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lol. I wanna do this..for some insight with an adolescent I'm working with.
(All characters are fictional of course!)
Kimberly L. is a daughter of a single working class mother who works two jobs in food service. Her father is in prison for the fourth time for assault and pubic intoxication. Both parents are barely literate.
At 9, her composite scores are in the 49th percentile on standardized tests.
At age 10 and consistently until 10th grade, she is scoring in the 90th to 98th percentile on all standardized test subjects, with the exception of perceptional speed and accuracy and listening. In those two subjects, she is ranking in the 40th to 60th percentile. For reading comprehension, she consistently scores in the 98th percentile, but never reads outside of school.
All school administrators and counselor's see her as average. Teachers constantly tell her mother that she is not working to her potential and that she is lazy. She works full time outside of school, rarely does homework and has no organizational skills and manages a B+ average without effort.
She has clinical depression and social anxiety that has gone undiagnosed until now (10th grade). She is beginning to get treatment, but it is not going well.
What do you predict, based on what has been said, for her future?
Last edited by soanchorless; 02-18-2013 at 07:37 PM..
The girl enters a very inspiring teacher's English class in 11th grade. This teacher also is the debate/forensics advisor.
The girl excels at debate, thanks to her excellent reading comprehension ability. While her mom is working, she works on her cases at night and helps the teacher during class. She also gets a part-time job at a local vet's office.
By her senior year she is so good that she wins the state championship and is offered a scholarship to a local university, where she majors in public policy. She receives free treatment for depression form the college clinic. She graduates with honors and gets a good job etc.
I predict she will go to beauty school, work in a few local shops before opening her own small shop. She will not become rich but she will be her own boss, and over the years she will attract a steady clientele she is comfortable with. She won't have to worry about teachers calling her lazy because of her lack of organizational skills. She'll marry a nice guy who is maybe an auto mechanic or a welder who makes good money and they'll have a couple of kids. She'll teach her daughter how to cook and do hair while her husband teaches their son how to change oil and hunt.
P.S. One of the worst thing you can do to a high-scoring, low-performing kid with uneducated parents is to tell the parents that the kid is "not working up to his/her potential".
lol. I wanna do this..for some insight with an adolescent I'm working with.
(All characters are fictional of course!)
Kimberly L. is a daughter of a single working class mother who works two jobs in food service. Her father is in prison for the fourth time for assault and pubic intoxication. Both parents are barely literate.
At 9, her composite scores are in the 49th percentile on standardized tests.
At age 10 and consistently until 10th grade, she is scoring in the 90th to 98th percentile on all standardized test subjects, with the exception of perceptional speed and accuracy and listening. In those two subjects, she is ranking in the 40th to 60th percentile. For reading comprehension, she consistently scores in the 98th percentile, but never reads outside of school.
All school administrators and counselor's see her as average. Teachers constantly tell her mother that she is not working to her potential and that she is lazy. She works full time outside of school, rarely does homework and has no organizational skills and manages a B+ average without effort.
She has clinical depression and social anxiety that has gone undiagnosed until now (10th grade). She is beginning to get treatment, but it is not going well.
What do you predict, based on what has been said, for her future?
I predict that one of her Literature assignments will require her reading a novel that will open her mind to transformation. The instructor, formerly a children's social worker will begin communicating with the parent in the home however they can, email, letters or telephone calls and after the teacher has worked to educate the child's mother on what she perceives to be the particular challenges this child faces, the family will receive referrals for school-based health & counseling services to address the problems. She will receive supplemental educational services and the working parent will be brought in as much as possible--perhaps this school has classes for students on Saturdays and the parent can meet with the teacher then.
All this teamwork on behalf of the child will end in junior year, taking the SAT scoring well, applying for financial aid and attending university part-time as a freshman while she works a part-time job.
She will hook up with some loser (reminds her of her dad), and be on welfare and with a series of other losers until her 30s, at which point she will go back to school and land a government office job.
lol. I wanna do this..for some insight with an adolescent I'm working with.
(All characters are fictional of course!)
Kimberly L. is a daughter of a single working class mother who works two jobs in food service. Her father is in prison for the fourth time for assault and pubic intoxication. Both parents are barely literate.
At 9, her composite scores are in the 49th percentile on standardized tests.
At age 10 and consistently until 10th grade, she is scoring in the 90th to 98th percentile on all standardized test subjects, with the exception of perceptional speed and accuracy and listening. In those two subjects, she is ranking in the 40th to 60th percentile. For reading comprehension, she consistently scores in the 98th percentile, but never reads outside of school.
All school administrators and counselor's see her as average. Teachers constantly tell her mother that she is not working to her potential and that she is lazy. She works full time outside of school, rarely does homework and has no organizational skills and manages a B+ average without effort.
She has clinical depression and social anxiety that has gone undiagnosed until now (10th grade). She is beginning to get treatment, but it is not going well.
What do you predict, based on what has been said, for her future?
At the time of the tests at age 9, I bet she was going undergoing a hard transition. Such stressors can depress test scores.
It's difficult to see where she will go. She seems highly able: her consistent scores in the top 10% on standardized tests signify that she is (in all probability) intellectually higher functioning than most of her peers, and portend good ACT or SAT scores. Her average grades in the B+ range will probably be ignored by most lower-tier "regional" schools - the kind, unlike Vanderbilt or Harvard, that most students go to - in favor of her good ACT and SAT scores. (I got in, and with a $10,000 scholarship, to such a school with an ACT of 30 and a GPA of 2.833!). She may do well in college, as she will have more freedom to organize her affairs as she pleases.
Her working-class background may pose some cultural and social difficulties for her once she enters college (if she does, and depending on the college), but those may be outweighed by the added financial help she will receive as the result of her mother's low income, as well as the programs she might qualify for (TRIO, college food shelves, etc.)
Her career prognosis is on the bleaker side if her problems continue unresolved. Most jobs involve teamwork and contact with the outside world, and her social anxiety could make that hard at best or unbearable at worst. One of the major symptoms of depression is a lack of motivation, and this could also count against her. Being organized ("as the boss wants it") comprises a major component of some jobs.
I suggest she continue with the therapy. Pharmacological treatments have shown to be effective in many cases and could be appropriate for her. Also important is creating a support network for her. Group therapy, as well as volunteering, could be advisable once her social anxiety is ameliorated.
She ends up joining the marines, does her time, gets free college tuition, gets her bachelors, ends up like all the under-employed college grads, and eventually lands a paper pusher job in some office somewhere. Eventually she marries and starts a family. She wont be rich, or famous or anything great
Honestly, she is exactly like 90% of american kids except her dad being in jail. But just because her dad is in Jail does not mean she is a deadbeat. She has a hard working mom who works two jobs to support her.
I could also manage B+ without any effort, and I too was reluctant to hang out with kids when I went to high because they were all wannabes, followers, malibu's most wanted, and spoiled. And I went to high school in a town where all the kids are deemed "exceptional" because their parents could easily afford it.
A teacher saying a student is not reaching her full potential is basically saying a student isnt trying hard enough to listen to a boring lecture, doing a pointless assignment, and not making the teacher look good.
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