Ametrine, yes, we were limited in terms of how many functional grade-accelerations the school would permit-- though in some ways, we agreed with them after the third skip anyway. Because, asynchrony.
So we certainly did compaction, but not for the purpose of moving ahead of peers. In fact, we were forced to exist in a rather rigid solution space there within the school's idea of what was okay and what was not. Understand that schools mostly cannot really believe the rate at which HG children can plow through material if you let them do so. Not don't want to-- truly, cannot understand it. They spend a lot of time hunting for the 'trick' in the illusion, not stopping to consider that maybe it isn't an illusion at all.
{ahem}
So we learned to nod and smile and follow some don't-ask-don't-tell while we did our best to meet their paper criteria for seat time, and DD's need to be less irritated by that seat time.
This is where cyberschool really held the key--
pretesting, post-testing if pretesting went well, and then move on. Reading, sure. Understanding that it was going to take her exactly 13% of the intended time, and supplying her with related reading material to get things up to more like 60% of the anticipated time investment-- off to the library for us.
Rinse, lather, repeat. Add enrichment and extension as desired/needed, and build a work portfolio which demonstrates true mastery (and not just test-taking prowess, as those two are not necessarily synonymous).
Then, since this (clearly) didn't take all that much of DD's time, given that she was (even in secondary, even with acceleration in place) mostly not working at an appropriate level, but somewhat below said level-- we added additional extracurricular commitments. LOTS of them.
Volunteering in the community, developing leadership skills, music, sports, etc.
The other thing that we did was have a list of permissible "schooly" activities that she could select from-- I'd give her a couple of choices based on what I thought she needed to work on for personal development (so, in a year when her writing wasn't growing much, I'd encourage her to work on her script/novel, or in one that was writing intensive, I'd offer something science oriented instead).
Reading was ALWAYS on the table as an activity that I'd count as "school" in terms of reporting her daily seat time.
I guess I'm another vote for partial homeschooling with the caveat that the ideal there is probably a half-day in which your child pretty much has the same expectations as classmates-- just within half the time that they invest.
I suspect that this balance point may be different for individual kids, and a lot of things other than academics get learned during a school day, to be sure. Still, I think that the basic principle is sound. Kids at higher LOG, they probably need a variety of accommodation strategies-- so enriched curriculum, maybe compaction to move into higher level curriculum (accomplishing an acceleration), and limiting the time to something that isn't so mind-numbing, which does two very important things, IME:
1. It keeps the time investment at a developmentally appropriate level. NO way would I want a 12yo spending the kind of time that an average top-10% high schooler does on his/her AP schedule. But an EG/PG kid? Well, that schedule simply doesn't REQUIRE that kind of time investment-- so don't allow it.
2. Brings the pacing up to a level which feels more comfy to kids at higher LOG. Yes, it's still spread out in time-- but if you fill that other time with additional fulfilling pastimes, it can feel okay to some kids, and that keeps them in step with classmates.
That second point is really a brilliant thing, IMO. If you keep the social currency associated with group work but can take out the issue of the pacing being too slow, it really can work to have an EG/PG kid grouped with MG ones who are slightly older.
Hopefully that is helpful. I realize that not all teachers or schools can be this flexible, but that really is the key.
Last edited by HowlerKarma; 01/27/15 11:42 AM.
