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The Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy changed my son's life. It was literally a godsend. The gifted and talented programs in grade school really didn't cut it for him.
In grade school, one particular Highland Park school did much more for my son than the gifted and talented classes did.
That school has split classes. 1st and 2nd grade classes are taught together as one classroom up until 4th and 5th grade being together in one class.
For high school, The Illinois Math and Science Academy is a public State of Illinois School. Monday through Friday, the kids stay in dorms. Most kids don't go home for the weekends, as it can be a real schlep from Aurora to let's say, Carbondale.
The school application includes taking the S.A.T. and getting five teacher recommendations. The school is three years, sophomore through senior year. Some kids skip freshman year and come in right from eighth grade.
The buzzword / trend shift in education currently seems to be against anything other than "inclusive differentiation". Not sure how much this is driven by the penny pinchers and "angry special ed" types and how much might actually be sensible but it is important to understand what the current "thought leaders" are doing.
Personally I have taught kids of all abilities and from a practical standpoint it hard to say that that even the most talented teacher can truly meet the needs of all students in a completely heterogeneous classroom. At the other end of the spectrum, anything that is too rigid in excluding students will clearly not have broad community support and likely won't serve students particularly well. In my own district the staff that formerly served the "gifted and talented" have been re-purposed as "differentiation specialists" and I know that is not well supported by the community members in Hinsdale / Clarendon Hills...
Further I personally know that many district leaders have felt a need to be "intentionally vague" about how different "gifted" classes might be from "standard" Common Core -- this leads to kind of overly generic expectations -- http://www.dist102.k12.il.us/system/...0Website_0.pdf
When my son was at IMSA for high school, the Wall Street Journal did a real number on all the gifted and talented high schools, saying they were elitist. If it weren't for IMSA my son wouldn't be the success he is today. Seriously. He could have ended up a gifted and talented bank robber. My son was miserable in school until he got to IMSA.
Hi Junebuggg, sorry, I didn't mean IMSA was in any way less of a great experience than Uni, just that it was different (because of the dorm set up). I've met a few people who went to IMSA, and I know it is an incredible school with brilliant students!
And I completely know what you mean - I credit Uni with allowing me to gain self confidence and blossom academically and socially. While in grade school, I used to pretend I didn't know the answer to questions, so I wouldn't be made fun of (didn't work out, anyway), and was so bored from the curriculum that I'd get in trouble from goofing off.
... self confidence and blossom academically and socially. While in grade school, I used to pretend I didn't know the answer to questions, so I wouldn't be made fun of (didn't work out, anyway), and was so bored from the curriculum that I'd get in trouble from goofing off.
The more desirable suburban schools already have an environment where students are strongly encouraged to respect the range of learners that are present. The proactive ways that districts do this can range to a very organized approach to Community Consolidated School District 181: SELAS to just having staff that interacts with students in ways that reinforce the value of high performance.
Adequate differentiation can happen without any special "pull out programs" especially in districts where the average level of academic performance is already superlative -- Differentiating curriculum for gifted students
Chet, what you said about a gifted teacher... I feel so lucky that my son's 4th and 5th grade teacher was like that. He had the kids build their own little houses or spaces out of refrigerator boxes that they lived in all year. Some kids put them together and made apartment buildings. That kind of teacher.. wow.
If I compare that to how stupid things were in middle school. If I knew what I know now, I would have never let this happen, but in Highland Park they had my kid take a bus to the high school for math. Ugh! In addition to the pull out program.
I am really glad when I hear how different things are now
North Shore Country Day... but it's private, so maybe not what you are looking into, but I would not want to send my kid there... this is only based on one child I know... a little girl I babysit for. She goes to school there... a really super bright kid... and she is not being challenged, she tells me...it makes me sad.
Cbs... the lab school you attended.., I think it is fantastic! Any kid lucky enough to get into a program like that...would fare better, just because it is a university, in my not so humble and certainly uneducated opinion, I was a high school dropout.
Northside College Prep, and Whitney Young, yes yes yes!!!
IMSA... the money thing.. it's free.. no pressure cooker thing.. I was a broke single mom.. everything was free but a small fee for room and board... way back then it was around $200 but they let me slide on that. We lived in Highland Park and Deerfield before that. My kids didn't have great clothes like some of the other kids had, and they were made quite aware of it by the other kids. IMSA kids, I don't think had those "clothes feelers" out. They were too busy concentrating on whatever geeky thing those kinds of kids concentrate on.
Pull out programs .. ugh! Those were awful. When we lived in Deerfield they had TAP way back then. It was okay, but what I found on gifted programs in general back then, was they dealt with kids that were in the top 30%. It didn't cut it for my son.
I am really happy to hear there is a curriculum in college for teachers who want to teach gifted kids! I love it
My beef in grade school in Highland Park and Deerfield.. and this is so politically incorrect... but they spent beacoup bucks on the kids with disabilities, and so little on gifted education that I just didn't understand.
I was born in the Sputnik era. Kennedy was president. The schools around here, at least the ones I went to in Evanston, wanted to keep up with the Russians. I think the gifted kids probably did just fine in regular classrooms. We were so lucky. Even just the arts we got... I think it was a pretty good education.
Was it that way in other suburbs?
Last edited by junebuggg; 02-13-2015 at 02:01 AM..
What's everyone's story, if I am not changing the topic too much here? What's going on with you, your kids, how is school going, etc.?
So here's the deal with my son... he was miserable in school, and in life. He had his first summer job, at Burger King. He was a tiny kid, so the uniform was huge. He hated working there. Someone offered him a job in the computer lab... they were wiring the school for internet..
Long story short, my son never looked back. He was a sweet geeky kid who learned Japanese in middle school because some Nintendo games were not available in English. That kind of kid. In grade school and middle school, my son never fit in. The kids at school made fun of him. The kids in the neighborhood made fun of him. At IMSA, jeez, I think it was the first time kids didn't make fun of my son because he didn't have Air Jordans. That's what I mean about IMSA being such a blessing for him. He finally fit in! For the first time in his whole life.
Most important... my son now is happy! Truly happy. He loves his work, and he loves his life.
...what more of a happy ending could a mom possibly get, I don't know
I was profoundly unchallenged in my public school environment as a kid, and we had a "pull out gifted program" at our school that was based on three factors: (1) standardized test scores, which at that time were from the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (1980's), (2) recommendation from teachers, and (3) had to score above a certain threshold on an IQ test (do people even take those any more?).
So what did we do in this program? Well, it was led by a woman who focused on enrichment and creativity. So we did quirky field trips like a visit to an artisan craftsman shop, and we traveled to Chicago for cultural events like theater, music, and art. So I remained profoundly unchallenged in school, but got to hang out with other smart kids and do interesting things outside of class. I still think it was a valuable experience. Then in Junior High we had accelerated English and writing. Accelerated math didn't start until high school, and at that point it was just a handful of kids hanging out in a small study room working ahead in the text book and tutoring kids who were struggling.
So now I look at even the basic gifted programs offered today in suburban elementary schools, and they are WAY beyond where I was 30 years ago. Additionally, my daughter has had teachers who have recognized her abilities and have given her more advanced material to work with, particularly in terms of reading. I'm sure the Chinese are still whooping us though (the new Russians?), and perhaps we need more of that old creativity and innovation training, which is something the Chinese are woefully lacking? Who knows... No time for that any more with the cadre of standardized tests!
One thing I have been very pleased with in the Glen Ellyn schools this year is the new Problem Based Learning exercises. The kids are given real-world problems to solve, and the results have been very good. It simulates real-world work more than anything I have ever seen at schoool. For instance, a group of science students at a local school came up with various flood control measures for a school property, and presented their ideas to the community. It is very impressive, and you can just see the kids light up with enthusiasm as they formulate ideas and execute a presentation.
What's everyone's story, if I am not changing the topic too much here? What's going on with you, your kids, how is school going, etc.?
So here's the deal with my son... he was miserable in school, and in life. He had his first summer job, at Burger King. He was a tiny kid, so the uniform was huge. He hated working there. Someone offered him a job in the computer lab... they were wiring the school for internet..
Long story short, my son never looked back. He was a sweet geeky kid who learned Japanese in middle school because some Nintendo games were not available in English. That kind of kid. In grade school and middle school, my son never fit in. The kids at school made fun of him. The kids in the neighborhood made fun of him. At IMSA, jeez, I think it was the first time kids didn't make fun of my son because he didn't have Air Jordans. That's what I mean about IMSA being such a blessing for him. He finally fit in! For the first time in his whole life.
Most important... my son now is happy! Truly happy. He loves his work, and he loves his life.
...what more of a happy ending could a mom possibly get, I don't know
Wow your son's school experiences before IMSA sounded tough. I'm glad he found the right school. I was actually thing of switching my daughter to HPHS from Deerfield HS. She doesn't fit in at school and doesn't get the academic support she needs. She isn't gifted though, academically things are harder for her. She has an IEP but is in general education classes. She's also a great kid and I don't understand why other students think of her as an outcast. Would HPHS be tough socially for her? From what I've heard DHS is harder socially than HPHS, but I just wanna make sure.
Junebuggg and Lookout Kid, my story is similar to your son's/yours - traditional public school classrooms did not challenge me academically, and I was a social outcast. Pretty nerdy, pretended to do worse on reading, math etc. so as not to draw attention to myself even more than I already did (being first generation immigrant and a nerdlette). Was part of a gifted program that wasn't all that great, until I got to a 5th grade gifted classroom in a different school, with an amazing teacher, and then entered University Lab School, which allowed me to flourish academically and socially.
My daughter is too young yet for school, but I've been grappling with questions about schools and curriculum since before she was born. I've even thought about homeschooling!
I was in a pull out gifted program in Downers Grove in the late 90's. It was a group of about 20 kids combined from the South (my side) and North side of Downers. The program wasn't geared towards learning more difficult math, science, etc. It was geared towards critical thinking skills, creativity, and problem solving. But there's more to it, and I don't think I realized it at the time. It was also about being around other people who were like you. Who thought about things similarly to you. AND (as my dad later told me), it was about improving the social skills of these highly intelligent but maybe a little dorky/bookworm types. It was about teaching us how to interact well with others, which highly intelligent people often have a hard time doing. I always wondered why we had REALLY LONG recesses to play basketball and football during those gifted days. But in retrospect that was really important. I was already really into sports and didn't have trouble socializing, but a lot of my classmates were dorks and this helped get them out of their shells. So don't necessarily think that pull-out programs are not a good thing!
As a side note, it is interesting to see now about 15 years later that being "gifted" does not guarantee extraordinary success in life. While a number of us become doctors and engineers, some of them also went on to have very "normal" jobs. One even failed to graduate high school.
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