Teachers who are not gifted can somewhat determine if a 2nd grader is gifted???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some teachers are going to be fabulous at identifying giftedness. Others might be:
-young and inexperienced (which is honestly about half of FCPS 2nd grade teachers)
-biased toward high executive function rather than aptitude
-racist/sexist
-spending almost no time with your child. Ex. class is 25 kids. Highest reading group only sees the teacher once per week for 15 minutes during language arts block. Kid has a different teacher for math and has other pull outs with the reading specialist and AART.

This is all assuming that the old GBRS and current HOPE forms are even asking for the teachers to "identify giftedness," rather than asking if the child is displaying specific traits. A teacher could 100% recognize that a child is highly gifted and then accurately fill out a HOPE form with a bunch of low ratings. The HOPE form isn't designed to "identify giftedness." It's supposed to be used to detect kids with potential who may not have earned high test scores for whatever reason.

And then there is the whole "shows compassion for others" which may identify a kind-hearted kid (& mine did get ALWAYS on that one) but that's not an indicator of intellectual potential at all.

There is a correlation between empathy and giftedness, but I don’t think that’s very easy for teachers to see. My child is insanely empathetic, but anxious. She scored S on that and I just rolled my eyes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This post is beyond ridiculous and incredibly disrespectful towards teachers. I’d say You should homeschool, but I think your children need to be out in the world amongst people who might better influence them to be better than what they’re seeing at home.

Thank you for acknowledging it. I’ve been teaching for many years. I’ve dealt with plenty of people like OP, who assume I’m unintelligent simply because I’m a teacher. Fortunately, my self worth isn’t wrapped up in what OP thinks of me. That’s OP’s burden to deal with.

Well said. I feel so sorry for OP’s child.

[Anonymous]

And then there is the whole "shows compassion for others" which may identify a kind-hearted kid (& mine did get ALWAYS on that one) but that's not an indicator of intellectual potential at all.

As a teacher, I hated those kinds of questions.

True charitableness is doing it even when no one is looking. Compassion is from within. Some kids just want to get noticed by the teacher.

And, some kids are just plain nice and kind to all. Sounds like your child is one of those. However, I'm also not sure it is a sign of intellectual potential.

I remember being in a school cafeteria with another teacher's class when I taught first grade. They had doughnuts that day and I asked for a chocolate one. The child in front of me had the last one. When I was told they were all gone, he turned to me and insisted that I take it. He was in first grade. He was a child who struggled academically, but he was kind and compassionate. But, he certainly was not intellectually gifted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The old-school gifted teachers, especially the ones who taught AAP when it was a much smaller program, often tend to be quirky former gifted kids themselves.

This made me smile because I am one of those quirky, neurospicy, former gifted kids who has taught AAP for about 15 years (of my 25 years of teaching). It's pretty clear to the students that I am similar to many of them.