hello everyone!

my DD5 attends an independent school, specifically chosen because they have no academic ceiling. unfortunately, DD is experiencing social withdrawal from the kids in her class, even though the teachers perceive her as massively popular. she unfortunately doesn't feel outgoing connections to kids her age (her good friends from dance are all 7 and 8 - she was accelerated a few times there.)

she's so unhappy at school and has associated her stomach aches with her anxiety about fitting in and has started refusing to go. she complains that all the other kids get "baby work" and that it's not fair her work is harder (apparently even with her fooling the teachers?!) when quizzed on it, she articulates that of course she pretends she can't - "it's better to be dumb at school." she is dumbing herself down to fit in with kids she doesn't even relate to - and then is irritated by them when she's so successful that they follow her around like puppies. quite a paradox!

she is doing math and reading at Gr. 3-4, and i know this is just the tip of the iceberg - since you can only test based on what she's been exposed to. this weekend she independently drew a number line with negative numbers on it and showed me how she could calculate a jump or drop in temperature using it. (ahhh, Canada!) we're constantly running into situations where she just has an insight and wants to develop it - it's really, really fun. we have never pushed academics with her (duh - just turned 5) but she's got a boatload of interests that will not be denied.

we recently met with the teachers, and it turns out she's hiding her ability so well that she had them completely fooled, except for her insane vocabulary, which probably should have been a tip-off? but throughout the meeting, they kept saying the words, "doing just fine," and "perfectly average."

last week, i met with the VP to find out what options/support might be available... and was bluntly advised to get a copy of The Hurried Child (which i did. always happy for any/all insight, i read the book extremely thoughtfully, but it's really, really not our situation.) it's actually ironic, since the book even says that it doesn't apply to gifted kids, who absolutely need to be challenged.

i am due to have a second meeting with the VP later this week - how do i handle the fact they strongly believe we are simply pushing her beyond her limits?

i don't want to just go in and throw down test scores because my real concern isn't the academics, but the apathy and the disconnection, which they should be able to accomodate. i thought i might bring in some sketches of her inventions and the negative integer number line to use as examples of her engagement at home. would that be too confrontational?

i really thought she would expand in this environment, but she seems weirdly diminished, you know? any help/ideas/approaches are welcome - i really want to avoid coming off like the parent they seem to think i am!

thanks!

Sometimes a little show and tell is helpful.

At the beginning of the school year I brought in a shopping bag of a sampling of books that my son read over the summer. (He read something like 48 big chapter books in 72 days). His two teachers' eyes got really big. I told them that yes they did need to form their own opinions about him but not to underestimate him and to please challenge him because if they didn't he would just make up challenges (and they might not like what he made up for himself and he might become a behavioral problem if they didn't).

Later on when his gifted testing came back (that was in the works from the previous year) we had another meeting and they mentioned my shopping bag full of books having shocked them but gave them a better insight into his abilities and drive.

I don't know--with what you describe, test scores sound like what you need. Girls can be sneaky and are good at fitting in. Do you have any? Has the school done any assessments?

With that at your back, THEN I would talk about the emotional stuff, which, yes, most schools do rightly want to address.

:yes:

DD13 doesn't need to do all of that practice to learn, and that still leaves her well apart from many peers. She has managed to escape some of this by attending an online public school-- so the fact that an AP-heavy demanding senior-level course load only takes her about three hours to polish off daily with straight A's... well, it leaves her time to do other things she wants to do. KWIM?


That would NOT be possible in a brick and mortar setting at all. They'd throw MORE work at her, not allow her 'free time' as long as it was all going well and she seemed happy. SO I agree with the OP about the theory of a 'non-leveled' school being the right sort of idea for this kind of thing. On the other hand, it doesn't sound as though this is working very well because she can SEE that she isn't doing what others are doing, and it feels maybe a little unfair to her?


DD has learned not to tell others how little time it takes her to do so well. That would be rude, given that many of her classmates (3-5y older) are working pretty long hours to get the same A's she does.


This is the plus side of the online school. Because it's mostly assessment-based, basically she can use ANY method and any amount of TIME she needs to learn the material well, and then ace the assessment, and earn a good grade for the material. It has required a fair amount of dedicated hectoring on OUR part, though, so that she develops actual study and note-taking skills.

On the BAD side, because the assessments are frequently short, multiple choice that are really badly written? Yeah, perfectionism in a HUGE way. Anything less than 100% is cause for a certain amount of angst much of the time.

I also agree that as long as they hide, they are pretty much bound to be miserable to some degree.

I think always liked to know where I stood, intellectually speaking, so if someone could do something much better than me because they were inherently better than me, I would know that it was an unreachable goal (for me).

For example, I didn't get bent out of shape when I *didn't* win the national spelling bee.

I've always thought that it's a good idea to know who is significantly inherently intellectually better than you so that you *don't* compete with them and so that you keep mental lists of people who may be useful in the future if you have specific problems that someone else might be able to solve in a heartbeat.

oh, thank you all! i left my proto-conclusions out of my post because i really wanted to see what the seasoned advice would be and i have so much confidence now.

i think i will bring in the "show and tell" since she's not showing her real self to them - that part isn't their fault, and if they are the school they claim to be, they should be excited to see it.

the testing is coming - i've been reluctant because of the confrontational aspect, but we are definitely on that path. if we'd been at the neighbourhood school, we likely would have done it last winter - it would have seemed like a "must-have", given my experience at the open house.

part of the reason i've been slow to notice the differences is that i've always assumed children have SO much in there if only we assume they *can*. i think my personal bias really clouded my vision about my own kid. it really wasn't until the school setting where i realized that even the self-selecting Reggio/independent families don't live every day in this heightened state of awareness and learning.

and the next conversation with the VP will concentrate on the emotional issues. our initial meeting was framed that way (by me) but we got quite sidetracked by the introduction of The Hurried Child. as parents, we have a duty to help DD with strategies to improve her school experience, and she has a responsibility to implement them, but the school (of *all* the schools) has a responsibility to do their part.

i really, really think she needs a grade skip at the very least - because our home environment is enriched (by her) already, and it is not reasonable to expect her to do 100% of her meaningful activities at home. hilariously, the teachers suggested an online math program i could do with her - totally missing the point that at home, we don't really need one because she sees math *everywhere*.

thank you all, again, for reaffirming my plans - i know it's a long game, and we may be right back here in a few years, but i feel like i'm catching up a bit and you have all really helped me!

We parent the same way and have similar kids, OP. And we had the same issues with the school. I love how they told you you're hothousing and then suggested you do a math curriculum at home.

I would definitely get IQ testing, it measures potential, not achievement, so it will bolster your point that you have not pushed her. But don't expect it to be the magic bullet. They might be quite capable of saying "1 in 50000 IQ? Still needs to work on handwriting and focus in class". We were the only ones surprised by the test results. The teachers who'd been stalling us knew the order of magnitude of the issue.

I stress that I want my child to learn to work hard, that doing well in life requires application, focus and resilience, which you don't learn by sitting at the back of the class with a novel. You learn it by doing things which are at the limits of what you already know, and sometimes failing at them.

And if you're already paying for schooling, I'd look around for other options. Our problems were solved by finding the right school.

Good luck!

thanks so much, Tallulah! it's such a relief to feel less alone. thanks for the tips - and you're right, the resilience is really the key, isn't it?

i sat in the teacher interview and literally said, "i feel like she needs more failure in her life," and then i saw how foreign that seemed to them. i think that was where i realized we had to escalate, even though the school prides itself on not having an academic ceiling.

paying for this school is a herculean effort for us (my husband's take-home is 100% whisked away by it), so you're right - if we're paying, we'd better be paying for the right school. food for thought, definitely.

thanks again!

Ditto!

I would try to leave the frustration you rightly feel over the suggestion you are "hurrying" her and gather as much data as you can before your next meeting to advocate. Having IQ testing will help; the other thing that will help is familiarizing yourself with the school (and your school district and state) curriculum guidelines for her current grade and the grade levels she's capable of working at or has already mastered.

For instance (please know I am not trying to pick apart your post here, just offering this up as an example where the school staff might try to trip you up in an advocacy meeting): you said above that she's doing "math and reading at Gr 3-4", and then you mentioned her figuring out the negative number line. If you're going to offer that up as an example of her working at Gr 3-4, make sure that's when it's introduced in her school - my kids were all introduced to the concept of negative numbers in school before Gr 3.

You also need to be prepared, as Tallulah mentioned, to continue to meet the same brick wall of resistance. Sometimes no matter how good a fit a school seems when you're looking in from the outside, it doesn't necessarily work out that well once you're actually there.

Hang in there!

polarbear

that is a great point about pinpointing the specific Grade Level for any examples i might use! i have been fearful of confrontation, but i am feeling encouraged by all the suggestions.

the Gr. 3-4 comment comes purely from me checking out the curriculum on a case-by-case basis - there have been random things from beyond that (reducing fractions etc) but i have no wish to "round up" her ability.

it's tricky since we have simply followed her lead and not attempted to guide her through curriculum in any particular order. i expect there will be gaps when i sort through it with a fine tooth comb - although (ha!) maybe that could be considered evidence that we're not pushing?

we're getting the testing for sure, and the point is well taken that it measures potential - that's probably more meaningful in this context than the curriculum/ achievement.

thank you so much - i really appreciate all the feedback!

oh, that's such a good point about the open-ended project! we had a funny one recently that kicked open the door a crack with the teachers. DD suddenly started refusing the readers that she was pretending she couldn't do (again with the paradoxes!) so they decided to send home flash cards for sight words she's known forever. she resisted doing them till i flatly told her she had to show them she could... so she grudgingly blew through them and then got even grumpier because it was clear they weren't varied enough to make a meaningful sentence. so we got her a sharpie and some construction paper, and when she was done, she had a paragraph/story, complete with a beginning/middle/end - and complete punctuation.

i took photographs and sent them in with her. they asked for her cards (so she could prove it wasn't just me rushing her, i guess!) but the next reader that came home was 50 pages longer than the ones they were doing with her literally two days prior - so i feel like the school is reasonably responsive when shown an academic problem, but quite prepared to dig in its heels on the emotional/social side.

early days, yet, though - and i feel so much better prepared already. thanks again!

Amen!

Sometimes the teacher makes all the difference. But you can't always select just the right teacher. In the end though, I think at this point, that 99% of brick and mortar schools cannot provide gifted kids' needs. They are not set up for individualized instruction. How can an overworked teacher possibly make a completely different set of homework or classwork for every student; they have a one-size-fits-all strategy that just doesn't work. I would literally have to make up my daughter's curriculum myself(might as well homeschool her?)!

I have been looking into online (virtual) school lately and I like what I hear but I'm not sure if their standards are as high as the brick and mortar they are currently enrolled in. (a teacher I've talked to said she doesn't recommend virtual school because some of the skills did not seem adequately provided for, like speaking and social skills, etc...). I guess I would have to keep that in mind and find an activity that I can include that would provide speaking and social skills.

In my experience though, I did not learn social skills until in the workforce, so I do not think I learned that in school anyway. Personally, I think that if she is allowed to find her own friends (whether they are 2,5, or more years older) would be a far better alternative to being stuck with kids she has very little in common with. Incidentally, I had a conversation with the same teacher and she expressed concern about placing my daughter in fourth grade because the kids in 4th were too rowdy. My daughter seems to show more maturity, in school, than kids at least a year older than she.

As to what doubtfulguest was saying, I totally agree. I have told the teacher and school academic councilor that I never had to work at getting good-enough grades, I never studied like other kids had to, therefore I had no study skills and very rarely failed at anything I tried, so consequently when I was young, I refused to do things that I had to struggle with. Now I wish someone had made me stick with them. The councilor also said that they have to do review work and I told her that review is redundant, I very rarely lost information once I understood it. Sad thing is I know I did not convince her; she still will not recommend my daughter being accelerated.

So here she sits in a school environment she does not like and is refusing to go to school. I am not sure what to do. I know I can force her, but is that what I should do?

Yeah, I'm getting discrepancies between what the staff is saying and what my daughter is saying; my daughter tells me she can read level M books but her teacher is saying she's testing out at level K. Anyone have thoughts on why? My thought is that maybe they are looking for complete mastery rather than introductory skill levels.

Another thing I noticed when I had the meeting with the academic councilor, she seemed to think that only 100% means mastery. So, if my daughter receives a 98 on a sheet, that she has not mastered that concept and must do more homework or study in that concept. Whereas, looking back on my school experiences, I remember many times looking back over a test that I missed one or two and thinking- "Why did I put that answer down?" I knew the right answer but somehow put in the wrong one. Other times the question had two 'right' answers and I could have verified that fact, if I'd been allowed to. Or there were even times where I saw that the answer they were looking for was only correct in certain situations and I could have listed the correct answer for each situation. So to me, getting 100% does not mean much about whether a child understands the concept or not.

unless the tests are multi choice I wouldn't expect 100%. People make mistakes when taking tests - it is just how test are and as another poster said we often remember just too late what we did wrong.

Eta. even with multi choice an error rate of a few percent seems reasonable.

i've noticed when my kid goes over a mistake and sees that it's silly or figures out how it went wrong - the next time it's no problem. your daughter may be doing that, too, and wondering why the teachers are so slow to catch up with her! our kid's teachers truly believe every kid needs a certain amount of repetitions - it drives her nuts, especially with reading because going over the same book more than once allows her to rely on her memory. she knows she's not reading - and she (quite correctly) finds it pointless.

it's really frustrating, but we've had some success in the past few weeks getting her to "manage up" - she will now patiently work through the "baby" work to prove her mastery to the teachers. she is still really irritated, but at least it's getting her to the real work in the end.

oh, wow, Bluestar - i feel like we have the exact same kid! i'm so glad i found you all.

we have definitely decided to move schools - the independent school where she is currently enrolled is a total disaster for her and we've been shut out by the administration and teachers completely. i had a fantastic conversation with our neighbourhood school principal (of all places?!) who told me his plan for my kid included carefully selecting the teacher (and kids) she would be with each year. i am still in shock...

i have no idea if this will help enough to make her stop wanting to quit school, but it does feel miles better than what's happened this year. we, the parents, are making this decision, but we did ask our kid to make lists of her pros/cons about changing schools, and what might be different/same in each environment. i think it really helped her feel some level of control over her experience.

we also started actively talking to her about the limitations of school and how it might never meet her needs completely, and we've asked for her ideas on how we can make up the difference as a family. she came up with some great stuff and she does seem more at ease since we had a brass-tacks conversation with her about it all.

i would homeschool or follow the online curriculum in a heartbeat if i didn't also have to pay the mortgage (hee) - although since i work from home, something tells me we may head in that direction as she gets older and can be more self-directed. as you say, requiring a kid to actually work hard when they generally don't have to is quite a challenge, isn't it!

It may also be the rubric. DS7 can read a chapter of Dr. Dolittle he's never seen before (okay, he did get stuck on "fishmonger"), get to the "Bridge of Apes" episode and throw the book down because THOSE CAN'T BE APES, MOM, APES DON'T HAVE TAILS. He can narrate the story back to me, albeit with some editorializing on migration patterns.

But on the testing material (very easy readers) he whips through as fast as possible, doesn't slow down for punctuation and doesn't read with expression. (This is particularly funny, for my very emotive DS.) So according to their scale, on last week's report, he tested out as 9/12 of the way from "beginning" to "developing" reading.

Nevertheless, he is reading chapter books in the classroom (plus we just sent in a middle-school paleontology book, at his request) and the librarian just gave him permission to take out extra books every week, anything in the library as long as he can read her two sentences out of it. So I am trying to learn to let of the ridiculous assessment, as long as his actual challenges are appropriate.

My ds6 in kindergarten has had this problem. I think some teachers want a child to do "A", then "B", then "C". Yet, the child is so far beyond, he/ she can't perform a,b,c as the teacher asks. I decided to stop doing those easy readers with my ds because he starting fighting me every time I tried. I did try to explain this to his teacher and ask if she could try something harder with him. There was a small compromise, but basically we're seeking outside guidance and hoping we can hang in there to the end of the year.

My ds6 in kindergarten has had this problem. I think some teachers want a child to do "A", then "B", then "C". Yet, the child is so far beyond, he/ she can't perform a,b,c as the teacher asks. I decided to stop doing those easy readers with my ds because he starting fighting me every time I tried. I did try to explain this to his teacher and ask if she could try something harder with him. There was a small compromise, but basically we're seeking outside guidance and hoping we can hang in there to the end of the year.

It might not even be as much as "complete mastery" but they were (at least in our schools) looking for a basic rubric (as mentioned by another poster) met at each level. That didn't necessarily mean students were only allowed to choose books at that level, that was simply the level that they were documented to be at when tested.

The scientist in me also wants to add - K isn't that far away from M (unless you've got a different alphabet than the one our school uses ). I wouldn't be bothered much by the teacher and my child disagreeing by that amount - it might be something as simple as your dd had a slight cold on the day of the eval and wasn't performing at her best, or your dd is telling you the level she's allowed to check books out at and her teacher is telling you the level she's mastered.

Best wishes,

polarbear

DS's kindergarten teacher reported his yearend reading level as T and his 1st grade teacher is reporting it at L. The 1st grade teacher is probably applying the rubric more correctly, but the kindergarten teacher's reflected a more realistic measure of his level. Because word perfect reading is a poor measure for some students as is perfect scores.

hello everyone - and thanks again for all the insight.

i have a hilarious update! DD5 totally blew her cover today at school when she read a whack of stuff - upside down - that the teacher was organizing at her desk. best of all, DD was pretty smug about the "i didn't know you could read like that?!" exclamation that she got from the teacher - so maybe this whole thing will get better simply based on the kid outsmarting herself. wheee - i'm pretty excited.

hee - that is amazing - thanks for the story!

although, i have to say i'm not too encouraged by the teacher's responsiveness - the school is really wrapped up in the DRA scoring, which is killing my poor kid. yet another useless reader came home after this incident - a few levels higher, but it's hardly representative of the reading we consistently see. if a kid reads teacher notes upside down, and fast enough to not be observed snooping... you'd think they might pause to re-evaluate!

ah, well, we're out of that school at the end of the year, anyway. not too many weeks left!

Good luck in your public school foray! We saw improvement with our move from private but are still working out the kinks. Amazingly we have found public is more willing to consider they might not have all the answers whereas private was so sure their "system" was infallible that there was no openness to fit issues. Too inconvenient to do anything different when different was desperately needed. Advocating is a lot of work and tiring but paying exorbitant prices for stonewalling is downright infuriating. Hope you find successes in your change of environment.

this has been our exact experience!

all i ever wanted was a partnership with the school - and i thought we had it, right up until the day we hit the first snag. i literally don't care how much extra work we have to do to supplement whatever limitations the public school may have - as long as everyone involved can admit that there isn't only One True Way to learn.

which i thought would be a given - you know, for educators? ha. silly me!