<p>"Here in SoCal, we call it "GATE" -- I think the acronym is "gifted and talented education," or some such. It's clearly a dodge."</p>
<p>Not as big a dodge as "Kalaidoscope" @@</p>
<p>"Why not just call it 'accelerated' progam - since that's what most of those prgograms offer?"</p>
<p>Actually having hung around the gifted boards at AOL for 9 years, I don't think that's true. Most offer enrichment, many for as little as one hour a week.</p>
<p>"Before you guys start coveting the parents of kids with learning disabilities -- as the parent of a dyslexic child, I have to tell you that getting meaningful in-school assistance for a kid with that sort of LD is extremely difficult."</p>
<p>Actually the absolute worst is a gifted child with LDs. They can present well enough to look average.</p>
<p>Not worst in the sense that you worry about their future, but frustrating because it's almost impossible to get a school to admit there is a problem.</p>
<p>"But the goal of the public schools has never been to provide excellent education for all; it's been to provide adequate education."</p>
<p>But that doesn't explain why so many school systems aren't willing to even consider the solutions that would be easy for them to implement grade or subject acceleration. The years when we had teachers or administrations willing to allow subject acceleration the problems for the school were minimal. It was much easier than having yet another "advanced group" in a regular classroom.</p>
<p>DRJ4: You've tempted me too much. I never asked for a penny of resources. Just one example: in 5th grade, the science specialist, a wonderful young man, came to each class once a week and ran labs, did demonstrations, etc. My son's day was Thursday, which happened to be the same day as the once-a-week pullout program for "gifted" kids, the only reason S could stand going to school. I was told he had to choose between science and the enrichment program. I pointed out that there were 4 other 5th grade sections in the same school that had science on a different day, so the problem was easily addressed by moving him to another class. NO WAY! Great effort had been expended to balance the class along the lines dictated by heterogeneous grouping. Result: no science in 5th grade, disappointed boy, angry parents. It wouldn't have cost anyone a penny. That kind of rigidity makes me hot under the collar, still, years later.</p>
<p>We have no gifted program (zero budget for the entire state). That's never been my problem. In fact, reading about gifted programs elsewhere, I'm very happy my S was not part of one. What we tried for and sometimes achieved, though not always, was flexibility in placement and scheduling. </p>
<p>Mathmom: I agree with you. I once heard of a very bright girl whose partial deafness was not diagnosed until she went off to school because at home, she'd learned to face her interlocutor and lip-read. Her mother was besides herself with self-blame. Lots of gifted children with LD mask their giftedness with LD and mask their LD with their giftedness. Others play dumb so as not to stand out.</p>
<p>"In fact, reading about gifted programs elsewhere, I'm very happy my S was not part of one. What we tried for and sometimes achieved, though not always, was flexibility in placement and scheduling."</p>
<p>And that is what we found in the independent school. Problem solved--at huge expense to our family. </p>
<p>But don't get me going on why only people with resources, which we are to some small extent, have this option.</p>
<p>Midmo,</p>
<p>I don't have a problem with parents asking for help or special programs. In fact, that's what is supposed to happen. There are no better advocates for children than parents. My problem is with administrators and school boards who provide generous funding for extremely gifted and/or impaired students to the detriment of the majority of the students. These people are supposed to keep the big picture in mind and often they don't.</p>
<p>Anyone who thinks the top few percent doesn't have problems--because how could it be a problem to be TOO SMART?--hasn't dealt with a furious child who hates going to school and is starting to develop the kind of anger-management problems that lead into drug and alcohol abuse--simply because he's being fed educational pablum when he's ready for steak!</p>
<p>I've no argument with that. My 9th grade daughter was one of the sinkers or swimmers back in the 2nd grade. No amount of subtle hints could persuade her teacher that "group writing" was a bad thing for a sociable girl who never ever said no to her friends' suggestions, or insisted on having just a little bit of input herself. I ended up home-schooling that one for three years. Guess I'm hard to please.</p>
<p>I agree with you that the big failing of our schools, both public and private, is low expectations for the great big middle. I'm not sure it is lack of resources as much as lack of imagination.</p>
<p>Midmo,</p>
<p>I agree, especially that it might be more a failure of imagination than of resources. And thank you for your earlier comment. You helped me clarify my point and make it more clear.</p>
<p>Midmo:</p>
<p>A private school can be just as rigid as to placement and scheduling and limited in range of choices. It would not have suited S. We stayed with the public school and S skipped from 6th grade to 11th grade math and everybody was happy.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Anyone who thinks the top few percent doesn't have problems--because how could it be a problem to be TOO SMART?--hasn't dealt with a furious child who hates going to school and is starting to develop the kind of anger-management problems that lead into drug and alcohol abuse
[/quote]
Yes DMD, but what you don't understand is that my son was furious and angry and hated school and had all sorts of anger-management problems, but he also didn't know how to read. Which meant that he had no other prospects -- he would not be able to function in life and hold down a job with a reasonable wage unless he became literate. I'm not saying that the kids at the top don't have a need; I'm saying that the kids on the bottom have a greater need. I've experienced things both ways: parenting a bored child just is not as difficult as parenting a struggling child.</p>
<p>Some of the methods that are used to teach gifted children have been shown to benefit nearly all children. Unfortunately, this research hasn't informed practice much, not only haven't the methods migrated into the general classroom, but in many cases, they are also disappearing from the curriculum of the population they were designed for.</p>
<p>I observed a HS English teacher one day in back to back periods. Both classes we working on a research paper with an oral and multi-media presentation. One class was AP, the other regular education. What was interesting is that the teacher had the same expectations for both groups in terms of the quality and quantity of what she wanted. The difference was that the non-AP group got more time to work on the project and more structure and guidance (extra lessons on note-taking, interim deadlines so the teacher could give feedback at various stages, instead of at the end). I kept thinking that this was how education is supposed to work.</p>
<p>Calmom, your post about your S. made me think of another issue that bothers me, the way we are teaching kids to read now. But none of this is meant to apply to your son's situation, since I don't know anything about him, other than that he sounds like a great kid who had a hard time. </p>
<p>Anyhow, one problem is the push now to get kids started reading earlier and earlier, and to label kids as young as 5 or 6 as having a reading disability if they aren't up with the group. Once these kids are labelled this way, they end up spending most of their reading instruction on drills that practice isolated skills but do little to inculcate a love of reading or comprehension beyond decoding and surface meaning, and the child often gets even more frustrated and falls further behind the group. This instruction comes at the expense of exposure to rich, meaningful texts with patterned (especially rhyming) language, which are quite possibly a pre-requisite for learning to read. </p>
<p>Not all kids are ready to crawl, talk, ride a bike, use the stove, stay home alone, marry or get a job at the same age, why would we expect them all to be ready for reading at the same age? </p>
<p>Research shows that in the long run, it really doesn't matter if a child learns to read at 4, 6 or 8; eventually the effects of reading early have flattened out. So there's no harm in giving kids a little more time to develop, and more of what they need in the interim, before pinning a label on them that may have serious negative consequences.</p>
<p>(This relates vaguely to the thread, since I think part of what we are objecting to is externally mandated precociousness--kids being rushed into tasks before they're developmentally appropriate; what's happening in reading shows that it's starting way before HS now).</p>
<p>"A private school can be just as rigid as to placement and scheduling and limited in range of choices."</p>
<p>Perhaps even more so, I'm sure. Fortunately, the tiny startup in our town was willing to be extremely flexible, partly just to attract students. It didn't matter to me what the universal norm was, or that many public schools meet accelerated kids needs well. The only public school we were allowed to attend was run by The Dragon Lady, and the only secular independent school met our needs. I don't like private schools just because they are not public schools. I like those that meet the needs and wishes of families who don't find what they need at the public school</p>
<p>Conyat, I enjoyed your post.</p>
<p>Conyat, I agree with you about your observations about reading instruction, but dyslexia is not merely an issue with reading -- that simply is the most significant academic manifestation. A dyslexic kid typically has a whole range of other issues: for example, my son had difficulty learning to tie his shoes or ride a bike, had difficulty understanding verbal instructions, understood math concepts but has problems learning multiplication tables and long division, etc. It is a problem with the sequential thinking and language processing & also with visual sequencing & discrimination, and it doesn't get fixed merely by changing the curriculum, although obviously you are right that it is a waste for the kids to simply get more drill in basic, subsidiary skills. (But my son never had that in any case -- our problem was that the school simply denied he had a problem, so he was always in a regular classroom with regular reading instruction along with the rest of the class). </p>
<p>You are right that the age at which a kid begins reading doesn't matter, too -- as long as the kid starts to read. Dyslexics typically follow a pattern in which they plateau at primarly level - they get to the point wher they at 2nd or 3rd grade level, but they get stuck because they do not develop fluency and automaticity with their reading. All of that can be addressed and resolved, but it is rare that it happens without help and intervention. It is not a developmental issue that they grow out of.</p>
<p>So the point is that it is a very real learning barrier, separate and distinct from what some researchers term garden-variety poor readers. It is also very commonly associated with high intelligence and creativity, so the gifted+dyslexic combination that mathmom mentioned is a very typical pattern. Once you know what to look for, it's easy to spot the dyslexic kids. </p>
<p>Anyway, my point was only to point out that when educational funds go to help LD kids, these are kids who will not probably not be able to succeed in school even at grade level without some sort of intervention. It's not that the high-end kids don't also need help and support -- its more like an academic triage -- you have kids who can't be helped no matter what you do, and kids who will survive academically whether or not they are helped... and then there are the kids who can be helped, but aren't going to make it unless they get the help -- which is where LD and a lot of other at-risk or special categories (like ESL) fall.</p>
<p>Actually, the research shows that reading earlier is better for most. According to the Public Library Association, if a child is a poor reader at the end of First Grade, there is an almost 90% probability that the child will be a poor reader at the end of Fourth Grade. Most kids who are behind, however, do not suffer from a learning disability, but have a CDD, that is, a curriculum deficiency disorder. (Some interesting reading facts: <a href="http://www.sedl.org/pubs/sedl-letter/v14n03/2.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.sedl.org/pubs/sedl-letter/v14n03/2.html</a>)</p>
<p>idad, thanks for the link. It puts things into perspective. Good teachers are the key.</p>
<p>Calmom: the needs of kids at the bottom--and those with learning disabilities, emotional disabilities, and so on--are recognized under the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires that they be educated as successfully as possible. Enormous resources are expended by the school systems, sometimes 10x that spent on "normal" kids. I agree that kids who can't read and struggle with learning should have greater resources brought to bear than those who aren't struggling.</p>
<p>HOWEVER, you fell into the all-too-common trap of thinking that it's easy to deal with the highly intelligent kid in the schools. Even the schools fall into that trap. BUT: a creative intelligent kid who hates school (because his intelligence is constantly being insulted) and believes society has it in for him because he's "too smart" (and too young to do ___) is not a kid you want around, believe me. They're the ones who will distill ethanol in the back of the chemistry class WHILE THE TEACHER IS WATCHING and the teacher will think "he's a good kid, he gets all As" without ever realizing that the kid is also plotting how to steal the materials to make dynamite at home. Many teachers HATE smart kids--and will tell you that--because they show them up and correct their mistakes. </p>
<p>When my son got a higher score on the math SAT than his algebra 1 teacher when he was in 6th grade (when my son was in a class with 8th, 9th, and 10th graders), his teacher said "well, I have no idea what to do with him, he already understands this better than I do." Really helpful.</p>