Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Phrases to Watch Out for on School Tours?

Hello all,

Recent newbie to the world of gifted with highly gifted sensitive daughter with sensory processing dysfunction and who is apparently an extreme introvert and visual spatial learner.

Am on a school hunt as her current placement now seems inappropriate and teacher not fully on board with the world of gifted.

Had an interview today with a beautiful school with great facilities, and that prides itself on its challenging academic curriculum and IB middle school. That said, when speaking with the preschool age director and admissions two statements stood out. When I asked if they had experience working with other gifted children she responded with, "well...all children are brilliant." Another moment was with admissions when she said that they don't do assessment at 4 because it is really too early to tell.

Are these things to watch out for? How serious should I consider these comments. We are struggling to find a place for her and this was the first school I found that even seemed like an option and a match in a number of ways.

Thanks for any advice and also any other phrases I should avoid as I make my way around...!

Follow your gut instinct. I think their comments are red flags. In my experience as a parent who shopped many schools, and as a professional working with CSTs, comments like these mean that these folks don't really understand truly gifted children. After several trial and errors (public & private schools) we have finally found a school where we believe they get it. For the first time since this journey began I found myself in agreement with the folks there on what a gifted child like mine needs. I left our last conference speechless as they just seem to really get it. It was an amazing feeling.
Not testing for giftedness in pre-school is pretty normal around here. Because I have inside knowledge of how many educators operate, I had my DS7 privately tested at age 4. This way I would have proof that I wasn't just another mom claiming her kid is gifted. Educators commonly brush off parents with these comments bc they are ignorant about giftedness.
I would keep looking. Best of luck and welcome aboard! :-)

In our school search just over a year ago, I was able to get a vibe of the school pretty quickly. Some of the good schools focused on individualized education and progressing children at their own pace. Others had the "all children are gifted in their own way" talk right off the bat, which I thought was odd. Yes, every child is special and have strength and weaknesses, but I wanted to know how they would be able to educate a HG+ child.

I avoided the word "gifted" even though that is a word the schools used. I also did not say that my child was "bored" or anything negative about the current situation. My usual explanation was that she was progressing through standard curriculum quickly and was looking for additional challenge or a faster pace of learning. I brought her achievement and group IQ test scores as I didn't have a WISC done at that time. Some schools asked for the info, others could care less.

When we met with the gifted coordinator at our current school, everything clicked immediately. HE was the one explaining what gifted children needed in their education and the philosophy of the school. I didn't have to advocate for my child, he advocated for her. I was on cloud 9 when he offered to test her IQ for free through the school system to find out her unique circumstances. Over a year later, I have a happy child who can't wait for summer to end so she can start middle school.

I hope you find a good fit for your child.

Jen

Thanks for all your responses. They are extremely helpful. I have been experimenting using the term gifted and seeing what the reactions are. It is interesting because at yet another school I visited today, that is a member of a gifted association, had some hesitation with engaging with those concepts. When we asked why the school joined the association she said that many of their kids are gifted so she felt it was important to recognize them. The director talked about her experience working with children with special needs and gifted children. I understand they are often lumped together if an educator is lucky enough to have training at all.

So, this framing is very helpful. I will follow this good advice that asks the right questions without triggering human fears and beliefs about acceptance and equality in the world!

The previous "red flag" school is really warm and inviting to us even if we are not the typical parents that might choose this school. That said, two other schools are ready to place my daughter in kindergarten as they ability group. So I think we are narrowing our choice...

I am still struggling though with being able to articulate to teachers and school administrators the differences between bright/smart and gifted. Any framing on that one? ;-)

Well I'm not sure this will be helpful to you, but we just removed our son from a private school for "gifted and academically advance" children. He was there for Pre-K and K. They assured us they fully understood the needs of gifted children but couldn't specifically articulate what those needs were. I heard several times "all children are gifted with the right attention and resources." That should have made my alarm bells go off.

Instead, we stuck it out two years and a LOT of cash. Meetings upon meetings yielded us the "you push him too hard" or "we go out not up" or "we've never had a Kindergartener who could actually read, usually they just memorize".

Val has a really good and funny post somewhere about what the fancy brochures really mean. I wish I would have known that in advance! We're moving our HG son to 1st grade at a charter school with the IB primary years curriculum instead.

Yep. That's exactly why we found better luck at the charter school. The private school was clearly prepared to deal with MG kids and those working 1 year above grade level. My K'er who started reading at a 3rd grade level was a huge anomaly for them.

Instead, our public charter was more than open about what they could and couldn't and would and wouldn't do. We didn't hear nearly as many buzz words or scary phrases from them! I appreciated their honesty when they told us they ability group for reading but they are unlikely to find a true academic peer for my son. They followed that by saying they won't totally individualize his reading projects but they'll give him some good, not extra, stuff. We'll see how it all goes together in practice, I've become skeptical!

I agree with everyone else...I have heard the comment "all children are gifted" so many times I feel like banging my head against the wall....

love the comment, "Don't you envy the parents who sign their kids up for the local school without a second thought, knowing that their kids will do fine"

GOD YES....when we went in yesterday to finally take the plunge of attempting school again after a year of homeschooling, as DS6 and I were walking in, this happy-go-lucky family with 2 kids came out all smiles without a care in the world with their registration papers while I felt like throwing up on the sidewalk out of stress if this will be a good fit to meet my little guy's needs.

Welcome Branwen - so glad we are here for you and you found us - yippee!

Here's my hint: Don't listen to anything that the 'talking people' have to say. Insist on sitting in on a classroom. Insist on having their expert teachers sit down with your child and see what they can elicit from her, and what they say about what they observed. You want to see if they can 'see' her, and what they might do with her.

I like the idea of saying Gifted just to see what color they turn, but I think it's much better to just be specific and say, 'For reading she recently enjoyed XXXXXXXX, and in math she just finish learning XXXXXXX. People think that I'm pushing her because of XXXXXXX but she's the one who is pushing me. What can one do with a child like that?

Best Wishes,
Grinity

I've heard this stuff at so-called schools for the gifted, too. I asked a question once about acceleration among kids my son's age (8 at the time). The reply was "There's no difference between them at that age."

It's all a big bummer.



Yeah, some kids have a way of memorizing books they've never seen before. It's a great parlor trick.


Here it is. Glad you liked it. I wish I'd known that stuff in advance, too. See, writing tongue-in-cheek stuff like that is therapeutic.



Val

"We've never had a Ker who could actually read, usually they just memorize???????"

HUH? someone said that? WOW!

Yup. Then I insisted they give him a reading level placement test. Two months later when they finally did, he came out at like 3rd grade 8th month. They then asked me if I had gotten a copy and prepped him. Uh. Yeah. SURE. That was the end of our commitment to the school...

We enrolled DS7 in a charter school which they claim uses "gifted curriculum on all kids". I believe they actually do, however, in upper grades only. When they have enough teachers that are trained, they will send one to the lower grades. My son was in K and 1. His K year was good, but his 1st grade teacher didn't enjoy gifted kids at all and found them burdensome.

Teachers are important. They need to have the gifted training and a heart for gifted kids.

Too many California schools border on or are hostile to gifted students. This has been a huge frustration for us.

We live in the Bay area. There are elite universities here, plus a huge number of other colleges and other universities, plus loads of biotech and high tech companies. Given all this, we have to have a higher proportion of MG+ and HG+ kids than would be found in most other places. Yet the public schools barely have gifted programs. There are a few public schools that claim to be for gifted students, but when I investigated, I saw that they really aren't. We're fortunate to have a few private schools for gifted kids, but they're expensive and not everyone can afford them.

I don't get it (in so many ways).

Val

Lots of good advice on this thread and obviously if you find a school where noone says anything that raises red flags that's good, but in case not, my 2p would be, work out who actually takes the decisions and talk to that person. We got this kind of talk (specifically, the "oh, if a child learns mathematics concepts ahead of the norm they don't really understand them and there are gaps") talk from one person in the school DS5 goes to, but it turns out it doesn't matter, because although her title sounds good, she doesn't take decisions that affect him :-) His class teacher has been great (crucial) and the school's overall head is great (even more crucial) and they've dealt with DS very well indeed. (So far :-) It's probably too much to expect that every person in a school will get your child immediately, but you need there to be someone to go to.

I've been thinking about this kind of statement lately. I heard it with DD4 recently. She's quite obviously good at spelling and sounding out words to spell them. She was tested to skip K and the teacher told me "there were some little gaps. For example, she couldn't tell me the middle sound in a word."

Okay, DD leaves notes for us, etc. (e.g. "Daddy pleas make me some egg." Pretty good for 4.).
From where I'm sitting, the perceived " learning gap" was obviously a just a missing term in her vocabulary.

The way I understand the exercise, the beginning/middle/end-sound drills are used to teach the rudiments of word structure. Thing is, DD never needed this exercise: she just got the idea intuitively.

The teacher didn't seem to understand that not everyone needs to go stepwise through a set of skills designed for average or even above-average learners.

So I wonder if there's a major conceptual barrier among many educators outside of sports and maybe music: namely, they don't or can't see that some kids can just pick stuff up and have no need for formal stepwise instruction.

<sigh> Part of me thinks this should be in a Manual of Giftedness for Teachers or something.

Val

Hi,

Once had an enrolment interview at a local school (high fee private). I was told by the initial interviewer that "there are no gifted kids here", and by the person who later gave the tour of the school that "all kids here are gifted".....go figure!!!

Steph

I agree with Grinity, seeing is believing. My DS6 started school in November rather than August like everyone else. I sat in on several classrooms and talked to many teachers.

Amen on a multitude. My favorite was the expensive school I fax our testing etc to and called. No all our kids are gifted our class is very challenging we wouldn't skip. Three days later the phone rings... sure skip, and we could do something. But that isn't really their philosophy. They just kiss tail of all parents to get all that money from folks.

And I would be very suspect at this point of any K teacher who hasn't seen a kid read. Most classrooms now have at least one reader... now those kids may not be reading like many of your sons and daughters but still...

And the nominees for Most Ignorant Quote by School Personnel are:

READING IS FOR FIRST GRADERS
Q: What will you do with my kid since he is reading now (Pre-K) when he is in first grade, which is 2 1/2 years from now?

Private school administrator: When the other kids are reading sentences, he can read longer sentences!

WE HAVE LOTS OF GIFTED KIDS HERE
Q: How do you challenge kids who are working ahead?

Private school administrator: We have LOTS of gifted kids here. We even let the gifted association use our buildings for their annual conference, so we are very familiar with gifted children.

CAN'T OUTSMART THE SYSTEM HERE, KID
Q: What about a kid who is working ahead in math?

Teacher: Oh, that doesn't happen, and I make sure of it! I tear out the math workbook pages so they can't work ahead. <insert satisfied, knowing smile here>

THEY ARE ALL THE SAME
Q: My child needs more academic challenge and a faster pace, and it is important that they be placed in a class with academic peers.
Principal: ALL the kids at this school are academic peers!

<<<drumroll.........>>>

And the award goes to:

WHAT DOES IQ REALLY MEAN, ANYWAY?
�All children are unique and special. What does IQ really mean, anyway?� -- from the principal of school for the highly gifted which uses IQ as the only entrance requirement

Now, a word from our sponsor, Pepto-Bismol....

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh emmmmmmmmmmmmm geeeeeeeeeeee!

Please tell my you ran away as fast as you could!

Neato

The workbook page one is probably my favorite.

<shaking head>

And by favorite, I mean "The one that makes me want to hit something."

I will never forget when we were looking for schools for our DS. We tried to explain to the Head of one school that our DS was rather advanced and we were asking what they could do for him to keep him challenged - his reponse "I have never met a truly gifted child. The closest that I came to meeting a gifted child was a little boy who could spell yacht backwards"

Needless to say DH and I ran a mile from this school!

How about, "Although you're doing your job by advocating for your son" (I was inquiring about early enrollment at the local public school) "you need to lower your expectations."

The public school also told me that early enrollment or grade skipping isn't allowed because they do intensive drilling before the administration of every standardized test and worry that an accelerated kid couldn't keep up with the drills. This seemed to confirm vague rumors I had heard about public schools deliberately holding gifted kids back for the sake of the school's standardized test scores.

The school rep, who had not met my son, also assumed my son had no social skills, repeating over and over again that what he needs most is to learn how to communicate with kids his own age. This is a kid who has been invited to four birthday parties in as many weeks.

When I expressed concern that my son might not find many true peers among his age-mates, the rep told me that "statistically-speaking" my son "has no peers" and that I'll never find a good school fit for him (I had already found a great fit at a private gifted school but was hoping not to have to pay for it). At least they were consistent about the low expectations part! They would have had me give up on educating my son without even trying.

This may be going too far, but I'd probably run from anyone who claims to know your kid and what they need better than you do.

Actually, I think that's fabulous advice. Especially when they've never met the child or only had a 2-minute conversation.

[quote=Kriston]

Took me almost a year to learn this one... This has to be the possibly best advice I have ever heard. We ended up choosing our Independent Studies program/teacher specifically because she believes that we know our child better than she does. It's a lot harder to find someone like that than you might think...

ALL CHLDREN HAVE GIFTS, BUT NOT ALL CHILDREN ARE GIFTED.

OH MY OH MY OH MY....

CAN'T OUTSMART THE SYSTEM HERE, KID
Q: What about a kid who is working ahead in math?

Teacher: Oh, that doesn't happen, and I make sure of it! I tear out the math workbook pages so they can't work ahead. <insert satisfied, knowing smile here>

Not much to say to that one....turn on your heals and RUN!!!!!!!!

We are looooong gone....disappointment doesn't even begin to cover it. There are a few other words that come to mind that come closer...