Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy what's the least public education should do?

I'm new to the forum and therefore hesitate to express my genuine feelings on some of the subject matter. I couldn't live with myself, however, if I didn't come to the defense of some well qualified teachers.

First and foremost I want you to know I'm not a formal educator and do not consider myself to be bias. I did substitute many years ago and was disappointed with the education system. I concluded back then that if I ever had a child she/he would not attend a public school. I've had to eat my words because low and behold our DD attends a public school. Her elementary school is in the best district in our city of more than a million residents. Our district superintendent formerly led the education system for an entire state; he has a lot of experience to say the least.

Is this district flawless? Not by a long shot!!!!!! There have been two incidents within the last week that made headlines in regards to our daughter's very school. Behind the fenced in(chain link) playground is a woodsy area where men with cameras have been spotted taking pictures of the children at recess; my child included. Has the district taken precautionary measures to place a privacy fence to avoid this from occuring again? Of course not! My daughter is in a portable building (due to overcrowding) around the same vicinity as the perverted photographers. If a child has to use the restroom during the day other than the class break they walk to the main building on their own. If the weather is unfavorable the children get wet walking to and from the main building for PE or other classes, library time, lunch, etc. It's ridiculous to me that not even a simple awning has been placed to protect them from the rain much less from perverts lurking in the woods. I brought this up to the Principal and her facial expression was "it 'aint gonna happen, lady". I spoke to her teacher about it she mentioned to me that for years the teachers have been trying to get them to do this in addition to adding a restroom. But each time it's addressed it gets turned down. I promised her I will pursue the topic until something gets done. I know my journey will fall on deaf ears but I will try my absolute best.

Every single day I hold my breath as I drop my sweetie off at school. Every morning I pray that she comes back to us in the same (hopefully better) condition as her arrival. You must think we're crazy for allowing her to continue her education there after all that. We can't afford to send her to a private school. My desire and plan is to someday soon go back to homeschooling. We both loved it. Calvert is the curriculum we used and it was amazing!!! It is ten times more advanced than public school. Maybe because it's the same curriculum used in their private institution in Maryland.

Sorry I got sidetracked. Back to my main reason for posting. As I said I used to subtitute and have seen many upon many teachers that quite honestly do not have the right to influence our children the way they do. At times I felt like circling the want ads and handing it to them. I never did but I sure felt like it. In contrast, though you have teachers who are so passionate about their work. They live for teaching and not the other way around. They have a strong desire to reach the heart of every single little person and make a difference in their young life. They have no boundaries and continue their day as teachers beyond 3:00, holidays, and the summer. There are some, Folks who REALLY care about your gifted child but due to the "system" are very limited in what they can do.

Have you ever spent an entire day with a teacher? Maybe if you did you'd realize there is very little time to actually teach. I recently spent a day with our DD's class. By the time her teacher did everything she had to do to prepare 21 kids for the day it was time to send them off to another class. She gets them back and they go on a restroom break, they walk to the classroom and spend a little time on some math maybe and it's time for lunch. She gets them back they do a little reading and it's time for recess and another restroom break. She gets them back and maybe they do a worksheet or two and it's time to go home. I failed to mention all the disciplining involved in a day's work and the time it takes to mark folders. Oh and heaven forbid it be a day when parents drop off birthday cupcakes to hand out.

What I'm trying to say is, when do teachers have the time to teach or to focus on the needs of your gifted child? For all the GENUINELY sincere educators out there I really took offense (for their sake) at the remarks about their incompetency and low IQ's, how unfair is that? When I homeschooled our daughter last year I literally would spend a minimum of three to four hours daily schooling her. The phones would get turned off and everyone knew they were not to knock on my door during those hours. I did no laundry, no dishes, no cleaning whatsoever. I completely focused my attention on this one child. Yes, one child and it would take 3-4 hours to cover a day's work. Her education was of the best quality because I had an excellent curriculum and the time to spend teaching. These teachers, however, don't have the same luxury. What a difference it would make if teachers could do the job they were trained for and leave everything else to an assistant. I know our education system sucks (for lack of a better word). But rather than knocking them for what they cannot do perhaps your frustration should be focused and directed to the board of education better yet with the Federal Government. It's about time they get more involved in making quality education a priority in our country.

Your children, my daughter deserve the best education regardless of monetary resources. Unfortunately for the moment we cannot expect the school system or our teachers to do it for us. If we want quality education for our children we have to be proactive and be willing to do whatever it takes to acquire it ourselves. Even if it means sending your child to school during the day and continuing their education at home in the evenings. That's what I do. She gets both. It's not easy but it's what I need to do to keep her challenged.

I'm sorry if I've offended anyone but I'm not sorry for coming to the defense of those who have earned the title 'Teacher'.

Don�t apologize for expressing your opinion and concerns!

If you read back over the archival and current posts, I think you will see that most of us have praised and expressed gratitude for teachers who have taught our children and administrators that we have dealt with regarding proper placement and challenge.

I my opinion, it is the �teaching doctrine� that is faulty! I had a conversation (ok-debate) with a current education major this weekend. This great guy who really cares about children is being �brainwashed� by his college instructors. He informed me that it is helpful to gifted children to tutor others in the classroom (during regular school hours). He could not see any difference between �tracking� and �ability grouping�, both of which he considered bad. He was very adamant that a teacher couldn�t spend too much time teaching academics because they had a responsibility to teach children �how to learn� instead.

I assured him that keeping children in a lock step education where the material is way below their challenge level will have the exact opposite effect. I also offered to loan him dozens of books with alternate viewpoints to balance what he hears in class.

Could someone please explain the "tracking" and "ability grouping" and what is "gifted clustering"?

Tracking is when children are put in a "track" early in elementary school. For example, a school may have three 1st grade classes (low, middle & high). The children basically stayed in these tracks all the way through school. The argument against tracking is that it locked kids into a position and supposedly the kids in the low class end up with some type of negative self-image. (Sidebar: I don't think it helps to have the slower kids in the same class as the highly gifted. I remember one mother in my daughter's pre-K class telling me that her son came home crying one day because he didn't think he would ever read as well as my daughter.)

Ability grouping puts children with like abilities together. In theory, the groups are fluid and children move between them as achievement and ability allow. Ability grouping can be done within a class (many literacy programs are designed to use ability grouping within a classroom) or among several classes or even between grades. Also, the ability groups are different for each subject so that a child that excels at math and struggles with reading may be in a high ability math group but a lower ability reading group. In theory this allows children to learn at their optimum rate.

Gifted clustering is where a minimum number of gifted students are put in a class together (most commonly 3-8 gifted kids in a class). This allows them to have peers and supposedly makes it easier for a teacher to differentiate.

A word about gifted children "tutoring" other children in the classroom:

My child's classroom does this, and I think it can work if both the tutor and recipient initiate the arrangement. In this case, the children are paired by the teacher. My dd told me that most of the time, the other child she is paired with just asks her for "the answer" to the problem. She decided the way to handle this was to tell them (loud enough for the teacher to hear) "I'm not going to give you the answer--figure it out! You can do it."

The problem is, she can't tell the other child how she figures out the answer--she just "knows." I had the same problem with a TA trying to teach Calculus--he had never struggled with it, so he couldn't tell us clueless students how to work through the process.

If the kids come up with it on their own, fine. Otherwise, it is frustrating for both the tutor and the "tutee."

Hi all, I am brand new to this forum. I came across this forum when looking for gifted kids education system and resources. I am so glad I found a forum with like minded people.

gftdgrrlsmom, I think you made a very important point. I was planning on asking my son's 1st grade teacher to pair him up with someone to tutor, hoping it would help improve others while also helping him develop his skills further. But after reading your post, it made me realise what it can do to both tutor and tutee. It gave me something to think about.

In any case, my son, I know is much ahead of many other kids in the class and I am hoping that he will be selected into the gifted kids program. I am very new to all of this concept and the school system in America. Can anyone please help me understand how it really works and what I need to do to prepare ourselves for that. I am willing to put any amount of effort it takes to get him the best education he needs. As many of you have pointed out, the kids are like sponges and my son just absorbs any amount of information that I give him. That's when it made me realize that he is not getting the education to his potential.

Thanks for your repsonses.
STLMom

delbows,

My master's degree is in education and "brainwashing" is definitely the correct word! Also, I didn't teach in the K-12 classrooms, but my dissertation research for my PhD was done in K-12 public schools and what parents see as "education" is very, very different from what public schools see as "education".
Especially now with the emphasis on testing, the concern is not so much in teaching "how to think", but "what to think". Rarely are children encouraged to explore the possibilities, but are taught that there is one right answer. For instance I saw this example:
Question: How many planets are there?
"right" answer: 9
However, due to the wording of the question there are several correct answer including "we don't know" since we only really understand most planets in our soloar system, but there are many solar systems out there in space with an infinite number of possibities. Then, we get into the Pluto situation! However, when the focus is getting kids to pass a proficiency test, we must drill into them there is one correct answer and until the answer keys catch up with modern science the correct answer is 9.

This doesn't fly at all with most gifted children who are more deep learners and naturally question answers. This is why in most public schools gifted children are seen as a distraction and a disturbance (which they are if your focus is teaching to a test and someone inserting answers not correct for the test will infact cause someone to possibly miss that question).

I can see why many school settings are hostile to gifted children. Then, we have states like mine with misguided gifted programs. In order to include a certain percentage of "all children" kids are accepted into the gifted program in several ways, one is through IQ testing, the second is through a portfolio. Well, here is the kicker!! The third way they accept kids is something called "motivation". So, if a teacher sees a "highly motivated" student - regardless of IQ, ability, reading level, math level, etc., etc. - just purely motivation, they can be accepted into the gifted program. My state could be an case study for the next Genius Denied book! But, they have brainwashed teachers and administrators that "inclusion" is more important than educating all students appropriately.

Sorry for the rant, it is just so hard.

Oh yea, for the record I am African American - so please don't believe my disgust with inclusion is racially motivated. It just doesn't help the child who is in no way ready for accelerated work, but has been chosen simply to fill some number. That is wrong for all children involved.

Lisa from England:
How did the meeting go?

This is sidetracking, but...
STBMom writes how gifted children answer questions. I can't help but think about a question that was asked during kid's mass many years ago, when my son was probably in kindergarten or preschool. The priest asked if God is really with us during mass or is it just make believe. DS did not even hesitate - "make believe" he announced to the astounded priest. Later on he has been coached to the "correct" answer :-)
Ania

Ouch! Ania - These kids sure have a lot to keep track of!

STBmom -
Oh, so that's why you are 5 years ahead of me! You've been inside the k-12 system! Thanks for that insighful run down of why these tests don't test gifted kids. I'm still curious about: what parents see as "education" is very, very different from what public schools see as "education".

I'd sure like to hear more about that.

I think my son had the best answer to who should be in which class. Ask the kids, while they are hooked up to a lie detector. Then the kids can be in the class that they think they are ready for, gifted, accelerated, whatever. As a first order approximation, I think that this is the best one could hope for. The key I'd like to see, is an educational system with the flexability to let kids try working at multiple levels and see how they respond.

((Big Smiles))
Trinty