I have not generally been one to send articles to school, for fear it won't be taken well. But I am almost beyong caring and am currently writing a letter I WISH I could send (which will, in all honesty, never see the light of day). My Daughter is HG+ (FSIQ 146 on the SB5) and also has ADHD (which the school don't really see). At the moment I have these three articles linked in there.
I'm pretty sure that Ken Robinson RSA is the one that had me in a fit of rage as a mother of a child who DOES have ADHD. The fact that he talks like he knows something about ADHD, when I he clearly doesn't makes me so mad, perhaps it's anther of his talks, but really SO not a Ken Robinson fan as a restult of his attitude to ADHD. And he's so popular with teachers here that I am sure my DDs teacher has seen it before and his psycho pop babble is part of why we are treated like leppers for giving our child medication... It's all the rage to show Ken Robinson videos and talks at staff meetings here in Australia (and at lectures to Teaching students), from what I can make out from my teacher friends.
But I will definitely be looking at that those other two links when the kids are in bed, thanks so much!
Probably all 4 of my articles would be about the importance of daily recess/play and all the research about how needed it is. My 8 year old gets 15 minutes ( that includes the time it takes to walk in a straight line back and forth to the playground)....on Friday only. What is wrong with these people...didn't they take child development, they weren't children themselves, don't they know the minutes they lose to wiggly behavior and inattention will come back to them three fold?
In fact I think I will bring it up at the next SAC (school advisory meeting) meeting.
In my dream school, kids would have daily recess as an inalienable right.
Ah, she gets an hr lunch (which for us means an hr in the playground where she fails to eat her lunch) and 20 mins mornin recess. Also at least 20 mins exercise a day in class time plus sport lessons a few days a week. And the popular approach to schooling younger kids here is all about learning through play and investigation. Which sounds awesome, but is resulting in my DD saying "I go to school to muck around and play" she doesn't want to skip another grade next because if she doesn't skip she can keep slacking off... She's in yr 2 (4 weeks of the year left), I asked what year she should do next year 2, 3 or 4 (she's already skipped so repeating would put her back to age norm and was thrown in there to see how she responded). She said "yr 10!" And laughed, so I had a laugh and asked again... "4.. So wait, 3 so it's easy and I don't have to do anything". I want her in the 3/4 class, school is pushing the "social maturity" cart to keep her in a straight 3...
Anyway, I agree kids need to play, my kid also actually needs to learn to to work... And to receive at least some of her instruction at her level.
I seriously feel like "oh but they need to play and be children" is used as a weapon against parents of gifted kids where I live. Well of COURSE they do. But they also need to be educated and their play may not look the way you think it should...I am sick to death of the obsession with learning in a concrete fashion through play and refusal to talk about abstract concepts and provide directed conceptual instruction (which is somehow harmful to their growin minds you know). Where is the sane balance in education? Why does it have to be all play or no play? Whole of language or dogmatic phonics? Etc...
Zen Scanner thanks for those two articles, I have sent them to my husband just now, they both really touch on direct issues with our DD. She HATES to ever know she's made a mistake, let alone look at it, discuss it and think about how to do it differently next time. God forbid she ever acknowledge confusion or not knowing something.
And she absolutely does stay focused and make progress most rapidly when faced with video game style learning (example: when given a reading eggs account at the point of exact readiness she ripped through it at lightening speed and taught herself to read, with the caveat that the further in she got the more often she would come and beg me to do the boring bits so she could get to the next level, this would be when they had an identical type of exercise in every level for 10-20 levels and huge repetition of said exercise before you could get past, I would make her do enough to prove mastery to ME and then I would do the rest of the exercise for her at adult speed).
Welcome, glad those were useful. Sorry about the Ken Robinson one, I see it for the "please don't crush my child's creativity" aspect, but looking at his heavier handed ADHD part I can see a problem there. And that cheekiness? is often lacking in the American take on things. That's always been interesting to me: the appeal of the British sense of humor to American gifted folks. Maybe I can find a less laden variant on the creativity message.
I am not talking about learning through play...I am talking about 15 minutes daily to run and play as a break...so they are fresh and ready for the "rigorous common core". I mean I need a break...I can't go straight without a break...who thinks kids can. Fresh air, vitamin d...important in the middle of your day.
Yeah, as I sai she gets 20 mins morning recess, a running steam off exercise break (10-15 mins, usually mid morning before actual recess, sometimes afternoon too) and then 50 (60?) min "lunch", which for us means "take yor home packed lunch outside and play". She's getting 80-90 mins a day, every day, outside. It blows my mind that your schools think 15 mins a week is acceptable!!
I would not want any of that outside time taken away, I'd just like it to be balanced with "Let's settle down and do some challenging work now!"
I just saw your post zen scanner. There is lots of cool stuff in Ken Robinsson'a videos and talks, but the ADHD thing, especially so close to the end (of the rsa i am thinking of) just totally kills it for me, it makes it seem like the culmination of everything he says is about ADHD misdiagnosis. My DD is intensely creative, one of the lovely effects of her medication is the massive ramp up in her output of beautiful ideas, craft and music. The medication doesn't sedate her, it gets her engaged with her intellect and her creativity long enough to make progress and output...
Yeah...maybe that is why we have misdiagnosed ADHD here as sir ken is discussing because some kids actually have INDRD (I need daily recess disorder) and our schools have given it to them....not saying 100% of ADHD is INDRD but a portion is and the true ADHD and the non ADHD all benefit if we give recess.
ADHD diagnosis and treatment is also much more strictly controlled here, so diagnosis is below internationally predicted rates, treatment is about HALF predicted rate of incidence, and yet we are flooded with articles written in/about the USA where that is maybe not the case and our teachers and public swallow it hook, line and sinker. Misdiagnosis and inappropriate treatment can happen anywhere at any time, our system isn't perfect and we get mistakes here too, but you can't make a quick visit to your local Dr and have your kid put on ADHD medication because a teacher said so. Its a complex process requiring authorised specialists (and government authority every time our specialist writes a fresh script for DD). So it's super frustrating to come up against bias that's not even based on the local situation.
It is a bit annoying when people take US statistics and papers and apply then in NZ (Australia) in your case without checking that they actually apply. I told ds6 that I was going to try and get him in a class next year where he isn't best in maths and despite the fact he wants harder maths he found the idea of not being best without working upsetting. How is that healthy for a 6 year old. I'd quite like him to skip year 3 although he would have to work in writing.
How come NT kids aren't hurt by having to work at stuff instead of just playing? We get heaps of actual breaks outside here too so having part of the rest of the day hard work seems reasonable.
The message we got at public school was that to expect a child to learn things at school then come home and play for hours was completely ridiculous. They were very much of the opinion that a child should spend six hours sitting quietly reading, then go home and spend a couple of hours doing painfully easy homework (supposed to be 30 min), then start doing some actual learning if there's time before bed. And apparently the one where they spend four hours outside with a bike is the high pressure tiger mother option. *%# that noise.
I just don't understand why if they're not going to be bothered teaching, why can't the kids play instead? And now my blood pressure is up.