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 (), 210 guests, and 14 robots.
    Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
    Newest Members
    streble, DeliciousPizza, prominentdigitiz, parentologyco, Smartlady60
    11,413 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 5 of 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
    Cricket2 #88404 10/31/10 09:57 AM
    Joined: Apr 2010
    Posts: 2,498
    D
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    D
    Joined: Apr 2010
    Posts: 2,498
    Cricket, I'd be inclined to look at this in terms of skills rather than academic achievement. IDEA says that schools must teach academics, but also "functional skills"-- which include paying attention, remembering where you put your papers, how to participate in groups, etc.

    This is much broader than most people realize, because they're stuck on what achievement tests show. But the legal precedents are clear that "functional skills" are absolutely covered by IDEA, and if a student has deficient functional skills, that may qualify them for services even if their academic skills per se are not impaired. (You can search "functional" on the wrightslaw website to get some background on this.)

    What this means is that if your DD is demonstrably lacking some functional skills, the school may be required to remediate them. Of course it helps if this shows on an achievement test, but if you have frustrated email from teachers about her spacing out or similar documentation, plus outside testing that shows deficits, you can argue that there are areas where functional skills are below those of her peers and require remediation.

    Yes, this is a hard case to make for a gifted kid, but it can be done.

    DeeDee

    Cricket2 #88758 11/03/10 07:15 PM
    Joined: May 2009
    Posts: 2,172
    C
    Member
    OP Offline
    Member
    C
    Joined: May 2009
    Posts: 2,172
    As we are continuing to work through this, dd's school situation seems to be getting worse. We do like the GT teacher and she has really tried to make school work for dd, but she is also very frustrated and dd is really stressing about the being part of the source of the teacher's frustration.

    Dd had gotten As on all quizes and work thus far this quarter until the unit test came along. She would have had an A- on the test had she not made some attention to detail errors. For instance, forgetting to put "cm" or "cm2" on some units of measure and just putting the numbers without the units dropped her grade down a full 12%. She also misadded one column of numbers coming out with 371 instead of 372. When she then divided that by 4 to get a mean, she did the division correctly (decimals and all) but got the wrong mean b/c the # she was working off of (371) was one off. She really did understand the material and did well aside from these detail errors.

    From what dd said, the teacher was angry with her and another child for not getting at least an 85% and told them that she really didn't want to make another test (she usually lets them try a make-up test if they didn't do great) and that they would have to come in during lunch and study a lot to show that they were committed to learning the material if they were going to make her do more work. Dd does know this material. She didn't miss much of anything that related to understanding the material. She made errors that related to attention to detail. Staying in at lunch to study the material isn't going to help with that.

    Dd is terribly stressed b/c she feels like the teacher is angry with her and regrets letting her into the GT class. This grade is a very hard group of kids and about 20 of the 90 kids in the grade are in the GT class for reading and/or math. The older, high achievers dominate the needs of this class which makes it hard to not resent the gifted kids who require more work on the teacher's behalf.

    I know that I have eaten up a bunch of this teacher's time earlier in the year as well and am afraid that bugging her yet again to discuss dd's anxiety about the situation will only irritate her and make her want dd not to be in her class more.

    Cricket2 #88775 11/04/10 05:59 AM
    Joined: May 2009
    Posts: 2,172
    C
    Member
    OP Offline
    Member
    C
    Joined: May 2009
    Posts: 2,172
    Sorry to repeatedly post on my own thread, but this situation is causing me a lot of anxiety as well b/c I know that dd is suffering and we really aren't doing right by her. We either pretend she isn't particularly able (ignore IQ and higher achievement) and place her in avg groupings where the work is so easy that her attn to detail, etc. doesn't matter b/c she can coast or we stress her out by putting her in a more appropriate academic situation where she will be somewhat challenged but where the other kids are competitive and most aren't like her either (plus her anxiety is worse).

    Honestly, my strong inclination is to take her out and homeschool as I had initially planned @ the begining of the year. The major stumbling blocks to that are:

    * I work p/t and she'd be home alone for approx. 20 hrs/wk and she hates being alone.
    * If she isn't in school at the end of this year to take the MAPS and the district readiness assessment for math, she won't qualify for subject acceleration in math in middle school should we send her back to school.
    * If we keep her out for part of middle school and then send her back in, say, 7th or 8th grade, she likely won't get into the school we'd want to choice her to. Our neighborhood school isn't bad, but there is another option that would work better for her and our family and the odds of getting in are a lot better if you apply in 6th grade (which we have for next year).

    Cricket2 #88781 11/04/10 06:35 AM
    Joined: Sep 2008
    Posts: 1,898
    C
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    C
    Joined: Sep 2008
    Posts: 1,898
    Originally Posted by Cricket2
    Dd had gotten As on all quizes and work thus far this quarter until the unit test came along. She would have had an A- on the test had she not made some attention to detail errors. For instance, forgetting to put "cm" or "cm2" on some units of measure and just putting the numbers without the units dropped her grade down a full 12%. She also misadded one column of numbers coming out with 371 instead of 372. When she then divided that by 4 to get a mean, she did the division correctly (decimals and all) but got the wrong mean b/c the # she was working off of (371) was one off. She really did understand the material and did well aside from these detail errors.
    So, she's well placed (or at least, not placed where she's having to do work she can't deal with, but she makes slips.
    Originally Posted by Cricket2
    From what dd said, the teacher was angry with her and another child for not getting at least an 85% and told them that she really didn't want to make another test (she usually lets them try a make-up test if they didn't do great) and that they would have to come in during lunch and study a lot to show that they were committed to learning the material if they were going to make her do more work. Dd does know this material. She didn't miss much of anything that related to understanding the material. She made errors that related to attention to detail. Staying in at lunch to study the material isn't going to help with that.
    But equally, what would be the point of making the teacher do the extra work? The educational motivation for allowing a repeat test, and the justification for the teacher to put the effort into writing and administering it, is surely to give everyone the assurance that the student now understands the material. The "vanity" aspect of allowing the student a higher mark is a different matter entirely, and far harder to use as a justification for using up the teacher's very limited time. I agree that it'd be pointless for your DD to have to restudy the material, but I also think it's unreasonable to expect the teacher to make up another test because of this. Your DD should just accept that she got a low mark because she didn't attend to detail, but she does understand the concepts. The next test on new material will do just as well as a repeat of this one for trying to attend to detail better.

    Originally Posted by Cricket2
    Dd is terribly stressed b/c she feels like the teacher is angry with her and regrets letting her into the GT class. This grade is a very hard group of kids and about 20 of the 90 kids in the grade are in the GT class for reading and/or math. The older, high achievers dominate the needs of this class which makes it hard to not resent the gifted kids who require more work on the teacher's behalf.

    I know that I have eaten up a bunch of this teacher's time earlier in the year as well and am afraid that bugging her yet again to discuss dd's anxiety about the situation will only irritate her and make her want dd not to be in her class more.
    So, the teacher's got a difficult job at the moment. It sounds as though she isn't handling it too well, but we're all human... Can you meet her where she is by presenting her with the problem and a solution at the same time, and maybe doing it in writing rather than by a meeting so she can just say "Great!". My - bossy, feel free to take anything useful and leave the rest! - suggestion would be:

    - DD accepts that she'll lose marks for lack of attention to detail

    - and doesn't expect the teacher to do extra work to get round that

    - but would appreciate clear feedback on why she's losing marks so that she can tell the difference between her ongoing attention issues and conceptual misunderstandings (I'm not clear on whether she's getting clear feedback at the moment, obviously you word this differently, depending).

    - You tell the teacher that you're aware that your DD is having trouble avoiding slips, that you're not sure what's behind it, but that you're confident it isn't simple lack of willingness on your DD's part.

    - She commits to working on it at home and you commit to helping her. For example, you could set her simple tests at home - a few questions requiring a bit of addition, with answers given in different units that need to be written in, or whatever - the idea being to incorporate practice at noticing whatever she hasn't been noticing, but in a context where that attention to detail is the only hard thing.

    - Anything else you can think of. For example, would it help your DD to have a business-card-sized checklist of her common mistakes, e.g. "Have I answered all the questions? Does every question that needs units have the right units?" etc. My DS has one of these to remind him what to do when he gets stuck, and it really seems to help. Maybe the teacher would be agreeable to allowing your DD (or, anyone who wanted one) to have one in front of her when she does tests? You could offer to provide a stack...

    I'm also not meaning in any way to dissuade you from anything you're doing to seek a diagnosis if one is applicable.


    Email: my username, followed by 2, at google's mail
    ColinsMum #88789 11/04/10 08:18 AM
    Joined: May 2009
    Posts: 2,172
    C
    Member
    OP Offline
    Member
    C
    Joined: May 2009
    Posts: 2,172
    Thanks for your thoughts. Dd isn't the only child who got a C on this test, but she was mortified by the teacher making an announcement to the class that the grades ranged from As to Cs with a pointed look @ dd and another child and then sighing and saying that she didn't want to make another test and that they were going to need to show her that they were really willing to work hard by coming in at lunch to relearn the material if they wanted to retake it.

    I, too, told dd that she might have to be willing to accept some lower grades as we figure out this attention to detail issue she is having. Her bigger anxiety is being caused by feeling like the stupid kid in the class b/c she is getting lower grades on tests than most of the other kids and feeling like the teacher is angry with her and resenting her.

    Last night she was up an hour past her normal bedtime sobbing and telling me that she just wants to get As and be like dd12. Again, I know that she can get As in the non-GT classes b/c the work is so easy for her, but b/c this school has about 40% of the kids in accelerated math with maybe 15% in the more accelerated GT math (the one dd is in), it leaves the avg math class with kids who are below avg. That was the class she was going to be placed in in lieu of the GT math b/c they didn't have enough room in the accelerated-non GT math. I don't know that placing her with avg-below avg kids in order to ensure that she can get As is going to make her feel good either. She was pretty upset about that placement at the start of the year.

    ColinsMum #88792 11/04/10 08:26 AM
    Joined: May 2009
    Posts: 2,172
    C
    Member
    OP Offline
    Member
    C
    Joined: May 2009
    Posts: 2,172
    Originally Posted by ColinsMum
    - She commits to working on it at home and you commit to helping her. For example, you could set her simple tests at home - a few questions requiring a bit of addition, with answers given in different units that need to be written in, or whatever - the idea being to incorporate practice at noticing whatever she hasn't been noticing, but in a context where that attention to detail is the only hard thing.
    We have been working on this. She actually got a 100% on the practice test in class which, presumably, required attention to detail as well. She just has such huge anxiety related to the real tests at this point, b/c she hasn't done well on any of them, that it seems to be making the attention to detail much worse. Unfortunately, the practice test doesn't count toward her grade.

    Cricket2 #88802 11/04/10 09:25 AM
    Joined: Sep 2008
    Posts: 1,898
    C
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    C
    Joined: Sep 2008
    Posts: 1,898
    Can you help her care less about her grade? What matters is what she's learning, and that's the attitude she's going to need through life (even when grades may affect college entrance, which isn't yet, right?) If the teacher/the school is going to deny her appropriate education on the basis of grades that are pulled down by these issues, more fool them and you need to address it, but even then, it shouldn't be her concern, IMHO.


    Email: my username, followed by 2, at google's mail
    Cricket2 #88820 11/04/10 01:51 PM
    Joined: May 2009
    Posts: 2,172
    C
    Member
    OP Offline
    Member
    C
    Joined: May 2009
    Posts: 2,172
    We're working on that too. The reality is that she is going to be denied GT or accelerated services based upon her grades/test scores. Both local districts base placement in GT or accelerated classes on achievement moreso than ability.

    I'm really torn. Part of me says to just deemphasize academics and intelligence and just make like she is an average kid. Place her in the average classes and don't worry about the fact that huge #s of kids who are less able than she are doing well in the accelerated classes. If she didn't have an older sister who was such a high achiever, I think that might be okay. I don't know if it is preferable to what she's going through right now, though.

    Do you think that putting a gifted or maybe HG+ kid in average classes and pretending she isn't gifted is reasonable in any circumstance if she performs better there?

    Cricket2 #88822 11/04/10 01:59 PM
    Joined: Sep 2008
    Posts: 1,898
    C
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    C
    Joined: Sep 2008
    Posts: 1,898
    Originally Posted by Cricket2
    Do you think that putting a gifted or maybe HG+ kid in average classes and pretending she isn't gifted is reasonable in any circumstance if she performs better there?
    Ouch. No, I don't - but it's the "pretending she isn't gifted" bit that makes me react that way, and my guess is that you wouldn't actually do any such thing (even if the school did). If she were happy in average classes *and* were getting appropriate intellectual stimulation outside school, I would think that was OK. It does seem ridiculous, though.


    Email: my username, followed by 2, at google's mail
    Cricket2 #88825 11/04/10 03:58 PM
    Joined: Dec 2005
    Posts: 7,207
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    Joined: Dec 2005
    Posts: 7,207
    Originally Posted by Cricket2
    I, honestly, haven't been gung-ho to medicate dd b/c she is very small and I don't want to stunt her growth. She's newly 10 and weighs 55 lbs. She's also short, so it's not like she's emaciated. Dh is just 5'6", so the genetics for big size aren't there.

    I am willing to consider medication, though, at this point. However, if it isn't likely to net a significant benefit, I would be less eager.

    I've heard that ADD is less 'sure-fire' helped by stimulents than ADHD, too, but that's far from saying that the stimulents don't help any kid with ADD alone. My son has the inattentive type, and loves, loves, loves the way the stimulents make his brain feel. I hate the idea of medicating kids, but when we finally got him placed in classrooms that were interesting and he was still zoning out, he let me know loud and clear that he didn't want to be a victim of my political beliefs.

    I think that your DD 'knows' deep down, that she is just as smart as her older sister, and when the teacher acts upset, it confirms your DD's suspicion that she has been 'cheated' in some way - and she has. I think it's time to try the medication and find out for yourselves if your DD can be more of the kid she knows herself to be on the inside, on the outside. Of course the medication isn't enough. And of course, the medication merry-go-round to try several different varieties is a big pain in the xxxxx. But she is feeling the pressure internally and there is real pressure externally. This makes it worth it to give drugs a chance and see if they suit her.

    Also - starting the medications gives you a chance to sit down with Ms. Mathteacher, show how the errors on the test were 'attentional' not 'conceptual' in nature, and tell that you are starting the medication merry go round and that getting things sorted out may take a while. This will cut out the nasty looks at least for a while.

    Just my .02 BTDT
    Grinity


    Coaching available, at SchoolSuccessSolutions.com
    Page 5 of 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

    Moderated by  M-Moderator 

    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
    New, and you'd think I'd have a clue...
    by astronomama - 03/24/24 06:01 AM
    For those interested in astronomy, eclipses...
    by indigo - 03/23/24 06:11 PM
    Son 2e, wide discrepancy between CogAT-Terranova
    by astronomama - 03/23/24 07:21 AM
    Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5