WOW what a moment and you still remember.
Must have been hard though to adjust.
Not too bad. I sat up front and once the teacher started reading a book aloud, I was hooked. I had my choice of reading at recess or lunch as well. I could read ahead in class. We worked on multiplication and geometry. It was fun.
Thank god for that Montessori school and the wonderful teachers there. Those three years there gave me the foundation to make it through the next 8 years.
The most traumatic event of my childhood was leaving that 4-7 grade group and going to public school where they put me in with my age peers. The teacher took away my Jack London books I brought to class and forced me to read "See Spot Run." I became immensely unhappy and felt terribly betrayed by the school and the teacher.
As that week progressed, I grew increasingly despondent, until I lost all respect for the teacher and just walked out of class and walked home. I can still clearly recall where I sat in that class, what I was reading, and what the teacher said to me when I decided that I was just going to walk out of there.
My mom was livid that they lost track of me and that I was being forced to dumb down. From then on, I stayed in the back of the class and read my books and was allowed to spend first and last period of the day in the school library. In the year and a half I was there, I read everything in the library and made a dent in the reference books.
It was a big waste of my time. I should have been moved up to 7th grade. But you did not put 7 year olds in 7th grade back then.
Parent's fears are not the same as the kid's fears, are they?
GT kids are unique and HAVE to come to grips with it sooner or later. Pretending they are not is a gross disservice to them. Its ok to be blazingly smart, and its ok to be a kid, too. There is no script to adhere to - and its a walk on part - a free-flow ad lib.
I wish my mother was still around to discuss those times with her now that Mr W is here. My dad has told me that no one knew what to do with me - those years I lived with him. He was a great father, but knew little about education, even though he had 100% in all his A&P classes.
Funny how parents will not let their kids help them to see themselves!!!
