Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Is this the norm?

More often than not I have read posts here about schools that have minimal support for GT kids. I really hate reading about schools who have the attitude of "well he/she's fine, they're excelling, what more do you want?" Is that really the norm? Is so little really being done for our kids that are gifted?

I really don't know what the current thinking is on what is best for GT programs in schools. My dd gets pulled out of 2nd grade to go to her GT class once a week for 2.5hrs. Her classroom has leveled group work in spelling, reading and math. Dd's teacher has sent home additional homework for dd to improve her critical thinking skills and writing (this is above and beyond any classwork). She said dd is ready to go on in areas the rest of the class aren't even near yet thus the extra work. From the sounds of it, dd's school is doing something right compared to what Ive read here. Is this a correct assumption?

Reading what some schools are doing and saying...it makes me want to march with a picket sign and shout that education reform on a national level is needed for our kids! Do you think anyone would hear? Ugh. Ok, off my soap box now...not sure where that came from! I was cleaning...maybe its the fumes?

Around here, the buzzword is "differentiation," though that means teachers have to work A LOT harder or give the kids very little.

There's no pull-out until 3rd grade, and then only once a week and only in math. At 5th grade, it's daily pull-out in math. Never reading. Beyond that, you're at the mercy of the classroom teacher, and quality of differentiation varies wildly. My state requires ID of gifted kids, but no services whatsoever are required by law once GT kids are ID'd.

It sounds like you got a teacher who's at least trying to differentiate well. We batted 50%: K teacher was incredible, 1st grade teacher did nothing.

The POGS group I'm part of is pushing for clustering in the hopes that it might give us better quality of education for ALL kids, GT kids included. But I'm not holding my breath. Change is slow to nonexistent in this neck of the woods...

I was just thinking that sometimes this board may not be representative of the general population of HG+ kids. I mean, the people who are here have come here seeking help. Maybe the ones whose needs are met at their local school are less likely to come looking. Of course, I am quite sure that there are plenty of kids who are in lousy situations whose parents aren't in a position to look for help. But I still suspect that the the population of the online support community may be skewed towards those who are most frustrated.

I remember reading in Ruf's book that virtually all level 4 kids will need to be homeschooled at one time or another. She based this on her research population who had come to her practice for testing. To my knowledge, she had not sought out these families; they had come to her. So her statement would have been more accurate to say that "of level 4 children *who seek professional testing* virtually all would require homeschooling." There may be level 4 kids out there who are doing fine w/o homeschooling, but since they are doing well, their families never sought professional testing. Maybe there aren't any kid like this, but we just don't know because nobody has done that study. Am I making sense?

Yup. Good point. That's a logical fallacy you caught. Self-selecting groups may fit a certain pattern, but the general population--even the general population of HG+ kids--may not.

I do agree with Ruf, however, that without some sort of significant accomodation--home schooling, grade acceleration, big-time differentiation with supportive teachers, etc.--most (not all) HG+ kids are going to have a tough time in most (not all) public school classrooms. It only stands to reason. According to a presentation on acceleration by a local GT coordinator that I just saw this weekend, ND kids regularly need 7-8 repetitions of something to learn it (and this is the number of reps that teachers usually shoot for), while GT kids usually need exposure only 1-3 times. More repetitions can actually cause GT kids to *mislearn or forget* the information! So more exposure to the same thing is not only *not better*, it can be *actively worse*!

That right there tells me that the "average" GT kid is not going to be well-served by the "average" ND classroom. GT kids just don't fit the mold, and a regular classroom can't really serve both GT and ND kids at the same time without shortchanging someone. That's bound to be a problem for a HG+ kid!

I have loved that data and use it all the time. But, I do think there is another option, a time-honored way to handle the problem for *some* HG+ kids. The way I, DS, many of you, and my whole family has handled this is by making sure we have a good book in our desk to read. I seriously doubt I paid any attention to what the teacher said after the first or second time because I was absorbed in my novel. Now if I had a teacher who took my book away, then my parents would have had to homeschool me without a doubt!!

Acs,
You make an excellent point! This is certainly a skewed sample. Here's a map of legislation by state. http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/StatePolicy.aspx

One needs to remember that for most of the GT world "LOG" is unknown. For most of the educational world, "LOG" is unknown. This is cutting edge material. Your school is doing a wonderful job at providing groups for reading, spelling and math. Our elementary school only had reading groups, and for most of those years my son was many levels ahead of the next highest leveled kid. Did the school suggest he move to a different classroom for reading? No, they told us that they have "handfuls" of kids like him in the Middle School. Would have have been placed with those handfuls, no, they believe in heterogeneous grouping.

With all that, DS had a wonderful year in 3rd grade with no special accomidations - only that he happened to have a teacher who "got" him. Individual teacher can make all the difference. As wonderful as this teacher was, I wonder if part of the reason that things went well was that DS was recovering from his worst year of school ever. If he had started the year in as good a shape as he ended it, I'll bet he wouldn't have made much progress.

I'm so glad your school can even "see" your daughters difference. My son is reading "The Giver" at school (again) and I'm thinking that LOG is this society's "Red."

Trinity

But *some* GT kids (or *many*, if the drop-out rates I've heard for GT kids are accurate...) are not great at that sort of self-entertaining. And really, why should they have to be? (Especially at age 6, my DS's age!) It is the school's *job* to educate these kids. It's why we pay taxes, it's why we send them to the school building. It's the reason public school exists. If the school can't teach them, then I don't see that a novel in the desk is really an adequate substitute, especially when there are other options like GT schools or home schooling. Self-directed work like reading novels during class (or doing homework or writing letters...) keeps kids from going insane or mislearning things, but it isn't education!

This is when I start getting bugged by the notion that HG+ kids "should" be in the public schools. What you're describing is babysitting at best. (Or something worse, since my babysitter doesn't expect the kids to entertain themselves while she does something else and pays no attention to them! Really, that's warehousing!)

That kids read to keep themselves busy is one thing. But I gotta say, that you think reading in class is "a time-honored way to handle the problem" is disconcerting to me. Shouldn't we insist on more? on better?

I don't mean to be argumentative, but I really do find this pov to be troubling...

And, Dottie, clearly the teacher can make all the difference.

I don't for one second believe that there are no HG+ kids who thrive in ND classrooms. With the right teacher and good differentiation, an HG+ kid can be very well-placed in an ND classroom.

But it's so luck-of-the-draw. A bad teacher can just ruin a kid, at least for the time the kid is in that class. And I would argue--as I did in a previous post--that a great teacher and good differentiation *IS* a significant accommodation. It means somebody is teaching the GT kid, paying attention to his/her needs and development. That's what is needed.

It's just that in the vast majority of ND classrooms, it takes significant accommodation for the HG+ child to get that attention.

FWIW...

In our small town school in Oklahoma there is only minimal support for GT kids--a one hour a week pullout and they are not allowed to work above grade level. All of my son's gifted friends are in public school and two of their mothers are public school teachers. He has one friend his age who is in the gifted pull out program. My son is working grade levels above his friend. My son's reading ability and vocabulary seem at a much higher level than his friend's and even my son's math level is higher, even with the disabilities--because I do everything I can to let him learn in spite of his difficulties. It believe it is so wrong to hold back kids for physical problems and our state gifted coordinator agrees but says there is nothing she can do unless our laws are changed. The laws will not change because nobody seems to care except me.

For twice exceptional kids in our state there is nothing. Kids with mild physical disabilities, like my son, are required to be at a point where they are failing before they will be given OT or PT.

My son started reading and spelling without being taught at age 2 1/2 and doing math in his head including math with negative numbers and some multiplication before he was old enough to start Kindergarten, but because of mild hypotonia and sensory issues, he had difficulty with drawing, handwriting and coloring in the lines. Even though he was reading at about a 5th grade level and also advanced in math and made what normally would have been passing scores on what I assume was an end of first grade test to see if he could skip 1st grade, the Kindergarten teacher recommended holding him back in a transitional first grade so he could learn to color in the lines better. She felt that he didn't need to learn anything at all other than coloring and handwriting because he already read and did math above grade level. I asked a first grade teacher, who has gifted adult sons for advice. She told me if her sons had been as highly gifted as mine she would have homeschooled and that it was my duty as a parent to see that he got an appropriate education and that it would not happen at that school. I don't know why she thought my son was highly gifted because he had not taken any kind of IQ test and still hasn't, but I did mention to her that he had an adult half brother who is highly gifted that did similar things as a child and she had listened to him talk and I showed her samples of the work he was able to do at home.

So I absolutely have to homeschool or my son does not have a chance to succeed. A homeschool mom who noticed my son told me before my son even started school that I would have to homeschool and I didn't believe her. I sent her an email telling her she was right and she replied that she knew I would have to find out what she called the "cold, hard facts of public school education" on my own. But this is a small town in Oklahoma and I know other places are better for gifted kids.

Tammianne, I don't know what the norm is but I do know that what you have described sounds like nirvana compared to the school my kids are in. There is no state mandate for GT ed. There are no pullouts. The kids are not identified until 4th grade. Then they are "clustered" within heterogeneous classrooms. There is little funding: $10 per identified GT student per year. No services are provided before 4th grade. There is "differentiated" curriculum in name only. They do not allow subject acceleration due to "scheduling difficulties."

I have volunteered at this school over 20hrs/month for 3 years. I don't know what more I can do! I am currently teaching science in my son's K class and math in my daughter's 3rd grade class. For the math I am creating the lesson plans and teaching the class for an hour each week. For the science, I get a lesson plan from the teacher and give a 1/2 hour lesson to a group of kids once a week. I am doing it for the kids but I am tired of doing other people's jobs for no pay.

[quote=Kriston
That kids read to keep themselves busy is one thing. But I gotta say, that you think reading in class is "a time-honored way to handle the problem" is disconcerting to me. Shouldn't we insist on more? on better?

I don't mean to be argumentative, but I really do find this pov to be troubling... [/quote]

I do agree with you that this isn't the way things should be and that it does harm many children. I know some of those harmed kids, many of them kinesthetic learners, and I would like to see more and better options in the public schools. Sorry if I implied that I thought this "time honored way" was just fine; that was not my intent.

All I was trying to suggest is that school is not harmful or torture for every HG+ child (just like it isn't good for every one either). I know lots of HG+ kids, including one level 5, who made it through 13 years of public school and, I believe, are living up to their abilities and are not dealing much psychologic damage. I know that these kids are out there and life isn't all bad for them. But I not suggesting that every (or even most) gifted kids can just be like them.

I would hardly call the reading I did under my desk as "babysitting." One of my teachers gave me a list of "what every kid should read before college" and I read most of the books on it: Scarlet Letter, To Kill a Mocking Bird, Sidarthur etc. I really enjoyed the books a lot and I appreciated the reading time. I got a lot out of school even if the academics weren't challenging. And, in some ways, I think I benefitted from having much of my learning be self directed rather than imposed by the school. I was moderately extroverted and we lived way out in the country. The closest private school was more than 1 1/2 hours away. If I had been homeschooled, I would really have been pretty miserable. I felt like going to school and having enough spare time (from not being challenged by the work) to choose what I read was kind of the best of both worlds. I may be in the minority in experiencing school this way, but I know I am not alone.

FYI - gifted kids do need some drill, some times.
Kristin I'm sure the lecuturer did say: More repetitions can actually cause GT kids to *mislearn or forget* the information! So more exposure to the same thing is not only *not better*, it can be *actively worse*!

However, I have heard from a source I trust, that this is an example of one researcher looking at data and drawing a conclusion that most people wouldn't, and lots and lots of people repeating the conclusion without looking at the data. I haven't seen it myself, but, I try not to repeat that particular one.

Trinity

Wow, this is a great thread.

IMO there is such variation teacher:teacher, school:school, and town:town even w/in each state.

As a child I was blessed with some excellent teachers (only a few duds).

As a teacher I faced a lot of challenges. When I raised expectations in my heterogeneous class I was warned by the principal that I would just be disappointed. I wasn't. I grouped for reading and math and even began taking GT math students from other classes to differentiate for them. Exhausting, but rewarding. I provided opportunities for the students to discover areas of interest: recycling, Shakespeare, etc.

At a different school, I found a few like minded teachers and we began working together. Parents loved us, the administrator tolerated us, and other teachers had mixed reactions.

As a parent DD5 has a pleasant teacher who is clueless about HG kids. However, I have been able to push (and not that hard)to have DD placed in a 1st/2nd grade class for 1hr/day. This teacher appears to be a little more aware.

I have heard from teacher friends in other school systems that in the number of years since I have left teaching (7+) things are worse than before. Many teachers complain greatly about NCLB and the pressure to have children tested. School test scores are very competitive. Teachers at the elementary level in one school told me that they are forbidden (yes, forbidden) to differentiate w/in the class and if they are "caught" by administration they will be reprimanded. In fact, an extremely knowledgeable GT teacher told me that the Maine Eduation Commissioner is trying to make it against the law to ability group.

So, I will continue to advocate for my children (DD5 is the first of 3 battles I think I may have to fight) at school and in the world. My husband and I are not in a position to homeschool (besides DD has that extrovert trait), private schools are few and far between, GT schools non-existant.

Sorry to have misunderstood you.



Agreed. Completely.


Understood. I meant no offense or slight about your reading there. Some of this may be an age perspective: I'm talking about this as the mother of a 6yo, and it seems like you were older when you were keeping yourself occupied. Though I still think that either way, it just seems to me that leaving kids to their own devices is less school-like than I would expect at...well...school. That's not to say that letting a kid be self-directed is bad--heck, I'm doing just that with our home schooling! I just mean that it doesn't seem like all we should ask for from our schools is to leave our kids alone so they can read. Why send them to school at all if they aren't in a rural area and they can easily get the social stuff elsewhere, as we can?



No, you're not alone. That describes much of my experience with school, too. I just don't think it was what school should have been. I'd like to get more from school for my son.

It's good to have options, isn't it?

Interesting. Certainly GT kids need to drill sometimes, but since one of the hallmarks of giftedness is learning things faster and with less repetition, this factoid seemed reasonable to me. Given the way gifted kids play with things in their heads and mix things around when they're bored, I guess this passed my gut-check without setting off any alarms. The researcher that the lecturer cited seems pretty well-respected, so I'm not sure what to think.

I'd like to dig into this a bit further, so I'm going to PM you with a couple of questions if I may. Plus if it's bad science, then I'd like to correct the lecturer, for her own sake. She's one of the good guys, and I don't want her to undermine her good work with one bad citation!

Thanks muchly for the heads up, Trinity!

Hey all - sorry for repeating stuff I don't have first hand knowledge of.

I am just repeating what I've heard because the factoid is so appealing, and I know for a fact that when it comes to memorization, all kids are different, and different from themselves.

Example - a FOK fact will seem to glide in after one hearing for my DS. Other "Facts of Life" he seems to ignore. Experiencing them over and over, but not apparently "getting it." Learning to read a clock, times tables, typing, etc. took a long, long time. Perhaps not quite as long as for ND kids, but he hated the time he had to spend with double intensity.

Example - DS practices this musical insturment, 15 minutes a day, and again, suffers as much as a ND practicing 30 minutes, but gets as much out of it as well. I've have seen him "blow it" onstage presumably because he didn't put enough time in to get to automatisity.

I think we can be sure that many gifted kids are in a bad mood during memorization tasks. Some gifted kids learn quickly and easily if they are asked to use abstract thinking skills that same age ND kids don't have.

I particularly like the "Bunny and Elephant" analogy.

Feeding an Elephant
Highly gifted children learn not only faster than others, but also differently. Standard teaching methods take complex subjects and break them into small, simple bits presented one at a time. Highly gifted minds can consume large amounts of information in a single gulp, and they thrive on complexity. Giving these children simple bits of information is like feeding an elephant one blade of grass at a time - he will starve before he even realizes that anyone is trying to feed him.

[Excerpt from Helping Your Highly Gifted Child by Stephanie S. Tolan, ERIC EC Digest #E477, 1990]
from:http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/analogies.htm

I shared this with a teacher when DS was young, and didn't have the maturity to sit through the "bad feeling" part, that if we really want DS to eat the grass, we should try making garland out of it and hanging it on the trees - hoping to goes down with them undetected! She laughed and appeared to understand me. That's how the typing "got down" his craw.

But it's kind of tricky, in my opinion, figuring out which grass is worth the effort. I think it will differ in each situation.

Bottom line - what I should have said is "attractive as this idea is, I think one study is too few to base "gospel" on, and we should be careful about generalization. Our kids need to be though about as individuals.

Appologetically,
Trinity

I stayed up ridiculously late trying to track down more on this issue since I made such waves here...

The well-respected educational psychologist Dr. Karen Rogers is the source cited by the (local) speaker I heard. My googling (via Hoagies) got me back to her apparent source, the also impeccably credentialled (and he of talent-searches-to-ID-gifted-12yos fame) Dr. Julian Stanley. These are definitely the good guys, and good researchers. Trinity and I both agree on that!

I think I took the point of this statement to be a) gifted kids generally learn things faster, and b) once gifted kids learn something, they should move on instead of continuing to dwell on it.

I guess the exact number of reps for a fact to become known seemed like a averaged guesstimate to me more than an actual fact that applies to ALL gifted kids in ALL subjects at ALL times. More like a catchy way to say "gifted kids generally learn things faster than ND kids."

Since that's part of the definition of giftedness as I understand it, I don't think that's a problem per se.

The part that I'd like confirmation on is the latter part: does further "drill and kill" after something is learned actually make GT kids mislearn or forget what they've learned?

I couldn't find anything to confirm this on the Internet, which makes me leery. (Though notably, I also found no dispute about it anywhere either.) Anyone know anything?

I really hate to pass misinformation on, but I also hate to give this point up without confirmation. If it's accurate, it's useful!

Help!?

One thing that some of you youngsters may not realize is that "tracking" was used in the 60s to create defacto segregation in many schools all over the US.
Tracking was placing kids into tracks based on kids' presumed abilities. Well, whenever people are grouped - the bias of the grouper enters in. If someone has more sinister puposes, its pretty easy to put who you want into which track. there are lots of stories of first and second generation immigrants of many races being kept out of the "good tracks" in California for instance.

Ability grouping has an unpleasant association to it for many. If you go in with ability grouping guns blazing you may open old wounds and get reactions you don't expect.

In reality, ability grouping won't help most of your kids anyway. If you have a six-sigma kid (unless you are in a tremendously sized school district) even if you are ability grouped you are going to be grouped with only three-sigma kids at best. It still doesn't put them with cognitive peers.
It may "remove the bottom" as someone said, but the elitism that some see in this type of tracking may not even be worth it. Besides it's hard to get away from associating worth with ability in these situations. how would you feel if your kid was in the removed bottom? are high ability kids worth more than IEP kids?
It may be better to talk about FAPE and what is appropriate education for each individual. If you want tracks so that your kid doesn't have to be with the less able, well that is elitist, and some are going to be resentful that some peoples' kids get something better than their kid does. Sorry Mrs Jones but little Sally just doesn't qulify for the "full success" track. She's only average. She has to stay in the "average track" with others of your kind...

But if all you want is for your kid to get an appropriate education, well who can argue with that?

Advocating for an appropriate eduction for all might be even more effective. Even a near-perfect small school district can't be expected to know how to meet the needs of the kind of kid they may see only once every 20 years or so. However if school districts were more focused on reaching kids than test scores then when they see this twenty year kid, they might be able to plug into some type of nationalized resource network for help in meeeting her needs.

Well Put confused!
Although I would add that most of here have experienced that classroom teacher are not skilled (nor are they usually trained) in seeing ability as we parents think if it. Throwing out ability grouping because when a Racist society uses it, the results are Racist, is a Baby/Bathwater situation in my view. There are studies to suggest that everyone learns more when placed in groups that move at the right pace and depth.

As for "tracking" not really helping - it seems logical that it wouldn't, but yes it often does. The exception is when the child gets more busywork, but, perhaps with a gradeskip or two, tracking, like pull out gifted programs can be helpful ingriedients in an individualized gifted program.

Yes, one must be aware of the history of tracking, IQ tests. It matters. Eugenics lurks right underneath the surface of the history and development of IQ test. It is where we in the U.S. were as a nation at that time. I would be doing my child a disservice if I didn't get his IQ tested because I am against the politics of some of the history of the tests.

But Confused (who doesn't sound confused at all to me) -
I mostly agree more with your last paragraph:


Many States have a resource person who is a wealth of help and information, so national would be nice, but possibly not key. If only the local districts would use the resource they have already! ((That's how it played out in my experience anyway.)

It's true that someone at the +6 Standard Deviation would be rare, but Level IIIs or "too high to measure" or Highly/Profoundly gifted starts at the +3 Standard Deviation. I believe that's where many of the children we are talking about are. Even the top 3rd standard deviation is preety common in all but the smallest districts. We are talking a whole .75%, in an average district, which adds up quickly if one looks for them district-wide.

But yes, the high ground is certianly the way to go - appropriate education for all children, even ours. And I think that beyond advocating with the school people, just talking to and winning over our neighbors is a politically important step.

Thanks for giving me interesting things to think about!
Trinity

I didn't quite say what i meant.
I am not advocating eliminating ability grouping. I am advocating eliminating advocating for ability grouping.
because it sounds so bad to the general public when people do it.
It ultimately hurts the cause of meeting the needs of gifted kids.

Some folks expressed surprise that ability grouping might be outlawed. I was trying to put that into historical context. Ability grouping was outlawed in many states in the 70s. but yet it still occurs if done carefully.

95%( or more) of the general public is not gifted. 99% are not highly gifted or whatever. It is easier for me to think in standard deviation or sigma. You are asking 99% to be interested in something that only affects 1% or in the case of 6 sigma even less. and you are asking them to pay for it with their taxes and you are saying their kid can't have it - no matter what.

School budgets are allocated by politicians. Politicians are elected presumably by the general public. Elitist gifted programs often don't fly in some locations for this reason. too few benefit. But in some areas where exceptionalities have been linked there is more support overall. then it is more about meeting all chilren where they are. (kind of like just in time learning, but for everybody not just the 1%)

But you have to be very careful. Words matter and language hurts.
Linking ability to human worth even subtley. hurts. especially if you are in agroup that society has said doesn't matter much.

The neuotypical and normal are afraid of the supersmart. thats why geeky kids get beat up not just because they are weak. Evoking the tendency in people to resent the gifted will not help gifted services. resources are sparse. they need to be spead a long way. Public opinion matters. gifted education took off after Sputnik when it was thought we needed smart people to beat the Russians to the moon. The public became more afraid of the Russians than the supersmart.

In contrast, No child left behind occured because so many really were. it was just poorly implemented by those with a politicall agenda. If it had a component for demanding learning and increased acheivement every year for all kids it could be tweaked for the gifted. but it was made with just a floor for expectations and no funding solely to meet political expediancies of seeming to do something.

Trinity i guess i underestimated levels and stuff. Iwas thinking all yspers were 4 sigma or above--way above. thats why i was confused about how abilty grouping would help unless you are in a big area. grade skips are completely different than grouping.

I have little confidence in testing. but I participated in a summer program once where gifted kids went to camp but were also studied one summer. everybody was over 145. There were a handful of kids that were way out there. I now consider myself to be 3 to 4 sigma. and these kids were easily 6 sigma or more. but the catchment area was enourmous. These kids didn't fit at all with the rest of us and they didn't seem to like one another either which struck me as strange at the time. But for me it was the first time i felt like i belonged somewhere. a member of a pack.
So i get the benefits of ability grouping i just don't think its ok to write off the bottom half. Maybe its my own baggage in thinking 3 or 4 sigma isn't all that smart...

I just don't think gifted education is going to get anywhere in the current political climate without linking to others with needs that are more prevalent. Also i think it may spring from my own issues of haveing a kid who is too gifted to get LD help and too LD to get gifted services when they are narrowly defined.
Many people are unhappy with our schools, and if all the dissatified only work for their own agenda nothing will change. We need "just in time schools" for everyone.

I can't use bandaids, I'm allergic to the adhesive; but i'll get in beside you and bail. But i warn you i have difficulty with left and right directions sometimes.

Is your son interested in running for school board? Is it time for a civics enrichment project?