What I've been struggling with though is he language that is being used (eg parent orientation). They continuously talk about how these kids are so special / have great emotional needs etc.
We had this problem with the gifted class my son was in during elementary school. Many of the kids in that class seemed to feel that they were better than the kids in the regular classes. Many of them were just copying their parents & the teacher. It wasn't received well by the other kids on the playground and was one of the downsides to the class.
Exactly-- this is the overwhelming sense that one gets from our local GT services, as well; and they identify a full 30% of the kids in some schools. In that instance, I simply have to SCOFF that this is a "special" population by my use of the notion. That's the UPPER THIRD.
If "regular" education isn't serving those kids, then they need to
fix that, not wring their hands and tell parents what a challenging problem this is. Because... it isn't. Not unless they are grossly incompetent as educators, I mean.
So that kind of rhetoric, used with THAT population, is pure entitlement and it. is. ODIOUS.
It's the sort of thinking that marginalizes truly "special" GT students (that is, those who are more like 1: 10,000 or so), those with 2e needs, etc. The kids that can't really FUNCTION in an undifferentiated setting, I mean.
Because the parents with kids at the 90th percentile are largely wanting to be told how Very Exceptionally ESPECIALLY SPECIAL their little snowflakes are, and look, X, Y, and Z... (basically, first-world-problems,
ad nauseum-- the most challenging thing for many of them is whining that orchestra overlaps sports practices too many days of the week, that there is too much reading expected at home, and that the geometry teacher needs to accommodate track meets with less homework, or something like that)
In that instance the "Special" club can only have just so many seats, see, or it isn't
exclusive any more. (Which feels faintly ridiculous anyway given that this already seems an awful lot like Lake Wobegon, given the bizarre, credulity-stretching statistics involved in this big picture, but whatever). Can't have the "wrong kind" of kids in here, either...
It also leads parents to feel that it is perfectly fine when their little darlings are insufferable gits-- to other adults, to teachers, or to their classmates.
I get that being out of sync with the world is hard. I live it too. But that does NOT NOT NOT excuse being
cruel or downright NASTY and arrogant to less intellectually able people around you. EVER. It
particularly doesn't excuse the behavior when you and the the other 30% of the school are all "special" like that. Not so exclusive that you ought to be using it as a badge of martyrdom to begin with, KWIM?
That's the kind of thing that gives
real programs for students that have extraordinary needs a bad, bad name.
It also makes me enraged to listen to this kind of unmitigated whinging from upper middle class parents who have no concept of
real educational, financial, or social
problems of the kind of magnitude that the less fortunate kids in the district's classrooms face on a regular basis. Yes, I get that your kid being at the 90th percentile and not being able to fit football, basketball, martial arts, theater, AND two musical instruments in with the heavy homework load of AP classes must...
really, really suck. Well, no. I don't, but I trust that it FEELS like adversity to you. But it doesn't excuse stepping on the kids that get lunch only because it's FREE, and can't afford
any of your kid's extracurriculars because they are WORKING to help their families. Those kids don't
have tutors to help them keep up the "special" banner, and nobody expects them to be nasty to others, either.
I fault administration for being cowed by over-entitled parents, myself. I was
beyond appalled when getting the accommodations that College Board
said my kid should have (for the SAT) meant demonstrating for the gatekeeping troll at the local school that my PG child was "worth it." Well, what if she weren't?? What if she was likely to just score a respectable 1700 and not a 2200+ on the day? It angers me, that attitude. NEEDING the accommodations should have been reason enough.
I realize this sounds rather bitter, but it's the kind of thinking that goes "Oh, we have a "special" group for the really Special Kids" which ultimately prevents
authentic supports for kids who are truly exceptional in terms of educational needs.
When you offer "enrichment for all" that's a laudable goal. When the reality turns out to be "enrichment for the ideally advantaged in every way," that's just wrong. It adds insult to injury when that group treats everyone else as if they are subhuman via an air of entitlement.
Disenfranchisement may be part and parcel of being "special" (in the cognitive sense or in any other, I suspect), but feeling superior and put-upon certainly is NOT. I think that the OP's discomfort with the whiff of that kind of rhetoric would have made me feel a bit squicky as well.
