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

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

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