Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Gifted teacher ideology sound check

Yes I would too if I had to deal with everyday math. I'm not against tutoring & extracuricular math programs in general, or academic camps over the summer. What I see as questionable is parents who push kids into accelerated classes they couldn't handle without intense constant tutoring. Tricky to tell the difference if you are outside the situation and therefore I probably shouldn't use that term.

And that is the difference I HAVE met parents who are that extreme. They do exist within my school district. It is also true that many of these 'hot housed' kids actually do better at school than my own child who has a lot of potential but isn't living up to it. But it is one of the reasons my school district doesn't allow any grade skips, and is very cautious about an kind of acceleration outside math in junior high, and doesn't really trust classes not taken in a brick & mortar school.

We've got the uber competitive tiger parents in our district as well, and the pressure they put in place quickly oozes throughout the school. These good kids quickly internalize that they must have the numbers, and the activities and the RESUME to get into the TOP SCHOOL or else they will have failed. Even though DS is only in first grade, I see the competitions kicking off. The parents oh-so-casually asking each other what their kid's reading level is, etc. It takes about a nanosecond for the kids to start eyeing each other and realizing they are officially dueling, whether they like it or not.

DS, fortunately, marches to his own beat. DH and I do whatever we can to keep that beat alive. But I see the crush of the competition swallowing up families I thought would never succumb. I hope we can keep our own way, but I don't know. Every activity seems to demand so much time. E.g., I thought he could have little league as a fun outlet. That was until in found out that little league AT THE SECOND GRADE LEVEL in our area requires practice and/or games five days a week, sometimes six. And it is stunning to see how quickly parents come to demand it. "Well - they've got to start early, or they won't be able to make the team in middle school, and then they can't play at all in high school, and blah, blah, blah."

How did we let this happen?

Anyway, Michelle said "The WORLD isn't built for her." I think what I am trying to do with elementary is help DS come to have a deep understanding of this, without having too much anger about it. He has to live in this world, and he needs to know that he's always going to have to use workarounds to get what he needs/deserves. We are out of the box. That's hard. That's also great. What can we do to get past the "hard" stuff and get to the "great" stuff.

We live in Northern California - and it's a double-edged sword. The competitiveness is a nightmare. The outside-the-box resources are a dream. I'm just trying to teach DS to love the resources, and reject the competitiveness and its achievement-based trappings.

I have no idea if I'll succeed, but it seems to me the only way to proceed for my DS's well-being, and maybe many of our other HG/PG kids as well.

Argh - I'm rambling, but this whole topic is top of my brain all the time these days!

I agree. We've done a fair amount of enrichment ourselves, when we can see that the official, proffered "solution" is lackluster or worse. (As in 30 hours of actual instruction in a second year foreign language course, which we thought so laughably inadequate that we outsourced that instruction at our own expense to a highly fluent expat that we happened to know.)

I have seen that kind of thing, however, and it makes me intensely sad for those children, who are clearly miserable and hoping for nothing more than escape from the virtual dictatorship that they are living under.

I also understand hiring a tutor when junior simply WON'T listen to Mom or Dad, too. That, too, is a different kettle of fish entirely than "put-my-kid-in-advanced-algebra-even-though-she-barely-kept-up-last-year-in-5th-grade-math" because the parent has some brainworm that "early algebra" is "critical" to some shiny, shiny version of "College Success (tm)."

Being made to give up a passion for jazz because it "interferes" with classical performance and competition wins on a more traditional instrument... ehhhh... well, in at least one instance, I seriously believe that this is also an example of Tiger-like behavior.

One more thing: If you've read my posts, you know my frustrations with working within the school ("site council") to try to drive things in a positive direction. But as part of working on school-wide objectives, I raised this issue, and wow did it hit a nerve with the teachers/principal.

Again - I've knocked heads with these ladies. A lot. But the heartache they expressed around trying to get hyper-competitive parents to back off of these little, little children really touched me. It did help me realize how difficult it will be for me to ask for acceleration/differentiation/whatever for DS without having myself cast as one of "them." These folks are hyper-sensitized and kinda fed up.