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sleepless2009 — Once again, thank you very much for your IB info, (Gifted) kids do IB in their 10th/11th in your local school district.</p>
<p>If any of you have similar info, please let it be known.</p>
<p>We are blessed with two who did the IB program and went on to very happy situations. I was speaking from my experience, both as a parent and as an accelerated student myself. If none of what I know applies to your student, then please cherry pick out the posts that are helpful to you.</p>
<p>PV, Olymom makes some excellent points. When S1 was entering 9th grade, he was all about math and CS, period. Those AP history/gov’t courses got him thinking in a whole new way. He became even more of a news junkie. He joined the philosophy club. He joined the school paper. He became a lot more outgoing and started teaching. This led to educational advocacy and more teaching. The desire for more humanities/social sciences and an interest in being around folks studying other things proved so strong that he didn’t choose the “obvious” school where he was accepted, but went some place else that had the intensity of math he wanted, but the rest of the package as well. The social stuff can still be challenging for him – and he was in a HS environment with kids like him and that was extremely supportive on all levels.</p>
<p>Your D will grow and expand her horizons over the next few years. Let her figure out where it takes her. She clearly needs to be academically challenged, but she and you need to be open to the other possibilities. She’s going to develop her own opinions. Noone’s saying she has to drop math or science. They’re just saying there’s more to life than that – and that is a necessary part of her growth, too. You don’t want her coming home on leave from college in a few years because she doesn’t have the ability to see herself as anything other than a brain and can’t integrate into the rest of life. Believe me.</p>
<p>I just hate to see this disintegrate into name-calling when there are important experiences and personal truths being shared.</p>
<p>BTW, I spent some time on the IB website yesterday looking at info that might help tease ouot IB Diploma programs that start in 10th grade. Suffice it to say that sleepless’s school is a VERY rare exception in the US. The program is intended to be for students in their last two years of HS.</p>
<p>CountingDown — Your have shared a lot about IB info. I appreciate very much.</p>
<p>Having said that, I have felt so uncomfortably about , Olymoms posts here. The problem to her has been that, with only given info of 12 year old girl in Calculus, she automatically has imagined (so negatively) as following— this girl does math all day everyday, upon parents PUSH, to make parents PROUD of her, thats why she is in Calculus that early. This girl should have a life. Math/science is not only in her life. She should think about Arts, instead of thinking about science in HS although its REQUIRED. She should stay away from any thinking on math/science. It’s TOO simple imagination in negative direction.</p>
<p>Well, she is a natural learner in math/science. BUT it does not meanthat math/science is her strengths only. In fact. She enjoys almost everything in school. She enjoys ( and accelerate) in every subjects in school. She is one of the most rounded kids in school. As she is too well-rounded, she has been saying I want be a —artist, pianist, violinist, singer, writer, tennis player , you name it. As parent, I have had a lot laugh when she has too many in the list. When she has tone of many interests, her advancing in math has to come naturally, by not spending more time than your kids. In fact she spends less time than your kids in math because she would spends “minimum” in homework. No reason to be accused by strangers this way. Well, always, you have no reason to be too negative about others, specially when you do not know someone.</p>
<p>[Suffice it to say that sleepless’s school is a VERY rare exception in the US]</p>
<p>True, it is probably the only one, but the kids in the program have been in gifted program for years since elementary school. They are at least one year ahead in all subjects, some 3 yrs ahead in math.</p>
<p>PVm - I’ve been assuming that your daughter is a brilliant mathematician, but also great at other subjects too. Otherwise she likely would not have been let out of classes to pursue high school math. I’ve also assumed that she is self-motivated, and that you parents have just done all you can to support her laudible aspirations. Still I saw some good nuggets of advise from the other posters. including Olymom. </p>
<p>I also assumed there was some music interests, due to your screen name. Glad to hear there are lots of other interests too. It helps for balance. </p>
<p>Good luck working with the HS. When IB programs start up, there can be some growing pains. I’ve learned from CC that different HS implement IB differently… so it is hard to plot out the best path. Hang in there. With super bright kids, often all you need to do is stay out of their way. But when school rules and politics are involved, parents often need to get involved.</p>
<p>For the record: All my comments were truly meant to be helpful . . . and I happen to be female scientist.</p>
<p>Sleepless, S2’s IB program is selective admit across a huge school system, with a minimum of Algebra and HS level of foreign language by the end of eighth grade. They take one out of seven applicants, the effective expectation is Alg I & Geometry and two years of FL in middle school. Avg. SAT for the kids in the program is 2140, so they are a high-flying group and the teachers really hold them to high standards.</p>
<p>It definitely takes a commitment to do the full program at his school!</p>
<p>I don’t know if a school new to IB would consider allowing students to do individual “certificates” but my daughter took HL psychology as a sophomore among seniors after taking a CTD psychology course the summer before freshman year and scoring a 5 on the AP exam the next spring. She was allowed to complete the HL IB assessments towards a certificate. She scored 5/7 - not incredible but not bad for a kid who was the age of the freshman at her school. She took the next year off as a “gap year” to be an exchange student, then started at our state’s residential school for gifted this year. Just to give you some more ideas about possibilities…</p>
<p>PS You may find more understanding if you post on the discussion boards on the Davidson Institute’s website. Your daughter would likely be eligible to be a Davidson Young Scholar.</p>
<p>colorado_mom Thank you for your input and nice advice.</p>
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Olymom - Thank you for your assuring me. If I have misunderstood you anyway, please accept my apology. </p>
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Apollo6 - Thank you for sharing your daughters IB experience as a sophomore.</p>
<p>I am going to respectfully ask that you come back to this thread in six months and re-read what has been shared and what you have posted.</p>
<p>TYPING IN CAPS IS LIKE SHOUTING IN SOMEONE’S FACE. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, your apology is appreciated and you have my sincere hopes that your D is happy in all her choices.</p>
<p>PVmusic,
Have you looked into the whole IB diploma, your daughter may enjoy the challenge of the broader curriculum. Also HL maths is not an easy course much of it is at 1st and 2nd year college level, because of the IA’s involved she can indulge her passion for maths further and really test herself.</p>
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Olymom I do not think I have to wait for SIX MONTHS to see what your posts here meant. Your posts will speak for themselves without anyones personal interpretation. So here is yours.
Your talk was not to some other parents who have math accelerated kids. Rather, in your posts, her or she was my D. PUSH, PUSH, , PUSH .WITHOUT REAL THINKING. To you, this girl is PUSHED by PARENTS, WITHOUT THINKING. AND, you said, you are speaking from your experience !!! Wow, good! You are saying it’s only by your imagination. So you had been PUSHED by your mom. Ouch, you must had been terrified by your mom. You had had no life. Even though your acceleration was ONLY by ONE year, it was too difficult one for you, you really had suffered too much as young. I am so sorry to hear that. </p>
<p>But wait, our school has put tons of many kids into, TWO years of acceleration track, and they do so well without suffering like you. With many peers in TWO years of acceleration track, none of kids who are in just only “ONE” year acceleration track would say they are sufferring like you. In fact, junior kids in my Ds AP Calculus BC class currently are kids who have been on the track of two years of acceleration ( and seniors in one year acceleration track). My D has been with them for three years by now. </p>
<p>Clearly you do not have an authority to speak out such way, you vs. your mom, is, my D vs. her mom. You have no understanding of someone like my D who can learn naturally and get accelerated by several years. So, although no one can stop you here, if you say more and more, its like you are screaming louder and louder, how painful you were to be PUSHED by your mom to accelerate by just 1 year. You said you would SHOUT IN SOMEONE’S FACE, and here, sorry, someone has to be your mom.</p>
<p>PVmm - It will be hard to get good fact-based info on IB on CC. Different schools have different implementations. In our HS, the student must do the entire IB program (they have the option to drop out during or after pre-IB classes), including 150 CAS hours and Extended Essay. In the HS in the next town, students can pick and choose any IB classes much like AP. In some subjects there is synergy such that IB and AP is combined. </p>
<p>I think your D willlike IB HL math someday if allowed to take it. There is more proof/theorem background than in BC calc, even though much overlap. And lots of project-like “IA” (Internal Assessment) - DS loved that challeng. There can be some growing pains as schools implement IB - it is different… be ready for that.</p>
<p>My advise parents with super-bright kids is to make sure they are picking up organizational skills along the way. We had one kid that struggled a bit in MS with organization, but the problems were worked out in an age-appropriate way and all was well by HS. The other kid breezed through MS, and we didn’t realize it was all based on a chaotic “wing it” approach that was not sufficient for IB and college courses</p>
<p>I’m sorry you are so offended by the Olymom posts. But to me they seemed well-intentioned even if you found them inappropriate for you case. </p>
<p>Best of luck to you and D. Her love of math and music may make her a good composer- we have one of those, with talent only discovered in an effort to find any way possible to stay off stage for an IB Shakespeare requirement.</p>
<p>If you are proud of your gifted (with 1 or 2 years acceleration), you must equally respect other parents of profoundly gifted too. If you are not guilty to average kids’ parents, profoundly gifted kids’ parents are not guilty to you either.</p>
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Stop distorting, unless it’s about you and your kids’ case.</p>
<p>I am closing this thread, as it has become the locus of too many reports of problem posts. Please be aware that Moderators are all volunteer, and we do not have the time to referee member disagreements.</p>