posted
I'm from a post-communist country. We were all about equality. I first heard about gifted programs when I came to Hatrack.
Here's my question: do you think they're such a good idea? Why?
I had about 30 kids in my class at grade school (years 1-8). There were maybe 10 classes in each year. Each class had all sorts of kids, from the gifted ones, to kids with learning issues. I never noticed school being too easy for me, or for the brighter kids. I don't think I knew a single person that was bored in school all the time and would need a more difficult program. There was a minimum all had to know, and there was always a way to learn more, if you were interested.
Every now and then, I hear kids at Hatrack say how they are in gifted program, like that makes them better than all the other kids. Honestly, how many are really so extremely bright?
I don't think I lost anything by not being in a gifted program in grade school, and I was one of the top students. I also don't think I lost anything by having a limited maths and physics course in high school.
So what's the big deal?
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posted
I was in the stupid classes for stupid kids, and it was clear to me that I was not gifted. Maybe it helps the gifted kids, I know it made an impression on 10 year old me.
posted
One more thing. The only reason my mom took my brother from one class to another, was because in that particular class, he was the best male student (with below-average grades). She had him put in a class where there were boys with better grades than his, so he could see boys could have good grades as well. That I understood. But I really can't understand putting a kid i a class where all other kids are as good or better. I can't see how it helps their social development.
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posted
I am myself from the last Stalinist country, and my classes were way too easy for me. Zero effort, excellent grades - until I hit the wall upon entering university. Some more challenging classes might have been a very good thing indeed.
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posted
I was in the gifted program all the way through elementary and middle school, in a situation where two or three times a week, the gifted kids would leave their regular classrooms and go to ...well, whatever the program was called (it was called FOCUS in my elementary school and PROBE in my middle school). In high school, there wasn't a separate program; you were just in honors or AP classes, with most gifted students doing extra-curriculars like academic team.
I got a lot out of being in those programs. For me, it was a chance to show I was, well, smart, without having other kids make fun of me. It was also a chance to do something a little above the level of everyday schoolwork, which was easy at best and boring at worst. In elementary school, we learned other languages, higher level math than we were getting in regular class, did brain teasers (which I loved). We did long-term projects that wouldn't have been doable in a regular classroom. It was sort of a chance to be a geek with all the other geeks and no one to say, "Geez, you're such a geek."
Believe me, I was bored stiff in the regular classes. That, I think, is the point of gifted programs--not so much to give anyone a sense of superiority or inferiority, but to give people who are bored out of their skulls a chance to do something that challenges them.
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quote:But I really can't understand putting a kid i a class where all other kids are as good or better. I can't see how it helps their social development.
For the same reason we don't teach kids of different grades in the same room anymore.
posted
I don't know about calling it a "gifted program" which i agree makes them seem more elite, but for me the concept itself is not necessarily bad. In Australia it's not as concrete a concept as in the States but we have programs for the "gifted kids"...
when i was a part of it in primary school it just gave those involved a chance to expand our learning a little more, acknowledged our potential and helped them not be bored with classes that were too easy (which happens here and often makes kids 'trouble makers', cheeky or distractions cos they have to entertain themselves or find mental stimulation in other ways).
in high school we didn't have a program like that but our subjects were split into streams, and people could decide which to go into at higher or lower levels so people could learn at similar levels to their classmates...you could also change classes (to be harder or easier) in consultation with teachers.
quote: I also don't think I lost anything by having a limited maths and physics course in high school.
I don't think it's about losing anything, rather it's about gaining extra. For me being in a harder stream pushed me to work to achieve what i wouldn't have otherwise, rather than learning the minimum required and leaving it at that...surrounded by other kids who wouldn't ever feel the need to learn more than they had to.
But i think attitudes towards learning and entitlement to school etc is contextual and changes drastically between countries and cultures, perhaps affecting the need for "gifted pragrams". Here it is compulsory, public schools are practically free and kids take an education for granted. In other countries i've lived in to go to school is the highest privilege and a costly endeavour for most children, and so they'll go out of their way, walk for miles, work hard to earn the money just so they can go to school at all...the number of kids there not interested in learning drops dramatically and i'd guess so does the need for a "gifted program".
maybe i've just rambled on and not answered anything though!
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posted
So Dag, what about really smart kids who have learning issues? Or not-so-smart kids, who still could do well at school, if they put effort into it, but don't, because all they see is other stupid kids?
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posted
Kama, I started down the road of distrusting authority. I think it's because I had to find a sense of dignity outside of the framework everyone else excelled in. No, I didn't think I was stupid, but I was smart enough to know that if I were stupid, I'd be the last person to know. And I was smart enough to know that stupid black kids in the US don't fair well, so I better figure something out in a hurry.
quote:But I really can't understand putting a kid i a class where all other kids are as good or better.
It's easy for a gifted kid to get complacent when he's in an environment where he consistently gets the top score in the class without really having to exert himself. While certain individuals have an inherent thirst for knowledge and strive to better themselves no matter their surroundings, in my experience, many do much better with external influences such as a little competition and raised expectations. I believe most gifted children do perfectly fine in "normal" class settings -- but that does not mean they would not have realised an even greater part of their potential if spurred by a more competetive environment. I know a pathologically lazy person such as myself would have.
quote: For me, it was a chance to show I was, well, smart, without having other kids make fun of me.
You make a good point here, Megan. My daughter recently told me that when she was in first grade, she used to deliberately misspell words, so she would be like the other kids, who just didn't know how to spell as well as her, yet. (She also told me she suspects her teacher was on to her trick.)
That said, neither of my kids were in gifted programs - her elementary school didn't have any gifted programs that were worth taking time out of class for.
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quote:So Dag, what about really smart kids who have learning issues?
They should get help with the learning issues.
quote:Or not-so-smart kids, who still could do well at school, if they put effort into it, but don't, because all they see is other stupid kids?
If this is the issue, then a better way needs to be found to motivate them. But I can't see holding back other kids because of this. And it is a form of holding back when half the class understands a concept in half the time as the other kids.
posted
Kama, at most high schools there are advanced classes, and those advanced classes are available to anyone who gets good enough grades to qualify for them.
I was in a lot of college prep courses, and they helped me a lot. I was always bored in the regular courses I took because it too way too long for them to DO anything. I use to read my entire English text books in the first two to three weeks, and most of my classes never even made it through the whole thing for the entire year. I read really fast, so creeping through the text book with the rest of the class just put me to sleep.
On the other hand I am horrible at math, as in I barely passes Algebra I, and never got past Geometry. I would have been lost in Calc or Pre-Calc, but if every person had to be restricted to my level of math skills then no one would have been able to advance past that, and that would have been a shame.
Without advanced reading and social sciences I probably could have graduated, purely from a knowledge standpoint, by the beginning of 10th grade. I wasn't even the smartest guy in my class either, so imagine how that guy would have felt if he was never challenged beyond the point of his basic skills.
I think gifted programs are an excellent way of challenging kids to excel, and providing the advanced knowledge needed to succeed in college and beyond.
Some people feel it isn't a good thing because it causes other kids to feel inferior, but I don't think that is the case. Grades in general could do the same thing....does that mean we should stop rewarding good work all together? If anything we should increase the rewards, and grade on skill rather than on a curve, which rewards mediocrity rather than knowledge.
posted
Hmmm, I'd like to see a comparison in teaching levels between Poland and the US. I'm interested if there is a difference.
I never saw my school as holding the bright kids back. Sure, there were times where some kids undestood things quicker, and where some didn't undesrtand at all and had to stay after classes, or have them explained by someone else. But I definitely never saw that it was a trend. It was different things at different times.
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posted
This is hearsay, but a doctoral student who T.A.ed my child psychology class said that she spend the first part of her schooling in Germany, and if she had stayed there she probably wouldn't have made it into the college-bound tier of students because she was only interested in ponies at age 12.
Also, someone I know from Taiwan was amazed that people here can decided they want to go to medical school pretty much at any point along the line. In Taiwan you have to get on the track to make medical school pretty early in life, like age 14.
But maybe the American system just seems more open to me because I was in gifted classes and AP classes. I recall that my 2nd year Chemistry Teacher didn't want me to take AP physics. I'm sure that if my parents had made a big deal of it, they could have got me in though. I guess being in the "Normal" tier it would probably seem less possible to go on to a good college and do the things necessary to have an elite profession.
The thing is, in America test scores are of equal importance as actual grades. And those two together are more important that much of the curriculum you took. Now if you are competing with a kid with similar grades and test scores, they will look a little closer at the curriculum and extracurricular activities like clubs. But it seems like for most things the first cut is test scores and grade point average (GPA).
I don't see gifted classes helping anyone become a better test taker. My beef with gifted classes is where do they get the teachers for these things? Some of my gifted class teachers were good, but some were awful.
Anyway, I can't really defend the system overall. I just know the gifted program didn't really help me with my problems, which had to do with passive aggressive responses to problems I was having at home. I don't know.
P.S. My problems, as far as I can tell, were a refusal to do homework or ask for help. My teachers both before gifted and in gifted would say "You are so smart, but I have to give you a C because you haven't done your homework."
I am both proud and jealous of my sister just older than me, who has a M.D. Ph.D. from U of Chicago. The main difference I can see between us all along is that she was willing to ask people for help.
posted
High schools are different here. You go to a high school, more or less knowing whether you'd like to continue your education, or whether you want to learn a profession. You choose a school whose profile most suits your needs.
[ January 16, 2005, 12:12 PM: Message edited by: Kama ]
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quote:at most high schools there are advanced classes, and those advanced classes are available to anyone who gets good enough grades to qualify for them.
Where I went to school, a rigorous track started in seventh grade, and moving in or out of the honors bloc was not a common event or an easy process.
posted
Part of the answer might be that American high schools are really terrible. Getting pounded on because you're smart? Honestly, where does that come from? Would certainly never happen in any school I went to.
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posted
Frimpong is probably right about that. If a kid moves into honors/gifted, it either means the class gets bigger or someone has to leave. And Americans are obsessed about class size. The thing I went on to realize, though, is that you don't have to have done gifted to go to college. You don't have to go to a top tier university as a freshman. You can graduate from a second tier university and go Ivy League for graduate school. But young people are so bounded by the beliefs of the adults in their lives.
I know that in my life, my 3rd grader is brilliant in everything but timed math tests. For a while I was determined to help fill in this one flaw, but it occured to me that it keeps the child mortal in the eyes of the class.
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posted
I tested as "gifted" in Grade Six in both English and Math. It was a waste of my time and a terrible crime to everyone else in the class.
I could do the 'Math' questions simply because I was good a patterns, which was all the test was. English even more so. I read books frequently, therefore my English knowledge was better. In the program, they focused purely on math. Surprise! I had no interest in it and no real understanding. I was the dumb gifted kid.
I scored highest in the interview with the principal and lowest on my parents evaluation of me.
The kids who weren't gifted went like this: those who were gifted in just English or just Math weren't allowed in. Those who missed the test had to have parents like mine who forced the test, despite umming and erring teachers.
So there were slews of people who were very smart and didn't get a chance, and there were people like me who didn't get the math and science, needed the background and were excluded from regular classes.
In grades seven and eight I'm sure I had one of the lowest marks in the gifted class. We learnt Bridge (mathmatically-based), we had to make up inventions (technology-based using a step by step method that I just didn't get at all), the list was endless and I hated every moment of it. I could easily see people who should have been in my place, who weren't.
So the upshot of this? I dislike gifted programs in the way that they are handled. I learnt nothing- I dreaded this awful applied technology and awful applied math that I couldn't do very well at all. Very Smart People are invariably excluded and the curriculum was always skewed. I was a reader and a writer, a drawer and a studier.
In grades nine and ten there was another gifted program, called LEAP. It was done by teacher recommendation. I was not invited in grade nine, but I was invited in grade ten. It was a group-participatory clublike thing full of prizes and leaders and secondary leaders. I sat quietlt through the first meaning of silly bonding games, and never went back.
Gifted programs, if they exist, should make sure they get everyone in a way that is fair and not exclusive. They should also look among their curriculum to make sure there is something for everyone. If there is going to be a gifted program it should divide children into their strengths.
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posted
Irami, I guess it varies with each locale, and if I had gone to a school like that I probably wouldn't have been able to get in to some of the classes I did. I really didn't start applying myself at all until 11th grade. I passed everything, usually with B's, up to that point, unless I didn't care about it or I found a way to pass regardless.
I know that some teachers are not good, even if they win teaching awards. I signed up for an English class with a teacher who had won a national award for teaching excellence, and it was one of the worst classes I had ever had.
She said that the midterm and the final were each worth 40% of our grade, and then the midterm was given on The Martian Chronicles. I read then 5 times, and did practice essays on them. I knew the possible ramifications of each story, what the message was of each, each characters name and how they related to each other....
I got the test, and it was 8 questions.
What happened in the first story.
"the second. "the third. " the fourth. and so on...
with just enough room for 2 sentences between each question. She didn't care if we understood them, she just wanted to prove we had read them.
There are a bunch of stories in that collection, and while I knew each story front to back, I had no idea what order they went in. I got a 68% on it.
I got called into the office, because I was in danger of not graduating...because of my very best subject. I laughed at them, then broke out a pace of paper and showed them that unless I got a 51% on my final I was going to pass.
Then I told them that I wasn't going to turn in another piece of homework for the rest of the year, because I wanted to prove what a horrible teacher she was.
They got really mad at me, but there was nothing they could do.
I passed with a B-, proving my point beyond argument.
Just because they CALL it a good class doesn't mean the teacher is good.
quote: For the same reason we don't teach kids of different grades in the same room anymore.
I had a friend coming from a small village, where there were 8 kids in the class, from 2 different grades.
I think the biggest reason why we do it is that we have too many kids of the same age. Classes are already too big as it is. In theory, wouldn't a small (say, 10-15 kids), but differentiated class be better than an all-gifted class?
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quote: Gifted programs, if they exist, should make sure they get everyone in a way that is fair and not exclusive. They should also look among their curriculum to make sure there is something for everyone. If there is going to be a gifted program it should divide children into their strengths.
posted
Three is a difference between the college prep stuff and the Gifted programs, too. I qualified for every Gifted program, but my math skills held me back. I was among the best nation wide in some things, but my math skills were barely average.
quote:If there is going to be a gifted program it should divide children into their strengths.
It takes a keen eye to know the quality and character of a 9 year-old's mind, and it's easy for the teachers to break egos. Maybe I've seen too many schools where the kids of color end up coloring where the other kids as doing academic work, each according to their strengths.
posted
Personally, I found the "gifted" programs in my elementary and middle-school classes to be generally less useful than I'd've hoped. They never seemed all that advanced, and because schools were just starting to experiment with "gifted classes" at the time, my school system took the rather useless approach of having one hour a day dedicated to "gifted learning." This was not only exclusionary but, IMO, ultimately self-defeating; the truly gifted kids didn't get enough advanced instruction, and the kids who didn't get that hour a day of more interesting topics must have been resentful.
In high school, though, I noticed an immediate and telling difference between accelerated courses and "regular" courses. Frankly, I would have gone absolutely, climbing-the-walls insane if I'd had to take the "regular" academic track; the few times my classes overlapped with those, I was singularly unimpressed.
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posted
Kids need to read and write well, not for some economic sense or because they have some gift--which usually corresponds with the interests and intensity of their parents or teachers-- but because it's part of stimulating those faculties that allow people to see and understand vivacity and dignity in the world.
There is something dehumanizing about twelve year-olds thinking of themselves, "I'm a math person," "I'm a science person," "I'm an English person," when as soon as a kid or a school makes that decision on behalf of the kid, it precludes that child from becoming a whole person.
posted
I agree....I think that everyone should have access to as much learning as they can handle. We hwere a predominatly white school, but considering the mnumber of minority students we had I would say they were better representd in the advance classes than the white students were.
But that is just the area where I was, not a good representation of the whole system, that is for sire.
I saw the same things, Irami, but it was usually the troublemakers who got the limited role in classes. I had a friend who was every bit as smart as I was who never eveen finished school. He rebelled rather tahtn allow people to stick him in a corner, and he missed out on a lot,
Had he been encouraged to learn rather than singled out for poor treatment by some teachers things might have turned out differently for him.
He made his own bed though, and some of the crap he pulled was unexcusable, but that was uin high school. We were in tthe same classes in elementary though, and he did fine...when it suited him.
posted
Well, I just rambled about my thoughts on gifted programs, so forgive me. But maybe this will give you a different POV.
Gifted programs should be there to meet the needs of the students. Everyone has such different needs to really reach their full potential. I would say this about any child with any kind of special need. High intellegence is a special need. But like I always tell my children, it doesn't make them any better. Just different. Sometimes very different. There is a case in our program of a child who is literally genius status, but has the emotional development in fourth grade of about a 4 or 5 year old. This kid is very different, but amazingly, because he has been with more or less the same group of kids for the last 4 years, the children accept him as he is and protect him from playground cruelty. I don't think that could possibly have happened in any other traditional educational environment for this child.
When I was in first grade, I was put on the 'bad kids' table so I wouldn't distract other kids. My crime? I got easily distracted. The paperwork was boring. And I asked too many hard questions. I asked questions about space, and infinity, and I would always ask 'why?' or 'how?' when the teacher told us some bit like "caterpillars make cocoons and then turn into butterflies". I already knew that, so tell me more, please. Then add to that the fact that I was not neat in my work, I had glasses, and a speech impediment. This all added up to me being merely an annoyance to the teacher, and she showed it. Her putting me on that table also reinforced with the other kids that it was okay to treat me with cruelty. I remember at the time that I wasn't angry for it only being me, but that she had also labled those other kids and I thought it incredibly unfair.
As a parent, I was very reluctant to put my kids in school, for it had caused me a great deal of pain in my early years. When I finally did, the teacher of my oldest daughter told me that she was amazed at connections Tasha would make. She urged me to have Tasha tested for the local gifted program which starts in first grade, here. I did.
While she tested, parents got to sit at a lecture about gifted children. So much of what they said clicked so well. Such children may be intellegent and be able to learn faster, but in other ways they are often quite challenged. They may be challenged socially because they have been so focused on the literal that they fail to read body language. They are interested in things their peers aren't, and they make strange observations. They are also often less aware of consequences, doing things to satisfy their curiosity without thinking about what effect they might have. Just because they are smart in some ways doesn't mean they are smart in every way. They may be highly disorganized.
I was amazed at the perception. I really wished someone had had that philosophy with me. Then I wouldn't have gotten yelled out for figuring out a different way to do my math rather than just following directions. I have found that this program does fit my kid's needs very well. It is one of the things that keeps us here, because in the US, unlike other nations, there is very little program congruity across the land, especially in 1-9 grades.
There is a problem of some people thinking their children are better because of the program and this attitude rubbing off on their kids. These are also the kinds of parents that will yell at the testers if their kids don't get in. They are very much like the pushy sports parents, except in academics. These are the kids that I think will have more social problems in High School as well, because I remember that arrogance. "I am smarter than you, I am better." But their socializing skills never do get a chance to improve.
I knew that my problem was that I simply didn't know the right words at the right time and made too many social gaffs. And that sometimes, well... the subjects the other students were interested in did get boring and socializing was sometimes a chore. It made me a little sad, and I hoped they knew it didn't mean I thought I was better than them. I had wished it wasn't so, but I didn't want to change myself either.
There is a lot of advantage to 'gifted' children getting to socialize with each other and I think this is a great benefit of programs. But care must be taken to socialize them with other kids as well, and I think that the program here has found a good balance. They're homeroom class is the accelerated one, but they are put in rotations with all the other classes and play at recess with them. In middle school or junior high, only about 1/3 of the classes are part of the program, the rest are mainstream. Also, teachers of gifted students in our program are aware of the social awkwardness and our program actually tests for social and emotional development.
I also very much appreciate the openess of the US education system. I was labelled badly early on. Had I been in a system that puts kids on career tracks early on, I would have been miserable. Forgive my US centric view, but this very openness in what an individual can do through their whole life is a great strength of the country, and I think that aspect has a lot to do with our thriving.
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posted
Hey, Kwea, didn't they teach you to spellcheck your prose in your gifted class? Re-education for you.
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posted
I was cooking brunch and it dawned on me that gifted programs exist so that there isn't a brain drain to private schools. The trouble with letting all the "brightest" kids cream off to private schoool is that there are values that the public education system likes to inculcate in its participants. Same with the private schools.
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quote:Personally, I found the "gifted" programs in my elementary and middle-school classes to be generally less useful than I'd've hoped. They never seemed all that advanced, and because schools were just starting to experiment with "gifted classes" at the time, my school system took the rather useless approach of having one hour a day dedicated to "gifted learning." This was not only exclusionary but, IMO, ultimately self-defeating; the truly gifted kids didn't get enough advanced instruction, and the kids who didn't get that hour a day of more interesting topics must have been resentful.
Tom, I think this was still true when my kids would have qualified for gifted programs. I talked with a lot of parents, and looked at some of the "enrichment" that was made available when my son was in elementary school, and I wasn't too impressed.
quote:In high school, though, I noticed an immediate and telling difference between accelerated courses and "regular" courses. Frankly, I would have gone absolutely, climbing-the-walls insane if I'd had to take the "regular" academic track; the few times my classes overlapped with those, I was singularly unimpressed.
I think this is true for many "gifted" kids - they just don't find the "regular" classes interesting enough and are bored silly.
In my kids' school, they started tracking math only into "regular" and "honors" math in 6th grade. My daughter, who says she hates math, bitched like crazy about being put in honors math. But the first week of school she came home and told me what the "regular" math class was learning (which she heard about from friends in "regular" math) was way too easy for her.
[ January 16, 2005, 02:11 PM: Message edited by: Ela ]
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posted
Well, I got tired of listing to you complaining about fluff, so I thought wuold gave yoose somtin ot ocnplain baout.
Actaully I am old, remember....I didn't ahve any typing experience in schools, that is why I have been teaching myself these days. I am up to 40 wpm, not too bad considering two-three months ago I was at 16 wpm.....
And they used typewriters in my school, not word processers.....
posted
Typewriters, bah. If I had you in my school, I'd get out the cane. Six of the best for that little lot. See how you like being old then.
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posted
When I was in school (lo, those many years ago ), my school district had what they called the Mentally Gifted Minors (MGM) program. The problem with it was that it was only available in the 5th and 6th grades. In order to qualify for the program, a student had to have scored 140 or over on an IQ test (don't ask me what they used; I only took 'em).
My experience was that I was bored to tears from Kindergarten through 4th grade. I'd finish my work before everyone else and then just have to sit there. Or, even worse, the teacher would put me to work helping the other kids. This, of course, did not endear me to the other kids in my class (this started in 2nd grade). I didn't have many friends anyway, and my mother finally had to tell the teacher that she needed to cut it out. Too late; as long as I was in that school, I was stigmatized as being "different".
So, when I was asked to join the MGM program I was quite happy about it. My experience those two years, in 5th and 6th grades was primarily positive. I didn't have that many more friends, but I was doing interesting things and there were enough side projects that we could work on when we weren't doing regular work that I didn't get bored. I don't think the work was that much more advanced than the regular 5th and 6th grade work, but we did a lot more projects and got to use our creativity a lot more. For example, in 6th grade, some of us got to write the script for the Lincoln's Birthday all-school assembly. We did lots of things like that.
But, come junior high, I found myself back in "regular" classes and I got bored again. That boredom turned me into your garden-variety under-achiever. I did all right, grade-wise, in 7th grade, but after that I got to where I just did what I was interested in, which usually wasn't related to anything in any of my classes. I was reading lots of interesting books and pretty much was living in my own mind, but my grades went south at an incredible rate. It just got worse in high school, as I went from just sitting in classes and reading other stuff when I was supposed to be doing my work to skipping classes a lot. My grades got a little better in my senior year, but only because I switched schools. I didn't have an friends there, and there were armed narcs on campus all the time (yes, back in the mid-1970s), so there was no real opportunity to skip class.
All this is the long way around to saying that I don't have that much of a problem with programs for gifted kids in general, but I think that IQ test scores are not the optimum way of determining who gets into them. High grades aren't the way, I don't think, either. I knew too many kids in junior high and high school who got good grades not because they were "smart", but because they simply knew how to play the game. Perhaps in the elementary grades, the way to go with it is to have academic extracurricular activites available to any child who wants to participate. In junior high and high school, I think that something along the lines of having AP classes available to whoever is willing and able to do the work, no matter what the tests say their ability is, is probably the best answer.
posted
I had a typing class in high school, actually, and they insisted that we learn on ancient -- '50s style -- manual typewriters. I groaned and complained at the time, but I have to admit that it turned out to be invaluable. Once you can type on an aging, decrepit manual typewriter, graduating to a modern keyboard is like moving from a toy acoustic guitar to a Fender strat.
In order to pass the class, you had to average 40wpm on the manual; to get an "A," you had to average 60wpm with no errors. I typed 80wpm with one error on the manual, and was quite pleased to discover that this translated, in the real world, into 110wpm with no errors on a keyboard.
Sadly, that skill has only served me well here at Hatrack; I wasn't particularly interested in working as a transcriptionist.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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My oldest daughter has been in the gifted program at school since third grade and I think it's been overall very positive.
In our school, they go to the gifted teacher once per day, and they get their reading grade from that teacher instead of the classroom teacher.
In a normal class, a reading grade would be an automatic for Natalie, she read on an 11th grade level in 3rd grade. Gifted challenged her and made her think in different ways. She loved the class, and getting an A wasn't automatic - she struggled and worked hard for her A's in that class (and didn't always make it!)
The gifted teacher didn't believe in giving them just more work than other kids, but wanted to challenge them and make them think.
Next year, there is no gifted program anymore, she will have to take an advanced track of math and English courses that will eventually culminate in the AP programs in high school.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
I should add that I think Advanced Placement courses at a high-school level are invaluable. I took grade eleven AP English and although I didn't do brilliantly (I love to learn about books and themes and ideas, but converting those ideas into good literary essays is always difficult for me) but I did enjoy it fantastically.
In grade twelve, due to a course conflict (including getting out of a Calculus class ) I had to take the regular University-Preparation English class. It was awful. We had to turn badly written paragraphs into grammatically correct ones. I had no idea some of these things had names, I just knew how to write, fullstop.
The choice for advanced class should always be available. Perhaps they should extend this self-designation gifted idea to the younger grades and have split classes- English/Language, Gym/Active, Math/Science/Technology, and Arts and children choose according to what they are good at, per recommendations by their teacher (so all the boys don't immediately take the Gym ).
It would accomodate children far better than what was offered for me.
EDIT: AP History saved me, basically. People actually cared.
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I went to a special school for gifted children for many years in elementary school. I don't think that made me "better" than anyone else, and I don't think I thought so at the time, either. But it was a great environment for me, because I was surrounded at all times by other children who were of a like mindset and at the same level I was. It helped me fit in, and made it so going to school was a fun thing for me. As someone mentioned earlier, it allowed me to be my geeky self without facing constant mocking for being a geek.
That this was good for me was demonstrated when I was suddenly removed from the program in the middle of fifth grade and sent to a "normal" school. I had failed math, and my teacher that year, who didn't really like any of us anyway, decided that I wasn't "fit" for the program anymore. What resulted is that for the final year and a half of elementary school, I was in a very hostile environment. I faced all the mocking you would expect. And I was absolutely miserable there.
Of course, it would have happened in junior high anyway. My particular program didn't extend past elementary school, so come junior high I'd have had to go to a "normal" school no matter what else had happened. And junior high was a lot worse for me than fifth and sixth grade were. I didn't stop being miserable until I got to high school.
Surpringly, I didn't take a lot of AP classes in high school. Actually, AP European History was the only one I took. I kind of wish I had taken more, but it didn't really feel important at the time. In high school there simply wasn't that same hostile environment I had experienced before. Not that high schoolers are necessarily mature and egalitarian--most adults aren't even that--but still, the world in general had moved on. I did face some mocking, but it was intermittent at most. I was having such a good time by then that it didn't much bother me anymore.
Posts: 1814 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I think "tracking" kids -- segregating them into groups for all their classes -- is horrible. However, I see many benefits when they are tracked for some classes, and sorted more randomly for others. (Where I teach, the classes are divided differently for Jewish subjects and secular ones, as well as many of the specific subjects being split differently.)
I say this both as a teacher (it is certainly easier -- for me, at least -- to teach a group of kids who are all bright and motivated and WANT to be taking "upper" science) and as a parent.
I think it benefits the "lower" students to some degree as well. Why force girls who are not planning on going to college, and have difficulty with advanced algebra to take chemistry and physics? Science classes they need, but not necessarily those.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I think that, like several people here have said, gifted programs can lead to overabundent-ego issues, but on the other hand I was kept out of the gifted program for a few years in my elementary school due to atrocious handwritting (really) and I hated it, I hated being stuck in the regular class where I could easily outstip the 4th grade math teacher (this is not a copmliment on me sadly), division was pushing the limits of the class, where as the gifted class was dealing with complex word problems and optimization techniques and I felt entirley left out, left-behind and utterly bored.
I had a very good experience in high school with honors classes. We didn't have a gifted program, exactly. Whether you take an honors humanities class has no bearing on your ability to take advanced math. I think this is a great way of doing things, personally. My classes were pretty advanced--I'm finding classes here at ASU unchallenging compared to what I took in high school.
It's true that segregating classes can lead to "smart" cliques. However, for me it was actually really nice to have smart friends. It's a lot more fun to talk to people who have the same interests and understand your math/science jokes. High school was also the first time where I didn't feel like my abilities made me weird. It was cool to be smart.
Amka, your observation that high intelligence is a special need is right on! Just as it's unfair to put strugging students with average ones, it's unfair to put the advanced students with average ones. Forcing them to do boring things might put them off education forever. When I went to a private school, there was absolutely no segregation. I was with students who had severe learning disabilities. They had a hard time and I was bored to tears.
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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I was not misdiagnosed, I'm sure I was put in the appropriate class for stupid kids. Just be sure that we know that when we create a gifted class, we create a stupid class, and it doesn’t matter how much jive the teacher spins—and even stupid kids sense jive—a stupid class is stupid class. Before we set ourselves about the business of organizing education around the principle that smart kids ought not suffer boredom, let’s make sure that the stupid kids don’t get lost in our priorities, as stupid kids have stupid little dreams and stupid little desires, which are similar in kind and dignity to smart kid’s dreams and desires but often different in execution. On top of that, knowing that they are stupid, they have to come to grips with the fact that they lack skills and will probably fall short on those dreams as they have fallen short on so many spelling, math, and history tests, like their parents did and do in their every day lives.
And since the gifted kids have all of this time on their hands and may for the rest of their life have the entire world will bend to their chair, it may be an exercise in humility to have the gifted kids work in the same group helping the stupid kids, that way the gifted group learns social responsibility while the stupid group learns math, spelling, and history. I think this is especially appropriate when the alternative smacks a little bit of the white flight approach to education. I know what I’m saying comes dangerously close to socialism, and there is something darn near un-American about forcing kids to help people, even though we feel right about forcing kids to learn long division. (I have not long-divided anything in at least a year, whereas I try to help people everyday.) I believe that a sense of civic responsibility and duty are more appropriate to education than getting a half-chapter ahead in so-and-so elementary school subject. As the former is the measure of a man and the latter is the measure of so and so elementary school subject. Furthermore, there is a sense of dignity that goes along with helping your fellow classmates come to understand the beauty of grammar or any other worthy subject being taught. Your mileage may vary, but it shouldn’t vary too much, or I don’t think you get to call yourself a good person.
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Then I'll not call myself a good person, and be happy therewith. The thing about stupid kids is that they are stupid. What have the stupid people ever done for me? It wasn't the bright kids who beat me up for being small and transferring in from a different school. Let 'em eat humiliation.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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), my school district had what they called the Mentally Gifted Minors (MGM) program. The problem with it was that it was only available in the 5th and 6th grades. In order to qualify for the program, a student had to have scored 140 or over on an IQ test (don't ask me what they used; I only took 'em).![[Smile]](smile.gif)
