When discussing acceleration and cross-grade grouping, a teacher I was speaking with made these points. I'll withhold my opinion so as not to bias your feedback. What do you think of the following assertions?

1. Streaming positive in math and foreign languages.

2. Enrichment preferable to acceleration in ELA, social sciences, and sciences. Argument in favour of non-acceleration in sciences: curriculum structured and cumulative.

3. Offering a 2+ year acceleration in core subjects (ELA, math, science) in a congregated gifted setting not beneficial to students.

I imagine you'll hear variations of what I'm about to say.

1. Not really. Streaming we tend to call it clustering or grouping here is not a substitute for acceleration in math when the material is already mastered and its difficult to do well. Basic arithmetic in particular has a limit on the amount of depth that can be done with it. Perhaps it works better in foreign languages. Although there the key to me is how effective immersion is being done.

2. Maybe depending on enrichment. For ELA a cohort for discussions etc. becomes increasingly important as you advance.

3. Strongly disagree. Self-contained classrooms are highly effective for the students because they narrow the range needed to teach and differentiate against.

1/ streaming does make things less painful but an increase in pace and depth should be part of it.
2/ Depends on the child I would think. My oldest is too sensitive to cope with fiction for older kids or even more intense fiction for his age.
3/ Common belief but seems to be based on research using kids who are near the center of the curve not at either end. They seem to think that if it is beneficial to work with kids a little more or less skilled than you that it must be more beneficial to work with those much more or less skilled. If one pill is good then 10 must do 10 times as good.

1. Streaming or grouping is appropriate but not sufficient. There needs to be a change in curriculum content and presentation.

2. Structured and cumulative curriculum lends itself to compaction which is a form of acceleration.

3. Garbage. Unless of course the students selected are not appropriate for such a curriculum.

The ideas held are common but it doesn't make them correct. " A Nation Deceived" provides many references as many here are aware.

1) Streaming is not a buzzword I've had thrown at me, so I'll pass on this one.

2) Actually, for social studies and science, I can't say I disagree there. At lower grade levels, these topics are covered superficially at best, and I see a lot of value in going deeper rather than faster.

For ELA? I'm pretty sure if you're going deeper, you're way beyond grade-level curriculum.

3) And this teacher's evidence is... what?? Because there's quite a bit of evidence in favor.

Overall, this teacher seems hostile to acceleration. And since acceleration is one of the simplest and most effective tools for meeting the needs of a gifted child, I don't think this teacher has a sufficient understanding of gifted children.

It would be like a music teacher who can't tell you the notes in C-major.

Thanks everyone for your input. These are my views:

1. Streaming within a cohort that is already appropriately accelerated on a subject by subject basis is ideal. Streaming is a fine-tuning adjustment, not a gross adjustment. Offer cross-grade grouping with a compacted curriculum in as many subjects as possible to allow for the greatest adaptability to individual needs across subjects. Gifted children (all children, really!) should be supported in developing in the ZPD.

2. Enrichment is inadequate, particularly where basic skills objectives have been met. In fields with a nonlinear pattern of progress across grades, there is a strong argument for compaction to expose students to breadth and depth. In more structured fields, acceleration isn't inconsistent with progressing through the appropriate foundational skills.

3. Ruf's work suggests HG+ children are capable of completing the entire elementary series curriculum in (IIRC) ~ 1 year. Preventing gifted students from accelerating to achieve their potential deprives them of valuable learning opportunities-- academic, meta cognitive, and socioemotional. These effects are best supported in an accelerated, congregated setting of true peers. For many gifted students, more than 2-3 years of subject acceleration will be required.

Ironically, this teacher is a graduate of a congregated gifted program, has children ID'd as gifted, and claims to have experience teaching gifted children. It is perplexing that someone who, ostensibly, should have a better knowledge of gifted best practices doesn't.

Specifically related to science instruction, research by Joyce Van Tassel-Baska suggests:

"Moreover, opportunities for earlier access to advanced content need to be available to gifted students in science. Cross and Coleman (1992) conducted a survey of gifted high school students, finding that their major complaint about science instruction was the frustration of being held back by the pace and content of courses. In a 6-year study of middle school age gifted learners taking biology, chemistry, or physics in a 3-week summer program, these younger learners outperformed high school students taking these courses for a full academic year (Lynch, 1992). Follow-up studies documented continued success in science for these students, suggesting a need for academically advanced students to start high school science level courses earlier and be able to master them in less time. Evidence also suggests that advanced study in instructionally grouped settings based on science aptitudes promotes more learning for all students (Hacker & Rowe, 1993).

Source: http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10273.aspx

I agree in principle, but the thing is that elementary level science books all teach pretty much the same thing at every grade level. In much of what I've seen, the primary differences are that 1) the vocabulary words change and 2) each grade level presents more detail (hence the change in vocabulary terms). IMO, this structure argues in favor of acceleration. Grade-school science isn't structured like, for example, college-level chemistry, where you really must understand general chemistry in order to get through O chem.

I became aware of the structure of US K-6 science six or so years ago. At the time, DS14 was doing fourth grade science in a school where fifth and sixth graders were in the same room for science. He overheard their lessons, and he wanted to skip ahead to at least the fifth grade stuff because it was more detailed, and to him, more interesting. The teacher wouldn't allow it. She honestly believed that a student wouldn't understand the fifth grade stuff without having gone through the fourth grade book. She didn't have a background in science, and I think she didn't see that the 4th-, 5th-, and 6th-grade books were all teaching the same stuff at different levels of detail.

I realised last year that teachers are civil servants. If they had to actually believe in every academic theory they were forced to inplement over a 40 year career they would go crazy. Therefore what seems ignorance may be following instructions.

Puffin, if you're referring to my message (unlikely given the timing thing), this was at a private school and the teacher in question was also in charge.

But you're correct that they could be following orders (though this would just move the ignorance a rung or two up the ladder).

Agree-- BUT-- what actually winds up happening there is that if you go "deeper" you're actually covering advanced grade-level material. {sigh} Because-- spiraling.


Hmmmm-- I can actually (somewhat) see the point in NOT accelerating with ELA/social studies in particular since those tend to be areas in which advanced material also tends to place demands emotionally. But I suspect that isn't what was in the speaker's mind, somehow...


Yes, I'd agree.

That is if this is more or less in context.

My question in response to the last statement in fact, is:

Well, sure-- but WHICH children? That seems to be a critical thing to define in that statement.

Unfortunately, I think most gifted teachers understand the high average/slightly gifted student, but not the highly gifted. These accommodations all sound great for the kid that is 75% at grade level, but has the capacity to do more.

The GT teachers that I've encountered do not have any understanding of highly gifted. I've had teachers apologize to me because my kid knows more science than they do. But, there is no effort to do anything different. Then when my child's frustration become apparent, all efforts focus on frustration. No one seems to have thoughts of correlation between an irritated (but behaved) attitude and the fact that they apologize over curriculum. When I've pointed it out, they agree...but nothing changes.

All of the things you've mentioned are not helpful for my kid; he has most of them. Its a band aid on a gaping wound.

Agreed!

I'll throw in my two cents worth on our experience, in the same school system from which your teacher comes, Aquinas. Others have already addressed the substantial body of evidence which does not support the anti-acceleration stance, so I would comment just on the daily reality of living with our province's curriculum, and why teachers seem so resistant to evidence.

Our province and school boards have drunk the kool-aid by the gallon when it comes to truly, honestly, deeply believing that acceleration it is bad for kids. For many, it's not that they are unaware, but rather that they have been taught, with great effort, care and repetition, to fundamentally reject acceleration and all it stands for. Congregated gifted classrooms explicitly do not accelerate or compact in our board, and policy adamantly states that they must do only the normal, grade-level curriculum, though they are allowed to go wider.

Our teachers and principals are truly bewildered when you suggest there is ample evidence for acceleration, and will gently correct you and assure you that the Board/ provincial research PROVES it is bad for children. They will pat you on the head and suggest that you look at *real* research, and not be swayed by a few outlier opinions of extremists. They as teachers and policy makers have tons of experience with acceleration from the days of my youth, and they know for a fact - for a FACT, I tell you - that it is bad for children. Bad, bad, bad.

They are genuine, and truly believe they are doing the best for the kids and - this is critical to understand - saving them from pushy, hot-housing parents. Every word you say, every document you provide, simply reinforces their belief that they must protect this child from your pushing them into an inappropriate situation that will damage the child's self-esteem and social life. The more you attempt to discuss the evidence for acceleration, the more you simply prove their point and strengthen their need to protect the child - from *you*. Maintenance doses of kool-aid are daily slipped into the coffee urn in the teacher's lounge to ensure continued adherence to orthodoxy. Any attempt to provide contrary research is usually refused - gently but politely - because your stuff is fringe and they have *real* evidence from school board experience that acceleration is bad for kids. Don't even think about trying to provide a copy of "A Nation Deceived" - the very title sets their fur on edge and sounds extremist.

Ah - I sound a bit disillusioned this morning, don't I? Pardon the grumpiness.

As for the idea that the science curriculum is cumulative, bah. The sum total of elementary school science could be covered in an afternoon. With a tobogganing break. There is very little science, and what there is tends towards the softer sciences - primarily plant biology and environmental issues. And it's almost entirely about learning lists of facts. DD8 is losing her mind after 6 months spent still memorizing the parts of plants. DS10 is now studying - oh look, it's plants again. In alternate years, we’ll talk about environmental stuff - that means we memorize the carbon cycle - of plants. DS is very into the hard sciences: physics, engineering, computers, math. The sad reality is that even in the early grades of elementary school, it was clear that the first time he is likely to see science that is remotely interesting, even mildly conceptual or explorative, and taught at a depth/ level to have some meaning, will be in high school. That's an awfully long time to wait, and way too much time spent learning that science is excruciatingly boring and irrelevant.

And sadly, I have no doubt that were kids like these put into ANY kind of high school science course in our province right now, the amount of time needed to backfill any info they might have missed in middle school would be minimal. We aren't there yet, so perhaps I unduly disparage the middle-school curriculum.

But I doubt it.

So to say that grade-level courses can be taught with enrichment is more than a bit disingenuous. Of course you could be teaching extraordinarily cool things about plant biology to 6-10 year-olds. I have been talking about all sorts of examples with DD, to try and undo the damage and hatred of the subject caused by the school curriculum. But other than focusing on the same branch of science, there would be absolutely no resemblance between the two courses.

I should add: there are occasional rare gems in our school system, who actually love science (instead of being afraid of it), who have great knowledge of science, and who love teaching things to young children even when they themselves may not know as much to start as the children end up discovering on a particular topic. It is possible to learn some extraordinary science in some classrooms with these extraordinary teachers. But it's because they toss the curriculum out the window and actually teach *science*. And even more importantly, they convey their love of science and discovery.

Sorry Aquinas - your posts about policy do keep pushing all my buttons, don’t they?! I don’t usually get this cynical and grumpy in real life! Well, OK, mostly.

ETA: Sorry about giant soap box rant! But appreciate having a place to let it all out. House full of in-laws, have almost bit my tongue right off, need an outlet...

Michelle, you are hereby officially invited to be the first commentator in every one of my threads. I love your posts!

In lieu of copying your entire post and responding with an ITA, I'm just going to nod my head like a bobble head in LA, say thank you, and call out this deliciously awesome bit:

"As for the idea that the science curriculum is cumulative, bah. The sum total of elementary school science could be covered in an afternoon. With a tobogganing break."

I'm also going to add an image of a willful educator taking a kool aid swig from a stainless steel hip flask with an engraving of a windmill on it during an advocacy meeting with parents.

And then policy makers fret over the productivity gap, as though the nexus between education and skilled labour productivity didn't exist. I'm starting to wonder if there are two credentials floating around locally-- the conventional "Ed" for education, and the lesser known "Ed" for evidence disbelief, which masquerades as the former.

I live in FL...could we take a quick swim in the pool?

Please do not apologize or retract a syllable of this. It is a wonderfully realistic description. Few know this stuff about the modus operandi. Many need to know. To be clear, the parents have the correct view, the system is incorrect. Thank you for this post!

TO be fair, Michelle, I have encountered some of the pushy, Tiger-type parents. They can actually damage their kids, albeit with the best of intentions.

So this might actually be a genuine concern for a small subset of parents. Unfortunately, it then becomes a matter of baby and bathwater for those of us that are not actually "pushy" parents who want to crow about our "genius" child on an international stage, or have visions of Carnegie Hall or Nobel awards in our heads.

{sigh}

Yes, I am feeling a bit cynical as well.

There are times when parenting a child at sufficiently high LOG (or, I suspect, as an outlier in any real sense) relative to local norms places you on the crazy train whether you like it or not.

No matter how thoughtful, measured, and well-reasoned your approach to parenting such a child, you are destined to collect a metaphorical wall of shame filled with your social and parenting "fails" because there is no way to do right by that child-- not really, because you'd need superhuman strength to fight upstream like a spawning salmon attempting to breach Grand Coulee Dam, quite frankly; and also because with every misunderstanding from others comes a social fail, too.

While I look back at DD's K through 12 years with dismay, and wonder what on EARTH we should/could have done any differently to improve the ultimate sum of that experience, and to better prepare her for the realities of post-secondary education, and heyyyyyy, wait-a-minute, wasn't post-secondary ed supposed to be DIFFERENT??

-- well.

The upshot is that while any failure EVER on her part is instantly going to be chalked up to "immaturity" and/or some variation of "accelerated child" or some such thing, the reality is that the entire edifice of primary and secondary education failed her utterly, and we were more or less powerless to do MUCH in the way of damage control, in spite of our very best efforts.

I can't point to a single thing that I'd do differently knowing what I know now. Unless it were to homeschool-- but then again, our calculus on that subject was accurate at the time, as well, and NOT homeschooling allowed for level-appropriate opportunities which would have been unavailable due to chronological age, so there you go. Nope. Wouldn't have homeschooled through HS, either. The system isn't built for it.


Come to that, this is a gestalt summary of the entire problem of being what my DD is. The WORLD isn't built for her.

We accelerated to what her executive function and emotional maturity would bear-- and it wasn't enough, academically. She is paying the price for that now-- she has no idea how to memorize information, has no idea how to really study material that she doesn't know intuitively/ad nauseaum, and struggles to take tests which are memorization-based (because that IS how most people learn the low-level material, evidently). She did not NEED any of those skills to ace everything in high school, including "AP" and "dual enrollment" courses, and to smack a home-run on standardized tests, too. <-- that bit is important. She. did. not. NEED. to really learn to be a "student" in any meaningful way to do those things. Because she is what she is. She has enormous, but almost entirely untamed/undisciplined/untapped raw potential. And no way to deliberately ACCESS it, because nobody has ever asked her to, never mind insisted upon genuine effort in that direction. They THOUGHT that what they were offering was "challenge" for her-- but it most certainly was not.

That's the crystal ball for what happens to kids who aren't challenged sufficiently. "Wider and deeper" sounds awesome until you realize that what is actually being described is systematic stunting of a child's growth as a learner. Kids like my DD run the risk of graduating with top honors only to discover that they have been-- metaphorically, I mean-- raised BY WOLVES. DD is a "feral" student. Surrounded by very bright to bright students who KNOW all the things that she does not. Now, her raw potential is still what it is, and we're hopeful that it will turn right in the end, but this is a rough, rough road through adolescence and college, for sure.

My daughter has no idea how to LEARN that which she does not know. She has no idea how to work for understanding. Period.

I feel a little as though we thought we were walking a tightrope all those years-- thought we were so clever, we did-- and now I've woken up to the fact that we were actually walking on nothing but imagination.

Because she had such stellar academics and wasn't "acting out" or "underperforming" (from what they could see, anyhow-- WE saw that she was), nobody would listen to our concerns. Nobody.

I had just one completely open and utterly frank conversation with a school staffer in nine years. In that conversation, she heard me-- and was struck SPEECHLESS with horror. Her response?

A halting, astonished; "We have failed her. We have completely, utterly failed your daughter-- I am-- so-- so sorry {Howler}-- I don't know what to say to this, and I have no idea how to make this better for her within the mandates that we have to follow, but we-- and by "we" I mean not only us as a school, but the state's mandates, too-- have failed to do the one thing that is most fundamental for her-- she hasn't learned anything FROM us. Because she hasn't learned HOW to learn from us, we've harmed her."

That was four years ago now.

I have too met many pushy Tiger parents in my school district. Enough that my school district has done a HUGE push back. Too many parents have enrolled their children in after school tutoring to have them on the path they think they need to be to get into top colleges. And it's tricky for the school district to tell the difference in a way that seems fair. Sometimes these students who have been tutored look better on paper becaue they have been taught to the test. And the district has had students who were hurt by acceleration. The math teachers for example were finding many poorly placed students in their advanced junior high math classes and this sometimes didn't show until the students hit higher level math in H.S.

This point is really important. I had the same problem, my daughter has the same problem...etc. This is why I see acceleration in the US as a least-worst option rather than a good approach to educating gifted kids. Public or private, our education system tends toward the superficial. IMO, this problem is driven by the fact that we've become so hooked on shallow standardized tests on the one hand, and, well, actually a lot of other problems on a lot of other hands. So more slightly harder but mostly superficial stuff still doesn't teach a HG+ kid how to stop, think, and solve. You need confidence for that, and you only get the confidence with experience. TBH, I think that the lack of imparting this skill in our most talented students is one of the greatest tragedies of the US education system.

In addition, the way that schools are set up makes acceleration not necessarily the best option. I know that this idea isn't popular here, but my son had a lot of trouble fitting in when he was a little 11-year-old in a class full of adolescents. Placing kids with others who are older (or much older) creates its own problems. At the same time, DS understands that not skipping him wouldn't have been any better, because of the whole boredom/study skills thing.

Personally, I don't like the idea of painting acceleration as a wonderful solution. It isn't. The age-grade thing makes it a mixed bag. Also, my kids may be capable of understanding ideas that are beyond the norm for their ages, but that doesn't mean that they have executive function skills and other attributes that older kids have. Many teachers don't understand the difference, which also creates problems.

There is a vast difference between strong advocacy to have a child's needs met, and pushy parents of the tiger-parenting variety. The child's love of learning was mentioned by another poster upthread, and can be utilized as an easy distinction between the child's comfortable pace/depth of learning and a child who is hothoused, pushed, tiger-parented to become a trophy child. In general, pushy parents may seek to have their students accelerated in both ELA and math, while remaining at grade level with the specific motivation to have the child's test scores be superior to those of their classmates who've had less exposure. This is different than an child whose needs in ELA and math require advanced academics in those areas but who is otherwise not a candidate for whole-grade acceleration(s).

While a school may have had students who were "hurt by acceleration", this may be due to improper fit or improper implementation. Some may say that in these cases the home/school team would be wise to conduct a post-mortem review to see what might have been done differently. For example, in some cases beginning with the IAS to assess proper placement may be a factor, a school attitude of support for accelerated students may be another.

In the final analysis, teachers know the child for a short while, parents are in the relationship for life; Parental input ought to be heavily weighted in decisions. Documenting decisions, as the IAS suggests, may help both teachers and parents carefully weigh the pros and cons in each situation.

This is why I'm compelled to reply to people who say their kid is "doing fine". Because everyone else in the class is being taught soft skills that will stand them in better stead than IQ will for the rest of their lives. And the kids with the highest IQs are considered disposable and not worth teaching any of those skills. It really really annoys me.

Agreed. It is unconscionable.

Fortunately, there are many books and websites on how to study, how to learn, how to develop critical and analytical thinking skills. Parents and students can find these on their own, outside the classroom.

Exercising the skills is another story; For this kids need a challenging curriculum, an antelope.

I like the math curriculum at the Russian School of Math (many branches in Massachusetts) more than the Everyday Math our schools use (without any option for acceleration, of course). Yes, being better at math will help them get into selective colleges and do well in STEM classes there. So our three children attend RSM. A phrase such as "pushy Tiger parent" suggests we are doing something wrong, but I don't see it. We are going to send the children to summer classes this year, too. Is this pushy, or a rational response to a 2.5 month summer vacation that exists because children use to do farm work in the summer?

My kids also do math over the summer. This is primarily because they'd forget a lot of what they'd learned if they didn't, and I don't see much point in doing all that work between September and June so that you can forget it in July and August, and then re-learn it in September through October or November. They don't do LA classes or other classes because they all like to read. I'd prefer that they have the summer to be completely unconstrained in what they pick to read.

We manage do the math lessons in spite of them going to day camps every day Monday through Friday. The camps they like are mostly, though not completely, oriented toward outside activities.

While I've read books like "Battle hymn of the tiger mom", I've never met anyone that extreme in person. My actual experience with other parents is that life is much more complex and nuanced than pushy parents hot housing their kids vs. gifted children just searching for adequate educational opportunities. There are differences of opinion on actual potential, how much to enrich, how to build motivation, when to push for a particular placement etc. When an acceleration is sought, you don't always know if a child will thrive once given it and in conversations with others deciding what to do there is always a lot of angst over whether they are making the right decision.


Likewise I've never found that competitiveness is the sole and defining feature for "hot housing" however you define it. I'm sure its out there just like every other combination of motivations but I'm also equally sure you can find competitive families that have genuinely smart kids. And just to make things complicated it something exists mixed with other feelings like worries over social adjustment if asking for a grade skip.

I think the root of it stems from the view that a subject has a list of check boxes for a given grade. Some teachers only know and feel comfortable teaching those items. You then get a kid that learns them in x amount of time where x<(whatever ridiculous long amount of time the curriculum states) and you need to do SOMETHING with the rest of the time. Option 1: enrichment, depth and breadth, insert eduspeak buzzword here, etc. Option 2: accelerate and move on to another set of check boxes.

Now I'm not opposed to option 1 because frankly I think most of their check box lists have a lot of room for expansion. The problem is that you need a teacher that is actually willing and able to teach outside of the curriculum. This works even better if they actually know a bit more about their curriculum than most of our elementary generalists seem to and if they have a bit of a passion for the subject themselves (which I've yet to see but there has to be some elementary teachers like this somewhere). The second problem with this occurs when teachers are perfectly fine doing this as long as it doesn't turn into option 2 at which point they all of a sudden freak out that they can't do that! What will they learn next year? Dear me! Seriously though, with the way that the curriculum spirals it is pretty hard to completely avoid option 2 in many cases (take math, 1 digit addition... wait a year.... 2 digit addition.... wait a year.... oh look kids now there are 3 digits.... wait a year....kill me now).

The flip side of this as has been highlighted is the accelerate at all costs just to appease the tiger parent that wants their 12 year old in the local paper because they are going to University (never mind that the kid clearly wasn't into this plan). Only focusing on option 2 without any of option 1 I also see as a problem. I mean not all HG+ are going to be ready for the rest of what comes with attending college/university when they've finished whipping through the standard K-12 curriculum if they haven't spent a little time slowing down to explore things outside of the basic checklists.

Either way, uggg.

ETA - I guess what I'm trying to get around to saying is that I view them both as something that should go together. Unfortunately they often get presented as an either/or option.

The people at the top will be truly ignorant or deliberately ignorant. The people at the bottom will have drunk the cool aid or pretended to. My son's teacher is not going to say she disagrees with the principal even if she does. It would hurt her and not benefit my son. Also an old teacher here could have started with new math in the seventies, done plastic bag maths in the nineties and now be doing the numeracy project. Each of these was introduced as THE solution so some shrug and adapt is reasonable.

In NZ though there is essentially no choice as about 99.9 % of schools teach the national curriculum to national standards and use state trained teachers. This is good in a lot of ways but when you have a child who is HG+ yourchoices aew suck it up and supplement or homeschool.

Yes I would too if I had to deal with everyday math. I'm not against tutoring & extracuricular math programs in general, or academic camps over the summer. What I see as questionable is parents who push kids into accelerated classes they couldn't handle without intense constant tutoring. Tricky to tell the difference if you are outside the situation and therefore I probably shouldn't use that term.

And that is the difference I HAVE met parents who are that extreme. They do exist within my school district. It is also true that many of these 'hot housed' kids actually do better at school than my own child who has a lot of potential but isn't living up to it. But it is one of the reasons my school district doesn't allow any grade skips, and is very cautious about an kind of acceleration outside math in junior high, and doesn't really trust classes not taken in a brick & mortar school.

We've got the uber competitive tiger parents in our district as well, and the pressure they put in place quickly oozes throughout the school. These good kids quickly internalize that they must have the numbers, and the activities and the RESUME to get into the TOP SCHOOL or else they will have failed. Even though DS is only in first grade, I see the competitions kicking off. The parents oh-so-casually asking each other what their kid's reading level is, etc. It takes about a nanosecond for the kids to start eyeing each other and realizing they are officially dueling, whether they like it or not.

DS, fortunately, marches to his own beat. DH and I do whatever we can to keep that beat alive. But I see the crush of the competition swallowing up families I thought would never succumb. I hope we can keep our own way, but I don't know. Every activity seems to demand so much time. E.g., I thought he could have little league as a fun outlet. That was until in found out that little league AT THE SECOND GRADE LEVEL in our area requires practice and/or games five days a week, sometimes six. And it is stunning to see how quickly parents come to demand it. "Well - they've got to start early, or they won't be able to make the team in middle school, and then they can't play at all in high school, and blah, blah, blah."

How did we let this happen?

Anyway, Michelle said "The WORLD isn't built for her." I think what I am trying to do with elementary is help DS come to have a deep understanding of this, without having too much anger about it. He has to live in this world, and he needs to know that he's always going to have to use workarounds to get what he needs/deserves. We are out of the box. That's hard. That's also great. What can we do to get past the "hard" stuff and get to the "great" stuff.

We live in Northern California - and it's a double-edged sword. The competitiveness is a nightmare. The outside-the-box resources are a dream. I'm just trying to teach DS to love the resources, and reject the competitiveness and its achievement-based trappings.

I have no idea if I'll succeed, but it seems to me the only way to proceed for my DS's well-being, and maybe many of our other HG/PG kids as well.

Argh - I'm rambling, but this whole topic is top of my brain all the time these days!

I agree. We've done a fair amount of enrichment ourselves, when we can see that the official, proffered "solution" is lackluster or worse. (As in 30 hours of actual instruction in a second year foreign language course, which we thought so laughably inadequate that we outsourced that instruction at our own expense to a highly fluent expat that we happened to know.)

I have seen that kind of thing, however, and it makes me intensely sad for those children, who are clearly miserable and hoping for nothing more than escape from the virtual dictatorship that they are living under.

I also understand hiring a tutor when junior simply WON'T listen to Mom or Dad, too. That, too, is a different kettle of fish entirely than "put-my-kid-in-advanced-algebra-even-though-she-barely-kept-up-last-year-in-5th-grade-math" because the parent has some brainworm that "early algebra" is "critical" to some shiny, shiny version of "College Success (tm)."

Being made to give up a passion for jazz because it "interferes" with classical performance and competition wins on a more traditional instrument... ehhhh... well, in at least one instance, I seriously believe that this is also an example of Tiger-like behavior.

One more thing: If you've read my posts, you know my frustrations with working within the school ("site council") to try to drive things in a positive direction. But as part of working on school-wide objectives, I raised this issue, and wow did it hit a nerve with the teachers/principal.

Again - I've knocked heads with these ladies. A lot. But the heartache they expressed around trying to get hyper-competitive parents to back off of these little, little children really touched me. It did help me realize how difficult it will be for me to ask for acceleration/differentiation/whatever for DS without having myself cast as one of "them." These folks are hyper-sensitized and kinda fed up.