My son apparently "disengaged" from the classroom by spending up to 30 minutes every morning sharpening a pencil. And we didn't find out about this behavior until AFTER school was over. We were told that he had been doing this for at least the last 9 weeks of school, perhaps most of the last semester, according to the principal. Why the teacher thought this was nothing to tell the parents about is beyond me. And why she allowed it to continue is beyond me even further! It's pretty clear to me that he *is* one of those kids who is checking out and missing important stuff.
He is not a daydreaming sort of kid but one who actively looks around for something interesting when he's bored. It was somewhat disruptive in class as he was bored most of the time. Just this morning he told me that he hates school because he has to do homework "about stuff I already know." His achievement scores indicate that he could possibly be skipped again to 4th grade for the fall but the principal stated "we can't just keep putting him with older kids...and we don't have the resources to teach him any other way." When I suggested that he needed further differentiation and faster pace for curriculum he just nodded and made a note on his paper.
Dr. Ruf makes generalizations about LOG and schooling. But she also considers the personality into it as well. She also looks at the type of school - there's a whole section in her book that classifies schools in terms of programming and opportunities, demographics and such. Gratified, it sounds like your children have been in a much different situation than my son. He was accelerated but last year had a teacher who didn't really care about him, never noticed or appreciated his abilities and even seemed to take pleasure at times in pointing out his faults. And she certainly wasn't interested in communicating with us.
When it is a mismatch you've got to do something. So we've chosen to use Dr. Ruf's expertise to help us figure this all out. I was taken by her comment to me about my son's refusal to go to school last fall that perhaps he is lonely. That thought had never occurred to me. He *seems* happy in terms of friends but his responses on the Social Support Scale he completed indicate that perhaps his friendships are superficial and maybe he's actually yearning for more connection. I'm not sure. I just know there are pieces of him that my husband and I just don't understand. I'm hopeful this testing will help us out.
