I was labeled Gifted from 5th-8th grade. Which meant that we met for 1 period in 5th grade and did extra projects and brain teasers, etc. 6th-8th I was in the gifted math program and just got pulled for math. High school had no gifted program but had some teachers very against the entire idea of labeling kids. They made it their mission to verbally and academically belittle us for 4 years beginning the first day of 9th grade. Students knew of no recourse and I don't believe any teacher was ever reprimanded. So it's been a cheery experience.
LD Parent,
I'm so sorry that your High School teachers reacted in this way. I suppose that in any profession there is a variety of people in it.
((Shaking head ruefully)) Those gifted pull-out programs are under attack from all sides, these days, aren't they? They are attacked for being elitist, and expensive, and unnescessary from one side, and for being inadaquate on the other side, after all, a child is gifted "24 hours a day." Then there are the Highly Gifted children who are just a underchallenged at the Gifted Program as they were in the regular classroom, but perhaps with less free time to pursue their own interests. Still I think that the chance to have a teacher who "gets" you and be with other children who have this exceptionality in common may be "just right" for some children, and better than nothing for others. I grew up a few years before such programs where introduced at our school, and was told by my parents, that if I could just hold on and be compliant, College awaited me and all my dreams would be realized. ((Of course, as wonderful as College was, I had ZERO study skills by the time I got there - a problem!))
If it wasn't for the school calling me to demand that I do something about my son, I would have continued to think that Giftedness was "no big deal" and "had no effect on me."
((shrug))
Trinity
