Where are you sending your high IQ child

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Has anyone been able to show that teaching to the median under serves the upper half?

http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/reports/rbdm9102/rbdm9102.pdf

Across the five meta-analyses (Kulik & Kulik, 1982, 1984, 1990; Kulik, 1985; Vaughn, 1990), the two best-evidence syntheses (Slavin, 1987, 1990), and one ethnographic/survey research synthesis (Gamoran & Berends, 1987), the following
conclusions can be drawn:

1. While full-time ability grouping (tracking) for regular instruction makes no discernible difference in the academic achievement of average and low ability students (Slavin, 1987, 1990; Kulik & Kulik, 1982, 1984, 1985, xi 1990), it does produce substantial academic gains for gifted students enrolled full-time in special programs for the gifted and talented (Kulik & Kulik, 1982, 1984, 1985, 1990; Vaughn, 1990).

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure what this post has to do with Independent schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure what this post has to do with Independent schools.

An independent school that teaches to the median of a mixed ability class may not be the place to pay money to send a high ability child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure what this post has to do with Independent schools.

An independent school that teaches to the median of a mixed ability class may not be the place to pay money to send a high ability child.

That is exactly the issue we face. We have a child the middle school grades in one of the "Big 3" schools, and while the school is excellent on many dimensions, they do not differentiate. I get the impression that the staff are terrified of the parental reaction they would provoke if a child is identified as not being in the top track. As a result, DC is not challenged sufficiently and rarely gets to experience working on something difficult. So, we are deciding whether to stay on. Any advice?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure what this post has to do with Independent schools.

An independent school that teaches to the median of a mixed ability class may not be the place to pay money to send a high ability child.

That is exactly the issue we face. We have a child the middle school grades in one of the "Big 3" schools, and while the school is excellent on many dimensions, they do not differentiate. I get the impression that the staff are terrified of the parental reaction they would provoke if a child is identified as not being in the top track. As a result, DC is not challenged sufficiently and rarely gets to experience working on something difficult. So, we are deciding whether to stay on. Any advice?

I think you're right, parents would freak about their kids' college prospects if they weren't tracked in the "highest" group. You kid may however be getting a broader education (especially in things like social studies, science and earlier languages) in private then they might get in the local public. Although as a MoCo resident I have to say that in some cases the local public might be just as good, or better.

[Anonymous]

Is your child missing out on something if s/he's not rushed ahead to higher-level coursework early? In k-5 at least, most of what they're learning is how to be good social/academic citizens, i.e., deal with others, listen to a teacher, focus on tasks. I've never seen evidence that "gifted" children are any better at this than average children.

I'm mid-160s for what it's worth, and 4.5-year-old daughter has not been tested but appears to be more advanced than I was at this age, reading and writing at around a 2d grade level before starting kindergarten.

I don't think that she'll need "differentiation" to get something out of school. She has all of the time in the world to learn algebra. Of course I'll be around, if she wants, to explore her curriculum more in depth. Many middle schools teach the same literature-- the Odyssey, Midsummer Night's Dream-- that I re-read for college courses. No reason not to take her coursework further when she gets home-- if she chooses.

I've lived in this high-achieving town for almost ten years and I still can't figure out local parents' definitions of their children's "needs." Makes me glad that I grew up someplace more average.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is your child missing out on something if s/he's not rushed ahead to higher-level coursework early? In k-5 at least, most of what they're learning is how to be good social/academic citizens, i.e., deal with others, listen to a teacher, focus on tasks. I've never seen evidence that "gifted" children are any better at this than average children.

I'm mid-160s for what it's worth, and 4.5-year-old daughter has not been tested but appears to be more advanced than I was at this age, reading and writing at around a 2d grade level before starting kindergarten.

I don't think that she'll need "differentiation" to get something out of school. She has all of the time in the world to learn algebra. Of course I'll be around, if she wants, to explore her curriculum more in depth. Many middle schools teach the same literature-- the Odyssey, Midsummer Night's Dream-- that I re-read for college courses. No reason not to take her coursework further when she gets home-- if she chooses.

I've lived in this high-achieving town for almost ten years and I still can't figure out local parents' definitions of their children's "needs." Makes me glad that I grew up someplace more average.

I also don't care when DC learns algebra. I have a couple of acquintances who received PhDs from Ivy league schools when they were between 17 and 19, and I think that they might have done better in the long run had they been on a slower track. There is a problem, however, when DC comes home and announces that he has learned nothing all year in math. when homework takes 5 minutes, and when he still aces the tests. I went through school like that and was totally unprepared to do any actual real work in graduste school. It almost flunked and it took me several years to get back on track.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is your child missing out on something if s/he's not rushed ahead to higher-level coursework early? In k-5 at least, most of what they're learning is how to be good social/academic citizens, i.e., deal with others, listen to a teacher, focus on tasks. I've never seen evidence that "gifted" children are any better at this than average children.

Honestly, I don't consider myself to be a "pushy, high achieving" kind of parent, but even I have higher hopes for my child's k-5 education than the things you listed above. "Learn how to be good csocial citizens and deal with others, listen to the teacher?" THat's what preschool and kindy were for. I do hope for a lot more than that in elementary school.

There's a TON that can and should be learned and developed in a good elementary education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I'm mid-160s for what it's worth, and 4.5-year-old daughter has not been tested but appears to be more advanced than I was at this age, reading and writing at around a 2d grade level before starting kindergarten.

I don't think that she'll need "differentiation" to get something out of school. She has all of the time in the world to learn algebra. Of course I'll be around, if she wants, to explore her curriculum more in depth. Many middle schools teach the same literature-- the Odyssey, Midsummer Night's Dream-- that I re-read for college courses. No reason not to take her coursework further when she gets home-- if she chooses.

It'll be interesting to hear back from you in two years, as to what you think your child needs in first grade -- might become more apparent to you after a year or two of elementary school!

[Anonymous]

Oh goody, somebody who knows what's best for the rest of us, more than we do ourselves! I thought these other PPs actually showed a lot of common sense, something that is pretty hard to teach.

[Anonymous]

New poster to this thread, but I am always dismayed when posts about what constitutes a nurturing educational environment for highly gifted children devolves into discussion of "they don't need to learn algebra at that age"...

What I am going to be most interested in if my dd in fact tests out as highly gifted (as I did when I was eventually tested and as I suspect she might) is whether or not different educational settings are supportive of her desire to learn. In other words, whether she is "pushed" to conform to the needs and learning goals of the median - which is actually a far greater danger in my experience than being "pushed" to learn too much too early - or whether, instead, she is supported in pursuing interests and subjects at a pace that works for her.

Questions I will be looking to try to answer for myself include: Are the teachers interested in and gratified by the curiosity and intellectual insatiability that many highly gifted children display? Or do they find it threatening/annoying or something for which to shame a child (as was my experience in several different mainstreamed educational settings)? Will she feel like a "freak" or perhaps put up on a pedestal ("See - Lisa understands...") which will alienate other children from her? Or will she just feel like one of many - different kids with different talents but a shared love of learning? Will she be encouraged in developing the many other aspects of who she is - including physical activity, group activity, music, arts, etc.? Or is the primary focus on academic achievement alone?

You get the idea. It's just a much bigger picture than is often portrayed on these boards - and the answers to questions like the ones above can make or break a child's quality of life at any given period of development since school experiences play a critical role in a child's social and emotional development.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I've lived in this high-achieving town for almost ten years and I still can't figure out local parents' definitions of their children's "needs." Makes me glad that I grew up someplace more average.

I can give you a specific example of my own child's "needs" in elementary school, as interpreted by me. he is not a math genius, but is is fairly advanced compared to other kids his age and in first grade.

My son can tell time on an analog clock to the minute. (4:38) and he can mentally add time to the quarter hour (The movie starts at 4:30 and will last 2 hours and 15 minutes. What time should I pick you and Daddy up from the movie theatre? 6:25) and figure out elapsed time (We came to the park at 2:40 and we left at 4:35. How long did we play at the park today?)

These are the math curriculum objectives for measurement: time

first grade: tell time in intervals of hour and half hour
second grade: the add telling time in intervals of 5 minutes
third grade students: tell time to the minute on an analog clock
fourth grade: children should be able to determine start, end and elapsed time.
fifth grade: they should be able to use elapsed time to the nearest minute.

So -- if the classroom teacher is teaching grade level curriculum to my son, it won't be until 5th grade that he begins to learn anything new in math, as far as measuring time goes, anyhow. And he is similarly ahead on a lot of the other objectives. I'm just sharing the time telling one, as an example.

It's not that I want him to be pushed to be doing algebra and trigonometry in 2nd grade or anything. But I just want him not to feel like he always has all the answers, to any math question that is ever asked of him. Even if his teacher starts teaching 2nd grade math to the "advanced" kids as a special group -- he still already knows all the answers. He's going to get a real swelled head and a sense of entitlement ("I already know everything, I don't have to study?" if this continues. Also, he may come to see math instruction (and school) as useless. I don't want that.

I want him to be humble, to realize that there's plenty out there that he doesn't know. I also don't want him sitting in a classroom for 50 minutes each day, every day, not learning much stuff that is new. That's all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is your child missing out on something if s/he's not rushed ahead to higher-level coursework early? In k-5 at least, most of what they're learning is how to be good social/academic citizens, i.e., deal with others, listen to a teacher, focus on tasks. I've never seen evidence that "gifted" children are any better at this than average children.

I'm mid-160s for what it's worth, and 4.5-year-old daughter has not been tested but appears to be more advanced than I was at this age, reading and writing at around a 2d grade level before starting kindergarten.

I don't think that she'll need "differentiation" to get something out of school. She has all of the time in the world to learn algebra. Of course I'll be around, if she wants, to explore her curriculum more in depth. Many middle schools teach the same literature-- the Odyssey, Midsummer Night's Dream-- that I re-read for college courses. No reason not to take her coursework further when she gets home-- if she chooses.

I've lived in this high-achieving town for almost ten years and I still can't figure out local parents' definitions of their children's "needs." Makes me glad that I grew up someplace more average.

I agree with this poster. My 4th grader was in public and now in private -- and breezed through both. School to her is a place for fun, and she enjoys all aspects of it fully. The social aspect of school is much, much more important at this age. She can read Shakespeare and understand it, but why bother if she doesn't need it? What worries me about many posters on this forum is the narrow focus on academic skills. By spending so much time on things like reading and math, kids miss out in other areas of social, physical and emotional development. My DD is happy, and to me, that's what counts at this age. Were she extremely precocious, that would be another story, but she's run of the mill gifted (for this area), and she's doing fine. She can grind her brains in high school and college, if she wants. Now is the time for her to play imaginary games with her friends, do sports, have fun.

[Anonymous]

If your child is run-of-the0mill gifted, for the area, then chances are she IS recieving differentiated instruction already. The school is probably just not making a big deal out of telling you about it.

[Anonymous]

My 3 1/2 year old child just scored an overall 99th percentile on the WPPSI. I've always thought that she's very bright and curious and articulate, but like a lot of other moms here, I was a little surprised by the high score.

I live in NW DC, and we're thinking of moving to the 'burbs because of the cost of DC private schools. Can anyone in MD or VA recommend their school/district? Should I even be worrying about this just because of a WPPSI score? Also, I wasn't given any IQ numbers by the tester - should I ask about that?

Thanks. I figure that schools will play a large role in determining where we move, but now I'm more concerned than before.