Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Hothouse Spinoff

ain't that the truth!

There are some errors that I think of as characteristic of "hothousing" -- maybe like a hothoused plant raised under badly placed lamps which can never grow to maturity because it over-stretched. Anyway, things where the adult seems more interested in the performance of the answer rather than their own interest in the topic, and is not very concerned about accuracy.

In my area, a kid is as likely to be pop-quizzed on some random aspect of what they're looking at as said "hello" to. My skin just CRAWLS when DS gets asked "what sound does a cat make" out of the blue, just because there were animals tangentially present in something, like a cat in the background of a photo or whatever.

I tend to think of it as hothousing becasue there's one "correct" answer, and it's pretty darned clear to me that there is more than one correct answer. DS liked "Dogs" by Sandra Boynton, and he still gets the funniest (subtle, I have to admit) look on his face when asked "what sound does a dog make." He regularly answers "lalala" for the pig question... also a Boynton reference.

The same is true of "what shape?" "what colour?" etc. These are almost always ambiguous in real life. DS once said "parrallelogram" for a square, which the asker totally didn't get (took me a while, too). I remember a cartoon where the parent was carefully trying to explain a caveman to her son while the son sounded out "australopithicus africanus... Homo Ergaster..." etc.

The other problem with this kinda quizzing is that it interfears in normal socialization and relationship-building, since people do it to the exclusion of saying "hello," "what are you looking at?" "that looks interesting" and other open-ended conversation starters.

Another similar type of thing is when people over-reach their own knowledge to "teach..." after a recent train-viewing trip, DS corrected someone "that's not the snokesnack [sic] that is the frottle [sic -- throttle] dome." Wanna make a bet the asker did NOT get that one. He got carefully corrected "yeeeesssss, That's the SMOKESTACK!!!" And quizzed until he relented and called it the snokesnack. I pointed out he'd been right to him, and he just said "I know." <sigh>


Sorry about the bad writing, I'm too tired to clean it up. But I had a different perspective, so had to put it out there. I'm just like that.

-Mich

These are some very good points Michaela, thank you giving me something to think about this afternoon!

Yes, La Texican, DS was always against 'performing in any way. I suppose I hadn't really thought of that as hothousing, but you are right. It is worse with other people.

Well. I spend all day, every day with him. I'm a housewife. He mostly won't "perform for me", but he will work with me. "I work with him", is the phrase I can say. On the one hand I'm happy to be able to teach him at home for another year. On the other hand, what was the school thinking, letting him make a whole 'nother years progress at our pace before accepting him?! I just hoped he should go this year because he'll be four, just a month too late. All the other 4 yr olds are going.

lol. So so true.

So weird that it can be so true, but not be understood by so many people (strangers, friends....)

Mr W was ecstatic when he went in with older kids. His first comment to me when I picked him up was, "Dad, they can talk!!" I imagine that putting him back in with his age peers would be like a scene from the Planet of the Apes where Heston meets the non-verbal humans. So maybe its a blessing in disguise for you.

If your kid is off the charts and progressing nicely through their learning curve, then to put them in with their age peers means that they will slow down or stop in their progress. To me that is unacceptable. But what is the alernative?

The school situation is a big issue with us as well. We've spent a lot of time looking at the laws and programs various schools - both public and private - provide in Texas.

The public schools will allow early entrance to 1st as a 5 year old if the kid passes the 3rd grade TAKs test and jumps through a number of hoops. But even first grade for a PG kid at 5 will mean learning to read rather than reading fluently.

There is only one district in North Texas that allows early entrance based on standardized IQ/achievement testing and then takes those kids through an accelerated program. I talked to parents in that program and parents who left it. Its not a true accelerated program past the 2d grade.

There are a number of "magnet" schools but the school district as a whole has very few National Merits as a % of the student body.

Just about every so called "elite" private school has a hard age range. Some come right out and tell you that "No Exceptions." Yet their curriculum is no different from the public schools at that age and no different at the higher grade levels as well. A handful of kids end up working at a very high level and do college courses in the 10th grade and beyond. So what are you paying them to do? These schools do have a lot of National Merit grads, but I wonder if that is more a function of repeating the same material over and over and over.

There is one regional program in Math that is run by a former Romanian math professor out of UTD. It seeks to ID mathy kids and then accelerate their math education with them doing Abstract Algebra while still in HS. Pretty cool.

So, there appears to be no one place to go to for education from 3 until 18. The two PG kids parents I talked to both now home school as even the accelerated elementary or magnet programs did not work past age 8 or 9. Some other parents have had skips in the magnet programs but supplement a lot at home then move to a district with a top HS.

So, I think it goes back to something Kriston said a few years ago and Grinity expanded on - that the kids have to lead and you must make adjustments.


--

I've read through a lot of regional forums and I see a number of parents say "my kids tested at 3rd grade level but we put her in K and that was the best choice." then you see another comment about how studies have shown they call catch up by 3rd grade. LOL. I do not want that for Mr W - I know what that was like for me.

LOL.

The house gets hot from the kid being in it. I have a permanent sun burn!

Does anyone know where this claim actually comes from? I just saw it again somewhere. Is it based on the study that showed that kids with explicit early reading instruction eventually lost their advantage over kids without it? (I don't know what that study specifically is, either, but I've seen it discussed.)

My best guess is that it comes from studies looking at the persistence of Head Start benefits. (For non-USAians, Head Start is essentially hothousing for low-SES kids - you put them in an academically enriched preschool so they enter K with the skills that high-SES kids have - knowing letters and numbers, knowing how to hold and open a book, etc.)