Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Rural vs Urban

I haven't been posting much lately because... life, but I have two gifted kids, both having a hard time in school... and I'm also an Anthropology student (I went back to school to have more flexible time to help the kids with stuff. Yeah, I know, don't say it)

I'm doing a paper on gifted programmes, and I was hoping to hear some people's comments on the situation for students in rural areas. I have no experience of that, so I'm just looking to get some sense of which issues are the same/different from in large school boards to direct further research. I won't get to do ethnography for this project (but maybe a subsequent one, one can always hope!)

Do your kids go away to school earlier to access programmes? Do local schools do a good job of accommodating? How do rural schools respond to/identify gifted kids?

I live in an area that is not technically rural, but it has some of the same issues that rural areas have. People who are serious about giving their gifted students an appropriate education often end up homeschooling.

I have some first hand (as student) experience in gifted programs in rural and urban areas. Unfortunately, it's 30 years ago.

My somewhat shaky recollections. I lived in an urban area, then rural, then different rural. These were in three different states. Let's say populations of ~200K+, ~5K, and ~12K. All midwestern states. My experiences were I think usually referred to as TAG programs.

City and tiny rural had programs for students. It seems like we were taken out of class and worked on multidisciplinary projects as individuals or groups. I know that in the city, this program was a very early program where they were trying to work out how to identify and how to create curriculum. Apparently some students were in there because the parents thought they should be. One kid researched "Would ferrets make good pets." One of my projects involved researching robots (i.e. I read some books) and then designing, illustrating, and assembling a pop-up book that reported my "findings". This was about 2nd-3rd grade. I don't remember much about the tiny rural program, I was only there about 9 months (and not in a good mood). The small rural community didn't have any sort formal program that I recall, but I did spend a lot of time is special more advanced art projects (stained glass, computer animation, painting a mural).

My parents rejected grade skipping for social adjustment reasons.

So my experience is that there wasn't much difference between gifted education that could be attributed to rural vs. urban. It seemed to be a result of volunteer or teacher led initiative.

My current school corporation covers both rural and urban areas and appears to use the same identification and instruction options for both.

I'm afraid my experience might not be much use, because I think it is almost prehistory.

How does your school corporation manage resources (like busing) to provide similar services in dense vs. sparsely populated areas?

What is a school corporation?

It sounds like you may be outside the US?

Indiana. I think school corporation is just a synonym for school district.

I don't have real good knowledge of specific policies for busing. My *impression* from the rural school (again, 30 years ago) was that the kids in the country (unincorporated areas since it's all rural compared to a large city) all went to one elementary. The kids in the small town went to three different elementary schools based on location in town. All of the special needs were handled at one elementary school. There was only one public school for 7-8 which was physically adjacent to the one public high school so after grade 6 everyone was bused to the same location. I spent most of my school years walking.

One advantage of a rural environment is that the schools in our experience have been ready to accommodate our DYS daughter with a grade skip (only temporary relief) and telescoped Maths.

The downside is that in a smaller population there is less likelihood of finding peers.

That said, farmers, at least, are self selected over generations for being mechanically smart - you need to have smarts to fix things with what you have - no running to the corner store here! When you see some of their jerry rigs and hand built doodads for getting things done their ingenuity is apparent.

We live in a rural (gigantic school district/county) but in town. I drove my kid for 4 years to an elementary school three miles away past a giant herd of smelly cows and right next door to his school was another pasture with two bulls. Our schools don’t take off Presidents’ Day but instead Rodeo Day that Friday.

Our schools have several ways they are trying to meet gifted needs...but I don’t know if we qualify as rural....or urban...we are kinda half and half.

My urban setting had cows downtown (belonging to a vet school) and we used to have yearly field trips to a dairy expo.

The distinction between rural and urban does indeed seem very fuzzy for a lot of the country.

Also, cows are smelly, but hogs are nauseating.