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Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 1,917
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Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 1,917 |
... my daughter isn't complaining about boredom ... And then others, like my wonderful PG son, are tickled pink & purple to just endlessly coast, enjoying the frivolity along the way. My son never complained about boredom at school, and even when pressed, he was generally without complaint. This is my DS9. In fact, we chatted about this again just the other day. He is in a school for HG kids, which is a great fit. But he remembers what it was like in our local school. He now says he doesn't want to go to a gifted school for middle school. He says he didn't mind it when he didn't learn anything -- he could just daydream or read a book. He admits to laziness.  I forgot to tell him that most regular schools give lots of homework -- his school doesn't believe in anything other than reading a certain amount every day or finishing work you didn't finish in school. Maybe that will change his mind!
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Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 5,181
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Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 5,181 |
Yeah, in secondary, your choices are to either engineer a better plow, or start mindlessly pulling and hope to keep up.  Brains or brawn-- your choice. LOL. Of course, it's often the case that you have to do a little of both, but at any rate, you can only lighten the load a bit if you've had some practice advocating for yourself and using your brain in ways that aren't-- strictly-- demanded of any children K-8.
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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Joined: Nov 2012
Posts: 44
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Joined: Nov 2012
Posts: 44 |
[quote=mommajay]"I know my son is getting straight A's, is well-behaved, is adored by teachers and students, loves school and from all measures is having a grand old time... BUT... I am *not* happy with the situation." Thanks for this great quote. I've gotta remember it and use it at our next meeting. Every other adult involved with my son says that if he's happy, I should just let him be....but I know first hand what lessons you learn from ongoing success with no real challenges.
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Joined: Mar 2013
Posts: 690
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Joined: Mar 2013
Posts: 690 |
... my daughter isn't complaining about boredom ... I ran into this general issue with our son. As I worked my way through the school & district staff, I learned to preface my comments with, "I know my son is getting straight A's, is well-behaved, is adored by teachers and students, loves school and from all measures is having a grand old time... BUT... I am *not* happy with the situation." Some PG kids pester their parents to install weapons-grade physics laboratories in their bedrooms in their thirst for learning. Others write Tolstoy-esque tomes by flashlight under their covers at night. And then others, like my wonderful PG son, are tickled pink & purple to just endlessly coast, enjoying the frivolity along the way. My son never complained about boredom at school, and even when pressed, he was generally without complaint. But he was sure getting addicted to those easy A's and would recoil in abject horror when faced with the slightest challenge. The trend was clear... and having lived through the experience myself, I worked diligently to bring some gosh-darned struggle into that boy's life. I know that the OP is currently not in favor of a full skip, so I'll not press too much in that direction... B-U-T... I will throw out the teensy possibility that if the young lady is that far advanced in Reading and Math, perhaps there exists a similar gulf in Art, Science, or ??? We had no idea that our ridiculously verbal son was also exceedingly capable in math... because he'd never been given a similar opportunity to push forward at his own pace. But good golly, when he was finally turned loose -- wow. And after his two full skips, his love for Science blossomed, and by some freak genetic mutation he also enjoyed and excelled in Social Studies. Yes -- he was perfectly happy just tra-la-la-ing his way through school, but had we not intervened, nobody would know how capable he truly was. Most importantly HE wouldn't have known either. But he'd sure figure out something was up when/if he got to college and slammed head-first into the ol' brick wall of reality. Oh - and about Santy Claus. DS was skipped full-time into the 5th Grade classroom just before Christmas that year, so I spilled the beans shortly after the move. I remember kids in my 4th grade GT classroom who were ardent believers of St. Nick and who were teased mercilessly by many as a result. My daughter also doesn't complain when she has the flu. That doesn't mean she doesn't have the flu. It just means she's a wonderfully cheerful kid. Priceless. Dandy, beautifully said. Our ds also was, well, maybe not exactly happy, coasting along, but didn't understand there was any choice. He complied, if begrudgingly (but would only show that frustration to us). And it wasn't until he took the Explore test, a test in which he could less easily hit a ceiling, that we had any idea of his capacity. Which led to finding this site which led to...an incredible amount of life-changing information.
Last edited by KADmom; 10/15/13 02:03 PM.
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Joined: May 2013
Posts: 2,157
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Joined: May 2013
Posts: 2,157 |
mommajay, I am currently in a similar situation right now with my 1st grader, as I said earlier. We don't want to grade accelerate (and since he is 2e I don't think the school would let me even if I wanted to). While the district has a subject acceleration policy (unlike yours), there is just no way to utilize it because of conflicting schedules. Testing done so far shows DS has mastered first and second grade math and should be in third, but even if we just tried to move him up one grade to second, there is no teacher who could take him at the right time. The first grade teacher is going to give him a math workbook and have him do the pages where testing shows he is weak, and then move onto the next book. I am highly skeptical of this--how much time would the classroom teacher have to teach him concepts? But I don't know what else to do at this point. The teacher seems well-intentioned but disorganized so I'm not sure how it's going to work. He is also a kid who is not complaining much, with his sunny laid-back disposition, but if asked, he says he wants to work at a higher level.
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Joined: Sep 2013
Posts: 848
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Joined: Sep 2013
Posts: 848 |
Discussion above brought to mind a quote I once that seems appropriate: "The easier it is to be good, the harder it is to be great." (Paraphrased and my quick search didn't bring up the author.)
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Joined: Jan 2009
Posts: 16
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OP
Junior Member
Joined: Jan 2009
Posts: 16 |
Hi! I wanted to come back and give an update.
I did wind up letting them do a full skip. I met with the superintendent and another Board of Ed person, who both strongly suggested it, saying they'd talked to every teacher and aide who'd been in contact with my daughter and it was unanimous that this would be the right thing for her. They then said we could do a 1-month trial before making a decision, and that's what sold me on it.
So she had her trial in November and it went well. The teacher is great and the work is a lot more appropriate for her. The students are not as sweet... we're encountering some cliques and such for the first time, but she has found a few nice friends and is still having playdates with some of her 1st grade friends, too. Academically, it was the right call. Socially, I'm still on the fence, but we're going for it. Having a really nice teacher has helped to balance out the fact that the kids aren't as sweet.
She's also been guaranteed a spot in the district's gifted class in 4th-5th grade, so just a year and a half until then.
Thank you for all the feedback.
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Joined: Sep 2007
Posts: 3,297
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Joined: Sep 2007
Posts: 3,297 |
That's great! Keep us posted on how it works out. A skip can seem like a very weird idea the first time it pops up. When our eldest was offered his first skip, it certainly did to us. Yes -- he was perfectly happy just tra-la-la-ing his way through school, but had we not intervened, nobody would know how capable he truly was. Most importantly HE wouldn't have known either. But he'd sure figure out something was up when/if he got to college and slammed head-first into the ol' brick wall of reality. Yes, exactly. Has anyone else here noticed that their kids sometimes do better when given a greater challenge? Especially if it's a much greater challenge? DD9 won her school spelling bee in mid-January. She prepared by learning 450 words, including 100 hard words at the 8th and 9th grade level ( bourgeois, accoutrement, velociraptor). Today we went over them again in preparation for the regional bee next week. We'd been working on the longer list of regional words, and this was the first time in over a month she'd gone over the 8th/9th grade words. She got 94/100 correct. It took about ten minutes to get through the whole list. ETA: Well, maybe 20. But she was firing them right out. Meanwhile, back at school, her 5th grade spelling lists lately have featured words like again, reindeer, and raisin. She does well enough in spelling at school (low As?), yet would probably do just as well if they advanced her to the 8th grade class. I think this characteristic of very intelligent people (not just kids) is missed in our schools and in society in general. Schools look at grades: you're not getting A+++++s with garlands, which shows that you haven't mastered this stuff and you're certainly not ready to skip ahead. I suspect this conclusion seems obvious to people who don't grok giftedness (and especially the highly-or-more gifted).  I've seen this in the workplace, too. Admittedly, it's more complex in a job, but still, there's a problem with over-emphasis on credentials in many hiring situations.
Last edited by Val; 02/15/14 03:37 PM.
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Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 1,478
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Glad you made it back. It took DS the first three months to fit into the social order after his skip. Primarily one or two kids were a bit defensive in response to the disruption of their fiefdoms.
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Joined: Apr 2011
Posts: 1,694
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Joined: Apr 2011
Posts: 1,694 |
Val I think I may forever regret not instantly accepting a double skip for my DD when it was unexpectedly offered...
She's just so much better suited to "swimming in the deep end" as it were...
Last edited by MumOfThree; 02/15/14 08:02 PM.
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