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Because you're teaching at the fun place to go to school where the gifted kids get class material that's appropriate for them and peers who 'get it' to constantly bounce ideas off of.
I was the gifted kid who tested at the far pointy end of that bell curve growing up- spent my K-8 experience bored out of my mind and unchallenged, even when I'd get dumped into a reading goup four grades above me. I got good grades largely because it was easier to just phone in an A than to deal with how much my parents would fuss if I got less than that.
High school was better- still didn't have to work particularly hard, but at least they ability grouped so you got a high percentage of smart kids in my classes, where you got the more appropriate content and getting to work with other people who were working from the same place.
By far my best academic experience growing up was an Air Force summer science camp where you pretty much had to be a National Merit semifinalist to get into it. It was so wonderful to finally be surrounded by people who were like you and you didn't feel like some freak of nature that was always going to just stick out, and the other students there seemed so wonderfully creative and innovative. It was a blast and a half.
I would have so loved to go to that kind of public science magnet school when I was growing up because it sounds like it would have been years of what I only got little tastes of here and there.
(And if anyone wants to get into the whole -'But my kid was reading Mark Twain for fun by age 3' and using it as a sign that every kid should be reading before kindergarten, I was pretty much a non-reader until a fair bit into first grade. Part of that was probably because I have vision issues that took until age 5 to sort out, but another part of it was that I just wasn't developmentally ready to read until then. But once it clicked, it clicked amazingly quickly.)
I just wanted to comment on reading. Initially, we thought dd#2 could not be gifted because she didn't read early. She was 6 before she picked up a book and did anything other than parrot back memorized verses.
When she was evaluated, I was suprised that they didn't care when she read. They told us it's not when a child reads that matters but how fast they progress once they start. So, her friends who started reading at 3 and were reading on a 3rd grade level at the end of kindergarten were typical while she was considered a gifted reader because she started reading at 6 and was reading at a 3rd grade level by the end of kindergarten. She did in 6 months what it took her peers three years to do.
Parents put way too much stock on when a child reads but it's meaningless. Initially, we resisted being told dd was gifted because we'd been conditioned to believe that when a child reads has something to do with intelligence. It doesn't. It's just one of those developmental things that happens when it happens. When it clicks, it clicks. The true test is what the child does with it after they click.
Gifted children are really few and far between. I watched a program on the search for gifted children and was sure the child shown being tested was gift but he was in fact not at that level.I was also surprised that IQ alone can not judge the gifted.
I'll add there's something to be said for marketing as well. Oh looky here: If you plop your INFANT in front of this "YOUR BABY CAN READ!" video, they'll be able to interpret Chaucer before they can walk!
We demand the best "stuff" the best "education" and IMHO, we delude ourselves into thinking that cramming more and more information into younger and younger children will make us "competitive" when in fact, also IMO, that we are going to raise a generation of children who are lacking in the ability to think or do much forthemselves by themselves.
Baby Einstein has already been proven a sham. The others will follow in time.
Kids are just tools for the parents' egos now. Not even real people.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mathguy
My one friend has described the whole east coast college admittance thing as a giant pecking order\bragging rights for the parents thing. Meaning, if your kid can get in an ivy....you go there instead of to say....a state school with a better program solely because of the prestige.
It's really quite sickening. Honestly, when it's more important to go Ivy than go good, something's wrong.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
If that's how you want to coerce your kids into doing something, nothing is wrong with it. I take issue with the OP claiming his/her children are learning that good grades are their responsibility when what they are learning is good grades get you cash.
I take an opposite approach. Good grades are expected. My kids get enough allowance and other opportunities to earn money. They lose privilidges if their grades are not what they should be. I want them to keep getting good grades. Paying for grades only works as long as you pay.
I really don't care how another parents chooses to get their children to do their homework but don't call it something it isn't. If you want to teach responsibility, then hold children accountable. If you want to teach them they get rewards for doing X, Y or Z, go ahead and reward them for doing those things. Just don't try to tell me you're teaching them responsibility because you're not.
I bribe my daughter to do more than 2.5 hours a week of piano practice. I pay her $5/half hour for every half hour beyond 2.5 hours. 2.5 hours is her responsibility. That's what she needs to maintain her current level. More means progress. It also saves me money. If she spends 2.5 hours a week practicing, she has a lesson every week at $50/hr. If she does 5 hours a week, she makes fast progress and her teacher lets her go two weeks between lessons so it doesn't cost me a dime. Yes, it's bribery. I wish I could say it is instilling an appreciation that hard work pays off but it's not. It's just a way for her to earn money. If I stopped paying her, I'd be nagging her to finish the 2.5 hours that is required of her.
I don't pay for school grades because I want my children to understand that doing their best is expected of them. It's their responsibility.
Isn't that just a little bit hypocritical? What is the difference between paying for grades and paying for practice? NONE. No difference at all.
Because you're teaching at the fun place to go to school where the gifted kids get class material that's appropriate for them and peers who 'get it' to constantly bounce ideas off of.
I was the gifted kid who tested at the far pointy end of that bell curve growing up- spent my K-8 experience bored out of my mind and unchallenged, even when I'd get dumped into a reading goup four grades above me. I got good grades largely because it was easier to just phone in an A than to deal with how much my parents would fuss if I got less than that.
High school was better- still didn't have to work particularly hard, but at least they ability grouped so you got a high percentage of smart kids in my classes, where you got the more appropriate content and getting to work with other people who were working from the same place.
By far my best academic experience growing up was an Air Force summer science camp where you pretty much had to be a National Merit semifinalist to get into it. It was so wonderful to finally be surrounded by people who were like you and you didn't feel like some freak of nature that was always going to just stick out, and the other students there seemed so wonderfully creative and innovative. It was a blast and a half.
I would have so loved to go to that kind of public science magnet school when I was growing up because it sounds like it would have been years of what I only got little tastes of here and there.
(And if anyone wants to get into the whole -'But my kid was reading Mark Twain for fun by age 3' and using it as a sign that every kid should be reading before kindergarten, I was pretty much a non-reader until a fair bit into first grade. Part of that was probably because I have vision issues that took until age 5 to sort out, but another part of it was that I just wasn't developmentally ready to read until then. But once it clicked, it clicked amazingly quickly.)
I think you missed my point. The truly gifted are still frequently bored even in my school. I have students who can ace the Chem AP and SAT IIs just by skimming the book. Just because they are bored does not mean they act out.
Acting out is not excused by boredom nor particularly caused by it. Hell I had two students go to Harvard this year, one of them will be bored even there. She will not be acting out.
I just wanted to comment on reading. Initially, we thought dd#2 could not be gifted because she didn't read early. She was 6 before she picked up a book and did anything other than parrot back memorized verses.
When she was evaluated, I was suprised that they didn't care when she read. They told us it's not when a child reads that matters but how fast they progress once they start. So, her friends who started reading at 3 and were reading on a 3rd grade level at the end of kindergarten were typical while she was considered a gifted reader because she started reading at 6 and was reading at a 3rd grade level by the end of kindergarten. She did in 6 months what it took her peers three years to do.
Parents put way too much stock on when a child reads but it's meaningless. Initially, we resisted being told dd was gifted because we'd been conditioned to believe that when a child reads has something to do with intelligence. It doesn't. It's just one of those developmental things that happens when it happens. When it clicks, it clicks. The true test is what the child does with it after they click.
Thank you both - I knew this in my heart already but it is always good to hear it.
My oldest was considered not all that bright b/c he was not a good reader in 1st grade. The summer between 1st and 2nd, we let him pick out anything from the bookstore to read, even magazines and comics. He really started reading on his own initiative at that point, but it was not until 2nd grade, when his teacher gave him a copy of a Magic Tree House book (I know, all of those brilliant kids out there read that series by Kindergarten) and he devoured it, and then continued to devour reading material, and has not stopped for four straight years. You know how parents of teenagers fear running out of food? I fear running out of reading material. Every time I turn around, its "can we go back to the library/bookstore?"
And the same teacher that lent him the book referred him for screening and testing, and he is actually quite bright, at the far end of that bell curve, which was a nice fat raspberry to his former school that had already written him off as just barely getting by.
I think you missed my point. The truly gifted are still frequently bored even in my school. I have students who can ace the Chem AP and SAT IIs just by skimming the book. Just because they are bored does not mean they act out.
Acting out is not excused by boredom nor particularly caused by it. Hell I had two students go to Harvard this year, one of them will be bored even there. She will not be acting out.
There's a difference between being bored at a gifted school and at a regular school. If you are a student who should be in a "gifted school," being bored at a regular school means that you are extremely, extremely bored. I solved this problem by just not going to school that much starting in fifth grade. I didn't go to school or do the homework, yet I still got A's on everything. Why should I go? When I was there because I had to be, the boredom was insane. Now, I have ADHD, so the problem was multiplied by that. You don't see this problem because the kids aren't at a regular school.
I teach at a public science magnet school for the "gifted" where only the top 20% or so are really gifted and the rest are above average hard workers. I have never seen, taught or mentored a "slightly gifted" child like you describe. Even when bored they rarely act out and the only really troublesome issues we see are big fish small pond ones for our graduates who go on to programs where they are the small fish.
Perhaps your sons issues are not because he is gifted.
Just for clarification, the issues I listed are not all my son's, but from a number of children who tested out as gifted and seem very brigh to me. I'm happy to say that with some intense intervention, his bad habits have died out.
I say slightly gifted because his teachers think he is gifted, as well as the staff and random strangers, and he tested out as gifted, although I have also been told that the test is not a good indicator (which leads me to my next post). However, I'm not sure he sure if he is neccessarily gifted or has just soaked up a bunch of info in his few years, combined with several years of preschool and have good teachers (for the most part...).
Maybe so many people think their children are gifted because there doesn't seem to be a good measure--it seems to differ from school to school. I have been told that at least one test (sorry I forgot which one) is not a good indicator, and on this thread we have been told that IQ and reading (when a child begins) are not good indicators. Then what is? How should we measure and separate 'gifted' and 'average'? Some children are clearly gifted, toward the savant end. But what about the children between average and savant? How do we decide the cutoff? Should we? Just complaining about it doesn't solve the issue. I, for one, feel bewildered.
I just wanted to comment on reading. Initially, we thought dd#2 could not be gifted because she didn't read early. She was 6 before she picked up a book and did anything other than parrot back memorized verses.
When she was evaluated, I was suprised that they didn't care when she read. They told us it's not when a child reads that matters but how fast they progress once they start. So, her friends who started reading at 3 and were reading on a 3rd grade level at the end of kindergarten were typical while she was considered a gifted reader because she started reading at 6 and was reading at a 3rd grade level by the end of kindergarten. She did in 6 months what it took her peers three years to do.
Parents put way too much stock on when a child reads but it's meaningless. Initially, we resisted being told dd was gifted because we'd been conditioned to believe that when a child reads has something to do with intelligence. It doesn't. It's just one of those developmental things that happens when it happens. When it clicks, it clicks. The true test is what the child does with it after they click.
Then mine must be brilliant. She didn't read at all until almost the end of 4th grade (long story), and at the end of 5th grade was tested at college level.
Then mine must be brilliant. She didn't read at all until almost the end of 4th grade (long story), and at the end of 5th grade was tested at college level.
If she went from not reading to college level in a year, she'd have to be beyond brilliant. Starting reading at 3 and reading at a college level by 4th grade would be brilliant. College level in elementary school is incredible. Most elementary school students have no need to be reading college texts and wouldn't understand them if they did.
I'm cuirous as to how she got to a college level so quickly. What college books was she reading? What prompted the need to read college level books? Was it by choice? One of the things I've learned with dd is that the only way you get to a reading level is by actually reading material at that level. Dd, quickly jumped to a 9th grade reading level because the things she researched on line required that reading level but then she stalled, after 3rd grade, but we were told that is normal because she, simply, has no need to read beyond that yet so she's not stretching herself. Kids don't tend to pick books because they are hard to read. They pick books they are interested in or need to read. My dd's reading interests are typical for her age (Twilight, The Vampire academy, Night World, Pretties, the latest teen rag...) so she doesn't stretch when it comes to reading (unless you count speed. She's to the point the average novel lasts two afternoons if we're lucky.). They tell us that when she needs/chooses to read college level texts/articles, her reading level will jump. Since the only thing she's really working on now is music, we're not expecting that jump any time soon.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 07-07-2010 at 09:34 AM..
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