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Joined: Sep 2007
Posts: 6,145
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Kriston
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Joined: Dec 2005
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..how's this for ambivalence-causing...the administration that utterly ignored our polite conversations, letters, pleas, etc for more than a year, has decided, entirely on their own, to provide what I was planning to scheme, politic, volunteer, and manipulate to eventually get - they've decided to rework their entire first grade to do flexible groupings and have the kids travel to different classrooms for different level work, so that the teachers don't each have to try to straddle such a great range of needs in the classroom. They're going to trade off which teacher gets what group, too, so everyone gets to work on novels or what have you. The teachers seem happy, and we're thrilled. Oh! That is wonderful news! ((tears of happiness)) And it seems totally normal to me that your emotional reaction is .... anger! Mine would be too! Because as long as the school is being unsupportive, there is part of me that worries that they are right! Then when they come around to my way of thinking, I feel confident enough to be really really mad. Weird but true.
Coaching available, at SchoolSuccessSolutions.com
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Joined: Nov 2008
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Kcab, that makes sense. I hadn't thought of the mysterious subterranean school politics! who knows what lurks under there?? But yes, Kriston, it seriously seemed to be in response to our coming in with this and then not jumping immediately to whole-grade accelerate him. We did ask then to put him in second grade math if it were possible...they said, oh that'd be SO HARD and we really think you need to skip. We said, "oh, of course we'll be thinking about it, but we want to wait on the classroom observation and social testing and think about it, so can you look into it because that's seriously a source of a lot of misery for him (with test scores to make that plausible sitting on the table in front of them), and, while we're waiting to take advantage of the perspective of your wonderful staff, what could be done to help him on reading? We keep hearing rumors of some other kid who's at his level in reading...couldn't they get together? And we know there are kids in his room who read more advanced books at home...our son can't be the only one who'd benefit." But we didn't expect much to come of it, b/c we've been pushing in that direction for more than a year and getting every stonewall in the book about not needing it and the curriculum being perfect and grouping being unfair and wrong. Maybe there was some other reason for the about-face, but it sure SEEMED like it changed the day they had their psych, the counselor, the teacher, and the principal all arrayed to tell us we were pushing our child into nervous breakdown land, and our psychologist slapped the tests on the table and squashed all their objections and qualifications.
The only other thing I can think of, is we did manage to steer the conversation a bit into, what can we do to help, it's terrible the school doesn't get more funding to let you do what you want to be able to, and let them tell us about how it would help to have parents at the board of finance...I don't know. Maybe it really did give them a reason to get on this, thinking, lets take advantage of this...I don't know. I expected them to want to push for a GT teacher in the budget, not rethink things!!
I'm flabbergasted, b/c the beginning of the year school meeting was about how they had completed the curriculum...that it was a 900 page book that told teachers what to do every step of the way so we parents could be 100% assured our child would get the exact same education no matter what classroom they were in. Oy vey...we thought, we are NEVER going to be able to get them to rethink The Plan.
It felt...I don't know. I felt wrongfooted. I've been reading and scheming and trying to figure out how I was going to, step by step, get them to rethink being against flexible grouping. And then, they just kind of casually toss it out, oh, yes, I'm glad you brought it up, we might have forgotten, we've decided to change how first grade handles reading. ??
Now I guess I'll just be afraid this isn't going to work or last...they did say ominous things about how we couldn't expect this every year, that schedules were Very Complicated. etc.
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I should probably add here that this is all in the context of my son having a sobbing breakdown in class, and they couldn't stop him crying for an hour. That really freaked them out, and made them really understand as our words couldn't, that this was a dreadful, awful thing for our son.
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Joined: Dec 2005
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In large part this is because of his range of behavior. Sometimes he does things that genuinely astonish me; if he were always that way I imagine he would do terrifically on any kind of test. But other times he is so off in his own world that simply getting him to recognize your existence is a Herculean task. His teachers have noticed it too. Whenever there is one kid missing from the line-up at the end of recess, they told us, they know immediately that DS has wandered off somewhere. Once they spent half an hour looking for him before they finally discovered him hiding in the inside of one of the big truck tires on the playground, happily singing to himself. He is in his own world quite a lot of the time. I have no doubt that it's a complicated and interesting world in there; and what peeks out of that world at times is part of what makes me think he's so special. But that kind of specialness seems like just the kind of thing a normal test is likely to miss.
BB Hi BB! Glad you are putting us to work! here's the thing. Gifted isn't the same as Bright. Hollingsworth pointed out that folks on the edge between bright and gifted tend to do well in the worlds of school and work, because they are 'just like everyone else, only more able.' ((Well, not Mother H's words, but my interpretation of them.)) The reason kids like us get refered for testing is exactly this 'not one the same page' kind of behavior. Some kids are MG and have a unique perspective, but ALL HG and PG kids are not on the same page as regular kids and early elementary teachers. ((Wow, that's quite a generalization Grinity-Girl. I'm willing to hear counter examples, but I think any PG kids who acts like they are on the same page - is a really good actor or actress. Sorry - my bias.)) So the behavior that makes you think - not gifted, is exactly the behavior that makes me think 'gifted.' Now let's add this to my personal definition of 'Gifted' - having special educational needs that are not likely to be met in a regular classroom. This is why we test. This is why we advocate. Because our kids have 'needs.' Some years they have a great teacher who 'gets' them. Some kids have a very relaxed and flexible personality and don't throw tantrums when their needs aren't being met. If your goal is to understand what your child's needs are, and then to advocate to have those needs met, then it's time to test. You aren't doing this to satisfy your ego or your curiosity. You have a goal, and this is a tool that might help you reach your goal. OTOH, you may find that the test doesn't help you understand your kid's educational needs because it was a 'bad day.' You may find that, unlike Montana's school the school see the scores and say, 'No worries, we have handfuls of kids like this.' or 'We hate when parents have their child tested because the parents always think that high scores mean that their kid is gifted or something.' But, if your goal is to get around the bases, you have to take your turn at bat, and try to swing at anything decent that comes over the plate. What helped me the most was to consider that I'm not responsible for the outcome, I'm only responsible for making a reasonable effort to get the process to work. I hope this helps. Love and More Love, Grinity
Coaching available, at SchoolSuccessSolutions.com
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Ah, tears really do help sometimes. Especially the kind that don't stop for an hour. That's not a "pushy parent" making that happen. That's real trouble. Good for him for letting fly. I suspect he made your job MUCH easier! But let's face it, montana, I think we need to clone you and send you to every rigid school system in America (and beyond!) to get them to realize the error of their ways. Want to come here? Maybe we could get DS7 back into public school with you shaking things up!  So I'd say enjoy that righteous anger. You earned it! And then be happy that things seem improved. You earned that, too! :p
Kriston
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Ah, tears really do help sometimes. Especially the kind that don't stop for an hour. 4th Grade: Our school made a big turn-around when I broke down and cried in the principle's office. (20 minutes? But it was very intense. And not angry or blaming, just plain misery) That's when they stopped blaming me for DS's troubles, and got serious about putting together a package of in-class enrichment and decreeing that it was ok to pair him with 'bright kids' for group projects. They put together a wonderful reading project where all the various reading groups read books from a single author, and DS and his 'rival' got to work on putting together a 'one man show' with DS playing the author. DS got to read all the books, plus biographys, and they did an interview with each reading group generating questions for the author. If my son's personality was a little bit different, if he hadn't been 'already cooked' by bad agemate experiences starting at daycare by age 3, if he had a different combination of gifts and LOG and bottlenecks, then that might have been enough. If they had been able to subject acc. in Math, maybe then. It was a huge improvement, and still not enough in our particular situation. Montana, for the future, if the grouping inside of a single grade isn't enough, consider pushing for grouping across two grades, and make sure that the 'linked grades' swap every year so that he's always the youngest. I think that if you can give your child what he needs without a gradeskip, that's wonderful! Love and More Love, Grinity
Coaching available, at SchoolSuccessSolutions.com
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Joined: Jul 2008
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First, to montana: like others, I'm amazed and heartened to hear your story. Congratulations!
Thanks especially, too, to Grinity. I haven't quite heard the distinction between bright and gifted described in the way you do, and it helps a lot. I think it is true that DS is not just the same as others but more capable. Half the time he's not even in the same world as others. He does have the ability to bring others into his world - it's amazing the kinds of games he'll get the other kids to play - but if there's nobody around to play his games then he'll go off and play them by himself. I often say to DW that it's like herding cats to get him to play along in some way he hasn't conceived himself. And it's getting harder to trick him into thinking he's the source of the rules. Ah well. It's charming in its own way. But it does make me very concerned about school when it really settles in.
A quick update is that we have made a "get-acquainted" appointment with an evaluator for the middle of January. I'm hopeful that she'll be able to give us a better sense for what our options our.
BB
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