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Of course parent evaluations are biased; theoretically, they are the ones who spend the most time with the child, in a variety of settings and situations, where a more complete and nuanced assessment of that child's ability may be gathered.
So the question is whether the parent bias provides a more accurate or inaccurate insight into the child's abilities. Here, the precise nature and degree of intimacy of the parent-child relationship, as well as the parent's own talent for correctly assessing any one person's level of innate abilities, play major roles. A rigorous, well-designed questionnaire would provide the program's team of administrators with a better ability to determine this.
Of course parent evaluations are biased; theoretically, they are the ones who spend the most time with the child, in a variety of settings and situations, where a more complete and nuanced assessment of that child's ability may be gathered.
So the question is whether the parent bias provides a more accurate or inaccurate insight into the child's abilities. Here, the precise nature and degree of intimacy of the parent-child relationship, as well as the parent's own talent for correctly assessing any one person's level of innate abilities, play major roles. A rigorous, well-designed questionnaire would provide the program's team of administrators with a better ability to determine this.
It isn't just the bias of parent evaluations that make them unfair. A sophisticated, well-educated parent can usually write a compelling justification of their child's behavior, whether it's at all true or not. But a child whose parent drives a garbage truck won't have a chance due to a lack of education or sophistication on the part of that parent. The equalizer is to leave the parent evaluation out.
Let's take my own son. He was reading sophisticated adult novels, including historical fiction, works by Dickens, and adult-level biographies and the like when he was only in 4th grade. Despite me being a former science teacher, he could do mathematics problems that I had trouble tackling. When we would go on trips to historical places in Virginia (such as battlefields), he would ask penetrating questions about topics like slavery and the Civil War, well beyond what a child of 10 should be asking. He would organize his own little science projects (without a science fair) when he was only in 4th grade. I could go on. But for all of those any many other reasons, my son should have been considered for inclusion in the GT program. Don't you think so?
Oh, but one problem -- I didn't have a son. I just fictionalized a non-existent situation.
And when I would sit down and read such parental BS, and would then ask the elementary teachers if they were seeing the same traits, the answer was OFTEN no, not even close.
If your kid is doing work two or three grades ahead of where he should that is not "gifted"., especially in the watered down educational system that is the USA. Gifted is doing Calculus in the 2nd grade. Thats gifted. Gifted is Einstein. That is all. The amount of ego amongst parents nowadays makes me want to vomit. Kids in the 5th grade in the late 1800s were writing essays on the Industrial Revolution and the Magna Carta. Were they all "gifted"?
Well, you've essentially highlighted one of the major problems we have in this country.
For some bizarre reason, we here in America only seem to value feats of athletic prowess. All brawn, no brain.
For instance, if someone at a party took a basketball, went out into the driveway and performed all kinds of nifty Harlem Globetrotter tricks and consistently swishing the ball through the hoop from the street, and other feats of ball handling, everyone would clap and cheer. That person would become the most popular person at the party, even if said basketball "hero" trounced everyone there in a game of one-on-one.
If someone with a high IQ and a lot of knowledge was able to completely destroy everyone else at a game of Trivial Pursuit, no matter how polite the game, a *lot* of people would end up resenting the smart person who won the game. "Show-off!" people would say. "I bet he just memorized all the questions!" someone else would say. The high IQ person would end up a pariah.
There's a reason, after all, why television shows and movies aimed at children and tweens always portray the smart kid as being unpopular, hopelessly awkward, the victim of bullies, having horrific fashion sense, girls won't even look at him, and how he usually sits alone in the cafeteria.
Our culture here loathes intelligence. Sure, we might praise a man like Einstein because people like him are in a league all their own -- and more importantly, most people don't have an Einstein in their circle of friends, so dead geniuses they've never actually met are "safe."
For whatever reason, we seem to aspire to intellectual mediocrity. Just be smart enough to be good at your job. That's it. Anything more than that and you're a show-off. While other nations revere intelligence and academic achievement, we're still stuck giving athletes all of the glory -- because throwing and catching balls, running around a field, and things like that are more important.
Thus it only stands to reason that someone would actually get offended if a child is labeled as being "gifted." Because above average intelligence is something to keep in the closet like homosexuality, atheism, and liberalism.
It's no wonder that one of America's little-known leading imports is brain power.
I hesitated to respond to this thread, and I hope that I don't come across the wrong way, but..
When I was in elementary school, I was found to be "academically gifted." I was well ahead of my class and even other gifted students. I always scored within the 98th-99th percentile on all standardized tests. I remember when my parents were disappointed because I scored in the 96th percentile on the math test one year.
Middle school came along, and I took the SAT in the 6th grade. I scored a slightly higher score than the "average" for my favorite state university.
I'm not trying to come across as a "snowflake," but I *was* different from my peers in school. Even when I was in the gifted classes, I always finished my tests first, and I always got A's. Sometimes I would pretend to look back over my work or would just sit there before turning my test in because I finished so much more quickly than the other students in my class.
I always did my homework while in class, usually in minutes. I never studied. I barely even paid attention in class. I always got A's.
I was this way in every subject and every class from 3rd grade until 11th grade...
In 11th grade, I had my own car. I skipped school CONSTANTLY and still had excellent grades in almost all my classes. I'd turn in my homework a day late and get five points off, for example, but it'd still be an "A." I'd show up for test day and ace the test, even though I hadn't been there.
Except for....Algebra II.
I wasn't used to paying attention, studying or even caring...but Algebra II kicked. my. butt. I couldn't do it. I didn't understand it. All of the "average" students in my class "got it," but I didn't.
And ya know what? I gave up. I literally dropped out of school in 11th grade and got my GED because of Algebra II. When I got my 2-year-degree, I specifically chose a path that didn't involve taking Algebra. When I transferred and got my four-year degree, I specifically changed my major to avoid taking higher-level math.
Why? Looking back, probably because I couldn't handle not knowing how to do it. I STILL can't. To me, Algebra is "stupid."
And I think a lot of it comes from being so-called "gifted" and never, ever being bad at any subject in school.
I hesitated to respond to this thread, and I hope that I don't come across the wrong way, but..
When I was in elementary school, I was found to be "academically gifted." I was well ahead of my class and even other gifted students. I always scored within the 98th-99th percentile on all standardized tests. I remember when my parents were disappointed because I scored in the 96th percentile on the math test one year.
Middle school came along, and I took the SAT in the 6th grade. I scored a slightly higher score than the "average" for my favorite state university.
I'm not trying to come across as a "snowflake," but I *was* different from my peers in school. Even when I was in the gifted classes, I always finished my tests first, and I always got A's. Sometimes I would pretend to look back over my work or would just sit there before turning my test in because I finished so much more quickly than the other students in my class.
I always did my homework while in class, usually in minutes. I never studied. I barely even paid attention in class. I always got A's.
I was this way in every subject and every class from 3rd grade until 11th grade...
In 11th grade, I had my own car. I skipped school CONSTANTLY and still had excellent grades in almost all my classes. I'd turn in my homework a day late and get five points off, for example, but it'd still be an "A." I'd show up for test day and ace the test, even though I hadn't been there.
Except for....Algebra II.
I wasn't used to paying attention, studying or even caring...but Algebra II kicked. my. butt. I couldn't do it. I didn't understand it. All of the "average" students in my class "got it," but I didn't.
And ya know what? I gave up. I literally dropped out of school in 11th grade and got my GED because of Algebra II. When I got my 2-year-degree, I specifically chose a path that didn't involve taking Algebra. When I transferred and got my four-year degree, I specifically changed my major to avoid taking higher-level math.
Why? Looking back, probably because I couldn't handle not knowing how to do it. I STILL can't. To me, Algebra is "stupid."
And I think a lot of it comes from being so-called "gifted" and never, ever being bad at any subject in school.
And so what? Are we supposed to drop GT programs because an occasional kid in GT flops?
It isn't just the bias of parent evaluations that make them unfair. A sophisticated, well-educated parent can usually write a compelling justification of their child's behavior, whether it's at all true or not. But a child whose parent drives a garbage truck won't have a chance due to a lack of education or sophistication on the part of that parent. The equalizer is to leave the parent evaluation out.
My child's school included portfolios and parental evaluations as a part of their assessment. The students came from all over the city and the county and from many different SES. The children of the cooks and truck drivers sat in class alongside the children of doctors and company VIPS.
I guess as an 'unsophisticated, uneducated, but not unintelligent' parent I simply answered the questionnaire honestly without any idea of what the answers 'should' look like.
When I had to turn in my answers I had no idea whether or not they were any sort of indication of my child being smart enough or different enough to qualify for the program, but apparently some of the things I had answered confirmed that he was good at abstract reasoning so they took him. Trust me, I wasn't pondering ways to make him look good at something like that.
Maybe some parents do try to pad the answers, but it's just one part of the assessment that can help identify some students. I don't see how leaving that out really equalizes anything.
It isn't just the bias of parent evaluations that make them unfair. A sophisticated, well-educated parent can usually write a compelling justification of their child's behavior, whether it's at all true or not. But a child whose parent drives a garbage truck won't have a chance due to a lack of education or sophistication on the part of that parent. The equalizer is to leave the parent evaluation out.
Let's take my own son. He was reading sophisticated adult novels, including historical fiction, works by Dickens, and adult-level biographies and the like when he was only in 4th grade. Despite me being a former science teacher, he could do mathematics problems that I had trouble tackling. When we would go on trips to historical places in Virginia (such as battlefields), he would ask penetrating questions about topics like slavery and the Civil War, well beyond what a child of 10 should be asking. He would organize his own little science projects (without a science fair) when he was only in 4th grade. I could go on. But for all of those any many other reasons, my son should have been considered for inclusion in the GT program. Don't you think so?
Oh, but one problem -- I didn't have a son. I just fictionalized a non-existent situation.
And when I would sit down and read such parental BS, and would then ask the elementary teachers if they were seeing the same traits, the answer was OFTEN no, not even close.
Whenever you have a large program that requires casting a wide net in order to identify the intended subjects, you will most certainly also have those who seek to engage in subterfuge in order to gain entry. This is human nature.
In order to minimize this, you use a multi-tiered evaluation system (as outlined previously), including requiring the child meets base threshold IQ test scores. But even then, the system as with any system, is not 100% fool-proof against such incidents.
And the parent does not need to be a highly educated professional in order to provide an honestly accurate assessment, as mentioned previously. An experienced and astute program administrator would be able to discern this, when used in conjunction with other metrics (IQ scores, classwork, etc). Similar to how colleges evaluate admission entry using a holistic approach that includes using standardized test scores such as the SAT.
Of course parent evaluations are biased; theoretically, they are the ones who spend the most time with the child, in a variety of settings and situations, where a more complete and nuanced assessment of that child's ability may be gathered.
So the question is whether the parent bias provides a more accurate or inaccurate insight into the child's abilities. Here, the precise nature and degree of intimacy of the parent-child relationship, as well as the parent's own talent for correctly assessing any one person's level of innate abilities, play major roles. A rigorous, well-designed questionnaire would provide the program's team of administrators with a better ability to determine this.
As a parent and a (former) pediatric nurse, I can see both sides of this. Parents do know their kids better than anyone else, and sometimes pick up things no one else does. However, parents also have some emotional bias that simply can't be dismissed. I remember when learning to do developmental screenings in very young children, one of the precepts was that parents tend to over-estimate their child's abilities, particularly their first one. Apparently they/we get a little more realistic with subsequent kids. The other thing I learned was that you, the tester, had to be very explicit, e.g. "sits up" may mean one thing to the parent and another to the tester. The parent may put the child in a sitting position and prop him/her up and say s/he is "sitting", whereas the tester means sitting without support. I'm talking about babies, obviously, but the same applies to older kids.
And so what? Are we supposed to drop GT programs because an occasional kid in GT flops?
Right. AND, really smart kids know they are smart! Its not like a kid is going to think they're "average" until they are bestowed the "labels" some folks are all up in arms about.
These kids are different than "average" or even "above average" kids. If a kid is learning and retaining information at much much faster rate than his peers, why should he be stuck in his average classroom, never learning how to work hard at a problem, how to rise to a challenge? Why shouldn't he get to move through material faster? Or at least supplement all that leftover "free time" with interesting and stimulating material? Because some people think it's "obnoxious" that some people are smarter than they are? Ridiculous. And even if sometimes generally "bright" kids get into "gifted" programs due to work ethic and curiosity--good for them! They obviously need more than their regular class is providing as well.
Doesn't matter what you call it, so why bother being offended by the titles and labels?
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