Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments at a loss

My recently identified PG middle schooler is trying to join the higher math group. He taught himself more than a grade level of math in his spare time over the course of about a month. He complete assessments as required by his school. He sat for an exam today which did not go well. He has little to no test taking experience, high anxiety, and very average processing speed. The proctor (head of his school) basically told him that they were concerned that even if he knew the math that he would not be able to keep up. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! So it’s a no basically. It also sounds like his anxiety and pace got the best of him and that the exam did not go well even though he knows the material. I don’t know what to do. I can’t take another year of crying and school avoidance because he is not feeling challenged. But achievement and test results seem to be all that matters. My PG needs to be in a school environment because it is what is required as therapy for his social anxiety. The other complicating factor is that he is in a private, competitive school and I worry that if we leave we won’t get in anywhere. I am so angry at the school and so heartbroken for my kid. I feel like I need some sort of consultant to take a look at my whole kid and advise me on what to do. I am just sick about it all.

Try to see this from the perspective of the school: if they're going to advance someone, they need evidence showing that he knows the material he's skipped. Everyone has to take the test to prove they know the material. If the school starts making exceptions, people will perceive an unfair application of policy, and the school will likely find itself with requests for more exceptions.

I think there's more to school than just absorbing material. For example, learning how to deal with stress is an important skill, and taking tests is one way that kids build their stress tolerance. Maybe staying in the class he's in now will help him learn to take exams.


You may wish to think about your own motivations here. It sounds like your son isn't happy at this school and that the environment there may not be conducive to good social and academic adjustment. Is he attending that school because of your ideas about where he should go to college? If so, please consider that attending an elite/top-tier college isn't a prerequisite to success in life. You may wish to read Where You Go is Not Who You'll Be.

My kids are a little bit older (13+), and one of the things I've learned is that, as helpful as this board can be, it also has a way of getting people wound up about stuff --- like acceleration. Acceleration can be a good thing, but IMO, its virtues are overpromoted here and its very real downside tends to be dismissed (often in an off-handed way, as, "yes, of course accleration doesn't work for everyone, BUT IT SURE WAS AMAZING FOR ME/MY KID ").

If your child may be lacking knowledge of test-taking strategy, and experience in applying such knowledge by actually taking tests, then you may wish to look online for opportunities. There are many articles on, and lists of, test-taking strategies. There are above-level tests which children may sign up to take outside of school.

If your child suffers anxiety, these old posts may be of interest...
1) Thomas S. Greenspon, Ph.D.
2) Daniel B. Peters, Ph.D.

Understood.org also has helpful articles on anxiety... stress v anxiety, anxious v anxiety, etc.

When considering acceleration:
- taking the end-of-year exam is one way to demonstrate readiness for the next grade level of material
- IAS-3 is the gold standard or "best practice" for evaluating aptness of whole-grade acceleration
- this old post contains a roundup of acceleration threads and resources... a crowd-sourced, balanced brainstorm of issues (both PRO and CON) for student and parents to think about and discuss before beginning any advocacy for accelerated placement.

While not a panacea, many gifted kiddos (and their parents) have found acceleration to be the "least-worst" option, providing a reasonable "fit" for meeting a student's needs for:
- - appropriately challenging curriculum
- - intellectual peers

Are all of the other subjects just as not challenging as math? What are his interactions with his age peers like? Is it possible that what he really wants is to rely on a strength (learning math) to provide an escape from uncomfortable social situations?

I think people want to think that lack of challenge and intellectual peers is a problem limited to school, but it continues after school is finished. Acceleration can only help you postpone the problem.

You have a challenging curriculum it's just not listed on the syllabus.

The acceleration would be into a grade level group that is moving more quickly through the material.

The motivation comes entirely from the kid. He is so bored in math and he enjoys the discussions that he has with the accelerated group (which he worked with last year at the end of the year).

The school values just achievement and results. He choked on the test due to anxiety and/or he doesn’t have the executive function to take the tests. He is in a school that doesn’t take tests. It was complicated in that he had to organize and label scratch paper that showed his work and just put numbers down a column. It is very clear that he knows the material and grasps it very quickly when you interact with him one on one and provide a safe environment.

I am at a loss. In addition to experiencing recurrent failures, he is so down in the dumps about the thought of being in grade level math. Slow paced repetive math raises his anxiety and causes tears and break downs.

What makes the slow pace anxiety inducing? I can imagine a situation where boredom leads to anxiety, but there's the added element of worrying about being fired. So I'm just trying to figure out the missing piece.

Not sure. Combination of boredom/not interesting work/lack of intellectual satisfaction as well as overwhelm from having to do lots the same type of problem over and over again. He gets it and just wants to move on. I am thinking that his pace may not be that fast and that that may contribute (ie gets concepts rapidly but his output is average).

Are you able to possibly reframe it a bit? If he's into video games then maybe viewing the grade level class as grinding and the test as a boss that both lead to the same level up might help put things in perspective he can feel comfortable relating to. Maybe the grinding is boring, but it's part of a quest. Maybe defeating the boss just needs reading a strategy guide (or watching YouTube video nowadays).

Maybe alternative strategies to deal with the mismatch between knowledge and practice that take the pressure off of the repetitiveness? I dislike in general the idea that the advanced student helps the remedial students, but it might be an idea to explore. If you had a cooperative teacher you might work out an agreement where he still has to do a minimum number of actual practice questions, but then replaces the rest of that work assisting other students 1-on-1. He would get essentially the same practice, and it would give him some social interactions to make him more comfortable in that arena.

Yes he did that last year — mentored the kids that weren’t as strong. He just wants to move forward in math. And my concern is not just the math and his emotional reaction/boredom, but the larger picture — he knows the math but he can’t take a test. I imagine that that is why his PG ability has been missed. And I wonder what I can do to support him/figure this out. He’s unhappy, lacks self confidence, and lacks self esteem. He thinks he’s stupid and that it’s not worth it after this experience. Again, at a loss ...

Pdxgft, this is a recurring theme amongst many PG kids. So, your best bet is taking his IQ test report and the narrative comments made by you kid's tester to the school Psychologist or Counselor and having the same conversation that you are having here. The fact that he is PG, knows the math, the repetition and boredom have made him develop School Anxiety and that he is depressed about his coming school year needs to be recorded if you plan to stay on in this school.
But, until the matter is resolved to your son's satisfaction, some things can be done from your side. Increase the math enrichment at after school time: either join a math circle, join a math competition group (AMC, MOEMs etc) or enroll him in an online AOPS course/self study AOPS. This will help him be stimulated by math instead of giving up on learning more math because he is worried that he would get even more out-of-sync with his current peers.
Ask the school counselor if the kid can move to the higher math group based on classroom observation by the teacher (many private schools value teacher's observation more than test results). That could be very useful in your case.
Have your son participate in some math contests and Talent Search exams - for the main reason that it teaches the child how to handle timed tests and how to organize his work under time pressure.
In our case, we ended up changing schools because the fight to get the desired acceleration was sucking up too much mental energy from both the child and the parent. That might also be a worthy choice to evaluate at this point.

Good luck.

These can both be addressed. As a parent, you may want to read up on both anxiety and executive function skills.