Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Accelerating a math grade

While most of Cogito.org is open to anyone, there are certian parts that are only open to members. I'm not sure exactly how to become a member, but here is the contact info:
Do you need to check with your parent's before you make a long distance phone call? If it's ok with your parents for you to call, I'll bet that any of the names listed here would be happy to talk to you, (after the holidays) and might even be able to give you advice about a Math Skip. If you took your SAT's through John Hopkins Talent Search then you may be getting info about SET and Cogito.org membership in the mail very soon.

http://www.cogito.org/aboutcogito/default.aspx?ContactUs

Smiles,
Grinity

Wow! Lina!
This brought back memories for me; I used to say that I 'test smarter than I am.'

It turns out not to be true. I just am was very lazy, and had no idea what would impress anyone. Again, I think that biggest problem for Gifties is lack of reference. I pretty much judged myself against the characters I read about in books! This is not a realistic way to get reference.

I also have to face that I'm very hard working when I care about something. It's taken many years of 'getting more mature' to just plain force myself to do stuff that doesn't interest me. I did well at school by becoming a champion at 'spinning' an assignment so that I could find a way to care about it, and that was wonderful, but it always left me feeling 'not quite as smart' as the kids who could just 'sit down and grind it out.'

I think that the key challenge for my son at this stage of life (12, 8th grade)is to find a dream that will motivate him to work hard even when it is hard.

When I was little, I just 'cranked open my ears' during school and let all the things my teachers wanted me to learn just 'float in.' It was fun and easy.
In highschool, I was so happy to make friends with the kids who 'got my jokes' and took the hardest classes, but I thought I was dumb because:
a) I couldn't make myself work as hard as they did. A low 'a' was as good as an A++ to me.
b) I couldn't just 'crank open my ears' and do all my learning in class anymore - so I figured that if I had to study, that meant I was dumb.
c) Several of the kids did outscore me on various tests.

You can see by how I was thinking that if I had said stuff like that aloud on a forum like this, I would have found out that it's quite possible to be very, very, very smart and still not perfect in every way. I also yearned to break out of my 'circle of Nerds' and be friends with every one.

I guess the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. I really thought that if I could hone my social skills until I could be liked by anyone and everyone, then I would really have achieved something wonderful. So I did, and it is wonderful - BUT - I have to face that even though I can make myself likable to 'anyone' - I can't make myself deeply enjoy the company of 'anyone.' I'm not saying that all my friends are acaedemically gifted, although most of them are, but that all my friends are really really special in various ways.

As you can see, I have a fair amount of that 'Intensity' that folks say Gifties have. Now I'm all tired out.

Good Night,
Grinity

Good Point Dottie!
Although if you are allowed to use the phone, I'll bet a phone call to CTY would speed things up a bit, and perhaps yeild some advice about the grade skip. At the very least you could get some 'reference' about how 'exceptional' you really are.

I'm spending time at this link printing out summer classes choices for their summer camp.
http://www.cty.jhu.edu/summer/catalogs/os/oscatalog.html

Do you know anyone who has done these camps before? My son met a whole bunch of really fun kids at MIT's Splash the weekend before Thanksgiving who had attended and loved their experience.

Of course next year you can consider attending: http://www.davidsongifted.org/think/Article/THINK_Summer_Institute___Qualifications_368.aspx
which is much more selective. This year you are too young. My son is hoping that by next year he will have high enough scores to consider going.

Some kids love these camps so much that they 'live summer to summer' which I think is happy and sad at the same time. If it 'keeps hope alive' during a dull school year, then it's a good thing, but why not have this all the time?

Smiles,
Grinity

Grinity, thanks for sharing this. I've been struggling with how much concern I should have for the fact that DS6 is underchallenged, yet seems to be happy and content with 'crank'-ing his ears and does very well. You reminded me how important it is to learn how to struggle a bit to learn...

Good work Dottie!

Lina, choose one of those unfinished projects. I'd recommend the one you find most interesting that you think really demonstrates what you are capable of when you really push yourself.....

Finish it! If someone had MADE me do this at your age, things would have been a lot easier for me the next few years after.....chuckle......



I see. But you don't have to demonstrate that you already did what the grade students are doing from their current textbook. Merely demonstrate you are clearly capable of operating at that difficulty level, which you did by doing the "old" textbook. Did you already bring in that work and that was the reason you were given as not able to accelerate? Or are you worried that is the response you WOULD get?


BTW: Hope you have enjoyed/are enjoying the holidays.


Good points Dottie and Grinity. You know, I really bristle when it seems that a child is denied acceleration because there are two students that supposedly scored higher. One does not know the full story or how far ahead those kids are anyway.....

It's a fallacious argument............

Lina,
I think that 'Neato's advice is good, but don't beat yourself up if you don't complete any of those tasks. You may be years ahead of yourself intellectually, but that doesn't mean that you are years ahead in your 'frontal-lobe' development. It takes time (and practice) for those neurons to develop. So every bit of progress you make is practice, and excersize for that part of your brain, 'completion'is great, but isn't the only measure of success.

The other thing to know is that for a project to be 'big' enough to look appealing to a Giftie, it is almost, 'by definiton' going to be too big to complete without supportive Adults helping. Again, this is a matter of reference. Your Math idea was wonderful, but I'll bet that you don't know of anyone who has ever done anything remotely similar. So when you ran into trouble, you didn't have anyone to give you advice, or at least inspiration. If you had knowledgable trusted adults around, they might have suggested using an online class, such as EPGY, Art of Problem Solving, Aleks.com or youtubes such as Khan Academy.

If you are like me, a big part of doing anything is doing it with other people who share my interests. Individual projects are great for folks who love their 'alone time,' but other people have a lot more energy for things if they take a good friend along with them. As you try things and gain experience, you'll get to know yourself better and be better able to guess what kinds of projects you will follow through with and what kinds of help you will need.

Bottom Line: At 12, you have to expect to try a lot of different projects and approaches to learn how to do projects. Don't take 'losing interest before the project is complete' as a permanent personal character flaw. Seems to me that a lot of the creative work done nowadays is done in teams.

Best wishes,
Grinity

incogneato: I doubt doing the textbook problems would have any effect on the math chair, because it seems as if his decision is based solely on the seventh grade honors final exam, which I didn't do so well on. I can't get him to take a second look because of that and the fact that he claims that it's too late in the school year for a skip. My math teacher, on the other hand, seems pretty concerned with my situation, and has asked me several times about whether I'm skipping or not and the like, so I think that she may have more of an impact on the chair then my parents. I'm going to email her with my SAT scores and see if she thinks they'll help or not and go from there.

Grinity: Thanks for the advice! I can totally relate because yes, I do take on a lot of projects and my interests shift very quickly, so I never finish any of them. The two friends that I do have who I can chat about nerd-topics and SATs with don't really have the same interests. As far as I know, one of them is obsessed with GH and the other on the environment and how we're all going to die from overpopulation. I don't want to be seen with him too often. :x

Sorry for the late replies, I'm typing this out painfully letter by letter on a touch keyboard in my hotel at Las Vegas.

Lina,
The math chair needs to learn more about giftedness (but I wouldn't tell him that). If he wants to know if you are gifted in math (and therefore should be accelerated in math), there is a test called TOMAGS that my DD's (age 8) school gave her to see if she should be accelerated in math. I assume it's not only for elementary age. It is not an achievement test like a final exam is - it is a test of math giftedness. Then they gave her the current year's end-of-unit tests to see if she had any major learning gaps. DD8 scored in 99th percentile (95th in gifted population) and didn't have many learning gaps for her current year's content. So they decided to skip her to 4th grade math. I should mention that if they had found SOME learning gaps, it wouldn't have changed their decision - it would have meant that they would have done some 3rd grade math in addition to her 4th grade math this year.

I don't know a lot about SAT testing, but you're in good hands with everyone here, so I'm confident your scores should help your case.

Also, it's never too late to accelerate by subject, so don't give up on making the change this school year. I'm quite impressed that you are advocating for yourself - I don't think my DD8 will ever advocate for herself.

I hope you get the challenge you're wanting!
-WannaBe

Ouch! I've been there, done that. I don't know how anyone can call it a vacation if it means the only internet acess is on a tiny keyboard...does give me sympathy for tiny gifties who haven't learned to type yet.

Grinity