Parents of children with super high IQ scores - where are your children in school?

[Anonymous]

OP - there are a good number of schools offering interesting and creative programs that may work for your child. I'd advise seeking well-rounded schools offering an integrated and interesting curriculum that connects ideas and encourages choice/self direction/exploration. Beauvoir, GDS, Potomac, Norwood, Sidwell, St. Pats, WES - heck - most of the independent schools talked about on this thread offer quality learning opportunities and specials as well as an emphasis on whole child learning. The best thing you can do is pick a school that you love as-is with a mission and overall educational philosophy that you believe in and respect.

[Anonymous]

Well said 18:05 (even if you didn't mention our school)!

[Anonymous]

140s: River School. Not Recemmended AT ALL! We were promised by the administrator during our "courtship" that they would teach our DC to his ability. Not only have they fallen short in this promise but once enrolled they flat out refused to modify the curriculum in any way. Our DC is working way below his ability for 6 hours of the day and we can't wait to place him in MCPS next year where they have experience dealing with gifted kids.

[Anonymous]

Some of the privates, including some names that would surprise you, don't offer advanced math. This was a turnoff for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some of the privates, including some names that would surprise you, don't offer advanced math. This was a turnoff for us.

Could you please explain what you mean by "advanced math"? I searched the DCUM archives but found no clear definition. Do you mean the math curriculum does not extend beyond calculus at the higher grades? Or do you mean that individual children cannot study advanced concepts through differentiated instruction? Or are you talking about Everyday Math and other similar conceptual approaches to teaching math? Or something different entirely?

Also, I really want to avoid taking this interesting thread off-topic. So could you please not use your answer as a vehicle to slam/promote any particular schools or open a discussion of how children should be taught math? I know those are important topics that get people excited, but I don't want to litter this thread with much side discussion. I hesitate to even ask this question, because I don't want to distract from the thread, but I just don't understand what you mean, and if I post a new thread, I'm not sure the question will get answered. Also, to be clear, I am not suggesting that you are the type of person who would take a thread off-track or attack another school -- I just see that often on DCUM, so I want to try to avoid it with this disclaimer.

[Anonymous]

GDS and Sidwell both have math curricula that go more than a year beyond AP Calculus. To, that's advanced math. I'm assuming that through AP Calculus BC is the norm at independents (but could be wrong).

And I can't see independent schools going more than a year or two beyond Calculus because it's not a great use of collective resources given the small number of kids served (and because, frankly, I'm a little skeptical as to whether such course would be equivalent to the comparable college course or whether the kid would end up retaking them). There's always local colleges or programs like CTY for math-oriented kids who want to move even faster.

[Anonymous]

oops, meant to say "to *me*, that's advanced math" and should indicate I'm not the PP who brought the issue up, although, like that PP, I looked at math curricula and preferred a school that didn't max out at calculus.

Re differentiation, what probably separates schools is when it starts (with elementary vs. middle likely to be the big divide from what I've seen).

[Anonymous]

FWIW, I tested at 158 as a kindergartener and then went to the same mediocre orthodox Jewish school my brother did, followed by a good but not "special" boarding/day program in a medium-sized city. I found that the school was sufficiently challenging because it was small enough that teachers could spend some time talking to me one on one, like an Oxford tutorial, whenever I wanted. Also because they placed a heavy emphasis on written assingments, which meant that the sky was the limit as far as what I could produce. I ended up at Ivy college and grad and never felt like I would have preferred a "special" school. If anything, a more run-of-the-mill school ensured that I had normal social interactions with people of many skill levels and learned to appreciate the different kinds of intelligence that other kids brought to the table: music, art, athletics, leadership, etc.

By all appearances, my daughter is significantly brighter than I ever was, and I haven't tested her. We are in a good DCPS after concluding that the "top" schools would provide nicer facilities but that the benefits of our school: bilingual, diverse, within our neighborhood, so that her classmates are neighbors-- outweighed any advantages of those admittedly impressive places. We can re-visit later on depending upon what style of learner she turns out to be.

It might be a generational thing, but in the 70s it wasn't conventional wisdom that kids with high IQs had particularly unusual needs. I come from a family of immigrants who went through NYC schools and then public colleges on scholarships. There are professors in the family who never paid a dime for their education, and I was the first to have access to a prep school. Again, this might be cultural.

[Anonymous]

Similar story, different cultural background. That said, I did opt for private for my DC. I think that the freedom I had in a nothing-special school wouldn't exist today given the emphasis on standardized testing. On one level, we're private schooling despite rather than because of the cohort. But my DC has found a nice group of sympatico kids from culturally (but not economically) diverse backgrounds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FWIW, I tested at 158 as a kindergartener and then went to the same mediocre orthodox Jewish school my brother did, followed by a good but not "special" boarding/day program in a medium-sized city. I found that the school was sufficiently challenging because it was small enough that teachers could spend some time talking to me one on one, like an Oxford tutorial, whenever I wanted. Also because they placed a heavy emphasis on written assingments, which meant that the sky was the limit as far as what I could produce. I ended up at Ivy college and grad and never felt like I would have preferred a "special" school. If anything, a more run-of-the-mill school ensured that I had normal social interactions with people of many skill levels and learned to appreciate the different kinds of intelligence that other kids brought to the table: music, art, athletics, leadership, etc.

By all appearances, my daughter is significantly brighter than I ever was, and I haven't tested her. We are in a good DCPS after concluding that the "top" schools would provide nicer facilities but that the benefits of our school: bilingual, diverse, within our neighborhood, so that her classmates are neighbors-- outweighed any advantages of those admittedly impressive places. We can re-visit later on depending upon what style of learner she turns out to be.

It might be a generational thing, but in the 70s it wasn't conventional wisdom that kids with high IQs had particularly unusual needs. I come from a family of immigrants who went through NYC schools and then public colleges on scholarships. There are professors in the family who never paid a dime for their education, and I was the first to have access to a prep school. Again, this might be cultural.

I disagree with this claim. I went to elementary school in the 70s, and was in a separate gifted class--not just a pullout program, but a totally separate self-contained class for the gifted within our public elementary school. In fact, I think it is only more recently, with the "every-child-is-gifted, we-can't-hurt-people's-feelings" mentality, that gifted education has been getting short shrift.

[Anonymous]

I went to middle school in the 70's and was at a center program, where the selection was supposedly based solely on IQ score. Although it was a racially diverse area, all my classmates were white, a fact that was not lost on me. I think it's a good thing that there are fewer special programs like that (which still tend to underrepresent certain types of students even today) and that more efforts are made to increase all students' access to challenging instruction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FWIW, I tested at 158 as a kindergartener and then went to the same mediocre orthodox Jewish school my brother did, followed by a good but not "special" boarding/day program in a medium-sized city. I found that the school was sufficiently challenging because it was small enough that teachers could spend some time talking to me one on one, like an Oxford tutorial, whenever I wanted. Also because they placed a heavy emphasis on written assingments, which meant that the sky was the limit as far as what I could produce. I ended up at Ivy college and grad and never felt like I would have preferred a "special" school. If anything, a more run-of-the-mill school ensured that I had normal social interactions with people of many skill levels and learned to appreciate the different kinds of intelligence that other kids brought to the table: music, art, athletics, leadership, etc.

By all appearances, my daughter is significantly brighter than I ever was, and I haven't tested her. We are in a good DCPS after concluding that the "top" schools would provide nicer facilities but that the benefits of our school: bilingual, diverse, within our neighborhood, so that her classmates are neighbors-- outweighed any advantages of those admittedly impressive places. We can re-visit later on depending upon what style of learner she turns out to be.

It might be a generational thing, but in the 70s it wasn't conventional wisdom that kids with high IQs had particularly unusual needs. I come from a family of immigrants who went through NYC schools and then public colleges on scholarships. There are professors in the family who never paid a dime for their education, and I was the first to have access to a prep school. Again, this might be cultural.

I disagree with this claim. I went to elementary school in the 70s, and was in a separate gifted class--not just a pullout program, but a totally separate self-contained class for the gifted within our public elementary school. In fact, I think it is only more recently, with the "every-child-is-gifted, we-can't-hurt-people's-feelings" mentality, that gifted education has been getting short shrift.

While I'll agree that GT is often underfunded (as are many worthy public school programs), I would argue that the kids who are REALLY being under served in public schools (at the elementary level) are the kids in the IQ range of 122 - 135. They do not have the numbers for center based GT, but are also not challenged by a straight classroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
While I'll agree that GT is often underfunded (as are many worthy public school programs), I would argue that the kids who are REALLY being under served in public schools (at the elementary level) are the kids in the IQ range of 122 - 135. They do not have the numbers for center based GT, but are also not challenged by a straight classroom.

Absolutely agree! In Fairfax County, many of these "can't quite make the GT cut" kids are being served in the Local Level 4 services classrooms at the base schools, and then the GT kids that stay at their local school do not get challenged enough. This is very apparent at the base schools that have over 2/3 of the class filled with "can't quite make the cut" kids. Sure, differentiated instruction is great in theory. But to expect a teacher to differentiate over four or even five grade levels with increasing class sizes is just unrealistic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FWIW, I tested at 158 as a kindergartener and then went to the same mediocre orthodox Jewish school my brother did, followed by a good but not "special" boarding/day program in a medium-sized city. I found that the school was sufficiently challenging because it was small enough that teachers could spend some time talking to me one on one, like an Oxford tutorial, whenever I wanted. Also because they placed a heavy emphasis on written assingments, which meant that the sky was the limit as far as what I could produce. I ended up at Ivy college and grad and never felt like I would have preferred a "special" school. If anything, a more run-of-the-mill school ensured that I had normal social interactions with people of many skill levels and learned to appreciate the different kinds of intelligence that other kids brought to the table: music, art, athletics, leadership, etc.

By all appearances, my daughter is significantly brighter than I ever was, and I haven't tested her. We are in a good DCPS after concluding that the "top" schools would provide nicer facilities but that the benefits of our school: bilingual, diverse, within our neighborhood, so that her classmates are neighbors-- outweighed any advantages of those admittedly impressive places. We can re-visit later on depending upon what style of learner she turns out to be.

It might be a generational thing, but in the 70s it wasn't conventional wisdom that kids with high IQs had particularly unusual needs. I come from a family of immigrants who went through NYC schools and then public colleges on scholarships. There are professors in the family who never paid a dime for their education, and I was the first to have access to a prep school. Again, this might be cultural.

I disagree with this claim. I went to elementary school in the 70s, and was in a separate gifted class--not just a pullout program, but a totally separate self-contained class for the gifted within our public elementary school. In fact, I think it is only more recently, with the "every-child-is-gifted, we-can't-hurt-people's-feelings" mentality, that gifted education has been getting short shrift.

PP, I agree. I went to public school in New York City in the 70s. From third through sixth grade I was in an IGC (Intellectually Gifted Child) classroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
While I'll agree that GT is often underfunded (as are many worthy public school programs), I would argue that the kids who are REALLY being under served in public schools (at the elementary level) are the kids in the IQ range of 122 - 135. They do not have the numbers for center based GT, but are also not challenged by a straight classroom.

Absolutely agree! In Fairfax County, many of these "can't quite make the GT cut" kids are being served in the Local Level 4 services classrooms at the base schools, and then the GT kids that stay at their local school do not get challenged enough. This is very apparent at the base schools that have over 2/3 of the class filled with "can't quite make the cut" kids. Sure, differentiated instruction is great in theory. But to expect a teacher to differentiate over four or even five grade levels with increasing class sizes is just unrealistic.

This is the reason we are now scrimping pennies to go private. And, so far, it's worked: my 130-ish IQ kid is engaged and excited about school in a way he just wasn't during his years at public in VA.