<p>dstark:
My son was recognized for his talent by his seventh grade English teacher at the public middle school. This teacher insisted that S audition for the part of "Tony" in West Side story. Even though S was always a good student and active in athletics, it was his participation in theater that seemed to get him motivated, and enabled him to think outside the box. Go figure.</p>
<p>1sokkermom, that is not going to happen to my kid. :)</p>
<p>I'm glad to see that it worked for yours.</p>
<p>Well, remember he did get to kiss Maria (an eighth grader!) on stage in front of the entire school. Who knows what the true motivator was? :) :)</p>
<p>:) :) :) :) :)</p>
<p>Dstark....I got a good laugh when you wrote that playing Tony wasn't gonna happen with your kid, lol. We all know our kids! That's the thing...they are all so different, and different things work for each kid. Clearly singing, "Maria, I just met a girl named Maria...." isn't in the cards for YOUR son. I'm sure he'll find his niche, however.</p>
<p>PS....sokkermom....my D played Anita :D. WSS is a classic.</p>
<p>We just cross posted. But Dstark...maybe he'd love the fight scene between the Jets and Sharks! But I do like the kissing motivator that sokkermom wrote!</p>
<p>Susan - your description of how accomodating your school was to your two is very impressive and I think explains how their writing developed. In New York state, (where we live), every subject has its Regents exams and it is the curriculum. Not only must students pass exams in certain subjects to graduate, they can't just go in and take the exam - you must literally 'sit' in the classroom for so many hours before you're allowed to take the exam. In other words, you aren't allowed to just pass the test (which should be measuring competency, but in some cases merely getting the equivalent of a 35% is passing) but your time must be spent 'serving' the curriculum. I wonder if your school will continue to accomodate exceptional students or if it, too, will be under the thumb of NCLB and its testing regimens. </p>
<p>Your school sounds wonderful. No school can be all things to all students, but I applaud any school that recognizes that and allows students to substitute coursework. At its worst, NCLB has defined a minimum standard and it looks to me like some districts work hard to make sure no one exceeds that. (An example - instead of instructing all 4th or 8th graders for months to get them to do well on the statewide English exam, why not allow kids to take it, see where the problems are, and tailor instruction to those that need it, allowing the others to do work at a level they are capable of? - It's a rhetorical question).</p>
<p>LefthandofDog....I think I should clarify....our ELEMENTARY school was wonderful and individualized and accomodated and truly wanted to meet learning needs. Our MS did NOT have interest in this. Our high school at least had tracked classes, which helps. The state and the school district have NO gifted and talented policies or programs. In high school there was no "substitution of course work". In MS and in HS, through much advocating and with the help of the GC, we forged new ground in getting some accomodations....acceleration, indep. studies, and what not. No courses were subsituted, I may not have explained that correctly. Our school is truly NOT wonderful, sad to say, but true. My kids have taken the requisite subjects. They skipped ahead in math and French. They didn't pass any tests to place out of anything. A few things I explained were prior to high school, as well. I didn't get into everything but was mostly addressing writing. The writing they did in high school was WITHIN the high school curriculum. They were assigned a great deal of writing, as well as they often opted to go beyond that which was required. </p>
<p>I can tell you that the school did not address these things, such as acceleration, gifted learning needs, etc. etc. These accomodations were initiated on our end (in the MS and HS....though the elementary school initiated many on their own and in fact, the principal from that school, as well as staff went into the MS before my younger one even arrived, to advocate for what they thought she would need). My kids initiated lots of this themselves.....they asked for it, were at meetings for it, etc. They have done indep. studies in math but while at school and the school policy does have something in there for that....so along the way, I have had kids do indep. studies in French, Algebra, Geometry, PreCalculus, and AP Calculus and AP Calculus BC (the latter our school does not offer). </p>
<p>The concept of our school "accomodating exceptional students" is a hard idea for me to swallow because let's just put it mildly....they didn't WANT to. We paved the ground for some kids who came after my kids who have similar learning needs....many of these parents are still struggling to do the very same things (ie., Algebra as a seventh grader, taking courses in the HS while in MS in the same facility, etc.). I will say that our elementary school did allow kids to work at their own level. Problem arose when boom, they hit the seventh grade and all of a sudden everyone had to be on the same level.....including learning the French alphabet after taking French all through elementary school. </p>
<p>Well, I'll be on a roll if I go on about this difficult subject. I'm glad my kids are out now. </p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>I should add that our state also has exams at different grade level benchmarks. I can't recall the names of the various tests they administer right now and it changes over the years. So, we have that at certain grade levels as well. </p>
<p>Our state also has a writing and math assessment that is portfolio based at different grade levels. There are formal pieces of certain types of writing that are required at certain grade levels that then get graded on the state level. For math portfolios, there are problem solving with write ups that the students must do of a certain type at particular grade levels as well. </p>
<p>It isn't like we don't have state or national tests, as well as exams teachers give for the class. It is just that sometimes I read other students on here talking of AP classes that are very exam oriented and where they have written very few papers and mostly use textbooks. </p>
<p>When my older D went to Brown, about half way through her first year, I ran into a HS History teacher she had for a very challenging integrated course, in which she had to write many analytical papers and told him how well he had prepared the kids...they read from primary sources, not text books and had to write analytically, much like is expected in college courses, and that some kids who might come from WAY better high schools are all of a sudden grappling with the kind of work one gets in college courses. I told him she was exceling and no small thanks to the style of teaching he had done that was more akin to college style courses than some of the AP style classes I read about on this forum (we did not have AP at the time). I think he felt very good about the feedback....my kid came out of the kind of HS that many of you likely would call a "low ranking" kind, and in fact, she was the only person from her graduating class to go to any Ivy League school, yet there are many kids there capable of doing so....just not nearly as many as at a private prep school but their tracked classes did have bright motivated students in them....these kinds of kids exist EVERYWHERE!</p>