Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School Spelling/vocabulary words

I just had to share ds8's words for this week - his teacher took them from her daughter's medical chart LOL - "atrial septal defect"; "hypoplasia of the optic nerve"; "adrenal aplasia"; "pulmonary hypertension"; "respiratory failure"; "neonatal pneumonia"; hypotension; "metabolic acidosis". Last week his words included her diagnosis - panhypopituitarism. He also has to figure out what the words mean, using the Greek/Latin root words/prefixes. Isn't his teacher great ??

I don't think those are very useful words or terms to learn, frankly.

I do agree with Jack's mom.
teacher is throwing some medical jargon??

I like that the teacher is giving challenging words, but I think the teacher isn't being too thoughtful re: release of his kid's private medical condition. I wouldn't be too happy when I grew up to have someone say, "Oh, I know you. I had your dad as a teacher and learned all about your medical condition in spelling." He could do similar things with roots with words that might have more usefulness to the kids (e.g., related to something they are studying).

may be if you are in medical field, you think knowing those words is not useful

I can't help but notice that she skipped over the psychiatric diagnoses: Major Depressive Disorder might have been a good one. Or, for a spelling challenge, schizophrenia.

LOL

Personally, my all time favorite -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

I see hypo-, hyper-, a-, -ia, -ism, neo-, -nat-, -tens-, pan-, etc. - all great things to know the meaning of.

I should probably have mentioned that the teacher's child (1 year old) is in my care at my daycare - so my son is well aware of all of her medical conditions. He absolutely adores her. I just thought it was fun that the teacher was giving him words that he could relate to via her daughter - as well as learning the Greek/Latin prefix/roots etc at the same time. Spelling words don't have to be boring all of the time

Leave it to this group to overanalyze your happy news.