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    I agree completely with Dude (which is not so common smile ).


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    Originally Posted by Bostonian
    I agree completely with Dude (which is not so common smile ).

    It really does simplify things, doesn't it, when you consider the yearbook is for the kids.

    Ds's 5th grade yearbook did not have a picture of AIG students, however if it had, the group composition wouldn't have been a surprise to any of the kids.

    Last edited by KADmom; 06/24/13 09:01 AM.
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    I agree, Dude. My son's school hands out a monthly newsletter with photos and a run down on what some students have achieved for the month. A couple of times my son's name has been mentioned (for chess and an artwork- both which I consider innate talent). It isn't about bragging or trying to make my son feel validated; it is about my son being able to look back at it and feel proud of.himself. Even now, he feels happy to see his name printed, and not because he thinks he is better than everyone else, but because it is "cool". Should I ban my son's name from the newsletter? "Sorry, son, but you can't be in the newsletter because your achievements mean nothing since you were born with those talents and didn't work hard to win". I mean, that kind of talk leads to self-loathing; people should feel proud of who they are as well as what they can achieve.

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    Originally Posted by Dude
    So when we celebrate athletics, we're largely celebrating innate qualities. Why can't we do the same for intellectual achievement?

    As someone who straddles the athletic and intellectual fences, I would like to dispel the idea that athletic achievement = coasting for the physically gifted. For anyone who has true professional/Olympic caliber athletic ability, training and nutrition regimens match ability early. These children are being given the athletic equivalent of multiple grade skips and curriculum compacting early in their athletic "careers". This may seem like an extreme example, but statistically it's analogous to the 99%ile+ children represented here. Even for kids who are "just" strong high school players, there is a lot of discipline and effort required to use those innate abilities.

    I would argue the best way to validate intellectual giftedness publicly is to adopt the athletics model and actually meet children at their level and keep pace with them through their studies. Give the children challenging outlets for their abilities, be seen doing this publicly, and praise the children's achievements (which couldn't have been made without the innate ability.) It sounds like this is what squishys is alluding to with published chess results.

    Originally Posted by Dude
    Ultimately, the reader is simply presented with, "Here is a club, here's what they did, and here's their picture." Anything else anyone takes out of it is basically baggage they brought in.

    And I don't disagree...if the club's accomplishments are listed as the primary focus, as is the case for athletics. But that's not the case in the OP, where the only info is a gifted ID.

    I think I understand the spirit of your post, and I may be mistaken, but I don't think you meant to analogize giftedness to club membership. To simply equate a different way of thinking, feeling, and existing as being in Club Gifted downplays the different learning needs arising from the gifted's fundamentally different gestalt.

    As an aside: With the uphill battle many of our members face in getting administrators to take advocacy seriously, equating GT with a club would simply make the slope steeper.


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    Originally Posted by aquinas
    As an aside: With the uphill battle many of our members face in getting administrators to take advocacy seriously, equating GT with a club would simply make the slope steeper.
    School clubs do not affect the rest of the curriculum. Pull-out gifted programs in which students spend a few hours a week but otherwise get the regular curriculum may effectively be gifted clubs, except that they meet during regular school hours. Critics of doing anything for gifted kids are correct in saying that there is little research showing that such pull-out programs have a positive impact.


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    Originally Posted by aquinas
    As someone who straddles the athletic and intellectual fences, I would like to dispel the idea that athletic achievement = coasting for the physically gifted. For anyone who has true professional/Olympic caliber athletic ability, training and nutrition regimens match ability early. These children are being given the athletic equivalent of multiple grade skips and curriculum compacting early in their athletic "careers". This may seem like an extreme example, but statistically it's analogous to the 99%ile+ children represented here. Even for kids who are "just" strong high school players, there is a lot of discipline and effort required to use those innate abilities.

    But we're not talking about Olympic athletes here, we're talking about high school athletes. Big fish, little pond. Coasting by on natural abilities will get you by in high school. That's true of athletics and academics. When you start talking about Olympic athletes, the academic corrolary is Nobel laureates, and the idea of coasting on abilities will no longer work in either case.

    Originally Posted by aquinas
    I would argue the best way to validate intellectual giftedness publicly is to adopt the athletics model and actually meet children at their level and keep pace with them through their studies.

    As an aside, I wonder how many parents of gifted athletes feel that their children aren't properly challenged in public school athletics programs, and feel compelled to after-school/homeschool/enrich that? It seems to me that every time I hear about an athlete who has been successful at the highest levels, outside activity has been a major part of their lives. Maybe the parents of gifted athletes have more in common with us than we realize.

    Originally Posted by Dude
    I think I understand the spirit of your post, and I may be mistaken, but I don't think you meant to analogize giftedness to club membership. To simply equate a different way of thinking, feeling, and existing as being in Club Gifted downplays the different learning needs arising from the gifted's fundamentally different gestalt.

    Maybe I've got it all wrong, but I don't see much difference between being a member of the X club or being a member of Mr. Y's 4th-period English class. It's all about kids coming together and sharing a common experience.

    Now, you could say that Mr. Y's 4th-period English class does not get separate treatment in the yearbook, but the marching band does, and that could just as easily be described as Mrs. Z's 5th-period music class.

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    I don't think so. There is an extracurricular aspect to those kinds of music classes that elevates those to "club" status, and in any case, they are elective. Nobody has to take them to graduate.

    AP Literature is the "GT" version of mandatory 11th grade English, perhaps... does that get its own page?

    What about PE?

    Is Varsity football or Dance Team "GT" physical education? Or is it something different?

    I'd argue that while such things could potentially be viewed as differentiation for athletically gifted students, the reason why they don't exist formally in that respect is that schools are about academic education, fundamentally, not physical achievement.

    Therefore football and drama and band are not part and parcel of "mandatory education" standards. There also, please note, are not necessarily "special education" versions of those things in most schools.

    If the GT class featured in the yearbook is something like band-- that is, an elective that students choose or don't, rather than a placement decision made by school officials and parents-- then well and good.

    Val and I are coming at this from the same place, I think-- just different angles. I'd like to live in a world where the kids who are in the modified diploma program could have their own yearbook page-- and would HAPPILY embrace the notion that then the dual-enrollment class should also have their page...

    but I don't think we are there yet. Of course, if class sizes go any higher in my state, it wouldn't surprise me to see parents clamoring for IEP's that get their kids into classrooms with lower student-teacher ratios. whistle


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    Originally Posted by squishys
    Should I ban my son's name from the newsletter? "Sorry, son, but you can't be in the newsletter because your achievements mean nothing since you were born with those talents and didn't work hard to win". I mean, that kind of talk leads to self-loathing; people should feel proud of who they are as well as what they can achieve.
    Like some others, I really was not meaning anything like this. Where I was trying to come from with my red haired class analogy was not that kids and others shouldn't celebrate the beauty of things they were innately given that did not require work. What I was trying to get at was that, like it or not, "gifted" is a coveted label and one that engenders completion among parents and, at times, students. In a situation like that, it isn't that I want my kids to hide in order to appease others' insecurities and jockeying to be something they are not. It is that the more we make it appear to be a "club" or something which you can "achieve" through hard work or which proves you are better or your parents are better or... whatever, the more we wind up with GT programs that are exactly that.

    People cheat, test over and over, prep for tests, get their kids in through any alternate means that exists, and teachers lose touch with what gifted actually looks like because they don't get many kids in the GT programs who are actually gifted. Rather than these kids not making it in these classes, what we've seen is that the programs change to meet the needs of the kids who are actually in them. I doubt that most of our GT classes and program would meet the needs of MG kids and they certainly have not for my kids, who are HG+.

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    Originally Posted by Cricket2
    Originally Posted by squishys
    Should I ban my son's name from the newsletter? "Sorry, son, but you can't be in the newsletter because your achievements mean nothing since you were born with those talents and didn't work hard to win". I mean, that kind of talk leads to self-loathing; people should feel proud of who they are as well as what they can achieve.
    Like some others, I really was not meaning anything like this. Where I was trying to come from with my red haired class analogy was not that kids and others shouldn't celebrate the beauty of things they were innately given that did not require work. What I was trying to get at was that, like it or not, "gifted" is a coveted label and one that engenders completion among parents and, at times, students. In a situation like that, it isn't that I want my kids to hide in order to appease others' insecurities and jockeying to be something they are not. It is that the more we make it appear to be a "club" or something which you can "achieve" through hard work or which proves you are better or your parents are better or... whatever, the more we wind up with GT programs that are exactly that.

    People cheat, test over and over, prep for tests, get their kids in through any alternate means that exists, and teachers lose touch with what gifted actually looks like because they don't get many kids in the GT programs who are actually gifted. Rather than these kids not making it in these classes, what we've seen is that the programs change to meet the needs of the kids who are actually in them. I doubt that most of our GT classes and program would meet the needs of MG kids and they certainly have not for my kids, who are HG+.

    Precisely-- and the reason is that they are about status, which is bizarre when you think about it, but there it is. Anything that drives that phenomenon is probably not a good idea, in my experience.

    It backfires and actually is damaging-- because my DD's peers (and really, they get this from their parents) attempt to MINIMIZE what she is-- in order to make it more attainable, to make her seem less different from themselves. It bothers her way less than it bothers them, let's put it that way.

    Yes, she has participated in being publically identified. Heck, she was Connections' first real "face" of GT students in their print catalog years ago. But it's always been voluntary, that identification, and she (and we) have been asked every time, and never was her placement contingent upon her agreement to be so identified.

    Being placed in accordance with your educational needs is one thing. Being an involuntary poster child is quite another.


    Last edited by HowlerKarma; 06/24/13 12:21 PM. Reason: to add quote from Cricket, since this topped the page

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    Originally Posted by Cricket2
    People cheat, test over and over, prep for tests, get their kids in through any alternate means that exists, and teachers lose touch with what gifted actually looks like because they don't get many kids in the GT programs who are actually gifted. Rather than these kids not making it in these classes, what we've seen is that the programs change to meet the needs of the kids who are actually in them. I doubt that most of our GT classes and program would meet the needs of MG kids and they certainly have not for my kids, who are HG+.

    Cheating, excessive prepping, and "alternate means" are used to get kids onto select sports teams, too.

    It has been described to me by more than one person that selection to the competitive little league team in my area depends more on who you know than how talented your kid is.

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