Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy yay! It's summer, time for learning!

I wonder how prevalent this phenomenon is... DS9 has shown this ever since he entered school: during the school year he is bored with work, sloppy, careless, and just seems to be always in low gear. Once summer starts, he is a totally different person. He is curious about everything, embraces learning with great enthusiasm, he wants to work hard and suddenly his level of performance goes through the roof.

I know what this means, that his school environment is not a good match. But oh well, so far we haven't figured out any way to make solid improvement.

The other day I saw an article on New York Times advocating longer school days. Then I saw a reader response that really made me chuckle. The reader said that longer school days will horrify parents of bright kids, because for these kids, learning starts everyday after 3pm, after they have endured a whole day of rote learning and boredom at school.

I wonder when this sad situation will catch the attention of the educators...

Yes I saw the same thing until the last year. It seemed each summer it took him longer to decompress from school. By the time my inquisitive, love of learning DC returned, it was time to go back to school again.

If they go to a longer school day, I bet the # of HSing families will increase for those w/ bright kids. I read longer school day, year round school, and possible Saturday school was in the new Sec of Education's agenda. One size fits no one.

Can you link to the NYT article? I didn't see when I searched.

This is precisely why I would vote for school choice in a heartbeat.

I actually completely understand the consolidation project in PA. We have 500 school districts and many of them aren't viable economically, which means that much of our state money goes into trying to keep some of those districts running as opposed to teaching the kids. I hope that they don't go too far in the other direction, but something does have to be done.

Kcab - where can I sign up for your school??????

WE have NO school choice where I am....unless you call one Montessori and one elite school at nearly $30K/year choice! It's a behemoth district with a no one is better than us, we meet the needs of all kids mentality.

The NYT links:

Letters to the Editor, the reply that made me chuckle is the one by Susan Goodkin.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/opinion/l14college.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1

Original article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/opinion/08levy.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=five%20ways%20to%20fix%20america�s%20schools&st=cse

We are in a very good school district, but things are still mostly disappointing. I have already lost interest in trying to arrange anything better for DS. Anything that the school can't give him, I will. The schools in many cases are really just nagging our kids (You are so right about this, kcab).

Gosh, that idea of Susan Goodkin's is BRILLIANT.

I actually support public schools and think my kids are in a good one, but I would still prefer to have more time with them at home for the "work" we do here.

I have noticed that in just the two weeks that the kids have been out of school, they are happier and learning more than they did all year, and it takes less time. It is easy to let them swim, play videogames, and then do some schoolwork at their (fast, obviously) level - no sitting around waiting for the other kids. I am so glad that we are skipping a grade for both, maybe this fall will be better.

Elizabethmom - goodluck! Let us know how it goes. I've often wondered how a grade skip would have done for my son. I know skipping K would have been very beneficial for him as he was more than ready for 1st grade. Now, I'm not so sure....would a one year grade skip really be that different? The pace of the instruction would be the same...the depth or lack thereof would be the same. My feeling is that my son (not talking about yours here) needed different more than a grade skip into slightly higher content but same delivery.

I hear you. That's also my concern. We talked about skipping 1st grade (the principal suggested it). But then we all agreed that it would not solve the problem. DS's way of thinking simply does not match the mode of instruction in most public school classrooms. He really doesn't need to hear about something more than once. So the day-in day-out drilling of the same math concept is simply a waste of time for him. And what do they call it again? "Spiraling"? The same math content taught year after year, every time a bit deeper. DS would rather think very deep the first time a new idea is introduced. Eventually we decided that skipping a grade would not really help DS. More flexibility in the classroom would be the key. But this requires a lot of effort from the teachers (and it hasn't worked well so far).