LOL! To rephrase, I'd call her "about as smart as I am, likely not frighteningly more so, and certainly not significantly less so" and I don't consider *myself* PG.
It's been 20 years since I had an IQ test (no clue which one), and I think the scoring at the high ends is different now than it used to be.
So much of the crazy-making of this is wrapped up in my own atrocious subject acceleration experience in math, where the teacher whose class I was accelerated out of resented the acceleration and publicly mocked any errors I made, and the teacher whose class I was accelerated into said "Well, if you're that smart, you can do the the class work and homework for the 3 weeks of material we've already covered, on top of the work we're just starting."
Forgive me for skimming, but these last few posts caught my eye. I too struggle with the fine balance between doing what is truly best for my son, and what would possibly have been best for me, as I was a similar student. I hope I haven't gone from one extreme (very weak inner city public school that called me brilliant and did very little for me) to another (making him "that kid" with considerable acceleration in at least one subject area). I can't wait to see what baggage DS has, and what he decides to do with his own children, LOL!
My own experience was to constantly be labeled a "bad" kid, because I didn't do my homework. And that was the rationale used to keep me out of programs that might have benefited me. In my case I think my parents were more to blame than the school - why weren't they supervising a 3rd grader's homework?! That experience and this board have made me determined not to let my sons' relatively poor writing skills hold them back from other educational opportunities.
These experiences are WHY we know what's best for our kids. I'm not stressing over making a bad choice for my kids, cause I've been there, done some of it. Most of their teachers haven't. I recently attended an open house for a public school gifted program. An administrator/former teacher rambled on about how wonderful the teachers are (and several times she referenced how wonderful she was) because they are certified in gifted education. Then she talked about her daughter's college career for a while (this is an elementary school), and then she bragged vaguely about herself for a while longer. All without saying ANYTHING of substance. Literally, no concrete information was provided. Evenutally one of the other teachers was allowed to give a helpful example of classroom work (which required a parent interupting the blowhard and specifically asking for it). I felt like House listening to his dumbest patient ever. It was agony waiting for it to be over. I was literally twitching. And I walked out of there thinking "I will go on food stamps to homeschool before I will let my children be imprisoned with an idiot like this woman for six hours a day." I suppose all other things being equal, a teacher certified in gifted education is better than one who is not, but I would prefer that my kids just have a smart teacher who understands how their minds work. Like me. But that is so hit or miss!
The "trauma" (that's a joke, sort of) of that experience has worn off and I've accepted that we may have less than ideal placement for next year. But it 's a long process and I plan to keep working on it.
