Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments School misunderstands PG kids

Looking for a little commiseration here, but if you have any advice, I would definitely listen.

I have been trying to help the school and teachers understand my child in order to advocate, etc. It is becoming increasingly clear that they not only don't understand the differences between LOG, but, that they want to put my child into a single box of "nerd without social skills" and that a child like this cannot have other strengths (athletics, humor, empathy, etc).

I have to imagine that this has happened to others as well, and was there any way you were able to get this across?

It has just been frustrating. Thanks for reading.

Sorry-- it's been our experience (ours and our DD's) that most people's SOLE experience with PG individuals includes either Wesley Crusher and/or Doogie Houser.

sigh

Meeting a REAL person who is PG just never crosses most people's minds. They are surprised when social skills aren't stilted/forced and when a PG person isn't strange, alienating, and just plain weird/off-putting.

DD still runs into this all the time, and she's in college. Her professors, at least, appreciate that she is both bright and personable. She just doesn't tell them how old she is-- and most of them mentally evaluate it at about +5-6y. Oh well.

That's because PG==nerd without social skills. You can't be PG if you aren't strange, alienating and just plan weird/off-putting (to use HK's awesome list). I think it also works the other way that if you are strange, alienating and just plan weird/off-putting you must be a genius. It has nothing to do with actual IQ.

The belief that everything 130+ is all the same is something that we've run into as well. A week after we gave DD's psych report to the school we went in for a meeting to discuss. This was a school that we had dealt with for 5 years with DS and I thought I was making some progress but noooooo. 1. they argued that she didn't need an IEP because they didn't want to give every kid an IEP and she didn't need one. 2. they proudly showed me the booklet of extra math that they had made up for her and the 5 other "gifted mathematicians" in her class. I wonder what the probability of 25% of her class being even slightly gifted would be. That might actually be an interesting math topic to dive into....

The school is doing amazing differentiation by giving my kid the opportunity to write 4 sentences instead of 2 and after they finish the grade level math work sheet they can always get another grade level math sheet for an extra challenge. Clearly they don't need differentiation because they aren't interested in any of the extra work that has been offered. Ugggg.

I am currently dealing with the school that has been offering gifted program for 3rd grades and up, trying to make them understand that my 1st grade PG DS needs something more than extra math packet and once a week accelerated class. They are trying to put him with the other bright 2nd graders next year to do a pull out math class, maybe once a week, when his winter MAP test suggested that he was already at middle of third grade math. Their reasoning: he still needs to fill in common core gaps and the 3rd grade challenged math may be too much for him to handle. My MG 3rd grader is taking that class this year. Besides daily homework, he doesn't study at home at all and he's getting As on tests and an A for the class. I really don't see how my PG kid not being able to handle that.

I don't think they fully understand the needs of a PG kid. The math specialist told me that in her tenure with the school district, they've never had a 2nd grader taking 3rd grade gifted program. However, when you only have 0.01% chance of having a PG kid in the population, it's hard to encounter one in the past. There will always be a first time and I am hoping my DS would be the one.

It's not something that is easy to get across to schools. At all. To many schools, all gifted students are they same and they all need the same things. Meanwhile, a confused staff member will pull out a grade level achievement test or some other instrument with a poor ceiling and observe that "we have many other students just like your PG student. So your PG student is working with his/her peers." Hmmmmmm, no. Not many others. Just...no.

Meanwhile, your PG student is at home, complaining loudly about school, growing increasingly angry and frustrated, before just turning apathetic about school.

Yes, frustrating, indeed. We may slowly been seeing a sliver of light at the end of the long tunnel, but it has taken an incredible amount of patience and persistence to get through. Small advocacy victories came from carefully listening to how things work, who makes REAL decisions, who MIGHT understand, and carefully pushing down the ridiculous roadblocks that can be thrown up. Things have gotten better, but we still have a ways to go.

It has been really helpful to have responses here from people that understand! When they are looking at me like I have two heads, I can remember that other schools are doing this to other parents of PG kids too.

Your thoughts and experiences do mirror mine. Although we did have one teacher in the past who really got it, so I am very thankful for that.

I have been starting to lose my patience, which I realize is not going to help the situation. Before my next encounter with school staff, I am definitely going to come back and reread these replies. Maybe if I posted more often here, I would have been more prepared.

Thank you!

I do think it's important to take a deep breath and remember that in most public school districts, PG kids are very rare.

We have encountered several teachers who had "heard about" kids like my DD, and a few at the national level that had actually encountered a few like her. Bear in mind that this is a cybercharter that at the time had some 35K students enrolled nationwide from K through 12. I never got a clear sense of just HOW many kids like her they'd seen-- but-- a few.

That population is also somewhat enriched since kids like those of members here tend to wind up outside of the mainstream (for obvious reasons).

We also encountered a high school counselor who had been with our local district for 20+ years who had seen one other student like her. That was what finally convinced me, actually-- that this was a person who was reasonably with it, had pretty much seen half of the kids in this town (which has no high-achieving private schools), and the kids here are in a pressure cooker setting-- fully 25% of the students in the district are "identified" as GT. But of the perhaps 25,000 students he's seen in his career here? He's seen ONE other PG student, and knew that they didn't really have the ability to give her what she needed.

He's seen probably a thousand MG students.

But only one other like my DD, and the best thing that they could do for that child was to move him into college coursework at 14-15-- like my DD.

Her research mentor at 14 had seen a handful of them-- due to her research connections at UW, which has a program intended for HG/PG students to matriculate early at the UW. She knew what DD was.

But until she was about 10-11yo, we were into "Wow, I've HEARD about kids like this..." territory. She was fascinating to them-- but it didn't mean that they understood her in the slightest.

We also had a lot of people DOUBT how gifted she is over the years simply because she blends in so well when she wants to be under the radar and not on display as a circus sideshow. Naturally someone with excellent social skills can't be that smart.

Repeat-- PG is RARE. Even professional educators will not very likely have actually interacted with such a student before.

I totally agree. My child takes blending in to the extreme by looking very silly and goofing off in order to not show that he has any superior abilities at all. He is also an only child and very social and very lonely and does not want any friend to think that he is different and hopes that he will then be able to socialize with the large, popular crowd.

The only thing that has worked so far is outside validation. That has definitely made the school sit up and take notice and offer the "best" option that they have available - subject acceleration for DS's strong subjects at the level that we asked for. Until we brought in outside validation of his abilities, they brushed me off by saying that there were many smart kids in the school who were happy with schoolwork and also that my DS needed to show more "maturity" in order to handle more advanced work.

HK"s points are spot on (naturally!). I'm a professional educator who was specifically involved in gifted ID in a moderately large district for many years, and the main reason I have encountered multiple PG individuals is childhood association with a nationally-known program for such. And a PG sib.

There's a lot of pressure for GT individuals to hide socially. How many times in my life have I heard someone say to me or my children, "You're so normal!"

So many great points.

We started this adventure when DS was 6.5 and school was a disaster. At that time he tested MG/HG with a probable LD (too young to confirm). School improved slightly when the accommodated the LD but the gifted side was impossible to get anything appropriate. I couldn't figure out why there weren't hundreds of parents that were losing their minds like I was, I mean statistically speaking there should have been thousands of kids like him in our huge board. We then had to retest to confirm the LD and that is when I realized why there weren't hundreds of parents... HK's bolded statement above has been something I have repeated to myself constantly.

I also thought that half of our battles with DS were due to the LD side of thing and teachers really not getting 2e (well that and the fact that he was a grumpy PITA at school which unfortunately makes it far less likely for teachers to go the extra mile for).

Then DD came along who is an angel at school, doesn't have an LD and pretty much shines in everything academic. I mean how can they deny it with her? Well it turns out they can when they assume she's just another smart kid exactly like the other 5 smart kids in her class. I've also learned that she is much more of a social chameleon who purposely doesn't always give the right answer because she doesn't want other kids to feel bad when they get things wrong....

So yeah. This forum has been a huge comfort and fantastic resource. I've learned so much and when I read about some of the amazing educational arrangements that some people have managed to get it gives me hope and something to strive for.