Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional All the other stories sucked.

ABQ, can you make it a detective puzzle for him?

It's important that he come to understand that he has less capability in this one area than most others do, and that it's not the teacher's OR his fault that this mismatch is happening. Ultimately, it's going to be on him to figure out what authority figures are asking for, and give it to them; better if he recognizes it as a glitch in his brain than if he always blames his teachers (=boss...).

DeeDee

Because the teacher assumes he knows what she expects, and then when he doesn't deliver it, the teacher assumes he did it on purpose.

This can lead directly to a conversation about how we're all in some ways prisoners of our own preconceptions, so that should be fun.

You can write critical things but you just need to use correct vocabulary.

The story made me want to vomit .....

"I had a visceral negative reaction to the story's details."

I hated all the stories, and third one was just the shortest....

"Although none of the stories touched me deeply, the pithy prose of the third story affected me the most."

The story was so stupid, I LOLed......

"As events unfold in this story it became clear that the plot defied common sense, causing me much amusement."

etc

Okay, I just had to share. I am in the middle of grading papers for an Ivy League class. Not fiction--these are economics papers. One of my students just repeatedly used the term, "screwed over." Although I am shocked that he doesn't have better judgment, and saddened to see unnecessarily course language infiltrate even academic papers like this, I admit it made me laugh out loud, given the context of the thread that was going on here.

C squared - that is too funny.

Guess it's kind of comforting that some college students haven't learned better filtering techniques than my son, but not really.

Not to make excuses for the kids, but the fight against the prevalent culture is a tough one. At what point to you feel you've prevailed...middle school, college, age 30, when they have kids and are fighting a different set of crassness and tell you they understand?

I just had to share this ...

Today my son came home and said he had testing all day. One part was a reading / opinion essay. My son said, "Well, I learned last year that opinion can mean a lot of things, so I went up to the teacher and asked if this was my opinion or just a nice way of asking me to regurgitate what I just read."

I asked how the teacher responded. "She started laughing really hard and said it really was my opinion. Just to be sure, I asked her if it was any opinion or just a nice opinion. She said any opinion, so I told the truth."

At least this time he asked and clarified. That is huge progress.

Just as long as his opinion doesn't involve talking about senseless violence and/or dead people.

ABQ, your DS makes me smile. And he's learning great survival skills!

DeeDee