What baffles me is why are teachers so insistent on holding students back? Do they think we (all parents) are crazy? Why is this such an uphill battle?
In a phrase:
helicopter parents from hell. No, they aren't SUPER common, but far more common than a child with an IQ score over 140 is, let's just put it that way...
So statistically, teachers/administrators are far more likely to have seen a parent who is WRONGLY convinced that their child is a genius who is misunderstood than a parent who has a child who is
really HG+.
As time goes on, educators have, more and more, had experience with this type of parent. Now, two contributing factors-- the special snowflake syndrome that has many parents of average and almost-MG kids thinking that the school isn't meeting their kids' needs (and in some cases, they are RIGHT about that... keep reading) and also wildly overestimating (wishful thinking?) their children's actual ability because of incessant hothousing. This cohort, by the way, is what leads educators to suggest gently (and not so gently) that all kids even out by 3rd grade, and other similarly asinine things. Among THAT group of children, those early emergent literacy skills, etc? Kinda true. They
aren't actually on a different trajectory entirely the way HG+ kids are, so yes, the gap narrows (or something like that) over time as other kids acquire literacy and numeracy that the snowflakes' parents drilled before kindergarten.
Secondly, NCLB means that kids in the
third quartile of achievement are actually getting the instruction which is aimed squarely at them. Why? Because that is the group which
can be moved into "meets" expectations on all-important annual testing. The lowest achievers probably can't, but they get instruction and accommodations (dictated by federal law, those). The second quartile achievers can just coast and they'll be fine-- they get to feel super-smart for having everything come "easy" (because the instruction, recall, is actually aimed BELOW the mean now), and their parents often get the idea that because their kids have straight A's, that they are "high ability" which can fuel the problem I outlined previously, and the other parents are just happy about it and buy "honor student at" bumper stickers and join the PTA. The highest quartile is where the trouble starts. THOSE parents often
know that the instruction is too low for their kids' readiness levels, and rather than being pleased, they are
concerned about this and what it might signify... they ask difficult questions. Things like; "Didn't we used to have a higher reading group??" and "what ever happened to the gifted program, anyway?"
In other words, simply by asking/mentioning concerns about the level of instruction, you've already labeled yourself as belonging to that trouble-making group of parents.
In addition, though, you've also indicated that you think that your child is DIFFERENT... ahhh, this is code for educator-speak "special snowflake." In other words, your child is never going to be in the wrong no matter what, and ALL
proble roads lead to "look what you're doing to my child" and adversarial interactions.
Double-whammy.
Anyway. Yes, I'm cynical, but I've also seen and heard some pretty crazy things that over-entitled parents feel they can do to classroom teachers in the name of "what I want for my precious..."
It does pay to stop and think about this from the teacher's perspective, after all. If s/he takes YOUR word for it, then s/he needs to take Jane, Timmy, and Jose's moms and dads' word for it, too, and differentiate accordingly. I don't know about where you are, but where I live, there are often 30 children in a kindergarten class. Some of those children come to school without basic preschool skills, and others (like our own HG+ children) may be reading as well as the teacher does. Plus, the teacher may also have three or four really extraordinary challenges in that classroom in the form of behavioral or medical needs in kindergarteners that CANNOT assist in the management of those conditions.
Pretty tall order.
I remind myself of what teachers are ultimately up against when I advocate. I try to couch advocacy in terms of meeting my DD's needs, of course-- but in ways that do NOT increase 'demand' on the teacher.
