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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
NP. +1, PP. Sometimes true.

A girl from our school - from a first-generation immigrant Chinese family - got accepted. Her father has literally lived at our school starting from K (I guess his government job gave him this ample opportunity), volunteering for every single event and knowing everyone and everybody. He micromanaged his kid education down to the selection of books she read. He was hanging out in class every Friday.  And, of course, for the girl, there were Kumons, Mathnasiums, and, the culmination of it all, A plus with the entire fall semester worth of Cogat prep.

Honestly, I have seriously mixed feelings about this. That girl is not a genius, not even close (as fate would have it, she used to be good friends with my child, until intense test-prep put too many demands on her schedule), but the sheer amount of determination/time/money/effort and opportunity cost that went into this girl's admission makes me think, hey, that dad did it. Mission accomplished, and, in some twisted way, it is fair.

However, this has nothing to do with 'gifts' and 'talents', this is outright cramming on the part of the child coupled with curry favoring on the part of the parent.

[/quote]

PP, you are way up in this child's business. Which means, additionally, that you know that the costs of this approach may very well far outweigh the benefit of admission into a CES.[/quote]

+1 My first and only thought was "poor kid."[/quote]

Of course, because a different way than yours is a harmful, crazy way, right?
How about we rewrite this with a new perspective?
Recent immigrant notices that his child is running circles around her preschool friends academically. Perhaps it is because he reads to her and does simple math games with her in the car, or perhaps because she is taught to listen to her teacher and do her very best, or perhaps because she is just clever that way. When kindergarten starts, he hopes the school will challenge her, but quickly realizes that the class pace allows for little differentiation. She cries at home because she is not learning anything, her classmates are super loud and disruptive, and she is frustrated. He decides to volunteer and sees that some of the kids are just now learning how to hold a book. Most of the kids talk only about the tv shows they watch. The teacher is kind and supportive and dealing with too much to give her more than a few minutes of enrichment a day. He asks if he can volunteer to help and she tells him that would be awesome. He comes in weekly and does photocopies, helps in reading groups and makes the teacher (and kids) lives a little better for two hours a week. He goes along on class trips and such because his daughter is a little clingy and also because he generally enjoys being with the kids. The next few years are similar, except that he comes to realize that the school has absolutely no plans to challenge his daughter’s mind unless she goes to CES. He sees how she plays “math” games on the computer and how the school library is increasingly stocked with graphic novels that have all the academic virtue of bubblegum. He decides that his daughter is perfectly capable of more and he tries a prep program. She likes it fine (way better than regular school!) and makes great leaps in math and reading. They suggest that he encourage her to read at least some “real” books instead of series trash and he couldn’t agree more. They seem to be the only people he has met in this country who believe that his daughter deserves to learn something when she is at school. In reading more interesting books, his daughter learns to love reading and gains a phenomenal vocabulary. His daughter makes friends in the weekend classes and they go to the park together for the afternoon. Those kids have something to talk about other than tv shows and video games and they don’t freak her out with constant misbehavior so she is happy to play with them.
She gets into CES and everyone looks daggers at her evil dad for supporting her mind.

Not saying this version is true, just that you don’t know if that little girl is bright or brilliant because you have no ability to assess that.[/quote]

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