Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy When's a gifted program not a gifted program?

Cym -
I totally agree with you about the 'club' kind of pull out program. They are really hard to 'defend' and I'm not sure I would. It's ok for pull outs to be fun, but only if it involves enough above level hard work that the other kids couldn't keep up, and would have no desire to.

It's the schools who are so sure that each child develops a readiness for various activities along somekind of timetable. If there is such a thing as Normal Development, than can't there be a pull out gifted program for children who are on an alternative development path?

((shrug))
Grinity

OHGM,
Well it sounds like the meeting was scary, in a way that the teacher didn't really seem to be 'on target.' It is good that the problems were temporary, and Bases sees like a good subject. My son is just as you discribe with the testing, questioning athority. He has improved with age, and he has no particular reason to be this way - just needs really really clear boundries. Daycare teachers were requesting that I work with him to get him to request less of her attention from age 2. I didn't know that a 2 year old could "walk all over" a 22 year old, but apparently he was doing so. I sure don't know how to quickly train a 2 year old to want less attention. I thought I was going to go crazy repeating, "Not right now, in a minute." Actually I think that if he had been with older kids who he could actually talk to, he would have been less interested in the teachers. Anyway - the teacher probably was exhausted, and now at least you have some insight about the other boy, and the door is open to having her help about the Math - if he happens to become bored!

Big Smiles,
Grinity

Hoagies has a great article on the harm of a GT pull-out program that doesn't cut the mustard. For anyone who hasn't seen it:

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/harm.htm

I think the analogy between GTness and lefthandedness is genius!

K-

Wow Kriston! Great Article. When I came to the part about "Leftie" identification, I didn't know if I was ROTFL or ROTFC (Crying- Thanks Dottie!)

Grinity

Yes, it's so dead-on, it's almost scary! It should be a mandatory read for all school adminstrators and GT coordinators! Very effective!

I read the article last night, thanks for the link. I've been contemplating how it applies to GS8. I've been so focused on teaching GS appropriate coping skills that I've been slow to switch gears and think that maybe it's time to switch his environment.
Now that his reaction to frustrations is not so 'over the top', and he's got a teacher who has responded by giving him a lot more freedom to do projects of his own when he's completed the class assigned work; he's really making a lot of progress with academic achievement. He's enjoying our 'afterschool' activities with the Singapore math book.

I've casually asked his thoughts about skipping grades. He is dead set against something like that, at least those are his thoughts now. My conference with his regular teacher is postponed until next week due to bad weather.

The fact that his academic achievement seems to be accelerating exponetially has me looking at next year as the year that will be more critical in the path we choose. If he levels off at just 2-3 grade levels above his age, then a pull-out gifted program will most likely be adequate along with his extracurricular activities & afterschooling. I'm still wondering how he'll react next year when he's handed a page of multiplication and division problems for math at school, when he's working on algebra at home. Right now he likes the attention he gets in class for kicking butt on the timed tests and being allowed to read or work Sudoku puzzles.

In many ways, he's still very much 8 years old. I'm working from home today and he has a snow day. He did some 'aferschooling' and now he's playing with his favorite monster truck 'grave digger' and driving over all his cars. Hmmm, watching the commercials, maybe that's more a guy thing, and not just an 8 year old guy thing, hahaha.