Reply to Does AAP create unhelpful elitism and separation?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
well, that's lucky for your younger child, but it is not always the case. I know of profoundly gifted children who struggled with frustration because they were not understood, and did not have enough skills to explain themselves, due to their young age. I know also of other gifted children who were too preoccupied with following the rules and the status quo, so they did nothing advanced in front of others. There are kids who demonstrate their giftedness in so many ways, it's hard to tell just by looking at them. That's why there are so many screening tools combined to determine who needs these services.

there are also certain kinds of kids that like certain games and activities that you will label as 'hot housing', but it is not like that, because the kids love them. my younger one loves brain puzzles so much, everytime DC discovers a new one we have to have it, so now we have soooo many of them. You can interpret that any way you like, but who cares. IF those brain puzzles are what's responsible for DC's advancement vs. natural ability, who cares, DC is still advanced at this point, and needs those services in order to keep engaged.[/quote]

1.  Just how many profoundly gifted kids do you know?  Profoundly gifted kids have an IQ of 180 plus and are at a rarity of 1:1,000,000  http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/underserved.htm  Or are you just bastardizing the term "profoundly gifted" and applying it to the 99.9th percentile (which is "highly gifted")?

2.  You seem to have the viewpoint that if the AAP panel finds a child eligible, then that child must be gifted.  That's a lot of faith to place in people who've never met or interacted with the child and are basing their assessment on 5 minutes of glancing through the file.  In FCPS, a lot of kids are found eligible with 120s test scores and good but not amazing levels of achievement.  They really have no metric at all showing giftedness.  One of my kids (in AAP) fits this profile.  She's bright and hardworking, but not gifted.  The only reason she "needs AAP" is that all of the other bright, hardworking, non-gifted kids are in it.

3.  Insisting that 20% of the student population "needs" to be segregated from the rest to have their social and educational needs met smacks of exactly the type of elitism that this thread is about.  [/quote]

1. I know a few, and they are very different from me in their learning abilities. Some that are still kids, and some that have turned into adults. And even if they are not 'profoundly gifted' but 'exceptionally gifted' by your definition, they still need at least some differentiation.

2. I do not have the viewpoint that the AAP committee is always right, but its the best we got. When you can come up with a better approach, and still meet the needs of advanced students, then I'm sure people will hear.

3. The top 20% are very different from the bottom 20%, and keeping them together is not doing anyone any favors. If you follow the Eastern European style, everyone got the gifted education, at a gifted pace, but not all would succeed. Only a handful of students could keep up in all classes, and have straight As, most of the students will have  B average, then you'd have the bottom 20% who had no idea what was going on, because the teacher would not slow down for the kids that didn't get it, but would go at the pace of the kids that got it. Now in the US you have a system that separates kids, so they can cater to everyone. I'd be fine if my kid had to go through the most rigorous curriculum, and have a chance at everything. But I am not fine with my kids' education being watered down so the ones that are not selected for the AAP program can feel better, because they are not being labeled as smart. Who cares! People need to toughen up and see the truth for what it is. It is always good to know the truth sooner rather than later. And if Larla got in and Carla didn't then Carla can learn to work harder to give herself the same outcome. That's life.

(Eastern European Curriculum:

Algebra by 5th grade, 
Geometry by 6th grade, 
Physics 6-12, trig and calc based, 
Chemistry 8-12th grade(including organic chemistry), 
Biology 5-12 all the way to genetics and anatomy, 
Trig, Precalculus, Calculus 1 and 2, 
Probability Theory, 
Knowledge of Machines, 
Electronics, 
Intro to Computer Science,
History, 
Technical Design, 
Intro to Micro and Macro Econ,
Intro to Sociology,
Intro to Philosophy, 
Foreign Language, 
National and World Lit, 
and the list goes on) [/quote]

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