No doubt Dottie. In more than one break out session I was at, the speaker started by saying "There has never been a worse time in history to be a GT student at a public school in the U.S.". It made me want to run screaming from the room.
I thought I'd bring this over to start a new thread because DH and I were just discussing this exact position last night. We both felt like the public schools we attended as GT kids (in two vastly different regions of the US) were far better at challenging GT kids than public schools are today.
Why, you ask? Well, I honestly don't think it is our own personal "Ah, those were the days." Neither DH nor I are prone to wax nostalgic for our school days...and, boy, is that ever an understatement! Still, we see a lot more people with GT kids who are HIGHLY dissatisfied with the job the schools are doing now than seemed to be the case 30 or so years ago. Anyone else see this? If so, why? What's changed? Why are things getting worse for GT kids instead of better?
(And, of course, if you disagree with this observation, why do you disagree?)
My theory is that the end of clustering has made things infinitely harder for GT students. Differentiation within the regular classroom--our school's primary means of GT stimulation--is so dependent upon the individual teacher's skill and interest that using this as the primary means of stimulating GT kids is overall a dismal flop as a system. It's too hard for teachers to teach separate lessons to each child's ability level, so most of them just don't bother at all. Pull-out enrichment helps, but what there is of it tends to start too late and consist of too little.
I'm curious to see what the rest of you think! Are the public schools doing a worse job with GT kids now than in the past, and if so, why?
