Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments What do you wish your school knew about your child

Lots of things here where I just nodded and said, "mmm-hmmm," but there's one missing:

That my daughter has a finely-honed sense of right and wrong, and when you punish the entire class for the misbehavior of a subset of the class which does not include her, you've betrayed her.

You've just exactly described my 5-1/2-year-old daughter! It is uncanny!

It also makes me glad my child isn't the only one that is like this.

THANK YOU!

That just because my 6yo kindergartener who is in 2nd grade math expresses frustration over being forced to do addition in different ways when he already knows a way to do it that works just fine for him doesn't mean he needs to be put back into 1st grade math.

Putting him into a class that is learning single digit addition and subtraction when he has mastered multiple digit addition and subtraction with carrying doesn't make sense. If you ask him what he wants he will tell you that not only does he not want to do first grade math, he wants to get to 3rd grade math so he can practice multiplication and division.

We have to go to great lengths to find situations where he has to work outside of his comfort zone. He is not used to anything being 'difficult' and is afraid of failing. Give him confidence and help him through. Don't tell him that as soon as he sees a new concept that it must be too hard and he should quit!

The system is designed to make the other students jealous and contemptuous of the gifted, who should be treated the way gifted athletes are from childhood on. So the class should be divided into teams of equal average IQ and quizzed many times a day. The team that gets the highest score will get Friday off, the one with the lowest will have to come in on Saturday. This will make the talented student as popular as the athlete who hits the game-winning home run.

High-scoring students from four grades older will get paid to teach the Saturday class. Having money will also make the talented popular.

The present system is designed by those who profit from High IQs having low personal self-esteem and an escapist intellectual self-esteem, which will prevent them from demanding the material rewards they deserve.

(bump)
With several recent threads discussing merit and meritocracy, I found and bumped this old thread which I thought may be of interest.

I wish that the teacher realized that every student deserved to learn and that my child did not think of school as only a place to "practice."
I wish that you realized how sensitive my child is and that just because she seems fine at school does not mean that she does not cry her eyes out when she gets in the car about a perceived injustice.
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That is all.

That gifted doesn't mean the kid will answer all the questions, be the first one to be done with the work or readily show they are truly advanced to the teachers. My child likes to hide her abilities. You won't know she is gifted if you keep giving her grade level work because she checks out and appears slower/dumber (sorry couldn't think of a good word)than her peers. When she says day after day that recess is her favorite part of school, that just means that she finds the academic portions of the day really boring.
I personally don't even care if the school doesn't teach her much. I just don't want them to try to fit her in a box and kill her creativity and her love for learning and exploration.

Yes it's okay to cut your precious homework assignments in half like my HG/2e DS' accommodations suggest. Yes, that means every teacher, not just "some other teacher and not me." If you could witness one of the nightly homework torture sessions you inflict on DS, you would immediately agree 1) the marginal learning is not worth the lengthy struggle and 2) you are stealing his childhood in an unpardonable way. Actually, you could probably cut everyone's homework in half and lose no real learning. It's not as beneficial as you think.

That my ds is NOT "ok". Ds also hates doing simple addition and subtraction that we all know he can do.

Ds has no friends. Just because you're friendly, doesn't mean you have friends.

He has a vision problem, please accommodate!

I would like to ask if they really believe they are providing the best education for my son. I mean it's one thing to tell me, but how can they really believe it??

That DS does far more real learning over summer break, winter break, and spring break than he does all year in school. He also produces far more work because he is given no limits.

DS tells me he doesn't understand why he can't stay home and learn instead of going to school and being bored. Basically, he's already disconnected learning from school. And he's 7.

That we endure weekly (sometimes nightly) sadness/meltdowns over the fact that other kids call him weird.