Hi all,
This is a new thread that I've created out of a segue from the NASA thread.
Did they come up with excuses? What reason did they give for such an unreasonable sounding decision?
Here's what I've been told or heard about:
1. We can't skip him because of concerns about socialization.Eight-year-olds can't mix with nine-year-olds because that would be
Damaging. Well, except when they're on the playground at recess, when older siblings exist, or when a redshirted nine-year-old is in a class with eight-year-olds. These situations are either extremely rare or extremely ignored for purposes of the conversation.
This argument also has something to do with the soul destruction that occurs when one's classmates get driver's licenses in 2017 when one still has to wait until 2018. The horror! The horror!
2. We can't skip her because there's no such thing as giftedness anyway.Unless she's a gifted athlete, in which case we will gush with praise to the point where she'll want to hide under a rock to escape it. Athletic-type giftedness definitely exists. It is great!
For purposes of this argument, the damage wrought by mixing with older children does not exist. We can ignore any damage wrought by making little pitchers throw the ball until they injure themselves, etc. etc. This is because sports injuries aren't damage --- they Build Character (tm).
3. We won't skip him because you're just a pushy parent. Corollary: "You need to let him be a normal kid."
These statements are universally true. Therefore, it follows logically that there's no need to test the child or listen to the parents. Why bother?
(Abandoning my tongue-in-cheek approach here.) Educators aren't used to seeing highly gifted kids. If they aren't highly gifted themselves or if they haven't done any background reading, it can be easy to believe that it's impossible to figure out what division is by yourself before you start school.
4. We don't need to skip her because our teachers are Masters and Mistresses of Differentiation!There's a big pile of worksheets on the table near the window. She can do them
any time after she finishes her hundred addition problems, gets them all right, and finishes tutoring the two kids assigned to her! Never mind that the worksheets repeat the same stuff she just did. If she was
really gifted, she'd want to do them all. But she doesn't, and this is how we know she isn't gifted. :-P
5. We can't skip him because he didn't get 90% in every subject on the tests you made us administer because you're such a pushy parent.That last 12% of second grade language arts is the good stuff, and he needs to spend all of next year learning it.
For purposes of this argument, we will ignore the very rare occurrence of other children passing to the next grade on the strength of Bs, Cs, Ds, or Fs.
HTH,
Val
