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    Joined: Dec 2005
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    Our state mandates identification but not programing. I would be suprised if very many local districts are in compliance with this.

    Our district did away with pull-out programs in favor of 'in class enrichment' and there are very rare instances of subject accelerations and grade skips. Our elementary public school didn't have a gifted coordinator. For kids who act out, the pressure to accept a special ed diagnosis in order to get services that might include a subject acceleration is quite high. Kids who 'behave themselves' just mark time. Individual teachers may be wonderful or terrible or somewhere in between. Individual teachers may work with parents or not.

    In Middle school about 25% of the kids get to be on the 'honors Math' track, and take Algebra 1 in 8th grade. I know of a boy who is one of two boys who recieves gifted services in science. He gets tests that are 'fill in the blank' while the rest of the class gets the same test with multiple choice answers. Once every 6 days, the teacher and the two boys stay together during lunch/recess and do science experiments.

    In the High School, the subjects are divided into 'Core' 'Advanced' and 'Honors.' The Honors classes lead to AP classes later. Multiple sections are offered in each of the Honors classes, so I'll guess that 15-20% of the kids take any of the Honors classes. I would guess that only a relative few take more than 3 Honors classes at once, as sports are very important in our district, and very time consuming.

    ((shrugs))
    Grinity


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    Hi Everyone,

    All your answers give us a bird's eye view of the reality of gifted education across the miles. From what a lot of us are writing, many exceptional children receive the company of true peers 1.5 to 2 hrs a week, which leaves 28 or 28.5 hours a week with age peers who consider many of them freaks, do not converse about common interests, and in many cases, are suffering ridicule for being on a different wave length.
    Thank you. This helps.
    --San

    Last edited by san54; 01/01/09 07:16 AM.
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    How pullouts work in our district:
    GS9 goes for just under an hour/day, at the end of the school day. He's in a class of 5-6 other 4th graders where they get additional instruction in whatever the gifted teacher decides to do. The first semester is Language Arts, the second semester is Math, not all the kids in one are in the other. I think there are 4, 2 girls & 2 boys, that are identified as gifted in both areas. There isn't much of a chance to converse about common interests in the pullout, they didn't even have any class discussions when reading and doing a study guide on a book earlier this year.
    The kids are spread out among three 4th grade classrooms, this year none of the other gifted kids are in GS9's home classroom. Apparently there is some kind of break at the time GS9 goes to his gifted pullout, and the older kids tease the gifted kids as they pass in the hallway. Knowing kids, they probably also tease the ones heading off for remedial help at the same time.

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    Well, she did say "many," not all.

    Maybe "some" would have been a better word choice...

    I do think her point that HG+ kids need true peers is a valid one. "Freaks" may be too strong a word, but I know that I didn't feel like I found real friends who "got" me until grad school, even though anyone looking in from the outside would have never believed this. I, too, was a leader and a kid very involved with my age peers. But I never felt like I really was one of them.

    Just another take...


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    There are no gifted programs of any kind in my school district, though they do have some AP classes at the high school. A high percentage of kids attend private school (small Christian based or medium sized Catholic school)and quite a few of us homeschool- more than you'd expect in a town this small.

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    It is sad when a district has a policy against accelerated classroom instruction. We all know from the experts that waiting until high school or jr. high is too late as many children become turned off, frustrated with boredom and rejection, underachieving with homework, and sadly, angry. Listening to Mozart, looking at Picasso, or discussing the theory of relativity 1-2 hrs. a week is a poor band-aid.

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    Where we live in NH there is no program until 3rd grade and even then it is not a real pullout program since there is no funding.

    Once a child is in Middle school or High School they can opt for Level 4 and AP classes.

    Our public school talks about differentiation but my DS6 is currently in K in the morning and 1st in the afternoons and we have not seen any hint of differentiation yet.


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    While researching, I came across a quote by Hans Eberstark, the mental calculator and linguist: "We are an odd lot, often at odds with the society we were born into. We are out of context. Few, if any...were socially adapted conformists. Some were slandered and ridiculed." Dr. Deborah Ruf, in her book, notes that the chances of social alienation increase as one goes up the IQ ladder. Her studies found that the moderately gifted blended in easier. Those with IQ above 150 had a tougher time. I do think that the child's personality will play into how well he/she deals with this. When we mature, as adults, we are able to overlook rejection better and let things roll off.

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    Apparently there's no gifted program this year for the elementary schools. :\ It's really wacky, because some years it's approved and other years the budget just isn't good enough. The IG (stands for Intellectually Gifted) isn't the best gifted education program, either, but that's another story.

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    Couple of comments -
    Our county has gt from k on, to varying degrees. The current program my ds is in focuses on problem solving strategies, they do a lot of puzzles and play games which rely on visual-spatial or language skills so they do emphasize fun. (3rd gr.)
    They have a project where they have to plan an adventure: get a budget, work with a couple of team-mates to work up a list of items to purchase before hand, saving enough money to have some on hand during the exploration/adventure phase and they have short writing assignments describing their progress.
    Apparently the next and final big project for the year is to design an amusement park and draw it to scale, again in teams. The teacher put this part at the end of the year so they would have time to phase in some of the math concepts.
    In short, I have been pretty pleased so far with the ideas for curriculum, although I haven't seen much of the final work.

    As for not fitting in, when I was first trying to figure out why my ds was sad about 1st grade, I thought of all the times folks had suggested he has some kind of condition such as add, asperger's, etc.
    What I read about these things didn't seem to fit but they ended up leading me to think in terms of giftedness and have the school start looking into that. Still, there might be some problems which need further assessment in his case, but the turn around since he has been able to get into the short pull out program has been very gratifying.

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