Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Almost PTSD flashbacks to my schooldays

Sounds familiar. "Val, sometimes you use words that are too big. You should think about this when you lecture."

Yes, lecture. I was teaching at a college.

As for the OP's point about challenging his daughter, I have the same challenge with my DD9. I've been teaching her algebra lately, and it's not easy for her. As in, finally, something isn't generally easy. I had observed that grade-level math wasn't presenting a general challenge for her, but there were occasions when stuff wasn't obvious. At those times, she was responding by saying, "I don't know!!" immediately without even trying to think about what to do. So I decided that this year, we'll do algebra together.

Her math teacher has accused me of "pushing her" (twice), and the school gives me the impression that they have no clue about giftedness in general or her in particular. For me, swimming upstream is the hardest part of this.

meetings were designed for butt kissing and cow-towing

This literally made me laugh out loud. Thank you-- my goodness, BLESS you for that description.

My high school had a policy that cutting a single class would cause you to be docked a full letter grade. I was a goody two shoes but remember thinking this policy was draconian. Grades should primarily be about what you know and what work you have done. Schools have multiple missions, including baby sitting/warehousing and certification of compliance and conformity to future employers. I think it's a problem when high school grades reflect a mix of academic and behavioral criteria that someone looking at a transcript cannot disentangle. I think they should be rated separately.

Same here. I loved going to school because as flawed as it was, it was better than being at home.

What's happened for me, is that I realize that I have completely underestimated my own LOG until, like, yesterday (well maybe a few months ago I came to this realization). I am the poster girl for underachievement, imposter syndrome, and hiding my abilities to blend in (though I did attend an Ivy, I never broke a sweat until I entered college and realized I had no idea how to study). A few weeks ago, I was looking through MY report cards from elementary school and I was shocked to read the comments. (I was looking through them to compare what is going on currently with DS.) In first grade, I recall having the best teacher that I'd ever had. I read her comments which were something along the lines of, "it is a challenge and my pleasure to find ways to meet somewhereonearth's needs. She is flourishing and I look forward to finding new ways to challenge her." I recall kind of shutting down after first grade and now I have evidence regarding WHY I shut down. My first grade teacher was bringing me 2nd grade and 3rd grade work in the class. Every year after that the comments were the same, "bright girl. gets 100% on almost everything but won't try something that she can't master immediately." the teachers stopped bringing me accelerated work. I was only working on grade level.

I became the MASTER of self entertainment all the way through high school. I have notebooks filled with journal entries, letters to friends and various amusements. In high school, like HK, I became the master at cutting class and NEVER got caught at school or home. It was so much fun coming up with reason #256 that I couldn't attend class.

So, on the one hand it is upsetting that my DS regularly refuses to go to school. We are addressing that. On the other hand, at least he finds home a safe place to be - that makes me feel like I'm doing something right.

I have been fortunate that in my professional career, I've had some opportunities to be rewarded for extremely fast and thorough assessment and decision making abilities. (Ex. "That person is screaming at the top of his lungs and is about to attack staff. Go find somewhereonearth! She will figure out quickly what is needed and administer it.") So, I don't have to deal with some of the idiocy that some of you deal with. (Although I have worked in public schools so I am intimately familiar with the slow grinding wheels of incompetence and people who are hired simply because of nepotism.)

I agree, but tangling stuff up is the whole point. Schools can give extra points for certain attributes, which raises grades, and therefore helps everyone go to college. Okay, many of students end up taking remedial classes and dig themselves deep into a debt whole, but who cares? They are in college, and that was the goal.

We also lower the upper end when we make some classes about MEMORIZING rather than learning.

That's because students like most of OUR kids learn to learn and may really hit a wall when it comes to needing to "quit thinking and start memorizing."

Think we all are here to some degree to find out how to dodge some of our own childhood baggage. I finished my first grade math book in less than a month and that was all the math I got that year.

School did prepare me well for corporate and IT meetings. But not in the sense of tolerating boredom; I almost pathologically refuse to be bored. In school I filled my extra time thinking beyond the bounds of the material, and as I got older I payed attention to what the teacher knew, what other students knew or didn't know, and generally payed attention to those around me. I also checked out on competitive ego needs as I saw grades as completely ridiculous.

So, in meetings, I know what everyone has to contribute, I know where branches of thought will lead and I get out ahead of them. While people are doing their bit of chat work to the easy conclusions, I'm figuring out the gotchas. If a needed expert is quiet, I'll solicit their input specifically and directly.

I've found the double-talkers tend to know less than half their actual job, and they get quiet if you catch them in their blindspots without quite shaming them and will back out.

The people with decision authority can sit back and wait their turn to say yay or nay. If they seem to need more, then I feed them an 80% socratic led solution, and they can be the heroes.

If a group concensus is needed and there is too much hemming and hawing, I put out a straw man solution. People can quickly get it together to take something apart.

And all that started from my conclusion in 3rd grade that it is better to give the answers no one else does than to raise your hand every time. In fact it is best to wait for that awkward pause just before the teacher sighs and gives the answer. From nerd to hero in one easy step.

But I still think it is functionally criminal for a compulsory education system to not be teaching every child every day.

Zen Scanner, your approach is the precise one that my DD seems to have used from birth. It was downright eerie to have a 4yo summing up (correctly) the M.O. and inner motivations of adults around her.

She knows people-- and WOW, does she ever have leadership potential-- but she spends at least 90% of her time studying PEOPLE/SYSTEMS, not the topic at hand.

Sometimes I wonder what teachers and administrators (not the good ones) would think if they read some of these threads.

I have nightmares about college on a regular basis. Absolute worst five years of my life.

High School was basically fine since I was the superintendent's son. I just altered the structure of the school environment when I felt the need to do so.

Middle school was pretty good too. Good times.

Middle school and the middle of high school were probably my best life experiences. It's been downhill since then.