Thank you!
The fact is that I do not know what is best for her. Both myself and my husband have been through 22 years of school, but either of us had less than 10 hours of psychology (and none of child psychology) in all these years. And the darn thing is that things just don't fall into place, as I follishly expected them to. I can put her in private school, but unfortunately we live in an area where choices are very limited. Besides parochial schools (useless for gifted education), there is very little else. We planned to "home school" her informally, after school, but she already balks at it, and we are promptly informed that we are not her teachers, but her parents
. She'll work hard, but she'll do exactly whatever she pleases at the moment. The fact is that we cannot compete with a teacher telling her that is OK to lay back, do nothing and draw pictures. What are supposed to do, put her in the middle, tell her that the teacher (one of the authority figures in her life) is plain wrong alltogether and that she should not listen to her teacher-- what confidence will that give her in people? How would she trust that we're right?
The school is a pain in the rear end, and they barely grant us a half an hour meeting every month. It does not help that NY state does no mandate and does not fund gifted education. After 3 months of bickering they finally gave her a one hour test (I have a feeling it was TOMAGS-- although she barely turned 6 a few weeks ago, and that test is identical for 6-9 year olds). She had some divisions, but the division sign was given as a sign similar to a square root. She knows divisions, but she only knows the regular division sign. When she asked the teacher what that sign was, she was told that she can't be told, so she missed a number of questions because of that. What confidence should I then have in those results??
I don't know... We are at the mercy of that stupid teacher-- thank God she's only with her for the next 6 months, and then she'll get a different one (maybe as bad
. The teacher has been in school for 7-8 years, and had no idea what the process for having a child tested for giftedness was in the school district. Therefore she never recommended anybody for it, and her point might be that my kid is not better than the 150 kids she has taught in her carreer. Which is probably accurate. And the principal (who is about 55) has told us that she has never grade skipped anybody in her carrer sooner than the middle of the second grade.
As of right now we're stuck with letting her waste her time in school, offering plenty of choices at home, and hoping that somehow, through a miracle, some system will kick in and give her more to do before it gets ingrained in her that it is perfectly OK to be mediocre.
Sad....
