Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Parenting arms race article

I think this is where the entire issue of school fit comes into play.

If it's not going well, you may have to find another school if you can't get anywhere with the one you have.

I have to say, JonLaw, although I often think you have some great and funny insights, that this remark comes off as absurd to me. In fact most of the thread that I've read so far is also kind of over the top, to me: comments such as kids with iq 121 should not have gifted services (considering how these numbers are soooo mucky at the low end, as well as at the high end ). I really don't think that should be the focus of reforming gifted education: push out all the kids who are too borderline to be 'worth it'.

Can you really feel bad for someone with iq 121 or so? high potential to get into a good school and graduate? Surely it's relatively reasonable to imagine they will not only be able to go 'through the motions' of learning, they will in fact be learning. A lot.

So I don't know where this comes from other than working with folks around that iq? Certainly I find it frustrating to deal with folks who aren't making sense or are not keeping up with a conversation (I imagine they find me pretty full of b.s. a lot of the time and are sorry for me that I am so pompous.)

Anyway, just seemed like the flavor of this conversation (too long for me to read all posts) is kind of bitter.



On that note, I leave a rudely-worded but funny article my DH found: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/shouts/2014/03/new-parenting-study-released.html

Maybe you all have read it before.

You know, now that I think about it, I'm not certain that most of the people in my office know what the Ivy League is.

My initial guess would be "no".

That also reminds me of my father and the Princeton interview experience, with a slightly pompous character. He had no problems with me ignoring the application there after that one. I don't think he ever asked me about Princeton after that.

So far this is mostly a worry, and my son is doing OK. Not great we will see where his teachers want to place him next year. He loves Marching Band and hopefully that will help keep him interested. Coincidentally there is a meeting tonight to discuss exactly these issues with my neighborhood and the public school he attends.

The best local option, is a very expensive prep school. My son is not interested and we would have to train the money saved for his college education to send him. I have a friend who went that route with her daughter, and there will still pros and cons to that school. I have been looking at Early College Programs, but we don't have any in the immediate area so it would mean going away for such a program.

No, kids with IQs of 121 shouldn't have gifted services because these kids aren't gifted.

I shouldn't get services for gifted poets because I'm not a gifted poet. My friend J. shouldn't get services for gifted athletes because he's not gifted at any sport. That's how this stuff works. Or at least, that's how it's SUPPOSED to work.

It is not okay to provide next to no services for gifted students and then open them up to non-gifted students so that some parents don't feel bad. It is not okay define gifted as less than it is, because doing so undermines the entire point of a gifted program or an advanced class for supposedly gifted kids. It is also not okay to send messages to very smart people that they should feel bad about wanting to develop their talents.

People here have said that if the schools were doing a better job with pacing and depth for all kids, this problem wouldn't exist. Actually, I think that the kids at the HG end would still have problems, though the situation wouldn't be as deplorable as it is now.

I wasn't the one who said that they shouldn't have gifted services.

I'm the one who said that college is high school and that gifted education is now college prep. It was more of a statement of what I perceive as the current reality.

With me, it's probably mostly having sisters and a father with about that I.Q. I don't even bother trying to have a meaningful conversation because it's never going to go anywhere. They are not the sharpest tools in the shed.

My co-workers are much lower than that. I try not to talk to them at all.

I'm also used to thinking of "gifted" starting at an I.Q. of 135, but that's more of an 80's thing, so my reaction to a 121 is "whoa....that's unexpectedly low for an elite education."

Exactly. This "open to all" thinking is just strange to me but it might be because I see "special educational need" as anything outside of the central 2 standard deviations.

This strikes me, therefore, as inherently about as silly as a group of people arguing that their insurance companies should cover a seeing eye dog because they happen to like Golden Retrievers a lot. (Come to think of it, there are people who like dogs so much that they see no real harm in falsely calling them service dogs. {sigh} Nevermind.)



It's not a "need" for a some of the people rushing to the front of the line. The reason that they are doing this is that there is an arms race in terms of college resume-building. This problem (mostly) wouldn't exist on this scale if not for mediocrity pushing up from beneath and high-pressure perfectionistic standards pushing DOWN from on high. Er-- at least, there wouldn't be such an issue if regular classroom settings were doing a reasonably good job (as noted multiple times within this thread).

What makes it wrong is when there are people who truly DO need the services, and when there is limited availability.

Someone who doesn't NEED one shouldn't get to elbow their way into the line for a service dog, no matter how much they like the idea.

Only, obviously, with the added status that some of the parents are clearly after here. I realize that most parents of bright-not-gifted or even relatively average/NT kids don't see their actions in that light. They really are thinking "where's the harm?"

But when you look at what is actually taking place in secondary classrooms, this is precisely the kind of thing which is driving "AP for all" and watering down those classes into an exercise in endurance rather than genuine rigor, and AP FEES that make it pay-to-play to land in those classes to begin with. Talk about double jeopardy for low SES and high ability students... because they are still 'better' than the alternatives at a lot of places, and there IS no GT placement at all outside of them for a huge percentage of high school students.

So yes, putting an NT 16yo high school sophomore in a seat next to a HG+ student in AP Literature does impact the high ability students. It lowers some of the level of in-class discussion, it forces the teacher to either lower standards or create MORE assignments that are 'easier' to manage (or deal with unhappy failing students and their parents)...

NOT every student is "elite" material-- no matter how much they or their parents wish it were true, and no matter how much work they are willing to do to make it so.

YES, schools should do a better job for all students. I don't see PG students as more deserving of appropriate education-- not in the least. I think that NT kids are just as deserving. What they don't "deserve" is placement into educational settings that don't really offer them a lot of benefit because they are intended for children who are HG/HG+.



Bottom line, that's like me calling my dog a "service animal" because I like the way it SOUNDS, and I'm entitled to call her whatever I like, and how dare anyone point out that I have no real need to bring my dog to the movie theater or library with me... It's obnoxious entitlement on my part, right? It doesn't directly impact my neighbor who really DOES have a service dog... of course not. But it does do so indirectly by making people more suspicious of the terminology. Words do mean something, after all. If I misappropriate special titles or services and then 'adapt' them to suit myself... that's wrong.



Not much distance from that to reading a couple of comic books and calling it a "doctoral dissertation."

The upshot of all of this is that when parents are allowed to redefine what education means (so that it's easy enough for their kids to hit the ceiling, they might well be VERY strident about wanting that ceiling LOWER) then it's absolutely about making sure that nobody looks more capable than their own kids.

Because "not being elite" now apparently means "catastrophic life failure and worthlessness as a human being."

Granted, I think of middle class existence as "catastrophic life failure."

Yikes. Well, I guess that is pretty much what drives it all, though, isn't it?

Wow, that sounds really intense. Somehow I am escaping that. I don't know if I'm oblivious, or if it's that I'm at a university known for its emphasis on social justice. Most of my colleagues hold the liberal belief that if you support public schools, you are morally obligated to put your children there, and to talk yourself into believing that the education they're getting is good. (I have never understood this line of argument.)

Some are even outraged that there is a college-prep charter school in town that takes no net funding away from the other public schools and does admission purely by lottery. Because it's elitist to have such a school. Or something.

On the flip side, there are parents with whom I have the "why did you choose Private School X" conversation. These conversations tend to be slow and quiet and cautious, filled with euphamisms like "meeting my child's needs," until me and the other parent suss each other out. Honestly, these parents strike me as much more like the people on this board than like ego-driven Tiger Parents.