Anonymous
Post 09/19/2011 17:11     Subject: s/o - DC privates are not filled with gifted kids
Anonymous wrote:I agree that a little boredom can be a good thing. I was bored in language class, so I taught myself the subjunctive. I posted this about a year ago, and some gifted advocates came down on me like a ton of bricks. But I see the same thing now with 13-year-old DS, who taught himself something even more impressive last year. Learning to teach yourself, not to be bound by school or work structures, is a good thing IMO.

At least, it's not perfect, but until we achieve the perfect education for every kid, it's not a total loss for kids who seize opportunities and explore on their own

I also agree with the PP who said that a math whiz is unlikely to already know all of US or European History, of the content of a high school psych or anthropology course. They may learn it faster, but they're still learning.


I'm with you on this -- I was like you and my kid is like yours (same age, too). In the end, I think it can be more (or as much) about personality as brains.

The whole "needs to be challenged" thing sounds so passive to me. (And it gets really annoying when the assumption is that if you aren't bored it must be because you're not as smart as someone who is. Nah, maybe you're just more self-directed and/or resourceful.) I never twiddled my thumbs when I already knew what that teacher was explaining -- I thought about something that did interest me.
Anonymous
Post 09/19/2011 16:49     Subject: Re:s/o - DC privates are not filled with gifted kids
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
3. Since admissions are competitive, the student body should be more uniformly high-performing, so that the range between the extremes is smaller.


I think this gets at OP's premise, way back when 5 pages ago.

You would think this, but you might be wrong. At least in the early grades. I have been truly surprised at the range in *apparent* ability in my child's class.

I am pretty sure -- no, I am certain -- that this gaping difference in abilities is a logical and direct result of the school's intentional pursuit of a diverse student body. In every sense of that word. Also, the guaranteed sibling admission policy, barring psychosis or profound mental retardation.


This is the OP....you hit the nail on the head!


A frequent PP chiming in here: Yes! The Lower Schools in this town are not selecting on academic ability, all the drama over WPPSI scores on this board notwithstanding. They are selecting on parental social status, and kids with rich, prominent parents are not necessarily the highest academic performers
I would add strongly: in our experience, it has nothing to do with diversity. (Some of our school's ahem "diverse" students are also some of its academic stars.)
Anonymous
Post 09/19/2011 16:37     Subject: Re:s/o - DC privates are not filled with gifted kids
Anonymous wrote:
3. Since admissions are competitive, the student body should be more uniformly high-performing, so that the range between the extremes is smaller.


I think this gets at OP's premise, way back when 5 pages ago.

You would think this, but you might be wrong. At least in the early grades. I have been truly surprised at the range in *apparent* ability in my child's class.

I am pretty sure -- no, I am certain -- that this gaping difference in abilities is a logical and direct result of the school's intentional pursuit of a diverse student body. In every sense of that word. Also, the guaranteed sibling admission policy, barring psychosis or profound mental retardation.


This is the OP....you hit the nail on the head!
Anonymous
Post 09/19/2011 16:33     Subject: Re:s/o - DC privates are not filled with gifted kids
3. Since admissions are competitive, the student body should be more uniformly high-performing, so that the range between the extremes is smaller.


I think this gets at OP's premise, way back when 5 pages ago.

You would think this, but you might be wrong. At least in the early grades. I have been truly surprised at the range in *apparent* ability in my child's class.

I am pretty sure -- no, I am certain -- that this gaping difference in abilities is a logical and direct result of the school's intentional pursuit of a diverse student body. In every sense of that word. Also, the guaranteed sibling admission policy, barring psychosis or profound mental retardation.
Anonymous
Post 09/19/2011 16:27     Subject: s/o - DC privates are not filled with gifted kids
16:04, your questions highlight some of the reasons my family is choosing private school rather than public for our children ....

1. A better student-teach ratio should mean more time for each individual child.

2. As a private enterprise, rather than a government employer, the school should be better able to recruit strong teachers who have the skills to differentiate, and also to remove those teachers who do not demonstrate those skills.

3. Since admissions are competitive, the student body should be more uniformly high-performing, so that the range between the extremes is smaller.

4. Because the school works hard at recruiting people from different backgrounds, the school can accomplish these goals without too much of the "homogeneous classroom" situation described in the Education Next article.
Anonymous
Post 09/19/2011 16:11     Subject: Re:s/o - DC privates are not filled with gifted kids
There was a great article in Education Next magazine about differentiation. It addresses the questions being asked by the previous poster. Here is a link to it for anyone who is interested.

http://educationnext.org/all-together-now/

Anonymous
Post 09/19/2011 16:04     Subject: s/o - DC privates are not filled with gifted kids
I think there are a few assumptions being made here. They are uncomfortable, but it would be good to get them out.

1. Can all teachers really differentiate (either accelerating or going deeper)? Does it mean each kid in the 25-kid class gets his own curriculum? Is it reasonable to expect a 1st grade teacher to be teaching colors to one kid at the same time she's teaching multiplication to another and algebra to third kid? Yes, I think this would be ideal, but I'm asking if it's possible and practical.

2. We're talking about limited resources here. More time fir the kindergartner doing physics means less time for everybody else. Is that OK because that kindergartner might be the next Einstein, as one PP said?
Anonymous
Post 09/19/2011 15:41     Subject: s/o - DC privates are not filled with gifted kids
Anonymous wrote:Either way, acceleration vs. broader and deeper, we're asking teachers to differentiate. We can argue about whether one approach leads to happier or more well-adjusted or more successful kids than the other. But unless teachers can all of them differentiate, for every kid (not just the top 1% because these kids will be our next Bill Gates, but for all kid's), both approaches are a bit moot.

Until we pay our teachers better, we're not going to get to where any private or public (magnets aside) school can provide perfect differentiation within a heterogeneous class.


In my book acceleration should include broader and deeper.....I don't want a mile wide and inch deep curriculum nor do I want a subject to get beat into the ground.
Anonymous
Post 09/19/2011 15:40     Subject: s/o - DC privates are not filled with gifted kids
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:But again, we're not talking about acceleration for it's own sake. We're talking about acceleration to keep a kid challenged and learn good study skills, etc.

The alternative is broader and deeper. If a PP says her kid is challenged at home, in extracurriculars, and sometimes at school, then this is going "broad and deep" without skipping grades or accelerating within a grade. The kids in the MoCo middle school magnet aren't doing Calculus (most of them), instead they're using their set theory in new ways, like solving rubics cubes. Broader, and deeper.


The essay by Dr. Elkind addresses this point well......


All I saw were a few lines about accelerated kids going on to be successful, with no discussion of whether they were happy, or what "successful" means when you've got an unrepresentative sample of super smart kids who have the mental ability to succeed at about any job anyway. And no comparison of accelerated vs. going deeper, which is what MoCo magnets do, and which I'd like to hear more about.
Anonymous
Post 09/19/2011 15:39     Subject: s/o - DC privates are not filled with gifted kids
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:NurtureShock does, however, address the concerns of the person with a 5 year old with an IQ of 130+. An IQ test result at that age is almost meaningless.


An IQ score at that age is not reliable at predicting future academic performance. Saying that it's meaningless is far from accurate.


It is not merely not predictive of academic success. IQ tests are notoriously unreliable at actually measuring innate intelligence until age 8 or so.


Okay, well....I don't really want this thread to turn into a reliability of IQ scores debate.

Let's just assume that parents have other clues to support the idea that their child is gifted along with the IQ test result and go from there.....
Anonymous
Post 09/19/2011 15:33     Subject: s/o - DC privates are not filled with gifted kids
Either way, acceleration vs. broader and deeper, we're asking teachers to differentiate. We can argue about whether one approach leads to happier or more well-adjusted or more successful kids than the other. But unless teachers can all of them differentiate, for every kid (not just the top 1% because these kids will be our next Bill Gates, but for all kid's), both approaches are a bit moot.

Until we pay our teachers better, we're not going to get to where any private or public (magnets aside) school can provide perfect differentiation within a heterogeneous class.
Anonymous
Post 09/19/2011 15:32     Subject: s/o - DC privates are not filled with gifted kids
Anonymous wrote:But again, we're not talking about acceleration for it's own sake. We're talking about acceleration to keep a kid challenged and learn good study skills, etc.

The alternative is broader and deeper. If a PP says her kid is challenged at home, in extracurriculars, and sometimes at school, then this is going "broad and deep" without skipping grades or accelerating within a grade. The kids in the MoCo middle school magnet aren't doing Calculus (most of them), instead they're using their set theory in new ways, like solving rubics cubes. Broader, and deeper.


The essay by Dr. Elkind addresses this point well......
Anonymous
Post 09/19/2011 15:32     Subject: s/o - DC privates are not filled with gifted kids
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:NurtureShock does, however, address the concerns of the person with a 5 year old with an IQ of 130+. An IQ test result at that age is almost meaningless.


An IQ score at that age is not reliable at predicting future academic performance. Saying that it's meaningless is far from accurate.


It is not merely not predictive of academic success. IQ tests are notoriously unreliable at actually measuring innate intelligence until age 8 or so.
Anonymous
Post 09/19/2011 15:31     Subject: s/o - DC privates are not filled with gifted kids
Anonymous wrote:NurtureShock does, however, address the concerns of the person with a 5 year old with an IQ of 130+. An IQ test result at that age is almost meaningless.


An IQ score at that age is not reliable at predicting future academic performance. Saying that it's meaningless is far from accurate.
Anonymous
Post 09/19/2011 15:31     Subject: s/o - DC privates are not filled with gifted kids
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
I think the question is, are private school teachers able to differentiate for very bright kids?

From our experience in public and private I think the answer is, "it depends on the teacher" and there is no set answer that fits all private (or public) schools as as a whole.


In our Lower School experience, we did not encounter a single teacher who could differentiate well, particularly in math. Reading is easier, because it is pretty individualized anyway. There was no differentiation at all in Science, History, etc.
I don't really hold the teachers responsible - they have 15-20 kids to teach. The 130-140 kids, who could easily cover 1.5-2 grade levels of standard math per year, really need to be clustered and worked with as a small group. Allocate a resource teacher for this. Or have them do Johns Hopkins or one of the other programs online during math time. Or allow the parents to subsidize a tutor. Or??

I'd love to hear from parents who felt like their Washington DC private school really differentiated well for their 98+ kid. What did the school do? How did it work? Was it already in place or did you have to argue for it?


montessori differentiates for all the kids