Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Responding to anti-GT remarks

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.