I'm curious. Dd13 is, admittedly, turning into a teenager in terms of her attitude so I don't know how much of this is her or something else. I bugged her to attend a freshman GT lunch that her school had today. As has been the case in most, if not all, schools she has attended, she heard at this meeting that about 16% of the kids in her grade have a GT identification. I believe that the purpose of this meeting was to give the GT kids a chance to meet one another and find like minds/souls.
Dd doesn't seem to feel like she is any more likely to meet kids who are "like her" in her accelerated/pre-AP classes or amongst the kids with the GT identifications than she is in non-accelerated classes, or among the non-identified kids. She came home totally irritated (my teen again) that I had "made" her go to this meeting and assured me that the majority of the kids weren't even of average intelligence. I'm sure that she's exaggerating there, but I am wondering...
Do any of your kids feel like GT classes, etc. are better places to find like souls than the regular classes? Dd seems to feel like the kids who are GT ided are no more likely to be gifted than others. She also feels like the kids who are different in the way she is (probably HG types) are often not identified b/c they aren't the compliant hand raising types (although she, herself, is a good student b/c she knows that she needs the grades for her college aspirations and has a lot of direction in that regard).
If not through GT stuff at the school or AP classes, where is one to find the like souls in a big high school, then?
I'm hoping my son will meet more like-minded kids in the gifted program next year. His best friend this year is bright; I don't know if he is "gifted." At recess they frequently are looking at ants or things on the ground; my son monologues about it and his friend nods.
It was in AP classes that I found other students like me - the ones who pretty much coasted along, never studying, only doing half the homework, etc, and still getting A's. Not sure there were any PG kids in my HS, tbh. I would say of the twenty of us who all took all the AP classes for two years about 8 of us were "gifted", the rest worked and worked and worked for their grades. That's 8 kids out of a graduating class of 500, btw.
(I used quotes because, as far as I know, none of us had ever had an IQ test since probably early elm. At a certain point you just "know" when other people are on your wavelength or not.)
It was in AP classes that I found other students like me ...
In all fairness, dd doesn't have her first real AP (not pre-AP) class until next year.
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(I used quotes because, as far as I know, none of us had ever had an IQ test since probably early elm. At a certain point you just "know" when other people are on your wavelength or not.)
I'd agree and suspect that dd would as well. She has no need to see IQ scores for her friends (lol!). One of her friends from middle school who she & I would both feel comfortable calling EG-PG has not taken an IQ test as far as I know, but you can tell. She's an underachiever, but seriously brilliant. Dd is looking for people like that.
At least on a positive note, she does seem to be making a few more friends. I just hope that they develop into deeper relationships like with her friend from last year at some point.
My kid is too young, but for me: - academic bowl (primarily on the opposing teams; we were in the same competition pool as the gifted magnet) - speech & debate (even among the drama kids, who were generally not academically gifted, but had huge tolerance for difference / weirdness - band kids tend to be that way, too) - high-level (no AP at my school, but what would be AP classes now) classes taken with 1-2 grade higher kids
If not through GT stuff at the school or AP classes, where is one to find the like souls in a big high school, then?
In my "big" high school, the HG+ kids were generally found hanging out at lunch and before and after school either in the music room, the science research and comp sci teachers' rooms, or the library, or at the science fiction book club meetings...but this was at least as much because those places happened to have the few highly gifted adults in the school running them as it was because the gifted kids naturally gravitated to those subjects.
Quiz Bowl is where my D has found her tribe. She would do academic decathalon if her school offered it, too. They also have a Future Problem Solver's team that she enjoyed for a couple of years, and she has some gifted friends on the Robotics team.
I would say she's absolutely right. DS9's school had a meeting for parents of "gifted" students a couple of years ago (probably since then too) and the principal told us that there were about 30-40 kids in the school (k-12) who were on the "watch list", but only three that were really "up there", of which DS was one.
In my experience, GT and AP type classes attract bright kids who are overachievers, but the really "up there" kids will be found in Knowledge Bowl, Speech and Debate, Chess Club, or hanging out in the art room during lunch. YMMV, of course, and it could well be the chemistry lab or computers, it just depends on the particular bunch and the specific teachers involved. Those kids may indeed be in the GT or AP classes, but the classes as a whole will not be particularly heavy with them.
I would add Destination ImagiNation, but we've had three different methods of determining who is in that in three years now, so it depends on how the teams are made up.
I went to nationals with my science project my senior year of high school. That was the first time I met other kids who thought and felt like I did about science. Certainly in college I met other people like myself.
Unless it's a gifted magnet school, any school classifying 16% of its student body as gifted is obviously mis-classifying a raftload of them. At the 84th percentile you're only just outside one standard deviation. No wonder she feels superior.
With that said, my friends were almost entirely below me in IQ, because the ones at my level were in things like the chess club or the math club, and I wanted to have fun. Most of my closest friends were the kind of AP students that actually have to study, and they'd get mad at me when I'd do things like crank out a 5th period essay during lunch. But I also had a several friends who'd never seen the inside of an AP class.
Depending on the area, 16% of kids really could test GT, even though in the larger world it should be less than 1%. However, IIRC, the OP's chools cast a very wide net, make various exceptions, and use criteria other than IQ.
I often found students between 1 and 2 standard deviations above normal to be the most annoying. They've had people telling them how smart they are for a long time, and they lack an appreciation for how slow they are compared to those well into the top 1%. I spent much of my high school career trying to give those students an appreciation of our differences (in math and science anyway... that's as far as my gifts go).
It reminds me of this video of a Ferrari racing a fiat... and an F1 car.
The bright kids are like the Ferrari. They think they're really fast, and that they should have kinship with other fast cars. From the perspective of the F1 car, the Ferrari isn't even fast.
I don't think you can find like souls simply by looking for GTness. I would suggest your DD try to find activities that she enjoys, and she is likely to find some like souls at least in those areas. My friends in high school were the artsy/theatre kids, but no soul mates within my high school. I found the most like-minded people among the skate punks, likely finding an outlet to boredome in discovering how high they could make their mowhawks. I find more friends just doing things I enjoyed. Unfortunately, I didn't meet most of my good friends until after college.
Unless it's a gifted magnet school, any school classifying 16% of its student body as gifted is obviously mis-classifying a raftload of them. At the 84th percentile you're only just outside one standard deviation. No wonder she feels superior.
ITA and I know that I've brought up before that I feel like rampant overidentification of GT is a problem in our area. There are no gifted magnet schools locally, so this is not one. Like MON mentioned, the very large majority of kids with GT identifications do not have these ids based on IQ tests. I totally understand $ constraints for things like that, but do wish that there was a better understanding of the difference btwn a kid who is in the top 1% of ability vs. a kid who is GT b/c s/he achieves highly, was recommended by a teacher or parent using a subjective rating scale, is creative, shows evidence of leadership, or was given both the CogAT and OLSAT (sometimes more than once) and hit the 95th percentile on one part of one of these tests at least once.
Having her develop a superiority complex is definitely not desirable. Middle school was a good place for that not to be a major issue b/c, although her middle school had also identified about 17% of their kids as gifted, dd was probably the youngest in her grade with the combo of the grade skip and her bd making her younger, and she had an unusual group in that one grade where there were a few definitely gifted kids including the one friend who is HG+. While she had a lot of kids in her accelerated classes who she felt to be bozos, she had at least the few who were impressive enough that she wasn't developing a sense that she was smarter than everyone else in the school. This middle school group has dispersed & dd is at a different high school than her HG+ friend, though.
I'm not sure what more we can do to avoid dd developing an attitude problem. Like I said, some of it may be her becoming more of a teen, but it would be really nice if she could find some other kids who engage her and help ground her in the reality that the rest of the world isn't stupid. The new group with whom she is eating at lunch sounds like a better fit for her and she is signed up for speech next year, which a # of you have mentioned as a good place to meet gifted kids, so we'll see how it continues to develop.
I often found students between 1 and 2 standard deviations above normal to be the most annoying. They've had people telling them how smart they are for a long time, and they lack an appreciation for how slow they are compared to those well into the top 1%. I spent much of my high school career trying to give those students an appreciation of our differences (in math and science anyway... that's as far as my gifts go).
It reminds me of this video of a Ferrari racing a fiat... and an F1 car.
The bright kids are like the Ferrari. They think they're really fast, and that they should have kinship with other fast cars. From the perspective of the F1 car, the Ferrari isn't even fast.
You gave me an excellent laugh. A co-worker and I have talked about this before. People who are a bit smarter than average feel like they are super smart and know as much as their is to know and are as smart as can be. People who are smarter than them realize there is no ceiling on being 'smart' and are aware of just how much there is to learn and know in life.
My son is STILL searching for that one soulmate. He was confident that the same kids in the elementary g/t program would surely sign up for the middle school math league, robotics, quiz bowl, orchestra, science olympiad, etc...What a shock when my son was the ONLY one who did. The g/t elementary identified kids have dropped off the radar and according to my son, are more concerned about finding a boyfriend/girlfriend, and facebook. When I look back, I remember being surprised with the kids who were chosen for the program. They were the typical teacher pleasers and the kids of teachers. Now fast forward to middle school...The kids who DID sign up for math league, quiz bowl, science olympiad, etc...were the kids who were never identified for the g/t program. Sigh... and as you know, a whole OTHER story! These kids have ended up being the kindest and the ones my son can relate to the most. He still is searching for the soulmate, but it's a start!
FWIW, we aren't in HS yet. I do have several friends who have gifted kids in high school. I've noticed that the kids seem to hate the "gifted" label. They would rather die than go to a "gt" lunch. They seem to want to be identified by what they are doing -- band, robotics, AP calc, whatever. They perceive the gifted label as a parent thing.
I think that is true from what dd said. Dd said that about 20 of the 80 kids who apparently have a GT id showed up. She also said that the ones who seemed actually bright all left early (as did she) and that the only ones who expressed interest in ongoing GT meetings were the kids who struck her as the least bright.
My dd prefers non GT kids. She finds the GT kids to be more single minded in pursuit of being right, smart, acquiring school treasures,etc, and less willing to sort of explore and experience life.
A friend likes to weave and knit. I once looked at her yarn collection. I counted hundreds of shades of red, yellow, blue, etc. And then saw how she combined the shading to produce something gorgeous and almost infinitely complex. She said I was the first person to notice all this.
I see the same blindness to complexity among my high achieving peers. In fact, they often try to reduce complexity to make things "go better" when in fact they destroy options by doing that.
I am going to gently say that I would encourage your daughter to spend less time trying to figure out who is really smart and who is not and more time trying to find kids she likes who share her interests.
Probably true and also why I bring this up. Dd has always been pretty centered and never been one to go around judging others as stupid. I think that the lack of peers this year coupled with entry into official teen-hood has been leading her more toward having a distainful attitude that would be nice to see nipped in the bud.
My interest in her finding other HG kids is due to the fact that, when she had some friends like that in middle school I didn't see this side of her. I have encouraged her to join clubs, start clubs... Her homework load this year has been crazy but we are hoping that she'll have more time to fit in extracurriculars next year.
I think that your dc are in a gifted only school gives them the opportunity to have potential intellectual peers which may make the focus on who is smart or not less of an issue. I certainly don't want dd to go around judging people's intellect. I do think that being in an environment where you feel like few, if any, of your peers are people with whom you can have a conversation that doesn't include trying to convince them that the U.S. isn't literally selling states to China lends itself toward having a child/teen develop distain for others. That isn't positive. I do think that having some intellectual peers would help her attitude and, thus, want to support her finding other gifted kids.
Cricket, do you have a 4-H program near you? IMHO the benefits of 4-H are endless but I most appreciate the real life experiences that come from showing animals or competing in a food prep competition or building legos.
4-H has taught both my kids that success isn't always about winning, it's about learning and doing your best. Dd has lost to others in the ring for ridiculous reasons, such as the judge didn't like the color of her animal's collar. It shouldn't be like that, but that's life and sometimes you have to suck it up. Sometimes, the not-so-smart kid who really worked with his animal, wins. It's not always about brains. Effort counts!
She's learned sportsmanship and how to lose with grace. More importantly, she's learned how to win with grace.
so I don't know how much of this is her or something else. I bugged her to attend a freshman GT lunch that her school had today. As has been the case in most, if not all, schools she has attended, she heard at this meeting that about 16% of the kids in her grade have a GT identification. I believe that the purpose of this meeting was to give the GT kids a chance to meet one another and find like minds/souls.
Not sure there were any PG kids in my HS, tbh. I would say of the twenty of us who all took all the AP classes for two years about 8 of us were "gifted", the rest worked and worked and worked for their grades. That's 8 kids out of a graduating class of 500, btw.