Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Challenged - when does it happen?

Our DD10 was accelerated from 4th to 5th about 2 months ago. As we are facing middle school next Fall, I will be asking lots of questions about that over the next few weeks. But, I wonder, will she find challenging work in MS? She will be in some kind of advanced LA next year. and she and DD11 (also in 5th) will be in compacted math (it's 6th, 7th, and half of 8th in one year). Have I unrealistically built up middle school in my mind as the place where some challenge might finally happen? Ours is a magnet middle school with almost 100 electives so I have had this wonderful dream that finally DD would find her "place" and take enjoyable, mind stretching classes. DD asked yesterday "Is AIG suppose to be easy?" She was baffled by the fact that that those classes are soooo not. Sigh.
I guess tagged to this question is - I have no idea what DD is capable of. When does that question get answered? Where and when do those brain cells get "stretched"? Love to hear others' experiences with their kids.

Maybe summer courses at Johns Hopkins CTY or other summer programs for gifted children would be a good challenge.

I think the answer to when does school become challenging is soooo so very dependent on school culture and ultimately individual teachers. My kids have been challenged and then-again not challenged at the *same* school but with different teachers.

We've also had our kids in a school that was very proud of it's elective and choice classes, and honestly, the classes weren't all that great - my kids enjoyed core classes that were well taught much better than electives that were supposed to stretch their minds because they offered "interesting" subjects that were not normally a part of the curriculum - the key with the electives was almost always the relative enthusiasm of the teacher. Hopefully that won't be an issue with your dd's school!

I tried to never build up my children's expectations about school too much - we have switched schools to have better academics and a higher level of challenge, but we kept the explanation at that. We didn't tell them that things were guaranteed to be a whole lot better, just that we were working (always) in that direction.

And... fwiw... one thing that my children did really notice and appreciate was that the overall classroom atmosphere was less boring for them when they able to be in classes that were supposed to be gifted and/or challenging - even if the classes were still not challenging (or even outright boring) - the lack of the distractions of slow and easy questions from other students made a huge impact on how much they enjoyed class.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Summer camps have been a great thing that our kids really have enjoyed. I'm beyond bummed that our in-state summer university program for middle and high school students has had severe cut-backs in funding this year. My ds has enjoyed CTY summer camp (intensive studies). Was it challenging? Maybe not at a high level, but it was challenging enough that he learned quite a bit and also had an engaged instructor.

OTOH, my ds is really into science. My dd wants to be a writer and she is really good at it, but it's much more difficult to find good summer camps for her (she's not ready to travel out of state yet, and the camps for middle school and up kids in our area are heavily weighted to STEM).

polarbear

Ita with Polarbear- it's impossible to answer that question from outside the situation. I will say that we were assured every step of the way that the next step would be better, only to find that hasn't held true for our kids.

Regarding electives, they may not be challenging (ours are generally not) but for our kids, the electives have been a welcome distraction, at least, and at their best, novel experiences they really enjoyed. For us, the more academic electives tended to disappoint (computer programming was ok, but DD often finished early and spent class time on homework for other classes, for example) but the more creative electives were worthwhile- art, photography, music, etc

Regarding regular classes, I second what polarbear said, in that they might not be challenging, but as the classes here gradually become more "tracked" the overall experience is better. Perhaps not saying much, I know. Our DD has managed ok, probably because she is quite good at self-challenge, despite what the class expectations are.

We have not tried CTY, primarily because many of the kids in DDs honors and accelerated classes attend, and based on her experiences in these classes, we weren't sure that it would be a good fit, though others on this board have described positive experiences.

College.

Brace yourself, by the way. It will NOT be pretty.

As others have recently posted on another thread, the challenge may come in terms of executive function skills (not necessarily appropriate curriculum and pacing in her zone of proximal development). "Rigor" may also consist of a heavy workload... primarily busy work... not necessarily new material.

When she is doing her own thing, exploring an area of interest.

You know, my daughter had a very good experience in middle school. She was in honors classes and had some really excellent teachers. She had to put forth some effort in math and failed her very first social studies test (a new experience for her!). She absolutely loved her English teacher. She could probably have done a second skip but she has been happy, and has experienced some challenge, so...I hope that in middle school things improve for your girls. I would strongly agree that a lot comes down to the teacher.

Re: CTY my PG SIL loved it so much as a kid that she goes back now and teaches every summer.

I think my dd also does get stretched with orchestra (we have a wonderful music program in middle school and even better in high school) so that helps too. We have focused our summer budget on orchestra camps and now this summer on a Shakespeare summer intensive that I have no doubt will stretch her in many ways.

That is some very good advise and I wish that I had know this when I first changed schools for my DS. I built my child's expectations about the new school a lot because I thought that it might take away the anxiety he had about leaving his old friends and entering a new school. This has proved to be wrong - he was nervous at first that he might not be able to keep up in this new and "fabulous" school with advanced academics - and then, in a few weeks, asked me why everything was so easy. Since then, I just tell him that we are choosing the "better" of all the options available to us and that he needs to stretch himself to his maximum limits after school and we will facilitate and help him in that (he does not break a sweat at school even when he has been accelerated 2 years in the core subjects and the teacher has run out of material for him).

"Competition Math", Math Circles, Music Theory classes, Chess school, robotics and learning 3 languages has kept my son's brains busy. I do not think that middle school will be superior in any way - but, I believe that a great High School can challenge HG+ kids sufficiently.