My child is switching to a gifted magnet school next year. I have been running into some negative comments from my local friends about this, and I'm struggling.

I generally respond by saying that DD's school experience was not working well for her and that she was unhappy, and we think this would be a better fit. But I'm hurt and frustrated by these remarks and am searching for some polite but effective rebuttals.

A very high IQ child (say 145) an often learn academic material material several times faster than an average IQ one, so it makes sense for him or her to placed with other high IQ children so they can all be taught at an appropriate pace.

Some parents will resent the assertion that their children learn much more slowly than yours. It may well be true, and it does not mean there is anything wrong with their children.

Jealousy is a tough one. So is dealing with the NCLB egalitarian attitude, which seems morally just until you experience the downside.

Maybe you could mention this study, which seems to show that when overly broad entry criteria are used for a gifted program, kids at the cutoff get no benefit or even a slight detriment.
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/105328/1.html

Of course, they might come away with the idea that all gifted schooling is worthless.

I think you're doing as well as you can. I dealt with some jealousy already over a simple grade skip, and it is tough. From what I've experienced, simply talking about your child's poor academic fit may alienate some parents, who jump to the conclusion that you're saying your child is better than theirs.

That's why I think it is a problem that's impossible to solve perfectly. In order to respond to questions with a true explanation, you have to talk about your child's needs. The need for more advancement, a faster pace, different materials, etc. shows that your child is likely brighter than that of intensely questioning pushy parent X. Ducking questions will often just postpone the problem, and there's sometimes no way to duck a very pointed question.

I guess you could try saying that you agree with them to some extent, that you see a lot of problems with education in general. Commiserate. Then say that you feel very lucky that your daughter is going to get a better chance at a real education.

I often find labeling children loathsome (though I also understand how testing and identification can be vital), so I could honestly say that to such people.

I do have some residual discomfort with the fact that she will be separated out from other children. I am willing to say that, but then I don't know if that hurts or helps. I certainly also think that an ideal world, every child would learn at his/her level and there would not be a need for rigid separation, especially at this young age (DD is 7).

I don't know if it's jealousy--maybe a little, but I don't think that's the primary thing. We are very liberal and run with a very liberal and egalitarian-minded crowd. There is also a certain element of rejecting traditional measures of achievement, and definitely an anti-testing sentiment. Now my friends sound like sheep, which they aren't, but it's all of a piece with all this, IYKWIM.

I would go so far as to say, it's a problem that's impossible to solve. They are putting you in an impossible position, by trying to engage you in a debate about it, when any possible defense of the program will entail a comparison between children like yours and children like theirs. I think politely deflecting the questions is the only way to go.

I wouldn't have the right answer, but I would say something anyway. I would try to leave out the words "advanced", or "faster", or maybe even "harder". I would say this school is just to give the kids "more work". How many parents and kids really want more work? Not many. Well, some people do.
(I know. "Work smarter not harder," but describing the same darn more rigorus cirriculum as "harder", "more advanced", "faster-paced", or "more work" describes the same thing but evokes different emotions.)
And then you could say the principal gave you the choice: your kid could go to this advanced gifted school or you could violate UN child labor laws and sign a waiver allowing your six year old to sign a five year contract to be a teacher's aid. You thought it would be more like a childhood if they, you know, learnt stuff all day at school.

I'd probably go with a statement that went something like: "My DC has a learning style and processing profile that makes the average classroom a really poor fit, and X school has a program that we hope will better meet her needs." You might even add "Y professional indicated that this placement would help prevent some likely pitfalls further on." You can enthusiastically agree that you firmly believe that all children should be taught at a pace and depth that challenges and engages them without overwhelming or frustrating them - including your child. You might talk about how lucky parent or friend Z must feel having a child who fits in well in a regular class, has lots of peers who share similar interests, and for whom a straightforward traditional educational path works.

The dark side of an egalitarianism that preaches treating everyone the same is that it ignores the very real diversity of human beings and denies individual uniqueness. My husband is 6'4", muscular, and over 200 lbs. I'm 5' 3" on a tall day and less than half his weight. Give us each 2100 calories a day and I'd get fat, if I didn't throw up from overeating, while he would faint from hunger and waste away. Our meals would be the same, but it would hardly be fair. Your child happens to have a high intellectual "metabolic rate". Withholding "mental food" from such a child would be harmful, but it doesn't necessarily follow that giving the same amount of "mental food" to a child who can't digest it would be beneficial. Treating everyone fairly means treating everyone as an individual and meeting their needs as they are, not as you'd like them to be.

You could say if we didn't have a system that segregates by age to begin with and instead educated kids in multiage groups based on needs, then there wouldn't be this problem.

I did actually say something about the whole age segregation thing being artificial, too.

It's not possible to dance around the school's actual classification--"gifted magnet" is in the official name, and they all know how the system works. Cat's outta the bag.

"You thought it would be more like a childhood if they, you know, learnt stuff all day at school."

In a funny way, this does sum it up, huh? My DD would heartily agree. School makes her feel left out, as she has articulated to us.

I'm sorry you've been getting negative comments. It's hard when you are just trying to do the best you can for your kid. My son skipped 1st in our local school, to no one's suprise who knew him, and then we transferred him mid-year to a GT school out of town. We did this mainly because his needs were not being met, particulary pace and level of instruction. I have said things like, "he has special educational needs", "the new school works a year ahead, which my DS was ready for", "my DS already knew what they would be teaching at the local school", "we are moving to the GT school to avoid another skip", "we did not want our kid to get all As all the time; we wanted him to learn how to learn so he wouldn't struggle if he was challenged".

We have been lucky in that people who know us and our kid are happy that we found a better fit for him educationally, and we felt comfortable saying all those comments above.

If you do feel like getting into a conversation about whether GT education would benefit all kids, I'd say go for it. Some kinds of GT stuff -- enrichment, higher level thinking skills, grouping kids working at the same level -- can definitely benefit all kids. Things like doing 2 years of work in one year will not work for all kids. Also, grouping doesn't work so well when there's a group of one. A nice thing for schools to do would be to schedule math and reading at the same time for all grades, so kids could go to the level they need regardless of grade.

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Do the best sports coaches and music teachers work with the least talented children? Of course not, because their efforts would be largely wasted on those kids. Such "elitism" makes sense in education as well. Education is a multiplier, benefiting the high-IQ more than the low-IQ. Many citizens and an even larger fraction of policymakers wrongly think of education as an equalizer rather than a multiplier.

There is a dichotomy when it comes to kids with respect to academics and sports.

Everyone knows and accepts that there are elite and traveling teams in every metro area for most sports.

But the same concept in academics is not accepted.

A friend's son is on an elite track for football and there was some drama with his former football teammates' parents when he was selected and they were not. But everyone KNEW he was superior. Now he is supported by those same families.

So, I think there is something to be gained from this analogy. How to use it and phrase it right is beyond me right now.

I think it's almost more of a liner economic though process.

Kid + X Amount of Education = Y Level of Economic Success and Productivity

Kid + X+1 Amount of Education = Y+1 Level of Economic Success and Productivity

The nature of the Kid is irrelevant to the thinking.

Education also helps those at the bottom of the IQ ladder as well. You have to get the low IQ kids to a certain level of social / work competency or they can't function even in a simple job environment or live and function on their own. But that's a very different kind of "education".

That's one of those contests you don't want to win unless you like the opportunity to subject yourself to brain damage and other permanent degenerative damage to your innards.

Capitalism and education benefit the lower IQ population far more than the higher IQ elite. It gives them access to a much higher standard of living than otherwise they could not do for themselves. We all live in dreams made real by a very small part of the population that is sustained by the rest once created.

I do agree about the equalizer and multiplier concept, but the better educated most often carry a far higher burden emotionally and financially.

LOL. My neck still bothers me from playing HS football. Football is definitely a dangerous sport, but so is life.

There is a reason why the leadership of many organizations is dominated by team sport athletes, though.

I'll agree with that. I was basically actively anti-team athletics during high school and college. I truly hated them at the time.

And thus, I developed exactly zero leadership skills.

So, I suppose team sports do teach you something.

I agree that leadership traits may be enhanced by team sports, however there are many other ways for children/young adults to learn leadership traits than on a field that can transfer over to being in the leadership of organizations in their future careers. Some of those " elite athletes " now in positions of leadership probably didn't get there all on their own merit, but more on who they were...but effective leaders do not always come from those who may appear to be great leaders in the sports arena.

The fact is society is already excepting of great athletes, and all about encouraging them, training them, providing them with the best...society is NOT ready to do the same with those who are assumed to be high ability intellectually, because they figure the status quo is enough and they will just rise to the top and go on to be productive citizens at the top no matter the schooling they are offered. This is a huge problem here and in many other countries who are seeing their educational ranking slip farther and farther down the list while others rise...

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I think it's just the thinking that if you are gifted then learning will be easy for you and therefore the quality of teacher is irrelevant.

You're right--that's a more accurate way of describing the thinking, most likely.

Sad to say that this is just part of life when you have a kid in one of these programs. Most people don't have any reason to get educated about issues associated with the gifted population. You could confront her with, do you think that my child doesn't deserve a good teacher? This probably won't get you very far. If anything, it just reinforces people's stereotypes about gt parents.

To a certain extent, you need to develop a thick skin. You will get these comments throughout your child's tenure in the program. If you know the person well and feel that she might be open to learning about gifted ed, you could try to enlighten her. You could talk to her about your experiences (if you have them) in a traditional classroom and how it didn't work. I reserve this for true friends.

We have had similar issues come up in our school-within-a-school program. Recently, it has been in the context of class size increases due to budget cuts. For the most part, gt classes are slightly smaller than the traditional classes. At a school meeting, a parent asked why the gt kids get the benefit of smaller class sizes when they already have an educational advantage over kids in the traditional school. Here, one of the non-gt teachers stood up and told the parent that her comments weren't justified. The teacher explained that gt kids do not have it easier and that it truly is a special needs population. The teacher then relayed an experience that she had as a student teacher in a gt classroom. It was very powerful coming from one of the teachers who taught in the traditional school.

This is tough on many levels. We have the same situation for middle school. We are not at the middle school yet. I hear similar things about the teachers being better. For me it is more about DD being with her peers. I think it is tough for teachers to teach many different levels in a classroom. The magnet essentially groups the kids making it easier for the teachers to shine. There are many good teachers at all the schools they just have a lot to deal with IMHO with so many varying ability grouping. These same teachers at the magnet school may not relate to the regular classes.

We have enough kids that will go to the magnet that we meet lots of people that are in the same program. Sometimes I need to remember that it's not everyone so maybe I shouldn't talk about education issues.

My last thought was that as I initially researched GT kids I came to realize that NCLB makes it really difficult for the "bright" unidentified kids to get a challenge since teachers are forced by districts to teach the test and get scores. I wish more could be done for those kids - but I know the "GT" limits are set by funding issues. I wonder if it is these parents who "see the light" but get no help. They may externalize it by offhand comments not necessarily jealousy but frustration. At least even in the normal middle schools, I think most places have advanced tracks open to not only GT but high achievers or GT kids that don't test as well.

Our gifted program doesn't start until fourth grade- we are just waiting until it starts for our third grader. There is alot of snottiness in our school district and competitiveness to "get a spot" in it.
I don't know if the teachers in the full-time gifted program will be better. I'm hoping that one bonus will be that the kids who don't do any work at all will be somewhat weeded out. I was volunteering in his class this week- their public school is ranked in the top 10% of California. They spent the whole week reviewing adding quarters, dimes, etc. For real! A number of kids thought a quarter was worth 15 cents...
My son is bored right now. He's capable of moving alot faster. I don't think alot of kids/parents would necessarily WANT to move faster or do alot more work. I don't think many parents whose kids aren't in a gifted program really realize that.

I don't know if I've mentioned this here before, but I've had conversations with educators and have seen what I call gifted and talented contempt up close.

We were talking about a research study that had "closed the achievement gap." Summary: the bright students in the class tested at exactly the same level of proficiency as they had on the pre-test on the first day of school. The scores of the worst students in the class improved, and this outcome was seen as being a worthy, positive one because the achievement gap had been narrowed. When I pointed out that the talented students hadn't learned a thing, the reply was, "But they were ALREADY.