I like the articles indigo because he helped explain some things going on with DD last year in third grade.
She had a really amazing teacher in first grade and her project on optometry took me by surprise, the depth of research, her writing skills. Then the teacher in the gifted 2nd grade class, who was lovely, didn't have the same level of challenge and DD slacked off a bit. Her work got sloppy and by third grade, the teacher, who was good, thought that DD wasn't up to it. Because there were state tests, I saw scores that reflected it. On the ELA practice DD got 70%. Her answers were short, vague but reflected her boredom and disinterest. I made her do a writing workbook, practice writing more, taking out exact lines and copying them to give her practice in explaining her ideas and she ended up with a 92% on the final but her attitude, boredom and disinterest by 3rd grade was so striking a difference from her work in 1st. And this was in a gifted program, but a general gifted, one size fits all.
Right now, after the move, her gifted class is run very differently and DD has a project to do on habits and she chose micro-organisms in the Arctic, narrowing it down to Tunicate and started pretty eagerly to get into it. Wikipedia makes research irrevelant hence I have to help her learn some research skills. No more getting 3 books out of the library -- which was something the teacher in grade 1 insisted. No Internet. It had to be 2 reference books.
Anyway, Sunday afternoon musings.
