With the profoundly gifted, sometimes they are. And I realize that many, many schools are under-resourced and struggle to meet the unique needs of kids at both ends of the spectrum, but if there are opportunities to do so - such as the pull out classes comprised of peers - then great. That is far more appropriate than just putting them in classes with students who are much, much different from them in terms of social/emotional development and general maturity.
1 Like
And in most schools, Calc AB/BC is still plug and chug. Thatâs a disservice to gifted kids who want to understand at a deeper level. AOPS covers this material in a very different way. And actually I think AOPS Geometry is even more foundational than their higher level classes - it was very reminiscent of the problems we did in my high school where I had 4 separate math and physics teachers, 3 of whom had PhDs.
2 Likes
My kids are older now and Iâm not involved in the schools anymore. I tried to look it up and what I found just said " the program serves our most profoundly gifted learners, generally 5% or less of our student population."
Youâd have to take it up with the school board. I donât make the policies.
[The program] is our most extreme level of service delivery for students who are identified as giftedâŠProgram placement is not an academic win; it is designed to address specific learning intensities in students from all backgrounds, cultures, and groups which cannot be met in the studentâs neighborhood school. These students exhibit advanced capabilities in creativity, leadership, motivation, and academic learning along with demonstrated high aptitude and achievement when compared to their age peers. These students also present an extreme need for differentiation in all subject areas, particularly reading and math.
The school district also recognizes Academically Gifted, Intellectually Gifted (sometimes a student is both, but not always), and Highly Gifted, plus a few more variations. Those kids are all taught at their base schools.
The specialty self-contained program for the most profoundly gifted students starts in 4th grade and runs through 8th grade, but some kids just do it for middle school.
For reference the criteria for Highly Gifted is 97% or higher nationally normed aptitude test. The kids in the specialty program are more gifted than that. They donât have to do the specialty program, but are offered a spot to accept, defer, or decline. It remains popular year after year. If they didnât have enough students for it the district would stop it Iâm sure.
My kids were NOT in it, but I did know some kids who were. My D22 had a 3rd grade classmate who wanted to be an astrophysicist and could tell you all about it in great detail, very similar to Giorgios in the linked article in the OP, but just with astrophysics instead of philosophy. Another friendâs youngest was in the program. It was clear she just did not fit well in a regular classroom â super bright kid.
I wish our niece lived in town because her son would be a perfect fit. He is 5 and his specialty is geography. He loves it and can name every country in the world. Taught himself to read at age 2. Heâs crazy brilliant, and also kind of hyper.
Re the AOPS math, our school system does not offer that pe se, but they do offer credit by demonstrated mastery, and they do have a couple of courses after AP BC Calc (that is a prerequisite) and also allow high school students to take college courses if they want at several local colleges.
Honestly some kids and parents find our local schools to be too much like pressure cookers. There are just a lot of really bright kids and they are very competitive with each other. The school system has tried to pull back on it and not publish rank, etc, but they are required by law to rank and if the kids and parents ask they have to tell them their rank. Some of the kids are very competitive with each other and will take extra summer school courses to try to get a higher rank. Itâs not really healthy IMO. (My kids were not like that at all.)
One thing that is a big problem at our schools is the achievement gap between lower SES students and higher SES students. There is a racial disparity too most likely tied to the SES. They do have a Talent Identification program starting in Kindergarten, but itâs an ongoing problem they are trying hard to address.
If they are that gifted at 4th grade, and very highly accelerated for 4 years, how can you put them back in the regular school in 8th grade?
Also all these different categories seem contrived. Just being honest, assuming that being gifted is even a thing.
2 Likes
Itâs through 8th grade. When they age out of the program they go to regular high school where they can get all the AP classes and take college classes as needed.
Our state also has a free residential (or not) science and math high school that starts in 11th grade.
1 Like
Not meaning to be grumpy with you but with your school district. I wouldnât consider kids in the top 5% âprofoundly giftedâ, I would just consider them smart. CCâs âaverage excellentâ if you will.
To me, âprofoundly giftedâ is an Einstein, a Steve Jobs, an Elon Musk (love him or hate him, he is brilliant).
1 Like
Itâs not kids in the top 5% nationally. Itâs kids in the top 5% of the student population of our district (remember Iâm in Lake Woebegone, where all the kids are above average). Kids in the top 3% nationally are considered Highly Gifted in our school system, but itâs another level up from that that are considered for the specialty program. I would guess they score in the top 1-2% on nationally normed tests, but Iâm just guessing. As I said my kids have graduated high school and Iâm not involved in the district any more and my kids were not in that program anyway, but the kids I knew who were, were like the kids in the original article.
For background my town is one of the places with the highest number of PhD holders per capita in the US. So we have a lot of really smart kids and a lot of really educated parents.
We are probably saying much the same thing :-). Everyone defines âprofoundly giftedâ differently. I just think scoring in the top 3% of national tests just means youâre smart. But not profoundly gifted, sorry.
My kids went to a highly rejective boarding school, where Iâd guess more than 75% of the kids would meet your school districtâs definition. They are impressive kids! And really smart! But most are not what I would call âprofoundly giftedâ.
(If you canât tell already, I freely admit to being an elitist with this sort of thing. Also, I firmly believe there are all sorts of ways of being intelligent and of being gifted).
2 Likes
Do lots of parents define âgiftedâ in a way that includes their own kid?
1 Like
You might want to read what I said again. Youâre not reading carefully. I think I was pretty clear.
Itâs not kids in the top 5% nationally. Itâs kids in the top 5% of the student population of our district (remember Iâm in Lake Woebegone, where all the kids are above average). Kids in the top 3% nationally are considered Highly Gifted in our school system, but itâs another level up from that that are considered for the specialty program. I would guess they score in the top 1-2% on nationally normed tests, but Iâm just guessing.
I think very few kids are profoundly gifted. Most kids who are identified as âgiftedâ are extremely smart but not groundbreaking thinkers, artists, musicians etc. That isnât to say that they wonât do better with specialized instruction etc, but when I think âgiftedâ I am thinking about true academic outliers and I think those are pretty rare.
4 Likes
Sorry, I did conflate your guess about testing and your districtâs âtop 3%â and âtop 5%â. Btw, how is that âtop 3%nationallyâ determined? I was assuming a test.
In any case, I score really high on standardized tests, as do my kids. Are we âprofoundly giftedâ? I wish! Are we smart? Sure.
I went to a top 3 law school where I had incredibly smart classmates. Were any âprofoundly giftedâ? I do not think so (see my elitest comment!).
I am quibbling about the definition only. I do imagine that really smart kids might need something different than a standard public elementary curriculum. Which is a little bit of an indictment of the state of public schools.
2 Likes
So in answer to this question that started the thread â I think it depends on the schools. Like medicine, itâs very disparate. We have crazy good doctors and crazy bad health care. Some schools are great at meeting the needs of gifted kids and some are terrible.
Some parents do have to homeschool to meet their kidsâ needs â thatâs where our niece with the brilliant 5 year old is right now, but sheâs hoping to get him into a specialty school in her area. I donât that heâs an Einstein or a Steve Jobs or whoever, but he is way way way ahead of his peers and would be bored stiff in Kindergarten. He does 2-3 digit multiplication in his head, can recognize any country in the world on a map or not on a map, taught himself to read at age 2. Heâs just not a regular kid intellectually, but he doesnât belong in a class with 4th or 5th graders either.
Some parents are fortunate to live in an area where there are a lot of resources for intellectually gifted kids.
I think as a country Iâm glad itâs not one size fits all, but I think a lot of kids all over the spectrum donât get their needs met whether they are intellectually gifted or not.
2 Likes
Yes, itâs a test (or more than one test). They also do some holistic evaluations. I know they use CogAT and TerraNova, but probably accept some other tests too as our area has lots of people moving into it all the time.
1 Like
Because you canât just âskipâ into a higher class withing having mastered the foundational knowledge of the earlier classes.
I never allowed our daughter to skip grades, even when that option was hinted. Instead, there were separate G&T classes where a very few kids met and were challenged with independent/critical thinking and problem solving. Any âregularâ class they were pulled out of, those teachers could quickly catch them up in a quick minute at the beginning of the next class, as they were reviewing assignments, etc.
I remember her bringing home work sheets from her 1st grade program, and Iâm realizing she is doing Venn diagrams, while the regular class is doing single digit arithmetic or trying to learn 80 âsight wordsâ. Of course, they didnât actually call it âSet Theoryâ.
These kind of programs kept school interesting, and also help them advance certain abilities.
And Iâm perfectly comfortable with that viewpoint!
Yet â whether itâs 3% or 5%, and whether itâs just being smart, or if some want to call it gifted/talented⊠bottom line: A school district with just five elementary school classes per grade will have a handful of these âwhatever labeledâ kids that do need to be challenged, and allowed to develop/advance at their pace, or risk âlosingâ them.
What my daughterâs teachers actually struggled with, was the absurdity of having to tell that first grader to âput downâ that large chapter book, trying to keep her involved with whatever class.
One approach was that in 2nd grade she was regularly given âChallengeâ tasks as her own, personalized homework - which she absolutely loved doing. It involved researching certain facts on the Internet, find out the answers to a work sheet, produce some art related to it, write a letter to a fictional person related to the subject, etc.
Our district did challenge tasks too. My D hated it because it was in addition to the other work, not instead of, so she felt like she was being penalized for being advanced.
4 Likes
My kid read at 2 but was not lucky enough to be in a school district that helped gifted kids. Luckily he was an athletic bigger kid and used sports and video games to be accepted as a normal kid. Kids who knew him first as a starting athlete or one of the few boys allowed to play Grand Theft Auto were more accepting when they found out how smart he was and kept him from being bullied. His teachers let him do puzzles cubes and origami at his desk to keep his mind busy and his book reports could be on more advanced books. In his public school the âGiftedâ program allowed kids to test out of math units and to sit out the most tedious classwork in an empty extra classroom, but offered no enrichment. The first two years of high school prior to AP classes were tough, since the âget out of boring classâ pass was no longer available. I think sports, video games and watching youtube videos on Quantum physics and non-Euclidean geometry got him through high school.
Itâs often a very different level of interest for gifted kids. Putting them 2 or 3 grades above with kids who are just there because they have to be, is not the same as meeting the gifted kids at their level of engagement. Itâs a very different thinking process and approach to learning. They devour material and books, actively learning on their own. Sitting in a regular class, perhaps with bored students, does not meet the need to engage and discuss and share. Itâs not just the material that matters.
5 Likes