I wish our school was more like yours.
From what I have heard about our school from gifted students and a former gifted student with dysgraphia, and even a few teachers, our school seems to have more in common with the schools these twice exceptional kids went to--see the part about negative school experiences:
http://ldonline.org/article/Counseling_Needs_of_Academically_Talented_Students_with_Learning_Disabilities
The focus at our small town school seems to be more on sports than academics and one of their sports is picking on kids like my son.
My bright, very coordinated, former cheerleader daughter, who I am sure would have scored higher on the performance section of an IQ test than her little brother, did not learn as much as she should have in school. She admits that she did not pay much attention in school, just enough to pass tests, never studied, and then quickly forgot every thing she learned for the test. She could color in the lines at an early age, could draw very well, is very good at puzzles, is creative, but she was distracted in school because she was so social.
My daughter's uncoordinated little brother seems much more academically gifted than she was. She was a high achiever until she became a cheerleader. Where she learned just enough to pass the tests, my son continues to build on what he knows because he has that drive to learn more. On his own he finds additional information on the internet to go along with whatever we are studying. For example, for history we are studying the 1970's and he found online copies of Popular
Science magazines dating back to the 1800's. He is even interested in the advertisements and took time to look up the history of the tobacco warning labels. Because he has all this interesting history knowledge and popular culture knowledge he is a good conversationalist, unless he has had too much caffeine or Red Dye #40 which causes him to talk too much. Whatever topic comes up, he has knows something about it, enough to make a joke with history, popular culture or current events references.
Because of his disability, he will never be an artist. He will have to create pictures and express his ideas with words. Since we homeschool he has the freedom to look up extra information and it is this freedom to learn that makes up for the hard things he is dealing with in life.
At our school, my son would not be allowed to learn at the higher level he is capable of at home.
