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Joined: Nov 2008
Posts: 313
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Joined: Nov 2008
Posts: 313 |
If I may quote from Lori Pickert's Project-Based Homeschooling:
[quote]I started by opening a private school -- my own idealized school with art studios for each classroom and a curriculum based on long-term child-led projects. It was lovely. It was unsustainable. I believe it was John Holt who pointed out that most wonderful schools are built around one strong personality and when that personality leaves, the school tends to fall apart. This does sound similar to our private school, which we love. It was the vision and continues to be the life mission of its founder, who has run the school for over 30 years. She started the school precisely because she was frustrated with the one-size-fits-all approach of public school and saw a better way. The school is K-12, so we're all just hoping that the director sticks it out until DS10 graduates from high school (he's been there since kindergarten and is in middle grades now). Even if the school outlasts the founder, I know it wouldn't be the same.
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Joined: Feb 2014
Posts: 337
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some wealthy districts have amazing public schools. From the viewpoint of parents of gifted children, I've not heard this to be true. School statistics may give a rosy picture. ... Meanwhile gifted students may be thriving in spite of the school/district/teachers/policies/practices, not because of them. For example, a child who is bored in school may then spend time after-schooling in an area of interest. The knowledge gained in this endeavor, utilizing personal time, may then result in a high standardized test score, or ACT/SAT score, or other academic award/accomplishment for which the school/district/teacher will be glad to usurp credit for the child's performance. Couldn't agree more with all of the above. This has been our experience. Spent 4 years in a large public school district on the east coast that was not wealthy but had many specialized programs to meet the differing student needs including magnet gifted schools, IB program, specialized academies, etc. Spent two years at a small, award winning, very wealthy school district (and what the school budget doesn't cover in extras, the nonprofit supporting the schools does!) and it was a year and half too long in a district that does nothing to try to meet gifted student needs, at least at the MS level. It was not my first choice, but my kids are at (different) private schools meeting their needs now. I'm sorry perhaps I was unclear, but this was the exact point I was trying to make with my post. A school is good or bad for a high LOG child because of the people there who are willing to make it good. Not because it's public or private or rich or poor or has this elective or that student profile. Some people have better experiences with private (we did!) but others with public.
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Joined: Sep 2007
Posts: 3,298
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There is nobody less qualified, nobody, to teach a 6th grade class, than the PhD who thought they'd be tenure tracked at an Ivy League university by now... I can think of a lot of people who are less qualified than someone with a Ph.D. "who thought they'd be tenure tracked by now," like people who can't do long division, and at the more extreme end, people who are functionally illiterate, and people who have a sobriety problem. I would bet money that there are a solid number of current 6th grade teachers who honestly aren't qualified to be teaching sixth grade because of lack of subject knowledge. This is just a sweeping generalization that comes with a strong implication that a teaching credential is more important than subject knowledge. It's also quite judgmental about people who got Ph.D.s in our US doctorate factory, only to discover that academic jobs these days are largely built around low-paying positions filled by adjuncts. And you blame these people for finding a job and getting to work? Should they know their places and stick to teaching college students instead? Or is it that you met a couple terminally-degreed people who maybe weren't suited to teaching, and extrapolated that fact to everyone with a Ph.D. who isn't an academic? Like being unsuited to teaching never happens among the credentialed crowd with BAs in education? Writing sweeping generalizations doesn't help.
Last edited by Val; 03/07/15 02:49 PM. Reason: Remove extra word
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Joined: Sep 2007
Posts: 3,298
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Ivy, thank for your wonderful posts.
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Joined: Sep 2009
Posts: 683
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Posts: 683 |
I went to a private religious, college prep high school. It had a very good academic reputation. Yes, I did get into an Ivy League school from there. My class had 140 kids. Many of the positive things that people mentioned were present there. There were a few things that were lacking. For me as a high achieving gifted kid, they didn't have the breadth of AP offerings or extra-curricular options that the local high school did. They did the things that they did well but it was too limited for me. Also, no one has mentioned the social aspect of going to a school that draws from a large geographic area. When people come from 20-30 minutes away in all directions, you end up with friends who live 40 minutes to 60 minutes away. Even when I could drive starting in my junior year, my parents weren't thrilled about letting me drive across a large urban area on a weekend night to go hang out with my friends.
We have found good public school environments for our kids by finding schools with high choice enrollment and high parent involvement. My kids are in gifted and IB programs and none of them go to school more than three miles from our house. My oldest is thriving in the high school environment. For her going to a bigger school means that while it is harder and more competitive to get into certain classes and activities, it means that when you make it in, you are with a truly talented group of kids.
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Joined: Jul 2014
Posts: 602
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I can think of a lot of people who are less qualified than someone with a Ph.D. "who thought they'd be tenure tracked by now," like people who can't do long division, and at the more extreme end, people people who are functionally illiterate, and people who have a sobriety problem. I would bet money that there are a solid number of current 6th grade teachers who honestly aren't qualified to be teaching sixth grade because of lack of subject knowledge. This. DH is the head of the physics department at a public school headed by a principal who decided on teaching high school after getting that phd (a principal he is very happy with btw) and thus trains newly qualified teachers, some of whom are PhDs as well. He says that he can train anyone with a solid grasp of their subject to be a good enough teacher, if not always a brilliant one. It I very hard doing this with someone who does not have that grasp - not merely because anyone who is only one step ahead of their students can be tripped up by any probing question, be it by a weaker student needing clarification or a talented student looking for further insight, but also because someone who spent years in university on a subject of their own choosing and still can't do it tends to lack more fundamental qualities such as the brains, the motivation and a healthy personality in the first place, it is much harder to turn someone in good enough teacher who lacks one or more of these qualities. They may have just scraped through at the bottom of their class, or have mental health or substance abuse problems, sometimes all of the above. Motivation helps if it's there, but it's still a slog, and students do notice, I'd much rather have my child taught by that PhD. A bunch of gifties might LOVE having that phd teacher, and vice versa.
Last edited by Tigerle; 03/07/15 02:44 PM.
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Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 5,181
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some wealthy districts have amazing public schools. From the viewpoint of parents of gifted children, I've not heard this to be true. School statistics may give a rosy picture. ... Meanwhile gifted students may be thriving in spite of the school/district/teachers/policies/practices, not because of them. For example, a child who is bored in school may then spend time after-schooling in an area of interest. The knowledge gained in this endeavor, utilizing personal time, may then result in a high standardized test score, or ACT/SAT score, or other academic award/accomplishment for which the school/district/teacher will be glad to usurp credit for the child's performance. Couldn't agree more with all of the above. This has been our experience. Spent 4 years in a large public school district on the east coast that was not wealthy but had many specialized programs to meet the differing student needs including magnet gifted schools, IB program, specialized academies, etc. Spent two years at a small, award winning, very wealthy school district (and what the school budget doesn't cover in extras, the nonprofit supporting the schools does!) and it was a year and half too long in a district that does nothing to try to meet gifted student needs, at least at the MS level. It was not my first choice, but my kids are at (different) private schools meeting their needs now. I'm sorry perhaps I was unclear, but this was the exact point I was trying to make with my post. A school is good or bad for a high LOG child because of the people there who are willing to make it good. Not because it's public or private or rich or poor or has this elective or that student profile. Some people have better experiences with private (we did!) but others with public. Very well-stated. My mom was a lifetime primary educator-- it was her passion, and she was very good at what she did-- particularly with LD students or those with ADHD/ADD or ASD. Simultaneous with that set of salient facts, however, was the additional fact that she would have been one of the LAST elementary teachers that I'd have wanted for my own DD, because at higher LOG, she was not a good match. Anyway. I'll also add that she was (IMO) very wise when offering us advice re: schools and public v. private, etc. She had taught at both, and in situations both wonderful and awful (b/c of local cultural norms or administrators, ususally). Her advice was that there is no rule about which is "better." It simply depends upon too many different factors. The child, the parents, the local prevailing attitudes about education, the local administration, the board, etc. etc. etc.
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 5,181
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On this list people often share the quote "when you've seen one gifted kid... you've seen one gifted kid." Well when you've seen one school... you've seen one school -- public or private.
Private schools can have more options and services -- or not, as some wealthy districts have amazing public schools. Public schools have to take everyone... but that can be good or bad depending on the everyone's they take. Private schools have more flexibility... which they can take advantage of or not or use to create a different kind of conformity. Public schools are bound by bureaucracy, except when they aren't because teachers and principals want to make a difference. Public schools have poor apathetic kids who don't care about their education (sometimes). Private schools have rich apathetic kids who don't care about their education (sometimes). Private schools cost a zillion dollars, except for the ones that cost less. And public schools can cost a surprising amount if you includes outside enrichment, after schooling, fundraising for the school, or -- above all -- the million dollar home you had to buy to get into the good school. Compare that to private school tuition.
I'm normally down on public school because we had a hard time making it work for us in this district. But that doesn't mean every school in the district is bad (because it's not like we can just pick and choose from all of them). And I've spoken to the two top secular private schools in town and while they sound great and do great with the kids I know who go there, they would definitely not be OK for my kid.
Schools are different. Sure I wish less of them kind of sucked. And I wish there was less disparity between them. But they are still all individual, and made up of individuals.
In the end, it comes down to the people. Whether people "get" high levels of giftedness or not. Some people do. Some people don't but could with some education. And some people just won't. And that's a more fundamental issue than school choice.  I love this post.
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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Joined: Oct 2014
Posts: 105
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Posts: 105 |
Yes. Our school is....well....it's the stereotypical, cookie-cutter, "do we LOOK like we care about your kid?" school. But the PEOPLE -- not the administrators, but the teachers -- are what makes it at least okay to good. Oh, there's bad teachers, but most of them really care about the students. They actually like the subjects they teach - some were previously employed in their field, or participate in it on the side. The amount of unpaid after school hours some of them put in is remarkable, even on non-after-school days (and this isn't even core teachers). They actually....try. And that's one of the biggest things about a school -- as much as school is academic, it's about the day-to-day human interactions. Do the kids respect each other? Do teachers and administrators connect with the kids, try to help them succeed? Or does everybody just...show up?
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Joined: Feb 2014
Posts: 337
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BTW, thanks for the kind feedback guys. I love this forum.
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