Do you feel positive? Negative? Neutral? Disillusioned?
What I want to know, is it like this everywhere? Are there school districts/schools that are actually good and kids get their needs met? How do you feel?
Disillusioned! Absolutely!!!! You would think educators would be better trained in dealing with both ends of the bell curve, and we naively thought they would be happy to work with someone on the high end - how fun should that be to really be able to challenge a bright kid; a kid that loves to learn? We were wrong - they don't get it at all! We always hope someone will appear that "gets it", but so far that person hasn't arrived. Our gifted teacher is close. She is obviously gifted herself, and raised her own gifted children, but she isn't one to speak up and suggest things, even if she knows it would help. If we suggest something she will jump on board, but she wants to keep a good working relationship with the administrators and teachers, so she won't ever rock the boat. She also has a strong concern about making DD stand out too much and then end up an outcast. I agree to an extent, but DD still has educational needs, that I don't think can be completely fulfilled through her gifted pullout alone.
I think it is a matter of educating the educators and it can't come from us parents because we have too big a stake to be neutral and believable. If someone could teach them that gifted kids do have needs beyond what regular education can give them, then I think we might see a difference. Educators have been actually taught that those at the lower end of the curve need help and accommodations, but they aren't taught about the upper part of the curve. I went through a very good teacher ed program and received my degree and certification, and I don't ever recall hearing anything about gifted ed. We have had NCLB for so long now, giving the lower end the most significance, and I have no problem with that, but the higher end needs some attention now too!
I also have to be completely honest and admit - if I was not the parent of gifted children, and had not been through all that we have been through, I would not really care about gifted education and would not understand the need for anything different than what was already in place. That is just the honest truth. I see that as another issue entirely - parents of "regular ed" children don't get it either and don't really care. Most of them would not be on our side in a fight for change, but I bet some of them would stand up for the kids at the lower end just because it seems more obvious that they need the help. We have had several fundraisers in our area this school year already for different causes (again I don't have an issue with this and my family freely participates in whatever is going on in our community) but can you imagine what kind of a turnout we would get if we did a fundraiser for gifted education?
I don't know if that came out right or not and I hope I didn't offend anyone - just my thoughts and opinion. Maybe I'm wrong, or maybe I am just disillusioned.
