Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Middle School - what goes on there??

How does one know if their child is "challenged" in middle school? We've gone through a whole year now of 6th grade. Both DD's (both in 6th, DD11 grade skipped one year) get straight A's. DD12 studies. DD11 does not. They are in a math class that is doing 8th grade work (so DD11 is working 3 years ahead, DD12, 2 years). I would say this is the first time I have seen DD11 have to work a bit. DD12 studies diligently for all the other classes. DD11 does the homework. Never studies (and somehow gets over 100 for some classes? How does that work?).
So, practically speaking, if a child is already at the top, what can you really do? I know some kids are doing self study projects, but the AIG was against that because DD11 was suffering socially, and the AIG teacher didn't want to further isolate her. Also, in elementary kids take the Cogat, Iowa, etc so you get more of an idea about levels. Middle school - just assessments that state whether a kid is struggling or not. The girls took the Explore test, but it didn't really give me a lot of info the way I hoped.
Love some good, practical advice please.

Honestly, I think that for a lot of children that are very gifted they do not get challenged in k12. When they take AP classes they will probably need to study for EOCT's, it can be a lot of information to memorize. As far as being actually challenged I think that probably happens when they realize they love something enough to really challenge themselves. As far as your two DD's the 12 year old will probably have the advantage when things get challenging. We don't look at school as an academic institution as much as a place they have to go where they learn to get along with others and make friends (social skills will be as important as academics later), learn to organize their lives and learn their personal strategies for task completion. Otherwise, we just tell DD to enjoy the ride;).

My 8 year old is accelerated 2-3 years across the board. He has never studied for tests and always finishes homework in under 20 minutes, scores greater than 100% in tests (he attempts bonus questions because he has time to spare in the tests and gets those correct as well, hence, 120% in math tests etc!). We don't want radical acceleration and going to middle school early, so we "capped off" acceleration at that level after discussions with the school psych and the administrators.
We are not looking for school to be a place where all of my child's learning needs are met - for a PG kid, it is impossible in a group setting. What we ensure is that the child is adequately challenged all the time to keep boredom at bay and there is enough pressure to produce output so that a good work ethic is developed (tests, papers to write, projects to work on etc).
My child's school does a lot of projects for history, science, art, culture and language arts which are challenging and interesting for my child. And they do fun math contests that are interesting to them. They are allowed to research their topics of interest in the library and create power point presentation for presenting to the classmates. All of these activities are not "hard", but requires a lot of research, thinking, coming up with ideas, writing creatively etc. That is what we try to use the school for. For e.g. they visited an aquarium and then did an art project on a marine animal and a science project where they researched a marine mammal of their choice and created a presentation for the class. These open ended projects are what interest my son in school, not the content in their textbooks which are very easy and simple for him.
So, if your DD11 can be assigned open ended projects like this by the AIG teacher, that can set her up to research, learn, create and even develop her own passions.

ETA: we afterschool in his areas of strength where he can go at his pace.

"We are not looking for school to be a place where all of my child's learning needs are met - for a PG kid, it is impossible in a group setting."

This is so true. Sounds like you're doing a great job of knowing what your kid can and does get out of school, and making sure he gets what he needs otherwise, in other venues. There are so many variables to take into account in figuring out how best to meet the actual needs. It's wonderful that you're supporting him so well, and it sounds like you're helping him have realistic expectations about school. I would encourage you to keep evaluating the option of acceleration as the years go on. What wasn't right for him at age 8 might be a good option at age 13. Or not.

I thought about your answers and my questions a bit, and I realized that what I really need to figure out is - how does one "prove" that their child needs the higher level work when he or she, as many other kids (big percentage of this school is labelled gifted) are already getting top grades, and there is no more testing such as Cogat or Iowa? The EOG's are coming up, but I can't remember that they were very helpful. I might see if I can find one from last year.

My child is in our self-contained gifted program. In middle school, it's been great. They are in Algebra I in 7th grade (well, it's called something else due to common core), Spanish 1, orchestra, gym, and then the self-contained gifted program for Science, English, and social studies.
I would say that the most important thing in middle school has been:
1) Learning how to manage your time well. Most of the homework assignments are easy, but they have time deadlines. Things have to be turned in on time or you lose points.
2) Walking to 7 different classes daily, on time.
3) Making new friends, socializing.
To me, middle school is an organizational challenge for my child, not really intellectual.

Our DD (11) is grade skipped one year and further accelerated in class another 2 years in Maths. She aces every class and her only real challenge is staying motivated given the stultifyingly slow pace of everything. We are not going to send her to college early and have no desire to push for further acceleration because of this.

May God forgive us but we aftershool to keep her learning and she earned her first honest B during the DYS online Composition class - she worked harder for that B than any A she has ever had - except those from the AoPS classes that she has taken.

Group work which the school insists on can still be challenging but DD has also navigated the stupid middle school girl stuff not too badly so far. The social side of school and learning to advocate for herself are all we expect her to get out of middle school.

greenlotus, I don't have a student at your school, so have no idea if this is a possibility, but was just wondering. Is it possible your dd is being challenged to think deeply in class, but doesn't have to spend copious amounts of time on homework and gets great grades partly because the teachers give out great grades unless a student is really not performing well? I only ask that because our experience with school so far has been that As are much easier to obtain than when I was in school - not because the classes are always easy but because teachers seem to prefer to give out good grades unless they have a compelling reason not to.

As long as my child felt like they were receiving and participating in intellectually stimulating discussions during class, I wouldn't worry about the other. If your dd is complaining about boredom during class, I'd look into requesting subject acceleration or look for a different learning environment altogether.

Is it really true that state assessments are the only standardized testing the kids do in your area in middle school? In our area the students take state tests + TerraNova, which has national norms and is used as one of the criteria in gifted placement. I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for in testing but it sounds like you are looking for info that shows your dd needs to be accelerated; one other avenue is to request end-of-year testing at the next grade level. Our high school offers credit-through-testing, so students can test out of various subjects if they can achieve a certain percentage on the test.

Best wishes,

polarbear

It sounds like you are asking a bunch of different questions. I have two 7th graders and I know whether and when they are challenged because I talk to them all the time plus I will look at some of their essays, reports and projects even though I have rarely helped with school work since mid-elementary school. I would definitely not base judgment on their grade percentages or whether they choose to study. In other words, a 105% is not necessarily an indication of superior ability to a 95% nor is choosing not to study an indication of a higher intellect that choosing to study.

As for self-study projects, I think that could be a key way to assess whether a student is really "above" the rest as well as provide an opportunity to stretch their intellectual muscles. Of course, I am not familiar with the dynamics at your DD's school, but I don't see how undertaking a self-study project would isolate her more socially, particularly when some of the other students are doing self-study projects.

I agree that the Explore scores would not be particularly persuasive for 6th graders even if they hit the ceiling since there is not much room by that point. Talent searches usually test in January or February and the norms are for Fall 8th grade so at most you can claim 1 1/2 years "ahead". By the end of 6th grade, it makes more sense to test on the ACT or the SAT if you are trying to prove that your DDs need higher level work.

Our district also has MAP and PARCC for national comparisons as well as district benchmarks which are more curriculum based. Perhaps check to see the actual substance of their specific assessments to figure out whether they can be of any use.

Having said all that, I am not sure what providing "proof" will do unless you are trying to grade skip or subject accelerate. We are in a decent school within a decent district so perhaps your situation is outside my comprehension. We have found that 7th grade has been a substantial leap in academic demands and independence from 6th grade when they were partly focused on acclimating the kids to the executive functions and social demands of middle school. However, even in 6th grade, I noticed how open ended some of the assignments/projects were so that it really was up to my kids to stretch themselves if they chose to do so. Furthermore, there were some in-depth and sophisticated classroom discussions in which my kids participated. That's not to say that a significant chunk of school assignments weren't basic or that a goodly portion of their "gifted" classmates weren't left in the dust.

I can't say that middle school is an academic fit for either of my kids but there certainly are much more opportunities to shape a more tolerable fit than in elementary school. More importantly, I have been impressed with the growth in social and leadership skills, in large part due to group projects and presentations.