Originally Posted by Val
Many educators I've met are clueless about mathematics and clueless about giftedness. Part of the evidence for this is the way they stick to faddish math programs and the way that they cling to the idea that if your kid hasn't been through their school's fourth grade math book, he can't possibly understand long division. More evidence: too many of them disparage approaches that are favored by mathematicians, physicists, and engineers, and fail to even consider that a kindergartner might be capable of doing second grade math. IMO, this is because they simply can't see past their preconceptions, even in the face of evidence. The kid got an A on the assessment exam? Yeah, but didn't get 100%; therefore he failed. And if he'd got 100%, he didn't use our method. Therefore, he doesn't really understand addition, and he failed. (Sorry Polarbear, I just can't laugh at this stuff. It's too destructive.)

Bottom line: you can't convince people who aren't interested in listening. frown

Yes, teachers know way more about how to deal with a heterogeneous classroom than most parents. But this doesn't give them expertise in mathematics --- yet many behave as though it does. I mean, your husband is a mathematician and they question how you and he approach math with your son? Seriously?

I'm a teacher--and a former "gifted kid" and parent to another gifted kid or two--and despite my own abilities and my acute awareness of their needs, I still struggle with how to challenge the highly able kids in my high school English classroom. We teachers are trained to deal with heterogenous groups of kids, to design and follow curriculum, to assess based on standards--all of these things help us be better and better at meeting the needs of the kids in the middle of the bell curve. If we are trained in serving the needs of "outliers," it's for kids who have special needs. I couldn't have taken a course on gifted education in my grad school program even if I had wanted to. And, as a pre-service teacher and a parent to one teeny infant, it honestly didn't even occur to me to want that. I am coming more and more to believe, as a teacher and the parent of an "outlier,", that heterogenous public education (and who knows, maybe much private education, too) does not in most cases meet the needs of kids on either side of the bell curve.

Stacey. Former high school teacher, back in the corporate world, mom to 2 bright girls: DD12 & DD7.