Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy doing well in advanced math, but not regular?

I thought I had hit the jackpot this year when DS9 got a teacher who was all about differentiated instruction. Unfortunately, while he does get to do advanced math, she is also required to make him do the regular assignments with the rest of the class. Okay, no big deal. So he does a mindless subtraction worksheet, then can move on to the cool stuff that he really enjoys, right? Here's the problem: only the regular assignments that everyone does count toward his grade. But he is getting mediochre grades on those, while excelling at his advanced math...which doesn't count. So I'm kind of in a multi-faceted quandry. First, I've always taught him that learning is more important than grades, and that is exactly what he tells me when I try to get him to put some effort into his basic math. If he's learning in the advanced math, but not in the basic, then that means he SHOULD put more effort into it. But I also want him to understand that his grades do matter....especially if it takes so little to keep them up! My other issue is whether or not I should be upset that his advanced math is not being counted. If it was, he would have fantastic grades. But the school system sees it as unfair for the curriculum to be different for different kids. In other words, if someone looks at his grades, it won't show whether he is in advanced classes, and it will look like he is not doing as well as he is. I understand that. But at the same time, shouldn't he be graded on what he is learning?
I feel like I'm talking in circles on this post. But hopefully someone will be able to give some advice on how to get him to put at least a LITTLE effort into his basic math, and how to handle the grade issue!

Michelle,

That kind of problems are not uncommon. I would not worry and stress too much about the grades. It matters when he gets into middle school.

I am sure your DS enjoys doing advance levle Math and loathes doing regular boring Math. They tend to be careless with the easy questions or doiing it on purpose. You may need to bluff and say like (he would disqualify the advance class if his grade in regular class does not improve soon, etc...).

You may talk to the school counselor or admninistrator and see if your DS's advance level homework can be counted for the grades. First, you probably need to talk to his teacher. If the teacher goes along with it, it will probably be easier to talk to the administrators.

Well, maybe...

but clearly this seems ridiculous to your child. Have you asked point-blank what the PURPOSE is of this strategy-- educationally, I mean-- for your son?


So... let me get this straight; he's doing TWICE AS MUCH WORK as his classmates, doing more DIFFICULT work than they are... and not earning credit for all that he's doing. Is that about it?

Sorry-- there's something wrong with that picture. If he needs more challenging work, then he ought to be doing it. While I understand that they've hit upon a way of offering enrichment which feels meaningful, they've made a fundamental error in the way they're going about it. No child should have to "earn" appropriate educational opportunity by tolerating inappropriate instruction. But that IS what they've arranged.


Okay, well... WOW. Really? So the kids who are struggling and working on basic concepts aren't getting anything "different" either? What about kids who have disabilities and have differentiated instruction on the basis of an IEP? Is that not viewed as "unfair" to the other kids, then?

(Just to be clear, I'm pointing out how ridiculous this POLICY and way of thinking is... not that I think that this is true.)

Isn't the curriculum intended to serve students? It seems to me that your school is reframing that so that the students are serving IT, not the other way around.

It should be more than possible for a teacher to assess more advanced mathematics for the topics currently being taught in class. This is because up to geometry, mathematics instruction is more or less constructive, and therefore there IS no way that he'd be producing excellence with advanced material if he didn't have mastery of the concepts that form the foundation for that work. KWIM?

It shouldn't be up to the student to do inappropriate work just to make it "easier" for the teacher to deal with it. No, I wouldn't put it quite that way, of course.


But perhaps he needs to be placed out of level for math, if that's the only way to manage this. Alternatively, how do you and your son feel about pretesting out of the regular course material? He could take the summative assessments and, providing that he demonstrates clear mastery, be excused from doing all of the supporting assignments.

That option is a hard one for them to argue from a pedagogical standpoint. There seems NOTHING to be gained for the student in repeating all of the work intended to gain mastery of a concept that the student already HAS mastery of.


My daughter was a child that definitely rebelled against this, too-- her attitude was that she wasn't going to play "trained seal" for anyone, because she didn't care about getting tossed a fish. She wanted to learn NEW things-- not 'show' what she already knew perfectly well. I'll also add, here, that forcing such students to perform as well as they CAN on below-level assessments is the road to hell. Paved with good intentions or not, it can foster perfectionism and kill a love of learning... since they associate schoolwork with "demonstration of my mastery" and "proving what I already know well" rather than learning.

That's probably your most potent argument, particularly if you have a child who is at all stubborn/oppositional or demonstrates any tendency toward perfectionism already.

I'm also struggling to understand how the teacher is "required" to force your child to do this. Required by whom?

You'd be surprised. A district I've worked in had a very "all teachers must teach the core curriculum with fidelity to all students" attitude. Exceptions were made if a student was cognitively disabled, but any differentiation of curricular expectations had to be under the table, and done in such a way so that the right boxes could be checked on the districts report cards.

They did, however, have a very fluid sense of grade level, so kids working up a grade or more in various subject areas was not uncommon. So... once you'd ticky-boxed all the stuff for grade 3, for example, that student could move on to grade 4 material. HOWEVER, you couldn't ticky-box things until they'd passed a district assessment, which made it kind of unwieldy to advance kids... you had to just throw assessment after assessment at them.

They've gone in a different direction now, for better and worse.

Right-- I do understand the checkbox mentality.

I'm just not clear on why it can't be accomplished with pretesting out of summative assessments, rather than forcing the child through curriculum that isn't teaching him anything.

Well, okay, it is teaching him something, actually-- that school is the place that makes you do a lot of things that interefere with authentic learning. LOL.

Oh, I'm not saying that I agree with it, just that the teacher may very well be under instructions not to let anyone deviate from the set curriculum.

Same situation here, with DD10. She's marked only on the boring, grade level stuff which she has to complete before she does her enriched math.

I tell her that grades are like currency - they're a tool to get what you want in life. Since her previous A in math got her into her enrichment program, she's motivated to get another A to get in again next year, so that means she's willing to slog through the grade level drudgery...

Apparently, the reason the school (or maybe the whole school system, I'm not entirely clear on that) requires that he is only graded on basic math is because of parent complaints. Some parents whose children were doing advanced math got upset because their kids actually had to learn something, and didn't make the Principal's List because of it. Their idea was that their kids have to work harder for the same grade, blah, blah, blah....
I had a talk with DS last night about his plans for the future. He has decided that he wants to go to MIT (I need to start putting more in his college savings account!) and become an engineer. I told him that even though it might be unfair, MIT does not accept everyone, and they will look at his grades and test scores to see if he can go there. Of course, that made him all nervous because, at ten years old, he is now worried that he will not get into college. (Sigh). I think he has it worked out in his mind now, so hopefully he will be able to bring up that grade without freaking himself out about it. We'll see how that works.