Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Anyone NOT grade-skipped or accelerated?

WILDLY RAMLING AND OFF SUBJECT RANTING ALERT:


Agreed CFK, witnessing what happens during the school day has helped my crystallize the problems in order to communicate better to the school. On the other hand I was able to witness some things that were working very well and probably stopped me from pulling them out and homeschooling immediately.
I did pull them out of chess club after school. As much as they love playing chess at home, they hated chess club. DD7 kept getting frustrated that kids would say she couldn't move certain ways because they hadn't learned it yet. Even one of the teachers admitted to her it was a legal move, but not to do it because the others hadn't learned it. I draw the line there. DD5 was curled up in a ball and hid under the table. It was too LOUD!!!!!!!!!
So, now we play chess at home. I have a theory, I call it the b**l s**t vaccination theory. Meaning, I'd like my kids to put up with a little so they know how to deal with it, just not so much that it kills them. KWIM?
Even with my horrible school experience, I learned how to be resourceful, which has served me well as an adult. Particularly when advocated at school for DD's.
It is a balancing act and I'm always measuring and adjusting.
I guess what I'm saying is if you look where the land on that bell curve, it looks like it could be a lonely place sometimes.
I'm hoping the girls can grow up and operate effectively in many different environments, with many types of people.
I do, however, agree that it's great to match the child's temperment to the environment if possible. They are kids and should be happy.

Incog

My dd7 is not grade skipped but is accelerated in some subjects. I guess I need more of a definition of accelerated though: Is it that she gets differentiated work within the classroom? If so, then yes she is.

We are fortunate that her GT class is phenomenal. She gets pulled out for 2.5hrs each week and the class curriculum is fantastic.

CFK, exactly! I have two big problems with DS's public school. 1) They have his scores, but don't see the forest for the trees. I was told he needed "support" for math b/c he didn't know their everyday math system (which adds 2-3 steps to simply knowing the answer), but the day before on his homework he was supposed to show defintions of math "names" (weird, but whatever...). He chose 100 and wrote 1000-900, 10x10, 20 + 30 + 50, etc. And in class they were still doing addition sums to 20. How can that be? And they don't read everyday. (I had a prior post on that one, since confirmed, unfortunately.) I was told that gifted children are classified in our state as an at risk population, but that they don't have to do anything special for them.

And 2), the in-class discipline system terrorizes DS, even though it's rare for it to be directed at him. If a classmate forgets to put his lunch away when he gets to school, why does he get a consequence? Why don't they just say, you forgot to put your lunch away? Even the reward system can make him feel "stupid" if he doesn't finish his work as quickly as others in the class. I can understand if they are trying to encourage kids to work diligently and not fool around, but the system backfires for those who are trying their best. Oh, and I agree about lunch - they don't eat until 1:30, and often he comes home without having eaten at all, because he "didn't have time." And I pack lunch... And we're also in a very highly regarded school district.

And I absolutely agree with you re: your homework point on another post. In first grade, he started out with over an hour of homework a night (it took him close to an hour and a half) until the parents revolted. At least his current homework is quick and easy - but what's the point?

I think I'll take your suggestion and try to volunteer in class to see what's really going on. I knew a lot last year because I heard from other parents and was in the school from time to time. Here, I don't know the other parents and hear very little from my son.

So thanks for the good advice. It really helps me think things through. And it occurs to me that I haven't looked for a gifted school in a neighboring state - if the commute's not too bad, I suppose we could consider it.

Tammy - I am so thrilled for your DD! And jealous, too!

I won't go on and on, but I have to comment on this!

It's generally a lot easier to find home schooling opportunities for making friends and getting out of the house than you'd think it would be. My son and I are both introverts, so I feared we'd be socked in the house in our fluffy slippers and jammies all the time. Not so! We find lots of ways to get out of the house and be social.

It's all about finding a good home schooling group and some good extracurricular-type groups (gym/art/foreign language classes, Scouts, places of worship (if applicable), etc.). Seriously, it's SOOOOO much easier than I thought it would be! We're out of the house a lot and DS6 has more time and energy for friendships than he ever did in those crowded halls. Why people think THAT'S good socialization is beyond me! All that time in line being shushed...

Again, I'm not the home school pusher or anything, but I've found that my introverted DS is FAR MORE SOCIAL now that he's home schooling. He plays with kids much more often than he did when he was worn out from school and pestered with dumb homework. We go to lots of group activities and fun "field trips." We see lots of people! We're making lots of new friends! (Plus he has more time and energy to spend on his old friends, so even those friendships have deepened.) And this improved social life seems to be the rule rather than the exception in home schoolers according to what I've seen and read.

So, if I may be so bold as to give you unsolicited advice...

Please don't rule home schooling out solely/mainly for the social reason without doing some research on home school groups in your area. Okay? You might be pleasantly surprised!

Shutting up now...

Home school GROUPS? What are they? You mean it wouldn't be just me?! Please explain!

Thanks.

Questions - coming late to the party, but my DS7 in first grade is not grade skipped in any way.

This is what we get in terms of "acceleration". His teacher does have 3rd grade spelling words for kid's that pass the pre-test (which are still too easy). She also has a math challenge group for 5 kids, but they can't do it until they complete the regular 1st grade work. We do have a parent volunteer who does 2nd grade Jr. Great Books w/6 kids in the class who are reading at or above 2nd grade level (again, well below DS's reading level and only every other week). His teacher was going to have him do an independant book study, and she completely has dropped the ball on that. But all that said, I would say he averages less than 1 hour a week of work that is remotely challenging.

So I'm feeling like you. We need a change. I'm sure we're going to finish out this year. On the up side, my son is very social and has become the classroom playground director. But after the holidays we are going to need to get serious about deciding what our options are for next year.

Our district has a gifted magnet from 1 to 8. They test all kindergarteners w/the NNAT, which DS thought was great fun and hit the ceiling on part of the test. So we applied, but did not get in because it is a pure lottery system. So it does not matter if you're a 92nd PR kid or a 99 PR kid - they're all treated the same. I'm going to start making calls to see if there is any back door entry for one. I think it would be hard to get our principal to make a call for DS to the magnet admin. Our school "hates" the magnet because they "steal" all their high test scorers. It's very political. I feel like I can't even bring up the magnet within 100 yards of the school.

Nope! Definitely not just you! It depends upon your area, of course, what groups people have organized. You can Google your state name and "home school groups" and get a sense of what's available to you. If you know anyone who is home schooling, you should also talk to them, since some groups aren't listed anywhere on the Internet. Don't be shy about asking: I guarantee you that person did the same thing when they were deciding to home school or not. Even a casual acquaintance would almost certainly be happy to help you.

Some groups are geared to people who are home schooling for religious reasons, but even those are sometimes open to others. There's definitely a sense of "we're in this together" in the home schooling community!

In my area--the suburbs of a smallish city in the midwest--there are LOADS of highly active home school groups! We could do something practically every day of the week if we chose to. The group I'm in is open to anyone who's interested. There are fees to cover the costs of individual events (as there should be), but there's not even a fee to join the group. I get an e-mail once a week telling me what activities are going on, and we decide what we want to do.

We do social activities together as well as educational trips and activities. We banded together and got a group discount on snowskiing, so that's our P.E. class for the winter. We'll meet up with the other families at the slopes for socializing and exercise, and there's no way we could have afforded a season of skiing--either in time or money--if we hadn't been home schooling. A group of older kids and their parents took a trip to Washington, D.C. earlier in the year, customizing what they did to the kids' interests. We went to a Danish Christmas celebration, and since that's my heritage, that was fun for us all, as well as being very social and a chance to try some new crafts we'd never done before. The group is also arranging for the kids to try out as many of the Summer Olympics sports as possible before the 2008 Olympics. We've already done judo and archery, and the others will start up in the spring.

But by far my favorite thing our group has done is an all-ages gingerbread-village-building activity--so fun and creative! There were probably 75 people there of all ages. The village they built was incredible!

They even have "Moms' Nights Out." No isolation problem here!

Seriously, Questions, if I had to do this alone, I wouldn't! Actually, my problem is not isolation but socializing overload, believe it or not. As an introvert, all the time we spend with other people wears me out. But when so many good opportunities come along, it's hard to pass them up. I just try to make sure we have at least a day or two a week with no activities so that we have some relatively quiet time at home.

If you want to know any more, let me know. (Maybe we should PM instead of posting to the list? Dunno... It is your thread, so I guess that as long as you don't feel like I'm hijacking it, we can stay here! ) Lorel could probably help you, too. She's got a lot more experience with all this than I do. But I do know that the social thing is NOT a reason to dismiss home schooling as an option. Not without doing some research about opportunities in your area first!

I hope this helps!

This is my first chance to respond to the original question. DS has not skipped (remember I was skipped myself and didn't like it so I have only seen skipping as a last resort for DS). We did not start formal subject acceleration until 3rd grade when DS approached the teacher on his own and asked for harder math so she started a 4th grade math group for the top 4 kids in the class.

Now he is in 6th and is taking algebra with the advanced 8th graders. He is also in a gifted cluster for language and reading. The teacher is aware that DS is way above where the rest of the gifted class and does a few things to challenge him. But DS has asked that he not be singled out because fitting in (especially with the GT kids) is really important to him now that he is in middle school.

I have always taken the approach that I am the one who is primarily responsible for DS's education and that public school is only one piece to the puzzle. WE do lot of reading, games, travel and just plain looking things up as a natural part of family life and DS gets exposed to tons of new ideas all the time. But he would never see this as formal after-schooling, just as being a family and doing things together. The only things he knows we do formally are music lessons and second language.

WE have benefitted from some great teachers and the fact that DS is not the kind of kid who hides his abilities. First grade was the hardest grade by far for us; the school had so many benchmarks that they needed to meet for all the kids that they did not have many resources left over for the GT kids. (But DS was the only kid identified as GT in that grade so the GT teacher would pull DS out to work with the GT 5th graders (who she felt were good peers for him)). But we stuck with it through first and got fabulous teachers ever since then.

I would say that the two best things I did for DS were chosing teachers who were good fits for him and volunteering at the school.

It has also helped that we are not in a particularly affluent or well-educated district so that DS really does stick out as being radically different than the other kids and the teachers have really responded to him. I have friends with kids in gifted programs and I'm not jealouos anymore (I used to be). Their kids are pretty locked into the one year ahead thing and it would be hard to move up multiple grades like we are doing in math. Also, I have benefitted from chosing between several teachers for each grade. In many of the gifted programs, there is just one teacher to choose from and they are not always the best teacher.

I hope this helps.