Perhaps you can tell me this Dottie,and anyone else who has math eduction experience, I get the impression that many teachers think it's just awful to actually go too far ahead in math taking no stock of a kid who is clearly interested and capable. It seems if they would rather have the children to logic and story problems as nauseum. I have no problem with logic/story problems, but what's the problem with letting the child go ahead and do the critical problem solving stuff?

We'll be having a meeting in a month or so to decide whether DD8 continues to leave school for math or stays when honors math starts. All the info I have indicates that she is ahead of honors math, although, it's not dreadful........

Any thoughts/suggestions would be greatly appreciated, especially if you've already been here and could guide me in what to say....However, any advice is very much appreciated.

Thanks!
Neato

Thanks,
Neato

Good to know. That's advice I can do something with. Thanks so much I truly appreciate it.

I'd love to help you with why schools seem to think faster is bad, even when the kid is getting the deeper, too, but I don't get it myself.

I understand "The Calculus Trap," but I really do think there's only so much you can do to avoid that, especially in elementary school. Things change somewhat in middle and high school, when there's more math to do and more challenge to find. But in elementary school, I think there's only so much "deeper" you can do before you really just have to go faster.

<shrug>

LOL! It's a great analogy, and dead on, I think. I wrestled with this same issue last year, and ultimately I decided that you definitely try going deep first, mainly since it tends to be more convenient for the teacher. (Realism there...) If enrichment works for the kid and it's enough, then great. But for a lot of HG+ kids in elementary school, deeper simply won't be enough! There's only so deep you can go with basic calculation! As you say, logic and story problems are great, but even those get old if you're just working on 3-digit addition or the like...There's just very little depth to plumb there! Until you get to somewhat higher math--though I'm not sure how high you have to get--it's just plain hard to go deep.

You can do things not included in the curriculum. Maybe that's "going wide?" LOL! I do like that approach and have used this a bit myself. The history of math is not in the normal curriculum, and that's something we're attacking this year. Tesselations, Escher's stuff and fractals are popular with the homeschool crowd even with pretty young kids but aren't the norm in schools, I don't think. (I could be wrong...) I do think you can slow things down in that way without boring the pants off a kid.

My strategy is go deep and go wide until I see that I'm starting to lose him, then I'll go on to the next thing. With these kids, I think that means you're going to go a little fast at least, if not really fast...But I don't see a way around it.

What's more, I don't see any compelling reason not to!

My son had to do these types of problems last year, in spite of being way past that level.

I did them for him (I mimicked his writing). I'd teach him something he was ready for during the time that would have been devoted to math homework (so, two sessions per week with me). I did NOT want him to waste his time and squander his love for maths on these worksheets.

This approach helped in a lot of ways, not the least of was mental health-wise. It was a covert act of rebellion, and we were getting away with it. Plus, we were in it together, so it was a bonding thing.

Val

Great post, CFK! I agree wholeheartedly.

Sometimes I think the "deep vs. fast" debate is really people with older kids vs. people with elementary-aged kids. And both are right, given where they are in the process.

I think the school could do the same sort of thing if they're going to resist acceleration. I won't pretend to know how to suggest it and get it to happen, but I think it could be done by excellent advocates.

Hi there,

You're right, it's totally inappropriate.

The school took an absolutist position with our son. They told us that he MUST do the work, end of discussion. Their rationale was that "everyone has to do things they don't want to do and he has to learn this lesson." I countered that this approach is effective for cleaning your room and washing the dishes, but it doesn't work at school. I explained that his mind wasn't being challenged by 6+6 and that he was at risk for not developing problem-solving skills and study skills. No response.

No one disagreed that he'd mastered the work, but it took nearly the whole school year for them to even begin to realize how far below his level 6+6 was. Even after they offered a grade skip, he still had to finish 2nd grade work before he could do the 3rd grade books they gave him (which were all easy for him).

By October, we stopped caring and went into hyperdrive to find a new school for the next academic year.

If you're stuck with this school, maybe at least knowing what they said to us will help you respond if/when they say it to you.

Val

I have to disagree with some responses to doing the mindless drudgery of math computations that are below a childs' level. I'm a computer programmer/analyst, and sometimes my work is exciting and challenging, and sometimes it's mind numbing drudgery. I don't know anyone who doesn't have some drudgery mixed in an otherwise exciting, challenging job. I think you are doing your kids a disservice by not teaching them coping skills to get through the mind-numbing times. One way to get through it is to time it, and make it a race against his/her own best time. Then share some cookies when it's done.

That said, you are still right to advocate for more challenging work. One reason I've heard for a lack of acceleration is "but what will the child do in 7th grade if they complete 8th grade work in 5th grade?" The answer I got from GS's gifted teacher is, "But we spiral around and get more in depth each year". She never got it that GS was already going deeper on his own!

I started there, OHG. We all have to do things that aren't fun and life's not a party. Agreed.

But killing a young child's love of math seems like a dumb way to teach that lesson, and I'm not really sure it's a lesson that a child needs to learn about education. I think work and education are two different things, and the rules are different. Often people treat school as a child's job, but I think learning is a child's job, and real learning just isn't mindless drudgery for any child, especially not for GT kids. If you turn school into mindless drudgery, you're doing it wrong, and it means the kids aren't learning. Then why are they there?

I prefer for my child to learn that life isn't always a party when cleaning his room, washing the dishes, and all those other mindless chores that really are work, and not education.

My $.02...

Hi Everyone,

I'm watching this discussion with great interest. DS8 (4th grade) came home with two very long pages of math homework (double sided) that were simplistic in math level, but required a great deal of handwriting and time. I just had to shake my head and wonder. How many times has he seen line segments, geometric shapes (parallelograms vs quadrangles), and simple addition and subtraction? And why does he need to write paragraphs about how he answered the questions?

He raced through them only because I dangled a carrot in front of his nose. If he completed the meaningless worksheets quickly, then there would be time before dinner for him to watch a video called "Fractals The Colors of Infinity". It was an amazing video which described the discovery of the Mandelbrot set by a mathematician at IBM in 1980(?). The pictures are stunning, it does an amazing job of explaining fractals, and it is hosted by Arthur C. Clarke. It even has Stephan Hawking in it!

Here is a link that I found for watching the movie on your computer:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8570098277666323857

So our dinnertime conversation tonight included imaginary number and what would happen if you changed the equation from Z=z^2 + c to Z=z^3 + C. (they go through the first equation in the movie.) After dinner we also downloaded a computer program that allowed DS to play with his own parameters in graphing the Mandelbrot set:
(for a mac)
http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Math-Scientific/Mandelbrot-on-Cocoa.shtml
(for a pc)
http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Best/mandelbrot-pc.html

I haven't tried the pc version, but the mac version was great. And free.

Just remember... If you can't join them, then beat them.

I am here and reading the whole thread before I respond. Lots to do tonight though, so I can't promise a thoughtful response.

See ya later...

Kriston, you said that beautifully.

Someone on this list recently said that if our kids aren't learning at school, the schools aren't doing their jobs, and this was also very well put.

I agree that everyone needs to learn to slog through drudgery, but I also think that the best place to start learning is by doing something that, when completed, benefits you: "Ahh, the dishes are clean. Now they aren't smelly anymore." I don't see value in pointless drudgery at a young age.

Val

Anyhoo, things have taken a little turn for the worse. Thus the

I'd discuss in p.m. if interested.

Neato

Neato:
First of all I would step away from the internet and from this board for 48 hours
It has helped me gain the perspective as to what the "really" important things are. I am not preaching here, this comes from experience.

I agree with others saying that Calculus Trap applies more to middle/high school kids but our story put Ghost in calculus trap in 5th grade!
From what I gather, your DD is 8 years old and in 4th grade, never grade skipped, correct?

Our story, and I think I have posted it here but am unable to find it now, began in 5th grade when Ghost changed schools from private to charter and was immediately placed in Algebra 1. We were extatic, but stupid. We have never done any extra work in math with him up to this point, unless you are counting math problems I was doing with him in my native language which were purely to keep him fluent. But even what I was working on with him was "on a grade level", just the language was different.
So he was in 5th grade and doing Algebra and really struggling with it. Not struggling in a sense of understanding concepts, but he was a guy who has hardly done any work on fractions and negative numbers. He has jumped straight from regular 4th grade math curriculum to this class full of 8th graders. And he was the best of them all, had highest grade (A+), did all his homework - but at what cost. Sometimes he went to bed at 11 P.M.
I wanted to talk to the teacher that the homework was too much but my DH was adamantly against it - you learn math by doing difficult problems, he would say.
Things got easier by winter, Ghost got a hang of it all and started cruising. We have only realized that he needed additional challenges and additional instructions by the time he was in 6th grade. We have realized that school was was only breezing the subject and for a guy who really has a potential in math he needed to work much, much, much more deeper.
In 6th grade he waqs doing Geometry but also had to do regular 6th grade stuff. He absolutely hated it, it was so repetitive, so not intelligent, pure busy work. We told him he had to stick with it (learning for the future I guess, not all work is fun and you DO have to be responsible) and he resorted to doing 6th grade math homework, the busy work, in the hallway right before the class. Every single day. I repeat again - he hated it - but I don't think it did any damage. If anything, he has learned that not all that we do in life is fun and interesting.
By the time he was in 6th grade we started a math club at school as a vehicle for him to participate in math competitons.
He also started AoPS classes at that time and we started working on math at home - mostly competition math.

What I would do if I were you now? I would have my kid do Aleks and Singapore math at school, if possible, with my guidance. I have achieved that when my DD was in 4 th grade. I think that it is of paramount importance that kids use the school time to the fullest. I do not believe that it is fair to them to unschool them. I would involve my kid in math competitions. You are saying that your DD is not ready. Some of them are very, very friendly. Look at Math Kangaroo questions . I know, you have to pay for them now, but they are still quite cheap.
What is that pull out for math that you are doing? Please write more about it.
Do not rush with curriculum. Ghost is in pre-calc now - it is great, only two students plus the teacher, every day, can you imagine? But he is looking at writing his SAT II this year, and he doesn't even know what SAT II is! And there is going to be accomodation issues in HS, I am sure of that.
I do not know what book your child is using, but most of the math books in US (awful, awful texts really)have a section with challenge problems at the end of each lesson. Those are really challenging problems, requiring much more knowledge/thinking to solve. Look through her book for those.
Keep bugging the faculty. Look at the things I have manage to achieve - under Success Story.
Have your DD play math games. Make her become really comfortable with numbers. Krypto is great. Buy fraction ones if she has already mastered the one with double digits.

And I'll say it again, as I so often do: every child is different, and every school situation is different. What works for one may work for many others, but it won't work for all. All that matters is that the solution you have in place works for YOUR child.

It seems like you've got that licked, Dottie! And good on ya' for it!

Dottie - you are already involved in AoPS, so you are going sideways/deeper from the regular track.
Once your kid is done with Geometry - work on proofs.
Tales theorem - seems to be very easy. Have them look for three proofs. Teach them how to write those.
Neato - PM me with your problem.

I think the trap refers to going fast and reaching Calc too soon. Calc is really a college course, used to be anyway...

It is quite difficult to sidetrack once the kids get into the machine and feel good in it.

Lately I frequently ask myself - why do we learn math? I ask this question with my DS in mind. There are many different answers that I am coming up with but the one that is usually up there on top is to have a deep understanding if its function and application in everyday life. Sadly, one is not going to accomplish this by following a standard curriculum.

Kriston - I think that the "what works for your child" idea is fine, but kids also need to learn to function by doing things that are not necessarily pleasing to them. On occasions.
Sheltering them from this is harmful, in my opinion.

Agreed. I just don't happen to believe that giving them boring schoolwork is the place to give them things that are not necessarily pleasing to them.

Treating learning as a chore to be gotten through is harmful, in my opinion.

Keeping in mind, of course, that I'm dealing with a 7yo. My attitude might be different with an older child who would just prefer to play video games or go to the mall or something than to do anything even remotely work-related. As I said, I suspect much of where people stand on this debate has to do with the age of the child in question...

This could be why I strongly advise a child should do the drudgery work given them, while you are advocating to get level appropriate work. GS was 5.5 when we got custody and had to learn to respect those in authority. He had good reason not to respect those in authority up to that point, but that's another subject. Part of learning respect was to do the tasks assigned to him, then receive an appropriate reward as he learned to internalize feelings of self-pride and accomplishment.
I didn't want to offend anyone with my views, but wanted to make a point that often there is value in doing those boring, repetitious tasks.

Three comments.

First, my heart goes out to 'Neato. It must be enormously painful to feel that your child's love of learning is being squashed by the very institution ostensibly devoted to engendering it. We are hopeful that our DS will have reasonable accommodations this year, but he is only 4 and I can well imagine this problem is not likely to get any easier.

Second, if you are looking for ideas about how to go deeper in even basic math, I think there are ways. Knowing about addition is not just knowing the addition tables. It could involve knowing the relations between numbers and sizes, numbers and shapes, arithmetic and geometry, and many other things. One good resource for developing these kinds of broad facilities is the old book "Family Math" by Stenmark, Thompson, et. al. (http://www.amazon.com/Family-Math-Equals-Jean-Stanmark/dp/0912511060) Tons of fun activities in there.

Finally, an interesting context in which to think about the issue of deep vs. fast is that of the emerging Math Circle communities that are sprouting up throughout the country. They are based on an Eastern European model, but much of what is special about many of them here is that they take as their central concern getting kids (and others - they are for adults as well) to enjoy the love of discovering math for themselves. This is inevitably slower, but the idea is that it the knowledge gained is more long-lasting. One of the first American Math Circles has a web-site at: http://www.themathcircle.org. Check the "Press" button to read various newspaper articles (linked at bottom).

BB

Under the circumstances, I completely agree that for your GS, doing the work assigned was important. I think there was a very specific, larger goal that you were trying to accomplish, and it was a vital goal for your GS's future success. Respecting authority is important and necessary, and if doing the drudge work while you advocated for more was helpful, then I'm all for it. You know your child, and every child is different.

For my situation, my child had always respected authority, but the drudge work was making him LOSE that respect. Not to mention making him think of himself as superior to others in very negative ways and at the same time, making him feel like he was a bad kid because he kept getting into trouble. It was NOT a positive experience for him, and letting it go on was not going to teach him any lessons that he needed to learn at the time.

Blanket rules about kids make me nervous. But if I were going to make a blanket rule in this case, I'd definitely err on the side of giving GT kids more challenge and less/no drudge work most of the time, especially while they're young. (Teens are a different story.) I agree that there are some cases where a certain child might get something they need from drudge work if there are special circumstances. But I don't believe that most young GT kids need to learn anything that boring repetition is likely to teach them, and in fact, I think it can often teach them some very bad things!

My kids do not skate by, and their lives are not pampered, sheltered parties all day long. I am very firmly the boss. I expect hard work. I don't let them give up on things willy-nilly--I've actually gotten some sideways glances about how firm I am with my kids about their trying things and not giving up. I just don't think that young GT kids in general are going to learn useful lessons from boring, too easy, repetitious school work. And except in isolated cases with a specific goal in mind, I don't see any reason to let that go on.

I think that explains both ways well. And also points out how Ania's advice to back away from the forum for 48 hours can be very useful. Advice & alternative viewpoints can be wonderful, but when it comes down to decisions about our own kids we know our goals and how to achieve them has to be tailored to our kids personalities.
Good luck 'neato.

What Kriston said! I totally agree, situations and personalities vary widely.

I think we had more a situation like yours. I am having to do some serious remedial work on respect issues, although we've come a long way this summer alone. DS7 is very much "you respect me, and we'll talk".

I love reading about the ability to go deep and wide in math, instead of just plowing through the material faster. We have been staring at the Calculus Trap (without knowing that it had a formal name!) for some time now. But I wanted to make a few comments.

In one of the gifted books that I have read in the last several months, (I can't keep them all straight now, but I think it may have been Karen Rogers?), the author describes the effect of math drudgery, or 'drill and kill", on the gifted student. She (if I am correct on the reference?) stated that mathematically-inclined gifted kids learn the concepts in math exceptionally fast, which is no surprise. But she then stated that with repeated drilling of the same topic, gifted kids actually unlearn the material. It was hypothesized that after the first or second time running through the same material, gifted kids stop paying attention and their scores for assessing accuracy of math facts go down rapidly. So drilling a gifted kid in math is in fact detrimental to their mastery of the subject.

That said, I would also argue that many of the parents on this board, myself included, have posted that their child would rather learn the big, abstract concepts in math rather than do the more mundane calculations that allow you to connect point A to point B. This is worrisome, at least to me with a fairly young kid (okay, at age 8 he is not as young as I think he is!). He needs to be able or willing to focus on the drudgery in order to do more advanced calculations later. Not all of math is built on these big, exciting leaps that seem to fuel the gifted brain.

The problem that I see is that you have to keep them interested enough in the topic by dangling the next big leap under their noses so that they are willing to do the drudgery that fills in the details. If they race from big idea to big idea, then they are missing the structure that holds the whole house of cards together. And if they get so stuck on the minute structure that they miss seeing the grand picture of the whole house, then they dig in their heels and lose that spark of learning.

I think with our kids the pitfall of missing the structure is much, much less than losing the spark. We know our kids and we know what they are capable of and how fast they can go. The schools are focused solely on the drudgery that fills in the gaps in the structure. Their achievement tests depend on the kids mastering the drudgery, their school report card (a la NCLB) depends on it, and frankly they can't imagine any instance where going over and over the drudgery one more time is not a good thing.

I guess the only way around this is to get the school to acknowledge that once the child has mastered the structure or details of a particular lesson, then it is in the best interest of the gifted child to be allowed to move forward. They need to do a certain amount of drudgery in order to make sure that they have mastered the material, as well as to build character and learn perseverance. But for goodness sakes, then they need to move forward!!

And if anyone knows of a way to get the schools to understand this rather simple concept, then please bottle it and sell it. I would be willing to purchase great, big jugs of it!

We are currently stuck with lots of instances of repeating the previous year's drudgery (as if 4th grade drill and kill wasn't bad enough... the teacher is repeating most of last year's drudgery, just to make sure that all of the kids have it.... yawn!), and balancing it with any afterschooling in math that I can get my hands on. (hence the post on Mandelbrots sets). This is surely a kluge job, and may not last for long. When (not if) DS reaches the end of his patience for the slow pace of 4th grade, we will have to start fighting for another solution.

I hear you, 'Neato, and will probably be in your shoes shortly. Any suggestions for the deep and wide aspect of math would be greatly appreciated, as it may stave off inevitable battle of subject acceleration.

I think ebeth's point is an important one: math concepts are great, but math skills are necessary too. Developing the skills shouldn't be particularly difficult for the HG+ kid, but it still requires a certain amount of practice. For some of our kids that process of acquiring and perfecting a skill is itself an exciting thing - I think our DS, for example, gets a real thrill out of getting the right answers. But perhaps this changes with age. Still, perfecting the skill is only the very first stage of real mathematical understanding; the deep and wide aspects are really much more important. (Terence Tao's father seems to have recognized this relatively early on, and he is a good advocate for the view.)

Not to pull the thread off-topic, but I would be interested to know if anyone has any experience with Math Circles. Properly done this seems the right place for developing deep and broad acquaintance with math, and there really are a lot of them sprouting up. DS is joining one in the Fall, and we have high hopes.

BB

Going deep could include working on physics and chemistry knowledge that is accessible with that level of math. Much of classical physics and most chemistry is workable with just a bit of Algebra. Finding a HS physics/chemistry text then working it mught be good. F=ma and pv=nrt are easy to grasp.

Learning how to do graphs and charts is another.

My approach (so far) has been to have DS do the easy "drudge" work such as coloring pages or math facts. I point out to him that he can practice writing his numbers neatly or get creative with the coloring. If he complains that his hand is tired I tell him that's good, it means that your writing muscles are getting stronger. If he complains that something is too easy, I tell him to see how quickly he can finish it. If he says it's too hard then I tell him it means he needs more practice. I really don't tolerate complaints of any type about homework. I want to teach my kids that in order to succeed, they need to do their assigned work and turn it in on time. I tell them that homework is their chance to "show what you know." Maybe they already know how to do something, but they need to show the teacher their mastery.

I think this approach really paid off. The fact that DS had done and turned in on time every scrap of homework ever assigned to him in Kindergarten was greatly in his favor in the eyes of the school.

Very good points. This is often the carrot that we choose to dangle under my "live and breathe science" kid. But my son would still prefer to race ahead to algebra, since that is where the cool and exciting ideas are. He sees calculus as something akin to Harry Potter's magic wand, and the faster he gets there (according to him), the better.

It is like DS8 is dreaming of running down the sidewalk to another place, when he is still learning to crawl in his own small yard. He can see down the street. He knows it is there, just waiting for him. And he doesn't understand why he can just get up and go. As a parent, you feel as if you are constantly trying to hold these kids back and slow them down. Yes, they have to master the finer details. But at what point do they just give up the dream of running free?

Just around his 8th birthday, DS was sitting and eating lunch, staring off into space. He then asked, out of the blue, "How do you calculate the volume of a cone?" And I responded, "Gee, I don't know. How do you calculate the volume of a cone?" He then preceded to tell me that if you know the area of a circle, which he does, then you could stack consecutively smaller circles upward to fill the volume. Or, he said, you could take a triangle and rotate it through a circle to fill in a cone. He is already doing the beginning steps of calculus, without any instruction at all. So much for the Calculus Trap! It is not determined by how fast the material is presented to them. It is determined by how quickly they invent the material all by themselves.

If you don't feed it along the way, it will die from neglect.

Things are very similar in our house. I regularly remind my kids about the importance of trying hard. My DS-then-5 used to say "Try hard, don't try easy!" With my kids, the results of standing firm can be impressive.

I'm also a big advocate of giving young GT kids more challenging work. Especially at this age, they need to learn how to solve problems that look too difficult at first. Ironically, the non-GT kids who have to work harder to get grade-level concepts get much more practice at this skill, which is probably very good for their future work habits. GT kids have a right to develop this skill too!

I think it's difficult for teachers to see the distinction between "working hard" on drudgery and "working hard" on challenging material. They aren't the same thing at all. A GT kid can do simple problems while watching TV or talking. He's not learning to focus his mind by doing the easy stuff. The ND kids are learning to focus when they do this stuff. GT kids should have this challenge as well.

Val

Oh!! What a wonderful way of putting that, Val!! Three cheers!!

I totally agree with Kriston when she says that those problems are very relative to age. It is much easier to work with younger child who is resisting something (simply doing it with them will be a remedy) then with a teenager.

As for Math Circles - there are different ones. Some are free, some you pay for, some are competition prep some are extended problems. The ones I encountered in Europe were focusing on extended math concepts. If you look back in my posts, we have actually managed to organize one at the college in our town.
I think that the math circle in Boston area is different, but the ones that I am familiar with are geared towards high school and advanced middle school kids. Post intermediate Algebra and Geometry.

I vote for putting it into spray bottles. That way we can spread it quickly over a large area. NB Make sure it smells good; we can tell them we're de-odorizing.



Math Kangaroo is good for deep-and-wide-type thought problems. It's not too expensive, and the kids get fun stuff: a t-shirt, a pencil holder with pencils, an eraser etc.

Val

Not with my kid!

Last year, we would spend a full hour together on dumb homework that he could have done with ease in 5 minutes 3+ years earlier. I was working with him. I said, "Just get it done and then you can play!" I said, "You have to show the teacher that you already know it." I tried all those things. None of it worked. He was miserable and acting out at home and at school. He had no respect for his teacher, and he was losing respect for me. He hated math.

What is he getting out of that? Nothing good!

We moved on to geometry, and he could do 10 times the number of problems in half the time! His joy in math returned. His respectful attitude returned. He did the problems willingly--eagerly!--because they were hard for him. He asks for hard now! And that's what I want!

He says he wants to stop cleaning his room, and I say, "No. Life is not all fun and games. You made the mess, you clean it up." He does. Drudgery galore!

I really do hear what you're saying, Ania, but I just don't see it working with my child. I've been there. I tried it. It was the exact wrong thing for him! And I don't think my child is in the minority of HG+ kids. I just hear stories like mine far too often.

I think computation skills are important, but I also think that with a spiral curriculum, the opportunities to fill in the gaps are easy to come by.

If you do drill with a kid and it isn't killing the love of math or the respect for the teacher, then I'm all for it. But I think these two problems are far more likely in the GT population and far more harmful than the danger of not learning the times tables (or whatever) RIGHT THIS SECOND. The kid will memorize the multiplication tables eventually. But if he comes to hate math and think all teachers are idiots, then multiplication is the least of your worries!

Yes, the one in Boston takes children as young as 4. From what I hear it is devoted to teaching the kids to explore a problem together in the spirit of playing with ideas. I suspect it takes a very good teacher/moderator to make this work well, but when successful I'm pretty sure it is my ideal for the best kind of learning in any subject.

BB

I did not mean to say that kids will do boring things when we sit down with them Of course you have to keep them interested and follow their lead. But it is easier - at least it was for me - to make my kids "do something" when they were younger because all it really took in majority of cases was a gentle persuasion from me and me actually seating down with them.
My kids never bolted out at "boring" calculations, but when the time came to "show work" there were some issues. To this day I tell my son to do more on paper - head is great for ideas but not for calculations. It is after all calculations that we make most mistates in when it comes to more complex problems.
When DD is working on Aleks she is not allowed to use the calulator. She can only use it on tests to double check her answers. As a result her calculations are generally more correct tha her mathy brother's, who jumps from idea to idea (he is much better now, he has learned that one can loose a lot by making a mistake in addition )

But of course you have to make it interesting, and you do it.

Hello all,

I took some wise advice and a step back.......

Thanks for all the well wishes and concerns. I'd hit a little roadblock and became extremely frustrated. DD WILL be leaving for the math hour.....things continue to progress slowly.......onward we march.

Lots of great discussion, ideas and excellent points. One comment particularly jumped out at me:


Working hard on drudgery vs. challenging material. Hmmmmmmm. Working hard on challenging material: promotes good work ethic, sticktuitiveness, and definately good self esteem, a feeling of self efficacy.
Working hard on drudgery: For our highly able children, if this happens consistently, over time it will condition them to procrastinate and spin their wheels. Excessive time spent on this conditions the child to be unproductive. It can become a part of who they are and how they manage their day as adults.

I would recommend that every parent with a HG,EG, PG very carefully consider this.

This knowlege has a lot to do with what I do and will continue to do.

Peace,
Neato

You go, girl! I hope everyone involved (ahem) gets on board with you and it all works out to be an ideal situation for DD8.

Well said, Neato. Very good point.

Why thank you, thank you very much.....

While I have your attention, let me make my next point:

Excessive time spent on drudgery.

No teacher worth their salt would sentence any child to excessive drudgery, so why do so many of us report that it is happening to our children?

Maybe you could tell me, but here is what I've observed.

For most HG and up children, grade level material for their age is excessive drudgery. I think this is the hardest thing for the school to understand and they believe that they are providing a great challenge, I do think they attempt to do so through the services they provide.

But with HG and up child, they ALMOST ALWAYS UNDERESTIMATE THE SPEED AND EFFICIENCY WITH WHICH THESE CHILDREN LEARN. It seems that one of two things seems to happen. The child smiles sweetly and tolerates it(See, he/she is perfectly happy in school, what are you talking about.)
The child acts out because of boredom and frustration(I'm sorry, but we can't even address gifted services because this behavior is just too disruptive, you need to do something about your child.)

That is what they see. They accomodate accordingly. Without intervention, the child is at risk for developing a variety of non-productive habits that have an obvious effect on their future potential success.

Clearly, this in not the situation for all HG and up children in all public/private schools. However, it seems to be pervasive enough of an issue that is should be seriously considered by all the adults that are involved in helping these children.

Now, I am seriously in danger of harming a horse. I defer to your discussion................

Very well said indeed, Neato! You have just described the path towards underachievement. Then, when the gifted child finally strolls across material that is fact challenging, they begin to doubt their own ability, which has gone into hibernation from lack of use.

Val, I like your spray bottle idea!! Think of all of the ideas that we pass around on this board. If we could distill the essence of them down, pour it into a bottle, and spray on teachers and school administrators.... Bwa-ha-ha-ha.... the mad scientist comes to life!!

I think this is an important point, but must be kept in perspective. Yes, people need to learn to do some of the mindless chores of everyday life like dishes and laundry. But the reason we do these chores is that they have a purpose. We need clean dishes and laundry. There is value in the task even though it is boring and tedious. There is no need for a worksheet full of simple addition and subtraction problems when a child is two grade levels advanced and has his/her math facts memorized. There is no purpose. Gifted children understand this. All kids, but gifted kids, especially need to see a purpose for what they do. And realistically a human being can only do so much "because I said so" stuff.

During WWII at one of the concentration camps the Nazis had the prisoners move huge piles of rocks from one location to another and then the next day the prisoners would have to move that same pile of rocks back to the original location. This task was repeated day after day. Eventually the prisoners began to lose their sanity. On a small scale this is what is happening to our gifted students who spend day after day doing tedious, unproductive work. No wonder they rebel against it.

I agree that we need to teach children to respect authority, but we also need to teach children how to appropriately question authority. The very freedom we enjoy in our country came from questioning authority. Much of the turmoil and suffering in the world, especially during WWII, has come from not questioning authority.

In general the education system in the US does not do its job in appropriately educating our gifted children. That authority needs to be questioned. We need to advocate for our children but we also need to teach our children to advocate for themselves.

And perhaps also: Depression, Anxiety, Repressed Anger, Low Self-Esteem, and Imposter Syndrome. Did I miss anthing else?

I think Oma and (((you and I))) are also talking about different things, right?



Wholeheartedly agreed! HOWEVER< Age appropriate. My six year is NOT responsible for this. The adults in her life need to check their ego's and work together to make this right.

TexasSummer, I will continue to disagree, but I'm done beating that horse.

Thank you Oma, I will not have to call PETA on you or me!

For the record, I think we are not talking about the same issue concerning the disagreement.

I purposely use the work excessive.I think(?) that's the key word that Tex is reading

Well, it depends. Every place I have worked, I can do my assigned tasks and stay on schedule one hour a day compared to my peers. That gives me the rest of the day to do what I want, priorities permitting.

The key is to teach them to use that downtime productively.

A lot of kids aren't allowed by the teacher to use their downtime productively! If getting done early just means you're given more of the same work or have to sit silently and wait, why bother? They'd have to be idiots to agree to that system. Adults are usually given a lot more leeway than kids are in that regard.

And what about when the repetitive, boring work is assigned as homework? As far as I'm concerned, that's the kid's personal time that the teacher is cutting into. For what? More of the same ridiculous work that s/he gave the child all day long. Ugh!

The other issue is the age-appropriateness. A 12yo, say, is much more capable of putting into perspective boring, repetitive assignments and is much more capable of using the self-control necessary to complete said assignments. Early elementary school kids--even GT ones!--often do not have those same abilities. That's not related to character so much as it is normal child development. It's simply not fair to expect a 6 or 7 or 8yo to "buckle down" and practice good time management skills when they don't have those skills yet! We're supposed to be teaching those to them! And from what I've seen, the majority of kids will refuse to learn those skills--will in fact learn bad habits instead!--if we try to teach those skills through the eternal drill of things they already know.

I guess what I'm saying is that I think the principle you're citing is right, Austin, but the implementation of it just doesn't usually work with young GT kids instead of with adults. And in fact, it usually backfires!

But I think that's easy for an adult but much less so than a 7yr old. After spending 6hrs+ being unchallenged, then to come home to more of the same as homework, was just too much for him. And it never sunk in that the longer he balked, the less time he had for more fun things. But he just couldn't understand why he had to do it in the first place.

His teacher even noted that he would sit there forever doing a worksheet. Finally, she'd take it from him, incomplete. She'd then hand him a more challenging worksheet and he'd fly through it.

Tag-teamed that one, didn't we, Dazey! LOL!

Gotta love those crossposts!

LOL Yes!

I think maybe some of this is just different personalities. When you have a kid--as Dazey and I do--who takes LONGER when the work is too easy, sometimes a WHOLE LOT LONGER to do what seems like it should be a walk in the park, you just come to the conclusion that it's not worth it. Good lessons are not being learned and many bad lessons are, so why bang your head against the wall?

OTOH, I was a "do it while the teacher is explaining the next assignment" kind of kid, so I never had homework, and the work from one subject kept me from losing my mind completely from boredom during the next.

However, I don't think this was anything like an ideal situation! That's important!

I had a good bit of trouble when I finally got to high school and hit a challenging academic situation. I was a straight-A student and I considered suicide (briefly) because I got a B+. That's just insane, and I am not an insane person! If I had not been bored to death all along with drill and kill and molded into a perfectionist whose feelings of self-worth hung solely upon perfect scores because everything was always easy, I KNOW that wouldn't have been my reaction.

The combination of experiences--my son's and mine--is why I feel pretty strongly about this. Even if the kid goes along with the drill and kill, that doesn't mean it's a smart move.

(With the important caveats that every child is different, short-term is different than long-term, and if there's a specific goal for the child that requires his/her toeing the line, then that's a different kettle of fish.)

Yes, the fact that your school made exceptions on the worksheets for kids who got it already is really REALLY key, I think, Dottie. That doesn't happen around here.

Yes, shaking head, I was coming back to say I think a lot of it boils down to personality. I wish I had that laid back kid which just did the work put in front of him so he could move on to other things but sadly, I do not. And some of it, is even work he needs to do for school such as know your times tables lol.

I just marvel at the school a friend's kids attend. that school bends over backwards to make learning engaging. My son would thrive there.

I had similar perfectionist tendencies even at a young age. I remember coming home from elementary school one day crying because I had made a B on an assignment. Once I got to high school I was able to do the boring, mindless work because I knew I had to make the best grades possible so I could go to college and escape the cycle of poverty and my small town existence. The boring, mindless assignments had value because they were my stepping stones to good grades and freedom. In some ways though it hurt me. I somehow perfected the ability to make good grades without necessarily understanding the material. In college I made an A in differential equations but never understood the concepts until I took thermodynamics. I guess that is why I am a big proponent of the interdisciplinary study of math and science.

See this is where I get myself in trouble with the school. If they send a worksheet home that is way below what DD is currently doing, realistically it takes her a few minutes to do and she can actually do it while watching a t.v. show with 100% accuracy.

Now I can see the school thinking, well if it's such a non-issue, why are you even complaining, just be glad it doesn't take her 20 minutes.

But I say, obviously she can practically "do it with her eyes close" type of thing which defeats it's purpose which is practice to mastery. Why would I even spend the second it takes to grab it out of the bag.

I'll trrrrryyyyyyyyy............

It makes sense what you're saying, but it kind of conflicts with what makes sense to me, KWIM?

Plus I'm stubborn and uncompromising!

Prioritizing and choosing your battles. This is not something that comes naturally for me, but I'm starting to realize it is necessary if DD8 will stay at school, which is what it seems she wants. Oh, strategic retreat, I'm not really good at that one either.

This may be my greatest challenge!

I know it's wrong, like I know it was wrong to eat 2 donughts from Dunkin Donuts today.

I have to save the fights for the most important things, cause even though it's wrong to give a kid a worksheet her little sister can do for her , I only have so much time, patience and sanity.

soooooo annoooooooooooyed.