Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments teacher/student mismatch

Kriston, I never meant for this to be an either-or discussion. There are situations where taking a kid out is the right thing to do. You and others have describes kids shutting down as a result of the environment. If my kid shut down, then I would also take action and do it quickly. I thought I had said that pretty clearly in all my posts, but I guess I didn't say it clearly enough, so I am saying it again. If your child is being harmed, you are a doing a good thing by drastically changing that situation which includes pulling them out.

I guess I used our examples because I wanted Doodlebug to not be too hard on herself for not doing something earlier. She and her DS can still learn from this situation. For example, by encouraging her son to be more forthcoming with info in the future, letting him know what is OK to tolerate and what he needs to tell people about. Why didn't he tell her earlier? When should he come to an adult? If these things get figured out now, it can head of problems in the future. And, if, by telling her story, someone else doesn't accept their kid's "everything is OK" when it isn't, that would be a good thing too. I didn't mean to suggest that just because we can learn from something bad, we should activley subject our children to it.

Am I off your black list, yet, K

Oh, SOOOOOOO sorry! Of course you weren't going to an either-or place! I never thought you were! I wasn't going to one either. And you know you can never be on my black list, acs! You certainly weren't here. Oh no, no, no! My fault!

Ah, I knew I was putting my foot in it here... I just feel really strongly about parental empowerment on this issue.

Maybe I just take this topic to heart too much because I felt so helpless in the face of the school situation we were in. I felt highly pressured--by myself, by my values, by my family, by my community...I don't know for sure--to have my son "gut it out." I just don't think that pressure is healthy.

I didn't mean that YOU were putting that pressure on. Just that you were voicing what I felt when I was in that situation. I just wanted to open the door to people who need permission to NOT teach those lessons to their kids. Sometimes, they're not lessons worth learning. I needed that permission. Happily, I had a friend who gave it to me. That's all I was trying to do here for others.

Really, I don't think we're far apart on this at all. In your shoes, I'd have probably done the same thing you did, and I suspect that in my shoes, you'd have been with me. It's more about where our experiences led us to place our emphasis.

And I'm TOTALLY with you about not wanting doodlebug to second-guess. That's not helpful to anyone.

Are we good? I hope!

This is really well put. Thanks, MON.

yep, we're good. I always know I can argue with you and we can find that sane middle ground eventually and as a bonus hope the argument helps someone along the way!

Looking at this again:



I think maybe it all comes down to the definition of harm. I guess that's where the parental insecurity comes in. You didn't define what you saw happening to your child as harm, acs, so you felt good about using it as a teachable moment. I support that. I did define what I saw as harm to my child, and I think you support my choice. For both of us, I think the distinction between harm/not harm was pretty clear.

But not all cases are so clear-cut. Those are the ones that worry me, and those are the people I'm addressing my posts to here. I want it to be okay for people to see that "nice teachers" can still do harm. And harm can be defined more broadly than it often is defined.

Our teacher was a nice person, I think. I don't think she was a monster or evil. But her approach to DS was punitive and would have been socially and pyschologically crippling to him had it gone on. "Nice people" with bad ideas and effectively unfettered power over a child can have that sort of devistating effect on young kids. I just want it to be okay for parents to feel like they can say "no!" Even to a "nice person."

I really value that with you, too. Seriously, I have tremendous respect for your views because you are a thinker. That's so important to me.

LOL I didn't think you guys were arguing. I didn't even think you were disagreeing, just discussing points on a continuum.

I wish DS would have a mean, evil teacher b/c it would make the decision easy. BUt he's had very nice teachers. His teacher last year tried, she gave him challenge problems here and there, he did independent research projects which he loved, he shared those w/ the class and loved being the expert ... but I do think perhaps her hands are tied as far as accelerating in class so I'm dealing more a systemic problem w/ the school rather than a student/teacher mismatch.

LOL! It's funny you say that, Dazey. DH and I actually thank DS7's 1st grade teacher in private for making our decision so easy. If we hadn't had a truly lousy situation, we might have limped along as we were, never really giving DS what he needed because we weren't seeing harm done to him. Heck, the only reason I even asked what his GT ID test scores were was because we were trying to decide if we should pull him out of her class. I didn't even know he was HG+ until then!

As the situation was, it was a no-brainer, and we're grateful to her that because of her, the choice was basically made for us.

Funny!

Wow, you guys have been busy while I've been at work! What a nice conversation and so many perspectives offered on the topic.

What I think I've learned is...(oh, that sounds like Dorothy as she's getting into the balloon to head home!)...that I can't stop advocating. We thought we could "leave well enough alone" and let MrWiggly go and back off the advocacy. It felt good to coast for most of the school year with really very little in terms of conflict or upset. But I realize now that he is more a "still waters run deep" kind of kid than I realize and that just because he's not tantrumming or refusing school doesn't mean he's happy. Whoever said he was able to suck it up and get by is right. And I don't want him to do that.

I had to help my older son deal with an idiot of an english teacher senior year of HS at this same district. It was his only year here. She was held up by all as the epitomy of english teachers and this master at teaching the kids rhetoric. Well, turns out that a kid could do fine in her class as long as he wrote what she told him to. When she made notes on a rough draft it was in the form of "you should change this sentence to read...." - seriously. The kids weren't learning, they were copying her writing. And my son knew what to do to pass the class and the teacher never had his respect. Same teacher told me that my son was arrogant. I was shocked. When I asked for an example she told me that when the librarian was teaching them how to format a disk my son didn't take notes. I told her that was because he'd been formatting disks for 4-5 years and had taken college level computer programming courses at his previous HS. She didn't get it. And never got him. But at his age he could handle the situation and he got by in the class. I don't want my 7 y/o to have to deal with that crap. When he's older, yeah, he needs to learn how to deal with those people. But right now I want him excited by his teachers, not disrespectful of them.

The problem for us is that there aren't choices for teachers. So, I'm not sure what I can do other than work with the teachers and stay on top of things more. And perhaps homeschool or move if the situation becomes really bad, although those aren't very realistic options for us. I just know that my advocacy skills need to grow with my son! The year wasn't horrible but it wasn't great. Hopefully with this lesson learned we can make future years better.

I think there's a lot of wisdom in that post, Debbie. Advocacy skills certainly sound like a big key for you. I think you're on the right track, if that matters or helps or whatever.