Well, I guess a lot of "good" ideas sound good during the talking stage, and then they sort of fall apart when the special circumstances arise. Surely, no one factored in someone as brilliant as my daughter coming along as a third grader to enter the third/fourth grade grouping when the grouping idea was first being considered, because there was no contingency plan in place at all to deal with my daughter as she entered fourth grade, except to give her separate work on the side at times, which only served to isolate her socially. As a parent, perhaps I should have insisted on an appropriate solution, but the only appropriate solution available was to have her skip a grade, which was eventually done after fifth grade.
La Texican, you are to be applauded for wanting to hear the story, but you must be prepared to "think it through" as you care for your own children during their K-12 years. Schools do not function according to "all the modern literature" regarding gifted kids; they function according to economic realities and best-for-most efficiencies. If any of your children are truly off-the-charts extraordinary as my daughter was, you are on your own to fight for whatever compromises you can fashion � and your compromises are likely to be measly and far from what you would rightly consider to be appropriate solutions.
To give you a reference point: At my insistence, our local school district tested my daughter's reading ability during her first month of first grade, and it was determined by that testing that she was then reading with comprehension at an adult level beyond high school level, and that her reading comprehension was full except for times when it was limited by her chronological age and consequent lack of life experiences.
I ask you: What do you do with a kid like that? Believe me, it was a never-ending challenge. Public schools are not prepared to deal with kids like my daughter, and so I advocated for her at every turn along the way to the best of my ability.
Regarding Talented & Gifted programs: We quit fighting the fight in early middle school, because the focus of the programs was all wrong � at least in our case. TAG was always something "in addition to" the standard curriculum, never something "instead of" the standard curriculum. Our daughter did not need extra work; she needed appropriate work.
The local school district advised us to place our daughter in the district's Japanese Immersion School, because that was the most challenging program they had. And so we did so. She entered that program in second grade, and was almost immediately up to speed with all of her classmates who had been in the program since kindergarten. Her second grade Japanese teacher labeled our daughter a genius during our first parent/teacher conference. In fact, the teacher commented that she had never before encountered a student who could flawlessly learn Japanese at first hearing as our daughter could, and that teacher's long career included teaching at all levels from kindergarten through the highest university levels. It made no sense to even consider moving our daughter to another school, because she was already in the most challenging program that was available.
La Texican, ultimately it gets down to you doing the best you can do for your own children. So do continue asking to hear the stories of others, but do also think it through in your own special case, because quite probably you might be the only person who cares enough to think it through. God bless teachers, but teaching is a job for most of them � and that is not an unreasonable reality, even when your own children are involved.
Steven A. Sylwester
