Now this is what 2nd grade AAP should look like

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also note that there are different levels of giftedness. A moderately gifted student is going to look much different that a highly gifted or profoundly gifted student. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be classified as gifted. Intelligence is a continuum, both at the lower, middle and upper ranges.

In that case I think an argument here would be for reducing the AAP program to ptofoundly or highly and profoundly gifted students and work to beef up GE for everyone else. This area has a very high representation of gifted students so why not put more resources into serving everyone with accelerated or creative curricula. Why expand AAP to capture these kids rather than recognize the tremendous number of students who are bright (AAP & non) in a more efficient and effective way?

Why would some AAP kids need to be pulled back into gen ed in order for the gen ed curriculum to be beefed up? Why can't it be beefed up now, with the kids who are currently there? Each gen ed class has a teacher. Why couldn't that teacher teach different material, if that would be desirable? Now, if you are saying that, with more kids at the higher end of the spectrum in each class, it would be easier to ignore the few at the lower end and go faster, I would disagree with that approach.

If anything now there is more differentiation built in, so each child has a better chance of being taught material targeted to his or her level. If you introduce more levels into each class, everyone loses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also note that there are different levels of giftedness. A moderately gifted student is going to look much different that a highly gifted or profoundly gifted student. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be classified as gifted. Intelligence is a continuum, both at the lower, middle and upper ranges.

In that case I think an argument here would be for reducing the AAP program to ptofoundly or highly and profoundly gifted students and work to beef up GE for everyone else. This area has a very high representation of gifted students so why not put more resources into serving everyone with accelerated or creative curricula. Why expand AAP to capture these kids rather than recognize the tremendous number of students who are bright (AAP & non) in a more efficient and effective way?

Why would some AAP kids need to be pulled back into gen ed in order for the gen ed curriculum to be beefed up? Why can't it be beefed up now, with the kids who are currently there? Each gen ed class has a teacher. Why couldn't that teacher teach different material, if that would be desirable? Now, if you are saying that, with more kids at the higher end of the spectrum in each class, it would be easier to ignore the few at the lower end and go faster, I would disagree with that approach.

If anything now there is more differentiation built in, so each child has a better chance of being taught material targeted to his or her level. If you introduce more levels into each class, everyone loses.

Of course GE could be beefed up now, but this could be the start of decreasing the AAP program to a smaller identified set of profoundly gifted students. Then the those identified up to that mark can still be in general education (with pull outs or differentiation as needed). This improves the experience for more children, IMO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also note that there are different levels of giftedness. A moderately gifted student is going to look much different that a highly gifted or profoundly gifted student. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be classified as gifted. Intelligence is a continuum, both at the lower, middle and upper ranges.

In that case I think an argument here would be for reducing the AAP program to ptofoundly or highly and profoundly gifted students and work to beef up GE for everyone else. This area has a very high representation of gifted students so why not put more resources into serving everyone with accelerated or creative curricula. Why expand AAP to capture these kids rather than recognize the tremendous number of students who are bright (AAP & non) in a more efficient and effective way?

Why would some AAP kids need to be pulled back into gen ed in order for the gen ed curriculum to be beefed up? Why can't it be beefed up now, with the kids who are currently there? Each gen ed class has a teacher. Why couldn't that teacher teach different material, if that would be desirable? Now, if you are saying that, with more kids at the higher end of the spectrum in each class, it would be easier to ignore the few at the lower end and go faster, I would disagree with that approach.

If anything now there is more differentiation built in, so each child has a better chance of being taught material targeted to his or her level. If you introduce more levels into each class, everyone loses.

Of course GE could be beefed up now, but this could be the start of decreasing the AAP program to a smaller identified set of profoundly gifted students. Then the those identified up to that mark can still be in general education (with pull outs or differentiation as needed). This improves the experience for more children, IMO.

Makes sense and is my opinion to!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also note that there are different levels of giftedness. A moderately gifted student is going to look much different that a highly gifted or profoundly gifted student. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be classified as gifted. Intelligence is a continuum, both at the lower, middle and upper ranges.

In that case I think an argument here would be for reducing the AAP program to ptofoundly or highly and profoundly gifted students and work to beef up GE for everyone else. This area has a very high representation of gifted students so why not put more resources into serving everyone with accelerated or creative curricula. Why expand AAP to capture these kids rather than recognize the tremendous number of students who are bright (AAP & non) in a more efficient and effective way?

Why would some AAP kids need to be pulled back into gen ed in order for the gen ed curriculum to be beefed up? Why can't it be beefed up now, with the kids who are currently there? Each gen ed class has a teacher. Why couldn't that teacher teach different material, if that would be desirable? Now, if you are saying that, with more kids at the higher end of the spectrum in each class, it would be easier to ignore the few at the lower end and go faster, I would disagree with that approach.

If anything now there is more differentiation built in, so each child has a better chance of being taught material targeted to his or her level. If you introduce more levels into each class, everyone loses.

Of course GE could be beefed up now, but this could be the start of decreasing the AAP program to a smaller identified set of profoundly gifted students. Then the those identified up to that mark can still be in general education (with pull outs or differentiation as needed). This improves the experience for more children, IMO.

Why not just beef up gen ed now, without more pullouts and differentiation needed? Pullouts even now are only one hour a week in most cases, so not much enrichment at all, and the pulled-out student misses classroom teaching during the time of the pullout. More pullouts would add to the overall teaching staff and budget needed, since there is double teaching going on (back in the classroom, and in another room with a smaller group, at the same time).

Differentiation is difficult to do already. Why add to the amount of differentiation needed in one classroom? How would this improve the experience for more children? It seems that a greater number of children would be sitting through material either too advanced or too easy, or they would have less time with the teacher if the same levels for groups were maintained and the "pulled back" AAP-level kids were just added as another group.

If you think it's better to keep more kids together and not create divisions between AAP and gen ed, even if everyone's actual learning suffers a little bit, that would be a different argument. You could try to make the case that it's better to have more sense of community, and not make some students feel inferior, even if the the fastest learners are held back and all the others have less teaching time directed to their level as well. To take it even further, what would be the rationale for having even the highly gifted separated out? Everyone seems to accept that, but why?

[Anonymous]

In the argument of where the 98-99.4 percentile AAP kids should go, back with gen ed that may be 35-97 percentile or with the highly gifted 99.5 percentile and above, it seems that some people think that the 98-99.4 percentile are more similar to and better taught with the 35-97 percentile group than with the 99.5 percentile and above group. Is this correct?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also note that there are different levels of giftedness. A moderately gifted student is going to look much different that a highly gifted or profoundly gifted student. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be classified as gifted. Intelligence is a continuum, both at the lower, middle and upper ranges.

In that case I think an argument here would be for reducing the AAP program to ptofoundly or highly and profoundly gifted students and work to beef up GE for everyone else. This area has a very high representation of gifted students so why not put more resources into serving everyone with accelerated or creative curricula. Why expand AAP to capture these kids rather than recognize the tremendous number of students who are bright (AAP & non) in a more efficient and effective way?

Why would some AAP kids need to be pulled back into gen ed in order for the gen ed curriculum to be beefed up? Why can't it be beefed up now, with the kids who are currently there? Each gen ed class has a teacher. Why couldn't that teacher teach different material, if that would be desirable? Now, if you are saying that, with more kids at the higher end of the spectrum in each class, it would be easier to ignore the few at the lower end and go faster, I would disagree with that approach.

If anything now there is more differentiation built in, so each child has a better chance of being taught material targeted to his or her level. If you introduce more levels into each class, everyone loses.

Of course GE could be beefed up now, but this could be the start of decreasing the AAP program to a smaller identified set of profoundly gifted students. Then the those identified up to that mark can still be in general education (with pull outs or differentiation as needed). This improves the experience for more children, IMO.

Makes sense and is my opinion to!

+1

[Anonymous]

The boy in the article made it to round 5 and was eliminated on the word "parseval," which he spelled "parsaval". Bravo!

[Anonymous]

I've often wondered why spelling bees are given so much more attention and press than geography bees. The knowledge base of the kids competing in geo. bees is incredible. They have to know not only all types of geography, but also history, culture, economics, current events, climate, etc. in order to answer the questions. Spelling bee contestants are an impressive bunch as well, but it's a shame the geography buffs aren't given their due as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In the argument of where the 98-99.4 percentile AAP kids should go, back with gen ed that may be 35-97 percentile or with the highly gifted 99.5 percentile and above, it seems that some people think that the 98-99.4 percentile are more similar to and better taught with the 35-97 percentile group than with the 99.5 percentile and above group. Is this correct?

Oh my. I think your percentages are skewed.