Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Talking about grades in FT GT classroom

I am struggling a bit with supporting my DD(9) who is in her first year of a FT GT public program. We have no private testing yet, but the class requires a 99th percentile cogat score and achievement test score. She entered a year after most of the kids and is unhappy with the way many things are taught (especially math, though that's another post), and I see that she is keeping up, and I am seeing growth. She's not getting top grades all the time, but I am told not to expect that, and am fine with her progress. Unfortunately, the other kids seem to be obsessed with grades, and many wave them in each other's faces, when they do very well. DD doesn't really know how to interpret this behavior, as this is the first year she's received grades, so she makes all kinds of assumptions that I don't think are true (everyone's doing better than me, I don't belong here, etc.). I repeat, that everything I see says she's doing fine.

I don't know that I can change the class, but I am at a loss for how to support her.

Does anyone have any thoughts or experience?

bump

I think you keep telling her what you've told her, that she does qualify and that over time, she's going to feel more comfortable about how she fits into the class. My guess would be that this might be the first time she's had to stretch her learning "muscles" at school and it is intimidating. So I would share that concept with her, perhaps talk about times you experienced similar feelings and that it is normal.

As to grades, families have different philosophies about them. Based on your post, I'm guessing yours isn't overly concerned about all A or A+ marks (I'm not, either, for better or worse). If that's the case, think about how to explain grades as simply a way of tracking progress over time, identifying areas that one has mastered and ones that still need work. Above all, make sure she feels that they are not a reflection on her worth and that she knows the other kids are being, for lack of a better word, tacky.

I assume she transferred from a normal class into the GT program. Even though they didn't have grades I'd guess that she was at the top of the class and that she probably figured that out on her own. Could it be the shock of now not always being/feeling like the smartest kid in the room?

We anticipated this type of thing with DS when he made the switch and emphasized that his new class was going to be different and that he might no longer be the only math whiz or whatever but that was totally fine. We talked about how his class was x kids picked out of y kids in the whole city. We talked about how every one of those kids was probably the smarted kid in their old class (possibly even school) before switching. We talked about how every kid has things that they are really good at and other things that they might struggle with a bit. DS is 2e so we've had a lot of talks over the last 3 years about smart kids not always being the *best* at absolutely everything and that is ok (and it doesn't mean they aren't still smart). We also talk a lot about how grades aren't everything. Sometimes he works really hard and the mark doesn't show it while other times he gets A's in his sleep. We talk about his effort being important and that we aren't worried about grades as long as he is working and improving so he shouldn't either.

Not sure if any of that resonates but figured I'd share.

You've received great advice already, and I don't have any additional advice re how to help your dd adjust to the change in receiving grades and not always being at the top of class, but there's one note in your post that might be worth considering:


It's possible that there's an underlying classroom/school issue you might want to consider here - school or program culture. We found in our school district that the FT gifted program had a relatively large number of parents who were obsessed with grades, with having their children id'd as gifted, with thinking that their children were uber-AP and Ivy-bound, and the parents were talking about all this at home with their kids (and in some cases applying a lot of pressure) even in early elementary. Some of the parent meetings I went to were just nuts (from my perspective). When we looked at the program as a whole, no matter how great the academic opportunities were that it offered, we felt it wasn't a good social fit for the values we wanted our ds to be exposed to. He eventually went back into it when he was older, but at a point in his life where he was older and mature enough to put worry over grades etc that came from outside (other students) into perspective.

Hope that makes sense - in a nutshell, just because a program is a gifted program, doesn't necessarily make it the best fit program for your child or family.
So if you feel some of the worries over grades are coming from the values or worries of other students, take a close look at it.

Best wishes,

polarbear

I don't know about 9-year-olds, but in my DS's high school, this kind of behavior is strongly discouraged by the school. It is simply not nice, and adds pressure to other kids. If this happened at my kids' schools, I would talk with the teachers first and get a sense of how they feel about it.

I agree. It sounds like a class culture issue. If the teacher is fine with it there is probably nothing you can do but if the teacher doesn't like it or simply hasn't thought about it then a few simple expectations should help. When i was at university we never discussed grades but they were listed by student number so you could see how you were doing without knowing who got ehich marks.

I think this is likely a lot of what is going on. However, not all of the parents are like this. At this point, I think the program is her best fit, but it is still frustrating. We left a lovely alternative school, which was completely unwilling to do any differentiation. I wish we could have the best of both, but that's not possible. But these are all good thoughts to talk about with her.