Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy gifted program picture in the yearbook

I just found this to be weird. In my son's yearbook, they have a page for the gifted program (which is just 2x a week enrichment fluff). The way it's portrayed, it looks like an extracurricular club (which it pretty much is, I guess). Funny, I looked for the special needs page and didn't find any pictures of those kids.

Yeah-- weird.

Weird because it's not about meritocracy.... is it? I thought that special educational placement was about meeting student's needs, not about making parents "proud" of their kids for having those needs in the first place.


But what do I know?

Honestly-- I'd say something about this. It's not a very inclusive practice, and IMO it's likely to drive pressure on the school/district to over-identify among the kids of particularly status-oriented, pushy parents. It also sends a converse message that.. um... kids in the special ed classrooms, what, ought to be embarrassed about that? If not, then why aren't they identifying THOSE kids in the yearbook as well, eh?

~HK, who lives in a district with 1 in 3 parents claiming the mantle of 'my child is in the gifted program...'

That seems very strange to me. Then again, one of the many reasons I'm uncomfortable with the gifted pull out program that has been suggested for my HG+ son is that he honestly does not need any more attention called to the fact that he is different from others in his grade.

Not only does this inappropriately identify students with special needs to their schoolmates, it also seems to minimize the needs of gifted students by making the program look like an extracurricular program.

Just my two cents out of the HUNDREDS I have to offer.

That seems inappropriate if it's honouring kids based on ability pure and simple. Now, if they were featuring a project that a gifted child had done, not using a label and with emphasis on the student's effort and the final product, I think that sort of content would be acceptable.

Right...if it just labeled the picture by the teacher's name...Ms. Smith's class and a project they completed...built a pioneer village complete with dug out canoe. Various pictures of students, village, canoe and guest speaker from the historical society. Everyone would know (because everyone knows) she is the gifted teacher.

It's interesting, here I've been pushing to go back TO a pull out program for about 4 years and it's finally happening to a greater extent. I've experienced both pull out and push in programs, the GT kids always seem to get more out of the pull out programs as their with their peers, the school doesn't try to use the GT teacher as simply a second hand in a regular class room, and the students feel more comfortable and inspired around those of like mind. Each to their own though, you may have had a different experience.

My high school yearbook had a photo of those in G.A.T.E.
Yes, it stood for Gifted and Talented Education, but really it was just a club that went on a couple of field trips a year. Anyone could join. I think the photo only had 5-6 kids in it.

Think I'm going to disagree here. What's so bad about being honest about having a talent? A lot of people here complain that the schools don't want to recognize that their kids have abilities that make their educational needs different. Seems to me that this is an example of a school taking a step in that direction. The photo is saying that it's okay to be gifted. So I'm having trouble understanding the negative reactions here. Could it be conditioning to hide high cognitive abilities so that people don't get upset?

I don't agree with bragging about having any kind of talent. But simply acknowledging that it exists with a single yearbook photo isn't a bad thing IMO. Actually, I think it's a good thing.

Personally, I don't see the parallel with low achievers. A yearbook wouldn't have a picture of the kids who needed to boost their skills before they could qualify for the field hockey team. Why would they have a photo of kids with learning disabilities?

I agree, Val.

i'm going to agree as well. Lately, I've begun to think more about the damage done to gifted kids by hiding their giftedness so "that others won't feel badly." We don't hide atheletic giftedness. Then again, kids are generally invited into a gifted program, however, small, because of who they are more than what they do. Other clubs, athletic clubs, chess clubs, debate team, tech club, etc., it's more about what they do, no?

Still, I've become aware of and sensitive to, the many ways in which we pass on the message to hide intelligence or at least downplay or dismiss.

I guess that the reason I tend to disagree with the photo in the yearbook is b/c it is either celebrating something over which one has no control (innate differences in brain wiring) or it is an indication that the GT program isn't about such a difference at all. For instance, to be in a photo of the varsity baseball team indicates both that you have some innate talent and that you worked hard to develop it (i.e. talent). To be in GT, IMHO, should not be contingent on hard work to develop your intelligence much the way being in a class for kids with autism isn't likely contingent upon hard work to develop that difference in brain wiring. It is, or at least should be, a program set up solely for kids with different needs not just kids who are achieving or showing it through hard work.

I rankle because I've seen too many GT programs with too large of a focus on the "T" part of it. It isn't that I don't value hard work. I argue with my lazier child all the time about that very subject. It is just that GT programs will continue not to meet the learning needs of gifted kids as long as they are about pride over high achieving kids who very well may not be gifted.

So gifted children shouldn't be celebrated because they were born that way? I will always celebrate my son's natural abilities.

I've always thought of a yearbook as a way remember people in school from different contexts. From a student perspective, the GATE group are people they spent time together with throughout the school year outside of regular classes. If it runs true to course, good chance the kids on the yearbook staff were also in the GATE program and it was their idea.

Right-- but a photo in the yearbook suggests that this is a status thing, at least potentially. Like being on the VARSITY team. The difference is that all of the other things are optional and elective, and kids CHOOSE whether or not to participate in the first place. If this is that kind of picture, then fine. Good, even. But why on earth is it called "GT" then?

If gifted ed were truly about serving gifted students, very few bright-but-not-gifted students would be in those programs, because ordinary in-class differentiation and challenges would be great for that group of kids. But that is absolutely not the way that most of them operate; most schools seem to operate on an 'either-or' strategy with respect to differentiation approaches. So either they have in-class differentiation and tracking, or they offer self-contained GT. Very seldom both.

Ideally, of course, the one thing would serve bright-and-motivated and MG kids pretty well, while the other would serve kids who-- well, those who cannot be easily "mainstreamed" with other kids because of the huge gap between their cognitive needs and the norm.

Maybe living here has made me cynical, but I think there is a pretty big difference between the two things, and I tend to agree with Cricket about that subject.

While I don't think that there is anything wrong with noting the GT class, I also don't think that-- if you're going to do that, I mean-- there is anything wrong with identifying the kids who are in self-contained classrooms for other reasons, either. In a perfect world, I mean; one in which genuinely inclusive thinking means that all children are equally valued. We're still a long way from that reality, I think, which is why noting the "Life Skills" kids probably wouldn't be considered acceptable (and probably not legally okay, come to that, since it identifies kids by disability).

It does kind of seem strange in the first place. You would NEVER call out kids whose physical development was beyond (or behind) normative. Would you identify all of the high school sophomores who SHAVE? Why not? Okay, so why is this different, then? (In my mind, not so different-- except that in this case, you're "outing" hidden differences.)

If it's about elective/high achiever status, then there are organizations that operate as "clubs" there-- Honor Society, for example.

Yes, it's mostly GT kids, at least in a school that sets the bar very high. But membership is completely voluntary, and based on scholarship and service, both of which are about what the student does, not what they ARE.

I see the points that some are making here, but I still disagree.

Personally, I think our society has conditioned people to focus too much on achievement and not enough on innate talent. You have to recognize talent before you can develop it.

For some reason, we feel very uncomfortable around people who are very smart. One result is that our schools don't nurture cognitive talent (and often squelch it). We don't feel this way around people who are athletically highly gifted. We go to extremes to develop athletic giftedness. They use the term "talent scout" in sports, not "achievement scout." The point is to develop the talent and turn it into achievement.

And so what if gifted kids were born that way? Why does this mean you can't celebrate who you are? Schools have many types of clubs that celebrate how people were born: there are clubs for girls or African Americans or LGBT students. They were all born that way. In fact, the LGBT students are much more able to come out of the closet than they were even ten years ago. This has been an overall positive thing for them. Why should gifted kids have to keep hiding who they are?

Exactly, Val. Good looks is also something you are born with, yet society has no problem celebrating gorgeous people. But should you be so lucky as to be born highly intelligent, then to celebrate is to show off.

Here's a relevant article:

http://microscopesareprudent.wordpr...-we-underestimating-the-effects-of-envy/

What I find most illuminating is the intensity of feeling in some of the parental comments at the end of the article. And the fact that some parents protect their not-so-gifted children by downplaying the giftedness of the other/s. I'm not judging, just think it's noteworthy.

It isn't at all that I think that gifted kids should be made to hide or not celebrated. It is more that I think that this type of thing is, as someone mentioned above, a way to me of making the program appear to be an honor society or something that you strive to get into. I think that it enhances the problem I see with GT programs really not being about innate differences but more about status.

As to whether we should celebrate things with photos in the yearbook that are simply about the way our kids were born, yes and no. I'm torn here. For instance, my dd12 has lovely curly hair which she is finally seeming to accept and not spend all of her time straightening so it looks like other kids'. I'm glad that she's finally embracing the way her hair grows in. OTOH, I can't imagine the school putting a picture of all of the curly haired kids in the yearbook or all of the blond kids or .... You get my point.

Especially when it is something that others fight to get, for instance, it becomes muddy. Say, for example, if getting into the red haired class was a source of pride and kids were dying their hair red to get in, would we be saying that there should be a photo of the red haired kids in the school yearbook b/c our redheads should be proud of their hair? What if 75% of the "redheads" had dyed hair and we were all pretending that they didn't? That's kind of what I see GT being. A class of pseudo redheads where we all are expected to pretend that they are all natural in the interest of not asking the actual redheads to hide.

As far as LGT students, I see it somewhat differently in that it is a traditionally marginalized group so joining a club of others who are also born that way, to steal Lady Gaga's lyrics, and putting a picture of the group in the yearbook isn't so likely to engender competition to be a part of the group to which you do not legitimately belong. I don't know, maybe I am not expressing myself well here.

Some good points here, Cricket.

If you can overlook all of my typos! I think that I've gotten them corrected now ;-).

Cricket2, I see your points, but I still disagree.


Many kids and their parents go to extremes to get a spot on varsity teams. Yet we don't question the appropriateness of team yearbook photos.

If the curly- or red-haired kids had formed a club that operated at school, it would be correct to take a photo for the yearbook. But in that case, they might not be celebrating something they were born with, and that's okay.

My point is that there is nothing wrong with celebrating (or simply acknowledging) that some people are born a certain way. It is okay to be who you are, and you shouldn't have to hide things about yourself that are normal and healthy. IMO, "diversity" means that there is a huge range of human variation, both on the outside and on the inside. Mistreating kids in school based on cognitive ability is the same fundamental wrong as mistreating people based on sex or race or any other arbitrary difference (obviously, there are differences in degree, but the foundation is the same).

Sure, some parents get way too invested in Little Johnny being gifted and get resentful and envious when they meet someone smarter. But this doesn't mean we have to allow bad behavior of others to drive or keep cognitive giftedness in the closet.

A lot depends on the overall context and school culture, certainly.

I think that Cricket and I have both been burned so badly by "gifted-as-status" within our own local communities that we tend to shy away from things that we just know lead down that path.

I think that most of us would find it HIGHLY offensive to take a yearbook photo of kids with household incomes over-- well, over some particular value. Why would that be objectionable? It's just an innate difference, and yet it would serve as precisely the same sort of social lightning rod.

Interesting and probably true but I do wish that we'd be honest at least and not call them gifted programs if they are about high achievement, which really is the case where I live too. Part of what bugs me is that our schools widely state that the GT programs are about meeting the needs of gifted kids to have peers socially and write goals on things like the accelerated learning plans that include stuff like helping the child understand what being gifted means in regard to their overall socio-affective functioning. This is totally bogus IMHO when we're not talking about giftedness but rather high academic achievement.

In regard to what admission standards would be, I'd require an IQ score (98th?) on an individual test and not the types of things that our schools use that are much more about in the box thinkers and teacher pleasing. Our school district specifically states in their identification guidelines that high IQ doesn't necessarily mean that a child is gifted no matter how high and high IQ isn't necessary to be gifted. Requiring IQ scores would at least be a starting point for ensuring that there is some similarity in students' intelligence level although I do realize how diverse the gifted population itself is. Cost on that is also a factor I realize and I'd not want to require families to come up with money or have their kids excluded.

In terms of what the programming would look like, I've never seen a GT program with IQ entry requirements and how they work, but I'd imagine trying to see what programs like the Ricks Center and Davidson Academy do as well as programs geared toward 2e kids and see what could be done. I guess that I'd like to see differentiation within the program, deeper individual projects which allow for greater abstract thinking and exploration of passion areas or lateral instruction rather than more of the same faster, etc.

Hmm...well, family income isn't innate. Unlike IQ (barring head injuries, some accidents, and some diseases), it's subject to change, and a high income it doesn't affect a child's learning needs in the way a high IQ does.

I agree about the lightning rod effect, but the same could be said of the LGBT crowd and the civil rights crowd and the women's voting rights crowd. All these issues have been or are lightning rods (and to a much greater degree than just having a high IQ). IMO, the problems we face won't go away until people start coming out of the closet a bit more.

OK. What about a pretty people class then? Since squishy drew that parallel for physical beauty?

Where the school would be setting policies for admission, and attendees would be selected based on whatever mix they settle on -- whichever kids the teacher think are cutest, plus some kind of semi-scientific evaluation based on how symmetric their faces are plus their BMI? And the same subset of slightly deranged parents would invest in make up, hairdressers, and even (for the looniest ones that make headlines) surgery?

Based on the OP I assumed that GATE group worked the way it does at our school -- a semi-secret after-school program run by parent volunteers with a minor grant from the PTA and no school involvement beyond initial identification (and there are hilarious stories about *that* part). In that case, have them in the yearbook!

Having kids singled out in the yearbook based on an innate trait I would be much, much less happy about.

What about the maths club, chess club, or cheerleaders? Because, let's face it, those groups are pretty much based on innate brains or beauty. What about a volunteer group? Those kids are innately caring and compassionate. Sports clubs? Innately athletic.

I think most clubs have members that have innate abilities, hence why a club was created in the first place- for the kids that have a natural inclination towards a,b,c.

If kids can't celebrate their natural ability because it is unfair to the others that don't have a natural ability, then that is a very sad world, indeed. Unlike the red haired or curly haired club, because of those gifted club members, society has a lot to be thankful for.

Graduating high school classes often vote for the best-looking seniors and put their photos in the yearbook.

Modeling agencies do precisely what you outlined and the parents and their kids definitely go to extremes. But it all starts with an innate quality.

[sigh] I guess what's striking me is that we have two constant contradictions running through not only this thread, but the forum as a whole:

• Gifted kids have special educational needs that are not being met. This practice can be very damaging and it's extremely frustrating when schools deny that giftedness exists and when they base GATE programs largely on achievement: giftedness is innate and not necessarily tied to achievement.
• Saying that kids are gifted, especially in even a semi-public way is a very, very bad thing. We must hide cognitive giftedness because it's innate. Rather, we must celebrate achievement. But mentioning other innate things like athletic giftedness and beauty is okay.

Respectfully, the first point won't happen in a systemwide way until people are comfortable with the idea that some people are smarter than almost everyone else and that this is okay. Everyone knows it. No one wants to admit it.

I remember how the special ed. movement got rolling in the 80s. The parents of these children got angry and started pushing the schools to meet their kids' needs. The ADA didn't happen just because politicians thought it was a good idea.

A huge part of that movement was the destigmatization of being a slower learner. It's the same exact thing with gifties.

Sure. But let's not forget the fact that a school's primary mission is to educate and develop the minds of our citizenry. I would argue that disclosures that undermine the ability of schools to carry out that mission are problematic, as I would argue is true in this instance. I would argue that, for all students, intrinsic motivation to study and expend effort in meaningful academic pursuits is damanged by the disclosure. Here's why:

CASE 1: GT students accurately labeled as GT

(Val, I would particularly draw attention to the cons for case 1.)

Pros:
-External validation
-Enhanced sense of community membership
- (potentially) enhanced social status based on an alignment of personal attributes and the community's expressed values

Cons:
-Internalizing the message that ability trumps effort (increasing the likelihood of future perfectionism, imposter syndrome, underachievement, reduced classroom participation, etc)
-Feeling that your value is out of your control
-Heightened competition for GT-specific academic services, which are necessary for your psychological well-being
-Dilution of GT standards from increased flow of "coached" students into GT
-Reduced intrinsic motivation to achieve academically because an extrinsic reward has been provided

CASE 2: Unidentified true GT students

Pros:
-(for some) Anonymity
-Fitting in

Cons:
-Undermining student self-efficacy, which creates a vicious loop between self-efficacy and future achievement
-Disenfranchisement with the educational system
-(potentially) Typical GT withdrawal/backlash symptoms

CASE 3: Non-GTs falsely ID'd as GT

Pros:
-(Debatable) Access to curricular enrichment beyond one's innate needs
-External validation may spur self-efficacy in borderline-GT cases

Cons:
-Creates an unreasonable and unsubstantiated self-image which risks creating an overly external locus of control in future endeavours
-For self-aware students, undermines self-esteem and self-efficacy
-Disenfranchisement and feeling that you can "con" the system
-Creates unreasonable academic expectations for students where actual GT programming exists to meet GT needs
-Higher likelihood of burnout or compensatory switching from extra-curricular/social/family activities to school work to keep pace
-Imposter syndrome/inferiority complex

CASE 4: Non-GT students correctly identified as non-GT

Pros:
-Students not grouped beyond their ability
-Students see that the school SAYS it values innate ability (message will be undermined if dissonance between talk and actual programming)

Cons:
-Students are subtly taught that the GT students' achievements don't matter and infer this is true in their case
-Students' self-efficacy is lowered, which reduces motivation and achievement
-Reduced inter-group understanding because GT students have purportedly been singled out on the basis of something beyond anyone's control

So why get gifted kids assessed at all, then? If a gifted label is the cause of all these problems...Or is it just when society judges them to be gifted that it all turns bad? I, too, am confused by the contradiction: it is bad to be gifted unless you achieve something. So keep your giftedness a secret until you can back it up with proof.

Not at all-- just that public naming/framing is probably inappropriate. For exactly the reasons that aquinas outlines in cases 1 and 2 particularly.

Personally, the non-GT kids? That's between them and their parents unless it impacts my own gifted child's education.

The problem is that it DOES.

School policy (that my DD has to get special permission to circumvent)?

You cannot enroll in most AP courses without having first taken the regular or Honors version of that SAME course.

This is GT for high school kids around here. I think that we can all agree that for truly high IQ learners, that is mostly very inappropriate at meeting their needs for faster pacing and less repetition. It's because some 30% of our district is identified. It's also why I make the claim that there is no real GT here. It's a status thing, pure and simple. And they've watered the difficulty down so much that it lost any meaning that it might once have had for high-ability learners. To no avail, I might add-- because the kids who can't hack the AP course still can't, by and large, after a year-long "prep" class either. The truly GT kids run circles around those struggling classmates, I'm afraid.

Anyway.

Why the need for PUBLIC acknowledgement of individual student's learning needs to begin with?? I'm seriously confused about what positive impact that could have. Again, this isn't about what these children do-- it's about what they ARE.

If we've been so successful at de-stigmatizing learning challenges, (which I agree has taken place and is an advocacy goal) then why wouldn't it be equally appropriate to note those students who are having their educational needs met by "alternative diploma" programs in Special Ed?

I personally don't understand why parents would want either thing in the school yearbook. Class pictures with teacher names-- FINE. Everyone will 'know' which classes are which anyway.

Actively labeling those children rubs me the wrong way; it's outing them to their peers and to other parents. They don't get to CHOOSE to belong to that class or not. Unlike queer clubs or community service clubs, not joining means not having your basic need for FAPE met in a least-restrictive environment. Now, it's not an obligation under the law, to do that for nondisabled students, but it's the SPIRIT of the mission, for sure-- because that is WHY it is a protection afforded disabled students. So that they can be included like their peers.

If not ALL children have to have an IQ range divulged by the school yearbook, then none of them should have to.

You left out the single most important reason for correctly identifying gifted kids: their learning needs are different and they can't be addressed in the absence of what could be called a diagnosis.

All of your reasons can apply equally to special ed. kids. Why is it okay (essential, even) to identify this group but not the gifted group?


Why does an acknowledgement of ability automatically lead to ability trumping effort? In my experience, lack of any diagnosis, be it medical or otherwise, leads to far more problems.


Why? Is talent development in sports hampered by knowing that some people are more talented than others? Of course not. Why is cognitive development any different?

And are you saying that schools don't have a duty to develop their gifted students (sounds that way to me)?

Sorry, but this is really boggling my mind. I'm not sure how it's possible to hold the idea that schools should be providing appropriate learning opportunities for gifted students while also arguing that identifying students as gifted is "damaging" and that they must hide their natural abilities. These ideas are mutually exclusive.

Perhaps, instead, many people are simply:

a. uncomfortable with acknowledging giftedness.
b. conditioned to believe that acknowledging one innate quality (cognitive giftedness) must not be done, but acknowledging other innate qualities (beauty or athletic ability) is allowed.

In the past, most people were very uncomfortable with the ideas of disabilities and LGBT. But nowadays, people are much more comfortable with these realities of life, and these changes have been good for our society. This is because both groups, well, stopped accepting the dogma that they had to hide themselves.

Please, try to think about this. Do you think your reactions could be due to reasons that have been fed to you as dogma for years or decades? Or do they really make rational, logical sense (sorry Aquinas, much of your reasoning didn't pass that test IMO)?

There is no way that a kid could be sent straight to an AP-level class or skip one or more grades while also maintaining the illusion that s/he doesn't have a high IQ. Any form of acceleration is a public acknowledgment of high cognitive ability. Not acknowledging this fact is, IMO, more damaging to the child because it's a tacit instruction to hide what is in plain sight.

I am NOT saying that gifties should run around bragging about having an IQ 2 or more SDs above average.

What I'm saying is that one should not feel obliged to hide one's natural talents as though acknowledging something about themselves is bad or bragging. This practice is especially damaging when those talents are on display by virtue of acceleration.

There is a middle ground between hide and brag. It's a place where people learn genuine humility and where they and others can learn that gifties have strengths and weaknesses just like everyone else.

Agreed, Val. How is grade skipping not public naming/framing?

This book isn't pointing out all the amazingly smarter, better children; it is just pointing out that this is a group, and this is another group. I don't see why it is a big deal.

I wonder to what extent it's possible for posters to view this idea outside of how it would seem in their school's yearbook?

I find competitive sport mystifying and bragging about sport as (or more) icky than bragging about artistic or intellectual talent (all bragging seems icky to me, but bragging about sport seems more so, I guess because I see sports achievement as so irrelevant/meangingless, and yes I know I'm weird). And I have never read or kept a single year book of my own or my kids. Just don't get it at all... I keep their school class photos for their records and I have some of my class photos. Though I'm not sure if my schools even did yearbooks anyway, back when I went to school, I think it's a newish idea in Australia? I might not have thrown it out so much as never had one.

I agree with Val's points - but I wouldn't want anything to do with the yearbook in the first place.

With all the bad things that are going to happen to these kids, if I was one of the parents, I would sue the school for reckless endangerment.

I also don't understand sports, or its purpose. I also don't care for the year book. But if it is to exist then I don't see the problem with a photo of kids in a club.

To state that you should only be publicly acknowledged if you achieve something can be damaging, IMO. I guess that's why there no photo of kids with special needs, right?

Val, the difference is that ID'ing privately for diagnostic purposes is a means to an end, namely securing appropriate educational services. A skip/acceleration is the manifestation of those services.

I would hope that true GT students' abilities would be validated by parents *regardless of the presence of a diagnostic*. HK's daughter is an example I have in mind-- she's clearly PG, and so her parents don't feel the need to seek external validation of her giftedness. She also isn't being publicly identified at her school as gifted. I daresay she is both aware of her PG abilities and is made to feel valued because her achievements are a tangible manifestation of her control over her innate ability.

An implicit assumption in your argument is that people cannot feel validated for an innate trait unless that trait is identified publicly. Maybe we can explore that assumption.

Aquinas I have a 7yr old, ID-ed privately, skipped quietly. And yes she knows she's bright, without being outed publicly and without being smug (mostly). But there are major obstacles we face due to the quiet, private nature of her status as gifted and as a skipped child. And that skip was really only useful for the first year, so those problems are growing, but I can't talk about it in real life because the problem is private and quiet... I just sent out birthday invited with no age because I have no idea who knows she skipped and who doesn't, and its not something I want to awkwardly wrangle the first time I talk to a parent I haven't met before!

If we had a HG school to send her to I'd be looking into it. There's a high end boys school with a gifted stream she would qualify for, but no girls equivalent in our state. Solutions like these aren't without problems either, but having it be open is really appealing right now. And now that I think about it I am pretty sure that private boys school must document that gifted stream in some manner in their newsletters and publications, along with their rowing team, plays, art, high school graduation results, etc... And that would seem reasonable to me. My DDs attended a similar tier (coed) school previously and they tended to promote activities/services of more unusual kids in subtle ways. Disabled kids would show up in sports day photos with the whole school roaring for their achievements, the gifted kids got a mention via their astronomy events... So it may well be more subtle than "here's the gifted class" but maybe not - given there actually is a gifted class...

I actually feel like my DD is at more risk of weird attention in our current hush hush scenario than if there was a class or club she was part of with actual peers...

If a middle-schooler stands over six-foot-three, he doesn't join a club for unusually tall kids. But, given even a moderate level of athleticism, he can pretty easily excel on the volleyball and basketball teams. So when we celebrate athletics, we're largely celebrating innate qualities. Why can't we do the same for intellectual achievement?

My high school yearbook featured the "royal courts" of the prom and homecoming dances. It also contained a page on the Miss Teen [city] pageant, in which several students of my school competed, and one was crowned victor. That's all a celebration of beauty, isn't it?

Anyway, I think all this is really missing the point about yearbooks. They're not for us, they're for the kids. They're for reminiscence. That means it's perfectly reasonable to include any groups, with pictures, so the kids can look back and see their peers in those particular groups. If you did include the sports teams but not the gifted class, what kind of message are you sending? To me, the only fair way to do it is to either include ALL, or include none.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.


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.

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.

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.


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.


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.

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.

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.

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.

I'm shocked!

Shocked to find out that favoritism plays any part in amateur sporting events!

Just noting, again, though-- Little League is optional.

Compulsory education is not.

In most places, appropriate gifted education is not.

Heck, graduating with a diploma or completing a GED isn't even absolutely required. All that compulsory education demands is attendance.

And attendance is only required up to age 16 in most states.

... which rather begs the question-- what if your child will be long-since graduated at that age?

In our province, the age is 18, but exemptions are provided such that the attendance cutoff is the lower of age at completion of diploma or 18.