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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This just sounds like they're moving in the direction of "local norms". I really doubt they are breaking it down as much as several PP's describe.

Our teacher at a competitive center school said at the very beginning of the year that a kid only with high scores but didn't do the classroom work would NOT be getting in to AAP- because the assumption is the kid is prepping. So... I made sure mine knew to raise hand/participate, do good/thoughtful work etc. DC got a good HOPE rating. [/quote]

Feel bad for the truly gifted kids in this school. Obviously, the teacher's understanding of the world is limited by his/her cognitive capabilities. [/quote]
As a math teacher, I often say, regardless of whether your child is super gifted, if they fail a quiz, they will receive an F. While I can keep hearing about your child's gifted abilities, what matters most to me is the effort they put into practicing problems inside and after school. Clearly, the classroom work is not sufficient, making the afterschool practice, or prep as this forum calls it,  necessary. Thanks to some of you parents for getting the limited homework policy established, I'm unable to assign the necessary practice for math proficiency, for your gifted child or any student for that matter. I've repeatedly suggested that students, especially those who are under the impression they are gifted but receive low grades, to spend time after school doing practice problems from the additional resources section of our classroom page. Without this prep, your student wont see a grade improvement in their math grade.  If you dont like my free resource links, go to a flea market and get a math workbook for a quarter, or buy a new one from Walmart.  When the maid who cleans our house asked for suggestions for their child, I recommended math workbooks from Walmart. Anybody can afford them, and by doing do you are investing your precious $10 into your own child.    [/quote]

Can you comment on students who don't do school work but perform well in tests, especially when the tests are hard? Do you think there might be some truly gifted students or do you believe that these students definetely rely on enrichment prepping classes to do well at test? Do you think for test such as NNAT and Cogat, truly gifted student can do well without prepping? Do you Do you think it's possible that some gifted students who do well at tests don't do their school work?
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DP (not the math teacher):   Of course there are some truly gifted kids --maybe 1-2% (which is the % the original FCPS GT program started at), but it would be difficult to scale back to that today.  And even those "gifted" kids can fail to use their potential if they expect to coast through school because the hard working just plain smart kids can catch up (& maybe have other traits that might lead to success in life like social skills, humility, etc).  [/quote]
"gifted" needs to do math homework and do well in quizzes just like everyother hardworking student, or else they will be given a big fat F. That's the point math teacher makes. [/quote]

Yup. Now all the parents of these "gifted" kids who are too bored to do the work that they are asked to do will tell you that their lack of effort is the sign of their giftedness and the reason they should be in AAP. What they are missing is that by not requiring that their child complete work when it is due in the manner that the Teacher requires it be completed they are setting their child up for Fs on assignments and C/Bs in classes. Then the kid will complain about the Teacher and the parents will be all surprised that their gifted kid is not performing well in school and wonder what caused the issues.

It doesn't matter that their kid is gifted/advanced/really smart, they need to learn to follow directions, complete tasks as assigned, and find ways to occupy their time when they are done that don't distract other kids. Gifted kids, or smart kids or advanced kids, scoring badly on GBRSs/HOPE scores are doing so not because they are too quiet and well behaved but because they are not demonstrating that they are gifted by not doing to work as it asked. If your kid is not following directions and completing work as asked then your kid is wrong. If you are not correcting said issue and are coddling them ("I know you can do it in your head, you are so smart, why should you have to write it down that way?") you are wrong. You are encouraging the development of bad habits that will bite your child in the butt when they are in more advanced classes.

We spent first and second grade telling DS he had to show his work because the Teacher required it even if he could do it in his head. We spent fourth and fifth grade telling him he had to do ST Math because it was assigned regardless of how pointless it seemed. Assigned work is not optional, it has to be done otherwise you will not do as well in classes. In sixth grade his math competition teacher required homework turned in with all work shown and an explanation of why students choose to solve it the way that they did. DS had reached a point where he could see that there were multiple solutions and that showing his work and explaining his methodology made sense. The years that his Teacher made him write out answers and explain how he got those answers finally made sense to him even when the solution was obvious.

We are working on being neater with his answers. We showed him documentaries from the IMO to drive home the point the runners need to be able to clearly show that a choice to solve in a particular manner was made and how the answer progressed in order to maximize points for questions. The competitors whose work was messier had a harder time getting the extra point or two then the competitors whose work was neater and showed a progression. His mark for showing his work, which his math Teacher in 6th actually scores, has gone from meets expectations to exceeds expectations because he sees the importance. [/quote]

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