Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Labelling children = good, except gifted label

About the one test: possible. Obviously we have limited information. That's just my take on what little is there.

I'm not sure the height analogy fits, though, unless your parents started withholding food. Because it's a common experience for gifted kids that they grow up in a heavily enriched environment, and then find themselves in elementary school, where their needs are all but ignored. If you don't use it, you lose it.

Now, if you were bench-pressing your own body weight as a kindergartener, and the school suddenly switched out your metal weights for foam, that might be a better analogy.

I have no words.


Because they would all get censored.

Well, I was trying to think charitably and assumed that perhaps while she was SAYING "gifted" she may have actually intended "highly gifted (+)" students versus "bright and advantaged" students, and been conflating the two things.

That is, that most "gifted" children identified by schools and placed in gifted programming the way a lot of us have seen it (that is M.O.S., in-class differentiation, weekly pullouts, projects, etc) doesn't really do much that ALL students wouldn't just as readily benefit from, and the label is mostly about parents and not their ideally intelligent (aka "bright high-achievers, not 'gifted' ones") kids.


So let's suppose that she has, as classroom teacher and school administrator known approximately 300 students annually... (that's a rough estimate since we do not know when she transitioned from classroom teaching @ 20-35 students annually to as many as 1000 or more as an administrator)...

well, my math suggests that 0.001 (20 years) (300 students)= 6 students. Assuming that she's in a district like mine, with a LOT of high-achieving kids and terminally-degreed parents (among whom one might legitimately expect an enrichment of high cognitive ability)... supposing that one doubled that value.

Voila-- 12.


While I think that the writer's rhetoric is obviously unfortunate, I also think that her point (while abrasively made) is perhaps somewhat valid. "Gifted" programming all too frequently.... isn't about serving that kids that genuinely NEED it.

Bad analogy.I agree with the lack of information in the story. But it always seems these days everyone is quick to blame the teacher but never the kid.

Is anyone else laughing at the irony there?

She objects to parent-applied labels which are merely excuses for whatever anti-social or non-compliant behavior issues arise in a school environment....


and yet...

apparently it's different when SHE is the one doing it, eh?

Yup. Exactly. And really I found myself so thankful that we have the prinicpal we have because I'd hate to have someone like her... I don't know - the whole blogging thing turned me off and her tone in it, etc... I couldn't imagine our principal doing any kind of blog like that and his tone isn;t like that at all... I don't know, she just really rubbed me the wrong way.

I don't have an IQ score yet on my son (I have an upcoming meeting where I will get some information not sure how helpful it will be, will probably seek out additional private testing). But at the beginning of the school year I asked for a parent teacher conference and brought in a shopping bag with a good sampling of the books that my son read over the summer (which was over a book a day and he also was very active in his sport over the summer so he wasn't sitting around reading all day long). And they (he has two teachers) didn't give me the usual bull that I get from teachers "yes but did he comprehend all these books 4 grade levels above 2nd grade?? and that is why we are going to completely ignore what you are telling us" instead they listened and responded by making appropriate accomodations...(didn't hurt that both of them are taking classes to become gifted certified and later they told me that my ds is the poster child for the gifted child and they are trying out everything they learn in class on him).

See, an IQ is only sort of helpful to me, in the same way that having a diagnosis of autismis, or a point spread in an evaluation for specific learning disability is helpful.

Assuming I worked in a district that does right by gifted kids, I'd want to know what their passions are (even if fleeting), what their strengths are both in terms of scores and in their own perception. I'd want to know what their challenges were in terms of work habits, planning, organization, peer relationships, etc. I'd want to know what they find deadly boring.

After all that, I think I might be ready to write a plan for them.

IMO, the most valuable statement in the OP's article was the third-party comment about labels being a "diagnostic" tool useful in securing access to services. My view is that even the HG/PG/EG labels are still only a broad snapshot of capability, with little insight into gestalt, where talents and motivations lie, etc. Funnily, it seems the most gifted children are the ones who don't cling to labels. After all, was Marie Curie just "a chemist"?

I also wonder to what extent self-serving bias is colouring the teacher's assessments of her HG+ students.

This blog article is exactly why I have sat paralyzed and doing nothing for my DD8. Every time I try to approach the possibility of her being gifted at school, the administrator and teachers make me feel like Alexis' mom, even though my daughter DOES score 99% on the NWEA in Kindy, 1st, 2nd, and now 3rd. And is self accelerated in reading, math, language arts, etc... It is a shame that parents of intelligent children should be made to feel like morons for trying to advocate for their kids to be able to have the academic advantages that they deserve.