Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Horizontal diversification

Thanks for the input Dottie. I was thinking about my own experiences, coasting through HS and not learning to study. But my close childhood friend, very high PG, only had the same grade skip as me, got into music and musical theatre and had great study habits because of strict father. She did take physics in undergrad and nuclear engineering for a doctoral. Was offered all kinds of classified jobs -- she is brilliant. She is happy working for a utility and changes her line of work (within the utility -- they do anything to keep her) every 7 years and is happy. Interesting that I also changed every 7 years from being an equity analyst to derivative trader to strategist. Seven year itch? So is the lesson that you just need to learn to apply yourself and it works out? Thinking back, I think I missed that one. So much came easy, I just didn't learn to "apply myself" when it got harder. I just wanted it always to be easy.

Ren

That was exactly how I was too. Everything came easy when I came across something that was hard I was at a total loss. With most jobs I've had I get bored in about three years except the last one and that one had evolved a lot during my time there.

I want DS5 to appreciate a challenge but so far I see way too much of me in him.

This may be true for NYC but not New York State. People do hold their children back and they go to K a year later. As a matter of fact I sincerely doubt that if you keep your child home for K (outside of NYC), the school will be willing to put the child to the 1st grade without a fight.

Good luck with riding the bike in Manhattan

I recently read an article about parents that spent the summer getting their children "ready" for k. They hired private tutors for reading and math because they didn't want their children to be behind when they enter K. Has K really become that competitive?

I think it varies a lot by region and school. There's a first grade teacher I know and I overheard her telling someone else what kids are expected to know when they enter first grade and she said things like letters and letter sounds, threw me off a bit as DS5 is well past that point going into K.

On another forum I'm on parents say kids are expected to be a reader at the end of kindergarten, it varies so much.

I was very worried about K last year before my daughter started. They sent home a note stating - make sure they know their alphabet. My daughter was already reading! It all worked out ok. The class was divided up into reading levels. My the end of the year they were all reading. The teacher was very creative and added challenges to the class that my daughter responded very well to. She had a wonderful teacher and k experience. I hope this year is just as good.

Yes, my son would have done well to skip K. He was definitely learning 1st grade material on his own at 5yrs old. While I think the pace would have been an issue, it wouldn't have been as bad and likely tolerable.

Did anyone see the article about pre-K testing mania among some parents in NYC? It was mucho depressing and described what I would describe as helicopter hothousing (i.e., this is no ordinary hothousing):



Depressing NYT article

Sorry to say, but for some people, this stuff is all about status and not about learning. It's so-o-o depressing. And of course some of them create problems for other kids who weren't drilled.

Val

I am so happy I was so naive when I applied for Private school for my dd. If I had known what goes on I would probably never even have applied.

Example: Last year our school had an advanced Math class. Whether or not you got into the advanced class was based on the curriculum pre-test taken during the 1st weeks of school. Rumor has it that some parents who were in-the-loop about this used the curriculum maps to drill the benchmarks so they could get placed into this class.

My child did not even make it in with the first group, so I got to over hear the comments about how X could be gifted and Y not be gifted when Y is in the advanced class and X is not.
As if they have any clue how my childs brain works.