Gifted Bulletin Board

Welcome to the Gifted Issues Discussion Forum.

We invite you to share your experiences and to post information about advocacy, research and other gifted education issues on this free public discussion forum.
CLICK HERE to Log In. Click here for the Board Rules.

Links


Learn about Davidson Academy Online - for profoundly gifted students living anywhere in the U.S. & Canada.

The Davidson Institute is a national nonprofit dedicated to supporting profoundly gifted students through the following programs:

  • Fellows Scholarship
  • Young Scholars
  • Davidson Academy
  • THINK Summer Institute

  • Subscribe to the Davidson Institute's eNews-Update Newsletter >

    Free Gifted Resources & Guides >

    Who's Online Now
    0 members (), 167 guests, and 10 robots.
    Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
    Newest Members
    parentologyco, Smartlady60, petercgeelan, eterpstra, Valib90
    11,410 Registered Users
    March
    S M T W T F S
    1 2
    3 4 5 6 7 8 9
    10 11 12 13 14 15 16
    17 18 19 20 21 22 23
    24 25 26 27 28 29 30
    31
    Previous Thread
    Next Thread
    Print Thread
    Page 4 of 5 1 2 3 4 5
    Joined: Jan 2010
    Posts: 263
    A
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    A
    Joined: Jan 2010
    Posts: 263
    Originally Posted by madeinuk
    One advantage that homeschooling gets you is that you can accelerate but still claim to be 'age grade' - the ultimate Talent Search tactic that I would call 'blue shirting'. I have seen this with my own eyes. Whereas a B&M schooled kid, even if skipped is hamstrung by the combination of their school grade and the standard (core) curriculum's way of releasing concepts as slowly as a wizened and arthritic miser giving alms.

    We got a blue shirt effect just by not accelerating, even though our child was in a regular public school. Our dc got a bronze medal from NUMATS for his Explore score in 4th grade, competing against other 4th graders. The kid was a learning machine - the school curriculum was kind of irrelevant.

    Last edited by amylou; 03/09/17 07:43 AM.
    Joined: Feb 2014
    Posts: 582
    G
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    G
    Joined: Feb 2014
    Posts: 582
    Originally Posted by madeinuk
    We accelerated our DD from 2 -> 4 - she is now in 7th grade.

    We have decided not to do any more full skips but she is further 'skipped' 2 grades for Maths into Honours Geometry at the local regional high school.

    We have decided to do no more full skips - DD has inherited her parents' lack of vertical advantage

    Yep - this sounds like our DD11. Stuck with all these tall 13 year olds in 7th grade. Never mind that girls and boys are starting to "like" each other (as it's called here). Very confusing to DD. As stated elsewhere she creates graphs of all the romantic relationships as she tries to figure out how love works. Luckily the math program in DD's middle school goes up to geometry so the kids don't get shipped off to another school.



    Originally Posted by madeinuk
    One advantage that homeschooling gets you is that you can accelerate but still claim to be 'age grade' - the ultimate Talent Search tactic that I would call 'blue shirting'. I have seen this with my own eyes. Whereas a B&M schooled kid, even if skipped is hamstrung by the combination of their school grade and the standard (core) curriculum's way of releasing concepts as slowly as a wizened and arthritic miser giving alms.

    Depending on how tigerish you are as a parent this may or may not be important.

    I don't think I fully appreciated this information before the grade skip. But, would it make me want to roll back the skip? She was really really unhappy back then vs. just unhappy now with bits of happiness sprinkled in (band and art).

    Joined: Apr 2013
    Posts: 5,244
    Likes: 1
    I
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    I
    Joined: Apr 2013
    Posts: 5,244
    Likes: 1
    Originally Posted by SFParent2015
    ... a one-year skip.. best option... *under the circumstances*, but still deeply suboptimal. It was the better of two bad options. (The best, but not at all available where I lived, would have been to be grouped with a cohort of intellectual and age peers in a gifted-ed setting.)... I can't say you should always or never skip, because it really depends on the circumstances. If possible, get your child in a setting where they have intellectual peers who are also age peers.
    Well said! smile
    Research supports this:
    1 - http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....icle_about_poor_school_f.html#Post229604,
    2 - http://www.casenex.com/casenet/pages/virtualLibrary/gridlock/groupmyths.html,
    3 - http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.540.8046&rep=rep1&type=pdf
    (or do a web search on Gentry Total School Cluster Grouping TSCG),
    4 - http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.3102/0034654316675417.

    Joined: Mar 2013
    Posts: 1,453
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    Joined: Mar 2013
    Posts: 1,453
    Originally Posted by greenlotus
    I don't think I fully appreciated this information before the grade skip. But, would it make me want to roll back the skip? She was really really unhappy back then vs. just unhappy now with bits of happiness sprinkled in...

    We aren't too tigerish here so we wouldn't change anything either. Just sharing here for full disclosure.

    Last edited by madeinuk; 03/09/17 08:41 PM.

    Become what you are
    Joined: Mar 2013
    Posts: 1,453
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    Joined: Mar 2013
    Posts: 1,453
    Quote
    We got a blue shirt effect just by not accelerating, even though our child was in a regular public school. Our dc got a bronze medal from NUMATS for his Explore score in 4th grade, competing against other 4th graders. The kid was a learning machine - the school curriculum was kind of irrelevant.

    Of course, one may tack on additional study hours after school - after hours have already been needlessly burned learning nothing during the school day - but homeschooling is a much more efficient means of achieving the same end.



    Become what you are
    Joined: Apr 2014
    Posts: 4,047
    A
    aeh Offline
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    A
    Joined: Apr 2014
    Posts: 4,047
    MVM, reflecting on one of your original questions regarding the educational cultural bias toward chronological age-uniformity: for some educators, I think it is closely associated with a value for equity, which they confound with equality. It may also be a reaction, especially in early childhood educators, to the pressure to raise test scores, which they perceive (with some accuracy) as distorting the value of whole-child development. Grade skipping represents something dangerous to many conventional educators, which provokes an emotional response incompatible with the more nuanced discussion in which we are currently engaged.


    ...pronounced like the long vowel and first letter of the alphabet...
    Joined: Jan 2010
    Posts: 263
    A
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    A
    Joined: Jan 2010
    Posts: 263
    Originally Posted by madeinuk
    Quote
    We got a blue shirt effect just by not accelerating, even though our child was in a regular public school. Our dc got a bronze medal from NUMATS for his Explore score in 4th grade, competing against other 4th graders. The kid was a learning machine - the school curriculum was kind of irrelevant.

    Of course, one may tack on additional study hours after school - after hours have already been needlessly burned learning nothing during the school day - but homeschooling is a much more efficient means of achieving the same end.

    Actually, we did not actively afterschool, just fed his bliss by providing library books, conversation and activities aligned to his interests. Our kids always loved the schoolness of school as well, which worked well for us because dh and I both work during the school day.

    Joined: Mar 2013
    Posts: 1,453
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    Joined: Mar 2013
    Posts: 1,453
    @amylou,

    Not arguing with you :-)

    merely sharing our (when you've one gifted kid you've seen one gifted kid), thoughts and experiences with the OP.

    I am sure that if you have a kid who is placed well below his actual functioning grade he will 'blue shirt'.

    It gets more difficult to do after MS because the busywork stuff begins to kick in - in our experience, at least. And busywork take more time out of each evening itself.

    Last edited by madeinuk; 03/10/17 12:59 PM.

    Become what you are
    Joined: Feb 2011
    Posts: 1,432
    Q
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    Q
    Joined: Feb 2011
    Posts: 1,432
    I just want to add that the pressure to grade skip is most intense during elementary and progressively alleviates during middle and high school. Keep in mind that the elementary curriculum is too easy for a large portion of the population and that the span from the average to the top five percent widens over the years. At the same time, increasingly achievement, independence, creativity and passion overshadow cognitive potential as the relevant measure. There are certainly aspects of middle school that can be limiting for any student with high cognitive potential but there are numerous opportunities, particularly in language arts, history and foreign languages, for students to work "to their potential" if they so choose. That was seldom the case in elementary school except perhaps sometimes for writing in language arts. For my 8th graders, the sky is the limit and there is nothing stopping them from producing high school worthy essays, research papers, websites and documentaries throughout the school year in many of their classes. The biggest problem remains math although science can be lacking lab-wise. DD is in Geometry (standard GT) and DS in Pre-calculus (two years accelerated) but the slow pacing and lack of depth remain problematic; however, online resources and competition math opportunities help.

    Joined: Mar 2013
    Posts: 1,453
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    Joined: Mar 2013
    Posts: 1,453
    What she ^^^^ said.


    Become what you are
    Page 4 of 5 1 2 3 4 5

    Moderated by  M-Moderator, Mark D. 

    Link Copied to Clipboard
    Recent Posts
    Testing with accommodations
    by aeh - 03/27/24 01:58 PM
    Quotations that resonate with gifted people
    by indigo - 03/27/24 12:38 PM
    For those interested in astronomy, eclipses...
    by indigo - 03/23/24 06:11 PM
    California Tries to Close the Gap in Math
    by thx1138 - 03/22/24 03:43 AM
    Gifted kids in Illinois. Recommendations?
    by indigo - 03/20/24 05:41 AM
    Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5