful when the administrations of private schools believe what you keep asserting, which is that they are already creating an environment in which most hg+, or at least eg and pg, kids will thrive. No, they aren't.

You are drawing on your n=1 experience, while denying a a vast amount of research that suggests that your child doesn't represent the norm for these kids, especially the brightest ones. Maybe since your child is so bright, it is hard to understand that others might be brighter, or have the same IQ, but be more advanced academically.

It would be easy for private schools to allow grade-skipping, for example, but they don't because they hold the same beliefs you hold. If school administrators would invest a small amount of time in reading the literature, they would learn that their beliefs are wrong, but they don't. I think this is because they don't want to change their beliefs, so they'd rather rely on random anecdotes that support them than research that would challenge them.

Do you think other parents may have children for whom area private schools do not provide the best academic fit and they op for magnet programs and the other alternatives mentioned?

PP do not respond as we understand you have closed your mind and had your final say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: Maybe since your child is so bright, it is hard to understand that others might be brighter, or have the same IQ, but be more advanced academically.

No what's hard for me to understand is how someone who has never met me or my kid can blithely assert that I disagree with her because there are levels of brilliance and academic advancement I'm simply incapable of grasping.

[Anonymous]

12:12 my apologies. I did not mean to suggest you have a closed mind.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, 12:27. I was rude and presumptuous. I wasn't trying to be. I apologize. A lot of parents assume that what works for their gifted child should work for more gifted children, and I was imagining that you might be one of them, but I was out of line. I know kids at you dc's school, which I think you named, who are as bright as it gets, and maybe yours is to. Even if not, your opinion is not of any less value than mine.