Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy are you a gifted ed evangelical?

I am in one of the largest school districts in the country.

Recently while at dinner, I met an administrator who works at the district office who stated he believes every child should be given (by the district) an ipad/laptop for school use,

AND
should be allowed to learn at his own pace, as well as being able to pick topics of own interest (within reason) to learn the key curriculum.

He also supports online learning. and something about a "cloud"? I told him I had pulled DS from K d/t unchallenged etc, and he said "good for you" and proceeded to explain if more parents would challenge the "150 year old English model of education" that is outdated etc, the district would take notice.

He said he believes gifted kids should be given whatever it takes to reach their full potential, that they are our future, and that they are being given a disservice by the educational system- across the country.

it was quite enlightening to hear him.

Cloud = all the software and data frills tucked away on the internet with none of the clunky server hardware hanging out in some janitor's closet hoping for the budget to include a computer technician.

I still talk about the needs of gifted kids, but keep my expectations low. I've read too much and met too many people whose ideologies or hangups won't permit them to see the facts to feel any differently.

The education situation in general is sucky, and the ideology is a big part of that. When we were changing schools for our two youngest two years ago, I told the principal that DD had been skipped kindergarten. I could tell that he wasn't happy about it by the way he told me "We're stuck with it and we'll do our best."

A few months ago, I was at a parent-teacher conference with her teacher. She told me that DD can be a bit more immature than her classmates at times and that her much younger age (very late summer birthday on top of the skip) was certainly a factor. Then she caught herself and added, "But I'm not saying she she should be it he grade behind!!! She definitely belongs here! <3 <3 "

DD does very well academically and has friends in most of the K-8 grades. She has four very good friends in her own grade and is always getting invited to parties. The people in the school are well aware of how well she fits in, and I think she's become something of a grade-skip success story. So I take this as a small victory in the world of advocacy.

This is maybe off topic, but as I was reading this thread, I realized that I maybe still don't believe that my daughter wouldn't be well-served at the elite private school down the road. She is DYS, with both sets of scores comfortably above the DYS cut, but she just seems really normal to me. I'm pretty sure the school is full of many at last MG kids, and I don't know that my daughter would stick out there as needing anything extra. We homeschool and always have, so I guess I just don't have much of a basis for comparison.

Am I kidding myself? Would she be bored silly if I sent her there? Not that I am thinking about it at this point, but I guess I just always wonder. Is this just my gifted denial kicking in?

I had the thought the other day that "gifted" might only really be a relevant term when there is some discrepancy between the student and the learning environment. In my "g" home with her "g" brother and our other "g" homeschooling families, maybe my kids really aren't gifted in any functional way. They are just average. See what I mean?

And then there's still my question -- what would the disparity look like at Fancy Private School? I'm just curious...

Gabalyn it really depends on the school, by the high end private my kids used to go to absolutely was heavily skewed to MG kids, at least one 140+ kid per grade (50-60 kids) and he special ed team saw a LOT of bright but LD kids.

My kids absolutely found peers a lot more easily there (both miss HG+ and miss MG/2e). They catered better to my MG/2e kid at the time we were there, but I think they'd be far better for my HG+ dd than her current public school is and we certainly hope to get her back into a similar school ASAP.

This honestly makes me think I need to look at the Fancy Private Schools in my town. But my town isn't very big.

DS is a buckle-down sort of kid. I don't think he'd react badly to pressure-cooker, though I could be wrong. He's also not the creative push-back personality that his sister is.

Ha. I was all set to be a gifted advocate in our schools, but we ended up sending him to a Non-Fancy Private School that didn't require advocacy -- they just give DS the materials and challenge that he needs.

Obviously, we still pay taxes and thus have a stake in our town's public schools! But because DS has never actually gone there, I can't realistically have a say about what's going on in those schools. No one will listen. Lack of gifted support is the primary reason we're not sending him there, but now I'm in the catch-22 of not being able to effect any change at all.

So I kind of feel stuck. I mean, I'd like to not have to pay for private school tuition, but I'm not going to send DS to a public school that can't serve his needs and then spend the next N years fighting for a gifted program (probably in vain, since other parents have fought and failed). Am I right? *sigh*

Personally I have been truly appalled at the complete lack of open mindedness that I have recently encountered at my DDs school.

They say that she needs to be a child and that she should be held down to her age-grade but that I should enrich in after school hours.

They simply do not see the contradiction there - she is supposed to go to a full day of school and afterwards, instead of playing normal kid games, she is supposed to crack open the books - how is that not robbing her of time that she should be spending best by being a kid?

So I am going to have to do some evangelizing it seems...

Yikes Mana! My city is not quite like that but certainly there is a heavy skewing to private schooling for gifted children.

Portia, thanks for the reality check. Mana, that sounds touch, and yes, toxic. My DD was NOT academically advanced when she was that age, not in any formal way, at least. I don't know how she would have fared in the environment you are describing either. She's very creative, and I don't know that schools would see that and value it.

Our broken, inner-city district is not an option for us, but I do think it is possible that the private schools are not quite all that -- a lot of "Race to Nowhere" pressure in some, cliqueishness and too much privilege (3rd graders having iphones). I think really my questions have to do with my last few lingering doubts about homeschooling. I still have my days when I entertain the question as to whether or not private school would in fact have been better. But in the end, I think not.