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I can't answer your questions, but I CAN tell you I had the same experience. If a teacher found out I was "reading ahead", I was punished, up to and including a paddling - which in my school was accomplished with a large, heavy, oak paddle with holes cut in it because the principle told those of us being so punished that it would hurt more that way.
What excuse is there for a grown man to beat an 8 year old child for "reading ahead"?
My first grade teacher refused to believe I could read and would not allow me to demonstrate said ability to her. Instead she stood me up in front of class and told all the other students I was a liar and that I was stupid, if not actually retarded. Totally humiliating, and I was punished some more for crying out in protest that I COULD read and would be happy to read aloud from any book of her selection.
We were required to ask permission to use the bathroom (which was in the classroom so you didn't even have to walk down the hall to get to it) and we were required to tell the teacher and the entire class what exactly we would be doing in there. Yeah, weird.
The very first time I needed to go to the bathroom, I obediently raised my hand to ask permission, whereupon this evil harridan demanded to know if I was going to do "#1" or "#2". I had NO idea what she was talking about, which, of course, she took as more evidence of my borderline (or perhaps not-so-borderline) retardation. When I finally got her to be clear enough about what those terms meant (she said something totally stupid like, "Is it going to come out the front or the back?), a lightbulb went off over my head, and I blurted out in typical 6 year old style, "OH, you mean do I need to URINATE or DEFECATE!"
Whereupon she hauled me into the bathroom to wash my mouth out with soap for using "dirty words", quickly followed by a trip to the hallway where she waled away with a paddle just for that extra bit of unnecessary trauma.
In a way that incident might have been a good thing in the long run, because I was so traumatized by this treatment on top of all the rest of what she had been doing to me (telling the entire class that I was a lying retard, etc) that I went home, speechless, and cried for hours. My mother never did get out of me what was wrong except that I hated school (though I had loved kindergarten), so she went to school the next morning, buttonholed this woman, and through a combination of shouting, threats, and intimidation, got the truth out of her.
Whereupon she marched off to the principal's office and unloaded the whole story on him (first taking me OUT of the class so I couldn't be further abused in her absence).
The end result was that they gave me the Metropolitan test (an ancient achievement test that they gave everyone in the school system at the end of every year, in every grade) and due to my ridiculously high score on that promoted me immediately to the 2nd grade. I spent TWO horrible weeks in the first grade with that teacher. But my fate was now set in concrete - that woman hated me, was sure I had somehow cheated (I cannot imagine how I could have accomplished that, given it was administered to my by the school principal) or that they had put me up a grade only to appease my mother, and she continued to spread lies and rumors about me to the other teachers AND CHILDREN.
This was the beginning of the hell labeled "school" for me.
The vast majority of my continuing problems with teachers and other students revolved around my reading ability, and love of reading, thereafter. The only elementary teacher I had who wasn't abusive was my 2nd grade teacher and I am ever so grateful for her kindness, compassion, and gentle manner with me. It was all I had to hold onto for the next 10 years.
However my 3rd grade teacher was another nightmare. Remember that Metropolitan test? Well in the third grade, I scored higher on it than every other student in the entire city except for one high school senior, who beat me out only on the math part. I had the SECOND HIGHEST SCORE in the entire city at the age of 8.
What did this result in? Again, being stood in front of the class while some insane hate-filled woman told the ENTIRE CLASS that I had ONLY scored 2nd, which PROVED I was not as smart as I thought I was and that I would be a complete failure in life because I was actually not smart, but stupid.
IN ADDITION, she would search my desk and school bag regularly and confiscate books she deemed to be above a 3rd grade reading level. These constituted various Oz books, Nancy Drew, and the Bobbsy Twins. None of these should have been out of reach for a moderately intelligent 3rd grader. When the class went to the library, I was restricted to easy readers with titles like "Plucky Duck Plays In The Rain". And here is where I met another rare, bright light in my educational incarceration - the school librarian made a private deal with me that I could come in after school (she would purposely wait for me) and check out ANY BOOK I WANTED. So I was able to read The Hobbit for the first time in the third grade. To my dismay I cannot remember anything about this woman except for this extraordinary display of kindness and compassion. By now I had nothing in my life to comfort me but the escape of reading.
Fourth grade - we were asked to write a short story about our feelings. I complied. I wrote about my life as a carpet - ignored, walked on, dirtied, damaged, and ultimately rolled up and thrown away. She told me I was just trying to get attention and returned it to me with a demand that I write something else. In a rare show of defiance, I refused. She flunked me for the assignment and told the entire class what a liar I was. Another time, she demanded to know "what (was) wrong with (me)". I told her I was depressed. She told me that it was impossible for children to be depressed and I had better straighten up and fly right, and that I should be ashamed of myself.
Also they brought in a psychiatrist - and back then they were all Freudian - to evaluate me, probably to confirm their belief that I was a nutcase and/or retarded. I did not at first know what he was up to. He started with word association, and because I was on a poem writing kick at the time, the first thing that came into my mind every time was a rhyme. He stopped me and informed me I was doin' it wrong. When I figured out what he was ACTUALLY up to (this had been presented to me as a game), that this was a PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION (and yes, I knew at the age of 9 what a psychological evaluation was and what word association meant), I got angry and started screwing with him. So it WAS a game after all. And it was immense fun watching this guy flounder about, as he had the distinct feeling I was screwing with him but could NOT for the life of him accept the idea that a 9 year old girl could possibly be putting one over on him.
You should have seen what I did with the Rorschach test. For heaven's sake, I'd already read the complete works of Freud by now, and even if I hadn't, what kid HADN'T seen Bugs Bunny working his magic on the ink blots?
BTW this was done without my parents' knowledge or permission. Years later I asked my dad about it and he was shocked. He'd had no idea they had done this. Wasted an entire day on Freudian nonsense. Never did get the results, either - when I requested my records under the freedom of information act, they had mysteriously been lost. It must have been really egregiously out of line - when one of my brother's asked for HIS records, they were merely redacted left and right. Mine totally disappeared (allegedly).
The thing is, if they had just told me up front who this guy was and what we were doing, and if he had actually ASKED me any questions about why I felt and behaved the way I did, I WOULD HAVE TOLD HIM. I would have told him about the abuse at home. I would have told him about the abuse at school. But he was NOT there to help me, he was there to label me so they could finally stick me in the "special ed" class and forget about me (because I was still being dogged by my first grade teacher's insistence that I was retarded). I'll bet most of the kids stuck out there in the cheap mobile home they used for the "special education" kids were not actually retarded either. Most of them were probably in much the same situation as I was - facing horrific abuse at home, unable to cope, without a friend in the world, alone, frightened, hopeless, and sometimes angry. Not that anyone cared, about them or me. They had hammers, we were nails. That's all she wrote.
Fifth grade - student teachers came in and did a "language program", where they were more or less evaluating us for foreign language ability. They were shocked - in a pleased way - when it came to my turn and I counted to 100 in Spanish, Italian, and Romanian, and to ten in French, German, and Latin, which I had learned from reading the Encyclopedia Britannica language dictionaries at home and sets of language flashcards my older sister had used. I had a smattering of conversational Spanish from language records at home as well. And I could write and name the entire Greek and Hebrew alphabets (we were lapsed Catholics, not Jewish). One of the student teachers literally BEGGED my teacher for permission to enroll me in the after school program they were organizing for language-gifted children, and she told him - again in front of the whole class - that I was already too "big-headed" and was to be put in my place and kept there until it was clear to me and everyone else that I was just an "ordinary" girl, this being the only way to "correct" my "delusions of intellectuality".
It was either this one or the 4th grade teacher who admonished me that "you get more flies with honey than vinegar" after beating some boy at some game, to which I responded with "Who wants to attract flies?" which earned me a slap across the face. I hadn't meant it to be sarcastic, I honestly wondered why someone would want to attract flies. I also did not connect that comment to the fact of having beaten a boy at a game until years later. To me, it came out of the blue and had no connection to current events.
Sixth grade - in trouble for reading ahead AGAIN. I had already read the entire book for the reading class by the end of the first month. In fact I had already started checking out books based on the excerpts from full length books in the textbook. That's how the teacher figured out I'd already been through the whole book. I got demerits that time.
Seventh grade - After gym, I'm sitting in the bleachers waiting for the bell, and reading a book. I heard a kid ask the gym instructor, "Where's Pyewackette?". To which she replied, in a voice dripping with contempt, "Examining her navel, as usual". Followed by peals of laughter from my peers.
Eighth grade - was in the school chess tournament. I won every game. Because I had read and comprehended every single book on chess I could find in both the school and city libraries. The last game I played, I had the guy in stalemate and had him on points. He kept moving his king back and forth, forcing me to keep moving whatever piece it was I was using to threaten his king back and forth to keep his king in check. The teacher in charge of the tournament was sitting RIGHT THERE and would not put a stop to this. Finally one of this kid's friends jostled my elbow when I was trying to move my piece again and made me drop it. The teacher declared the other kid the winner. After that, no one would play me because no one wanted to lose to me. They would just resign the game at the very beginning and tell their friends it was because they didn't want to play a stupid geek like me. I was NOT given the first place award even though I had legitimately won every game where anyone would actually play me. It was certainly NOT my fault that the other kids threw so many games thereafter. No trophy for me. I never played chess again, until my son developed an interest when he was 7 or 8. I'm really no good at it any more.
Throughout all of these years and into high school there were many many repeated incidents of punishment for reading ahead, reading above my grade level, reading at lunch, reading reading reading reading ... There were other excuses for abuse as well, but reading was always first and foremost well into high school.
Says me, and I didn't HAVE to hear it, I lived it. See above.
Not anywhere *I* have ever lived! They cut arts, music, and Latin. Sports? NEVER. No cuts to sports - at least not boy's sports. They totally cut out Latin first, then they made severe cuts to both art and music. They never touched the boy's sports programs.
I was certainly troubled, but it certainly was NOT because I was being "coddled". I was being beaten, punished every time I showed any sign of my hyperintelligence, belittled by teachers constantly, attacked on the playground and after school (once had a much larger 6th grader pulled off me by a passing policeman after she knocked me to the ground and started kicking me in the head when I was trying to go home after school, ON the school grounds and despite my having gone to every teacher I could find to tell them I needed help as she had threatened me during lunch period, not one offered help and at least one that I can remember told me if it really happened, it was because I deserved it).
I don't know where you got the impression someone like me was EVER coddled. Perhaps you consider the intervention of a police officer to pull a 6' 13 year old girl off a 3' 8" 8 year old girl to be coddling.
The vast majority of "gifted" programs in schools are not for actually gifted children. They're for A students, the moderately intelligent kids who fit in easily and don't necessarily actually excel. They're smart, but they are not actually geniuses. You are allowed to "excel", but only a LITTLE BIT.
In my (short) life as a clinical psychologist, every single child I retested for an IQ score had, it turned out, been coached through their first test (sometimes given extra time, sometimes just flat out given the answers) by school personnel. Only one of them actually met the stated criteria for the gifted program, and he just barely met it. My own son, when we moved back stateside, was put back a grade and refused entry into the gifted program DESPITE the fact that he already qualified for the gifted program, at first, I was told, supposedly because he didn't know how to write cursive (which they were starting to drop from school curriculums back then). Took me 2 days to teach it to him. Then they told me he would have to "wait his turn". When I was leaving with this unsatisfactory answer, I heard the principal say to the secretary that it would "be a cold day before he gets into the gifted program since that is reserved for Good Christians". Which told me everything I needed to know about that program and totally quashed any thought of putting him in it.
Charter schools do not address the needs of children, they are only out to make money. Many many of them are totally fraudulent, most of them are at least somewhat fraudulent. Charter schools are NOT the answer.
The solution to this problem is to do away with age-based classes and go to ability-based classes. When I was about 10 I found a book about Montessori schools. I cried after reading it. It was like being given a glimpse of Narnia and then having the wardrobe door slammed shut in your face. It may be a little better today than it was when I was a child, but things are still not right. Paddling, at least, has been done away with; most of the more egregious examples of abuse are now actionable. But the TRULY gifted child of parents who are not wealthy is still mocked, belittled, and shut out more often than not.
I am sorry these things happened to you. I think some of these issues are beyond the purview of a discussion board like this.
I can't answer your questions, but I CAN tell you I had the same experience. If a teacher found out I was "reading ahead", I was punished, up to and including a paddling - which in my school was accomplished with a large, heavy, oak paddle with holes cut in it because the principle told those of us being so punished that it would hurt more that way.
...
The solution to this problem is to do away with age-based classes and go to ability-based classes. When I was about 10 I found a book about Montessori schools. I cried after reading it. It was like being given a glimpse of Narnia and then having the wardrobe door slammed shut in your face. It may be a little better today than it was when I was a child, but things are still not right. Paddling, at least, has been done away with; most of the more egregious examples of abuse are now actionable. But the TRULY gifted child of parents who are not wealthy is still mocked, belittled, and shut out more often than not.
Sorry you had to go through that. Unfortunate what was done to kids in the name of "education."
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,741 posts, read 58,090,525 times
Reputation: 46231
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pyewackette
I can't answer your questions, but I CAN tell you I had the same experience. If a teacher ...
What did this result in? Again, being stood in front of the class ...
Says me, and I didn't HAVE to hear it, I lived it.
...
Charter schools do not address the needs of children, they are only out to make money. Many many of them are totally fraudulent, most of them are at least somewhat fraudulent. Charter schools are NOT the answer.
The solution to this problem is to do away with age-based classes and go to ability-based classes. ...TRULY gifted child of parents who are not wealthy is still mocked, belittled, and shut out more often than not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katarina Witt
I am sorry these things happened to you. I think some of these issues are beyond the purview of a discussion board like this.
actually,... been discussed / and several solutions well suggested by many on this forum...
Quote:
Originally Posted by tnff
Sorry you had to go through that. Unfortunate what was done to kids in the name of "education."
Education vs: social engineering... (USA style) ... it is very painful to watch, just had a 3 hr meeting with educators in China...not great, but certainly WAY ahead of USA) In social and academic ways.
very simple solution... Un-school... works for millions (of gifted future leaders, as well as millions of PAST leaders)
Last edited by StealthRabbit; 07-23-2018 at 05:33 PM..
This thread has basically fizzled into a tiring exercise of one person demonstrating the inability to refute the original general claim, which has since been clarified, with anything but extremely specific personal anecdotes and then, in turn, refusing to accept the validity of personal anecdotes shared by others in support of the original general claim. It's just the wheels on the bus go round and round, at this point.
Pyewackette -- reading your account of your experience in school was very moving. I am very sorry that you went through such atrocities. That had to be extremely difficult to overcome. I think it's a lot better for those who are highly gifted now, in many areas -- but not all. Absolutely no one, regardless of their academic level, should be subjected to such treatment. It makes someone who already knows he/she is an outlier feel even more isolated, and that shouldn't happen. I think the original post moved me because those who are like you should feel as though their perspectives, their talents, and their accomplishments should be celebrated instead of suppressed. And that's less likely to happen in some places compared to others.
Well, this really takes the cake! Step up to the prize table, pick your favorite flavor-chocolate, white, carrot, poppy seed.
Who is this "one person", BlessedLife? Why can't you just say who?
Yes, the OP's posts do consist of extremely specific personal anecdotes, although he claims to be taking the bigger view. Here is the OP: (My post continues below)
Quote:
Originally Posted by tnff
This is something I've pondered from time to time and it came up again today reading the local paper. This country in general seems to have an active dislike of those who are academically gifted. We constantly find ways to put them down, both large and small. But with athletics, it's different. As a culture we admire athletic prowess. We shower adulation and money down on them. Even at the lowest level of sport, the kid who is just a tiny bit stronger or faster gets all the attention.
I know this dichotomy is real having experienced myself and with my kids. But I can't explain it, nor even understand it. And the more I read about it, the less it makes sense. Our schools put effort into supporting and bringing the lowest performers up to the minimum, but pretty much ignore the gifted assuming they will just be fine on their own. An example from my own schooling is being berated by the teacher for reading ahead "how are you going to learn to read if you don't keep the place!!!" when I already knew how to read, as evidenced by the fact I was a couple chapters ahead while the class was stuck on one paragraph.
Sorry for the stream of consciousness, it just kind of flowed out after reading the paper this morning.
So the OP read something in the local paper, a small-town Tennessee paper presumably. While I have no issues with small town Tennessee papers, they are not known for hiring Pulitzer Prize winning reporters, and the OP doesn't tell us what set him off.
Of the OP's 17 posts thus far, he has posted links in exactly ONE post, his second. One is an undated article from a blog about giftedness which has very little evidence based information. The other is from Newsweek, a mass media magazine, where the OP apparently got the idea to use the word "hate" in his title. Now the OP likes to tell us this is a discussion board, and is not meant for scientific precision, with which I agree, but I feel "hate" is a pretty strong word to use, period. The Newsweek article does not substantiate that claim, rather it is advocating for tracking, if anything. The article has a link to some original research which also does not substantiate such a claim, but rather talks about what superachievers some of these gifted kids become by age 38.
ALL of the other OP's posts are personal anecdotes about him and/or his kids. His supporters have posted same (some probably with links, I haven't looked back through the whole thread). These posts are received by the OP with accolades as if he is a teacher or a moderator. OTOH, any posts that disagree with the OP and his supporters are dismissed as anecdotal, even though many of these posters have included links to support their statements.
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 07-23-2018 at 05:51 PM..
Reason: remove messed up link, posters can click Newsweek link if interested
I have NEVER seen or known of this to be true. What evidence are you basing this on? What city is the "local newspaper" you cite as reference material for you to start this post?
Only people I have seen to look down on the intelligent/educated are the backwoods, backcountry, Trump supporting type people. The rest of the country and world look at the gifted students as a positive.
From your description, naming the Metropolitan Reading Test, Nancy Drew, and The Bobbsy Twins, I gather that these terrible events happened a while ago. It sounds similar to school situations that my BIL and parents suffered through plus they experienced a lot of racism and bigotry from the teachers and the students. By the time I got into school, the overt racism among teachers had toned down a bit, but the majority of the students in one of the schools I attended were vicious and these gangsters certainly did not appreciate the honors students. There was A LOT of physical violence and assault of ALL types.
I can't answer your questions, but I CAN tell you I had the same experience. If a teacher found out I was "reading ahead", I was punished, up to and including a paddling - which in my school was accomplished with a large, heavy, oak paddle with holes cut in it because the principle told those of us being so punished that it would hurt more that way.
What excuse is there for a grown man to beat an 8 year old child for "reading ahead"?
My first grade teacher refused to believe I could read and would not allow me to demonstrate said ability to her. Instead she stood me up in front of class and told all the other students I was a liar and that I was stupid, if not actually retarded. Totally humiliating, and I was punished some more for crying out in protest that I COULD read and would be happy to read aloud from any book of her selection.
We were required to ask permission to use the bathroom (which was in the classroom so you didn't even have to walk down the hall to get to it) and we were required to tell the teacher and the entire class what exactly we would be doing in there. Yeah, weird.
The very first time I needed to go to the bathroom, I obediently raised my hand to ask permission, whereupon this evil harridan demanded to know if I was going to do "#1" or "#2". I had NO idea what she was talking about, which, of course, she took as more evidence of my borderline (or perhaps not-so-borderline) retardation. When I finally got her to be clear enough about what those terms meant (she said something totally stupid like, "Is it going to come out the front or the back?), a lightbulb went off over my head, and I blurted out in typical 6 year old style, "OH, you mean do I need to URINATE or DEFECATE!"
Whereupon she hauled me into the bathroom to wash my mouth out with soap for using "dirty words", quickly followed by a trip to the hallway where she waled away with a paddle just for that extra bit of unnecessary trauma.
In a way that incident might have been a good thing in the long run, because I was so traumatized by this treatment on top of all the rest of what she had been doing to me (telling the entire class that I was a lying retard, etc) that I went home, speechless, and cried for hours. My mother never did get out of me what was wrong except that I hated school (though I had loved kindergarten), so she went to school the next morning, buttonholed this woman, and through a combination of shouting, threats, and intimidation, got the truth out of her.
Whereupon she marched off to the principal's office and unloaded the whole story on him (first taking me OUT of the class so I couldn't be further abused in her absence).
The end result was that they gave me the Metropolitan test (an ancient achievement test that they gave everyone in the school system at the end of every year, in every grade) and due to my ridiculously high score on that promoted me immediately to the 2nd grade. I spent TWO horrible weeks in the first grade with that teacher. But my fate was now set in concrete - that woman hated me, was sure I had somehow cheated (I cannot imagine how I could have accomplished that, given it was administered to my by the school principal) or that they had put me up a grade only to appease my mother, and she continued to spread lies and rumors about me to the other teachers AND CHILDREN.
This was the beginning of the hell labeled "school" for me.
The vast majority of my continuing problems with teachers and other students revolved around my reading ability, and love of reading, thereafter. The only elementary teacher I had who wasn't abusive was my 2nd grade teacher and I am ever so grateful for her kindness, compassion, and gentle manner with me. It was all I had to hold onto for the next 10 years.
However my 3rd grade teacher was another nightmare. Remember that Metropolitan test? Well in the third grade, I scored higher on it than every other student in the entire city except for one high school senior, who beat me out only on the math part. I had the SECOND HIGHEST SCORE in the entire city at the age of 8.
What did this result in? Again, being stood in front of the class while some insane hate-filled woman told the ENTIRE CLASS that I had ONLY scored 2nd, which PROVED I was not as smart as I thought I was and that I would be a complete failure in life because I was actually not smart, but stupid.
IN ADDITION, she would search my desk and school bag regularly and confiscate books she deemed to be above a 3rd grade reading level. These constituted various Oz books, Nancy Drew, and the Bobbsy Twins. None of these should have been out of reach for a moderately intelligent 3rd grader. When the class went to the library, I was restricted to easy readers with titles like "Plucky Duck Plays In The Rain". And here is where I met another rare, bright light in my educational incarceration - the school librarian made a private deal with me that I could come in after school (she would purposely wait for me) and check out ANY BOOK I WANTED. So I was able to read The Hobbit for the first time in the third grade. To my dismay I cannot remember anything about this woman except for this extraordinary display of kindness and compassion. By now I had nothing in my life to comfort me but the escape of reading.
Fourth grade - we were asked to write a short story about our feelings. I complied. I wrote about my life as a carpet - ignored, walked on, dirtied, damaged, and ultimately rolled up and thrown away. She told me I was just trying to get attention and returned it to me with a demand that I write something else. In a rare show of defiance, I refused. She flunked me for the assignment and told the entire class what a liar I was. Another time, she demanded to know "what (was) wrong with (me)". I told her I was depressed. She told me that it was impossible for children to be depressed and I had better straighten up and fly right, and that I should be ashamed of myself.
Also they brought in a psychiatrist - and back then they were all Freudian - to evaluate me, probably to confirm their belief that I was a nutcase and/or retarded. I did not at first know what he was up to. He started with word association, and because I was on a poem writing kick at the time, the first thing that came into my mind every time was a rhyme. He stopped me and informed me I was doin' it wrong. When I figured out what he was ACTUALLY up to (this had been presented to me as a game), that this was a PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION (and yes, I knew at the age of 9 what a psychological evaluation was and what word association meant), I got angry and started screwing with him. So it WAS a game after all. And it was immense fun watching this guy flounder about, as he had the distinct feeling I was screwing with him but could NOT for the life of him accept the idea that a 9 year old girl could possibly be putting one over on him.
You should have seen what I did with the Rorschach test. For heaven's sake, I'd already read the complete works of Freud by now, and even if I hadn't, what kid HADN'T seen Bugs Bunny working his magic on the ink blots?
BTW this was done without my parents' knowledge or permission. Years later I asked my dad about it and he was shocked. He'd had no idea they had done this. Wasted an entire day on Freudian nonsense. Never did get the results, either - when I requested my records under the freedom of information act, they had mysteriously been lost. It must have been really egregiously out of line - when one of my brother's asked for HIS records, they were merely redacted left and right. Mine totally disappeared (allegedly).
The thing is, if they had just told me up front who this guy was and what we were doing, and if he had actually ASKED me any questions about why I felt and behaved the way I did, I WOULD HAVE TOLD HIM. I would have told him about the abuse at home. I would have told him about the abuse at school. But he was NOT there to help me, he was there to label me so they could finally stick me in the "special ed" class and forget about me (because I was still being dogged by my first grade teacher's insistence that I was retarded). I'll bet most of the kids stuck out there in the cheap mobile home they used for the "special education" kids were not actually retarded either. Most of them were probably in much the same situation as I was - facing horrific abuse at home, unable to cope, without a friend in the world, alone, frightened, hopeless, and sometimes angry. Not that anyone cared, about them or me. They had hammers, we were nails. That's all she wrote.
Fifth grade - student teachers came in and did a "language program", where they were more or less evaluating us for foreign language ability. They were shocked - in a pleased way - when it came to my turn and I counted to 100 in Spanish, Italian, and Romanian, and to ten in French, German, and Latin, which I had learned from reading the Encyclopedia Britannica language dictionaries at home and sets of language flashcards my older sister had used. I had a smattering of conversational Spanish from language records at home as well. And I could write and name the entire Greek and Hebrew alphabets (we were lapsed Catholics, not Jewish). One of the student teachers literally BEGGED my teacher for permission to enroll me in the after school program they were organizing for language-gifted children, and she told him - again in front of the whole class - that I was already too "big-headed" and was to be put in my place and kept there until it was clear to me and everyone else that I was just an "ordinary" girl, this being the only way to "correct" my "delusions of intellectuality".
It was either this one or the 4th grade teacher who admonished me that "you get more flies with honey than vinegar" after beating some boy at some game, to which I responded with "Who wants to attract flies?" which earned me a slap across the face. I hadn't meant it to be sarcastic, I honestly wondered why someone would want to attract flies. I also did not connect that comment to the fact of having beaten a boy at a game until years later. To me, it came out of the blue and had no connection to current events.
Sixth grade - in trouble for reading ahead AGAIN. I had already read the entire book for the reading class by the end of the first month. In fact I had already started checking out books based on the excerpts from full length books in the textbook. That's how the teacher figured out I'd already been through the whole book. I got demerits that time.
Seventh grade - After gym, I'm sitting in the bleachers waiting for the bell, and reading a book. I heard a kid ask the gym instructor, "Where's Pyewackette?". To which she replied, in a voice dripping with contempt, "Examining her navel, as usual". Followed by peals of laughter from my peers.
Eighth grade - was in the school chess tournament. I won every game. Because I had read and comprehended every single book on chess I could find in both the school and city libraries. The last game I played, I had the guy in stalemate and had him on points. He kept moving his king back and forth, forcing me to keep moving whatever piece it was I was using to threaten his king back and forth to keep his king in check. The teacher in charge of the tournament was sitting RIGHT THERE and would not put a stop to this. Finally one of this kid's friends jostled my elbow when I was trying to move my piece again and made me drop it. The teacher declared the other kid the winner. After that, no one would play me because no one wanted to lose to me. They would just resign the game at the very beginning and tell their friends it was because they didn't want to play a stupid geek like me. I was NOT given the first place award even though I had legitimately won every game where anyone would actually play me. It was certainly NOT my fault that the other kids threw so many games thereafter. No trophy for me. I never played chess again, until my son developed an interest when he was 7 or 8. I'm really no good at it any more.
Throughout all of these years and into high school there were many many repeated incidents of punishment for reading ahead, reading above my grade level, reading at lunch, reading reading reading reading ... There were other excuses for abuse as well, but reading was always first and foremost well into high school.
Says me, and I didn't HAVE to hear it, I lived it. See above.
Not anywhere *I* have ever lived! They cut arts, music, and Latin. Sports? NEVER. No cuts to sports - at least not boy's sports. They totally cut out Latin first, then they made severe cuts to both art and music. They never touched the boy's sports programs.
I was certainly troubled, but it certainly was NOT because I was being "coddled". I was being beaten, punished every time I showed any sign of my hyperintelligence, belittled by teachers constantly, attacked on the playground and after school (once had a much larger 6th grader pulled off me by a passing policeman after she knocked me to the ground and started kicking me in the head when I was trying to go home after school, ON the school grounds and despite my having gone to every teacher I could find to tell them I needed help as she had threatened me during lunch period, not one offered help and at least one that I can remember told me if it really happened, it was because I deserved it).
I don't know where you got the impression someone like me was EVER coddled. Perhaps you consider the intervention of a police officer to pull a 6' 13 year old girl off a 3' 8" 8 year old girl to be coddling.
The vast majority of "gifted" programs in schools are not for actually gifted children. They're for A students, the moderately intelligent kids who fit in easily and don't necessarily actually excel. They're smart, but they are not actually geniuses. You are allowed to "excel", but only a LITTLE BIT.
In my (short) life as a clinical psychologist, every single child I retested for an IQ score had, it turned out, been coached through their first test (sometimes given extra time, sometimes just flat out given the answers) by school personnel. Only one of them actually met the stated criteria for the gifted program, and he just barely met it. My own son, when we moved back stateside, was put back a grade and refused entry into the gifted program DESPITE the fact that he already qualified for the gifted program, at first, I was told, supposedly because he didn't know how to write cursive (which they were starting to drop from school curriculums back then). Took me 2 days to teach it to him. Then they told me he would have to "wait his turn". When I was leaving with this unsatisfactory answer, I heard the principal say to the secretary that it would "be a cold day before he gets into the gifted program since that is reserved for Good Christians". Which told me everything I needed to know about that program and totally quashed any thought of putting him in it.
Charter schools do not address the needs of children, they are only out to make money. Many many of them are totally fraudulent, most of them are at least somewhat fraudulent. Charter schools are NOT the answer.
The solution to this problem is to do away with age-based classes and go to ability-based classes. When I was about 10 I found a book about Montessori schools. I cried after reading it. It was like being given a glimpse of Narnia and then having the wardrobe door slammed shut in your face. It may be a little better today than it was when I was a child, but things are still not right. Paddling, at least, has been done away with; most of the more egregious examples of abuse are now actionable. But the TRULY gifted child of parents who are not wealthy is still mocked, belittled, and shut out more often than not.
From your description, naming the Metropolitan Reading Test, Nancy Drew, and The Bobbsy Twins, I gather that these terrible events happened a while ago. It sounds similar to school situations that my BIL and parents suffered through plus they experienced a lot of racism and bigotry from the teachers and the students. By the time I got into school, the overt racism among teachers had toned down a bit, but the majority of the students in one of the schools I attended were vicious and these gangsters certainly did not appreciate the honors students. There was A LOT of physical violence and assault of ALL types.
I think such lists went out with the dodo bird. A good way to get a kid to hate reading is to make him/her read something he hates. I'm not saying don't broaden their horizons, but do give them some choices. That's what my kids' school, out in white-bread mid-America suburbia did.
I said Recommended, not Mandatory!!!
It would also need a paragraph or two explaining why it is recommended.
I read White Fang as a kid not Black Beauty. I finally read BB a few years ago since it is free in Project Gutenberg. I have also listened to the audiobook of White Fang. I consider Black Beauty to be the better book because of the broader perspective woven into the story. It was published in 1877 and tells about the culture and economics of England significantly into the rise of the British Empire. Karl Marx was living in London at the time, until his death in 1883.
Black Beauty is presented somewhat as an animal rights book but it is obvious in the story that much of the animal suffering it the result of human economic suffering. Marx would have approved. Also H. G. Wells was 11 years old in 1877 so his childhood influences could be better envisioned with that story.
Both. Oh, I know. You think rural schools should just teach vo-ag and the like, even though only about 2% of people work in farming, regardless of whether they live in a rural or urban area. Why, no farm kid has ever gone to college, nor should any of them aspire to do so. After all "college isn't for everyone" and it's been given to tnff to decide who it is and isn't for. We've heard that a-plenty.
You know Katarina, with all the posts I've made over these past years, you have not understood one thing I've said. You know nothing about what I think of rural schools, or vo-tech or ag or anything else. I grew up that farm kid in a rural school. Never once have I said anything to put rural kids and schools down. What I do have is enough different experience to know that not everyone has the same dreams and aspirations. And not everyone has the same abilities. Some are interested in science. Some in working with their hands. And no, college isn't for everyone. It's utterly silly to think otherwise. It's not me deciding who it is and isn't for; everything I've said has been about providing alternatives appropriate to the population. For some reason that idea offends you greatly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katarina Witt
..
You know flipping well that vocational ed is perceived as lesser than college, probably because it is. For every anecdote about some mechanic making $200K/year blah, blah that you can give, I'll post this: https://www.bls.gov/emp/chart-unempl...-education.htm
Higher education levels mean, in general, more money and less unemployment.
You sure have a strong reaction to vo-tech. Why are you so prejudiced against it? I knew many of my friends who became mechanics, or machinists, or welders. What is so wrong with that? I work with some incredible machinists and technicians every day. Sure I went to college, but they have skills I don't have. All the engineers and physicists where I work have the greatest respect for the skilled craftsmen who know how to actually convert ideas into hardware. Why don't you ask your husband how he feels about the craftsmen where he works? He might no share your opinion about those skilled workers be "lesser" (your words, not mine) because they didn't go to college.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katarina Witt
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Not to mention, as I said above, kids in rural or blue collar areas deserve a decent education to get them into the post high school situation of their choice, not the choice of someone who thinks rural kids don't deserve college prep courses in high school.
I'm not the one who thinks rural kids don't deserve a decent education. My volunteer work is to bring STEM to those classrooms. That's why I found this forum in the first place, because I was right there in the reality. And that is what fuels my posts and discussions. Being right there with the people and kids who you think are "lesser" because they didn't go to college. We do not help those kids by pushing them toward college by removing their alternatives. Because that's what so many schools have done -- removed the alternatives.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katarina Witt
Well, this really takes the cake! Step up to the prize table, pick your favorite flavor-chocolate, white, carrot, poppy seed.
Who is this "one person", BlessedLife? Why can't you just say who?
Yes, the OP's posts do consist of extremely specific personal anecdotes, although he claims to be taking the bigger view. Here is the OP: (My post continues below)
So the OP read something in the local paper, a small-town Tennessee paper presumably. While I have no issues with small town Tennessee papers, they are not known for hiring Pulitzer Prize winning reporters, and the OP doesn't tell us what set him off.
Of the OP's 17 posts thus far, he has posted links in exactly ONE post, his second. One is an undated article from a blog about giftedness which has very little evidence based information. The other is from Newsweek, a mass media magazine, where the OP apparently got the idea to use the word "hate" in his title. Now the OP likes to tell us this is a discussion board, and is not meant for scientific precision, with which I agree, but I feel "hate" is a pretty strong word to use, period. The Newsweek article does not substantiate that claim, rather it is advocating for tracking, if anything. The article has a link to some original research which also does not substantiate such a claim, but rather talks about what superachievers some of these gifted kids become by age 38.
ALL of the other OP's posts are personal anecdotes about him and/or his kids. His supporters have posted same (some probably with links, I haven't looked back through the whole thread). These posts are received by the OP with accolades as if he is a teacher or a moderator. OTOH, any posts that disagree with the OP and his supporters are dismissed as anecdotal, even though many of these posters have included links to support their statements.
You seem angry. If you want to address me, then address me. Not in a third person shot at BlessedLife who has done nothing to offend you.
Nothing set me off. It was a discussion topic. I'd love to discuss the causes and impacts, and potential solutions, do you have some to discuss?
From your description, naming the Metropolitan Reading Test, Nancy Drew, and The Bobbsy Twins, I gather that these terrible events happened a while ago. It sounds similar to school situations that my BIL and parents suffered through plus they experienced a lot of racism and bigotry from the teachers and the students. By the time I got into school, the overt racism among teachers had toned down a bit, but the majority of the students in one of the schools I attended were vicious and these gangsters certainly did not appreciate the honors students. There was A LOT of physical violence and assault of ALL types.
Early to mid 60s. I was happy in Kindergarten. Probably would have been happy going forward, if I hadn't had the misfortune to be stuck in that evil woman's first grade class.
The city I lived in kept black people out until around 1970. Then they let ONE black family move into town. Wow! How forward thinking of them! (NOT!)
I also remember, in the 2nd grade (my first year in school since I skipped a grade) a kid coming up to me on the playground and whispering into my ear "I'm Jewish. I can tell you because I know you won't tell anyone." Which was doubtless because he had witnessed a series of incidents that started with some kid calling me a n-word-lover. I didn't know what the n-word was. Had to go home where my mother was appalled but finally told me it was a really mean name for someone who didn't hate black people. So next time he called me that, I thanked him, because not hating black people was a GOOD thing. Which shocked the living daylights out of him. He paused for a second and then said, "Well, then, you're a JEW lover."
By now I had the tone of his "insults" so I said, "What's wrong with being Jewish? Jesus was a Jew."
This kid went on a rant about how Jesus was NOT a Jew and the Jews KILLED him. "No, the ROMANS killed him, and even if the Jews 2000 years ago DID kill him, it wouldn't be the fault of anyone alive today". He was in a state of apoplexy, just choking on the very idea.
Pretty sure this was the incident that got me labeled "heathen".
I think another problem was that I showed just enough of my Native American heritage that people always suspected I wasn't really One of Them. Didn't help that my mother used to insist on braiding my hair. The other kids would follow me around going "WOO WOO WOO! SQUAW!" ( Westerns were BIG on TV at the time, and people in little Midwest fairly rural towns were WAY more sensitive to and suspicious of perceived "differences" than they are now)
Keeping in mind, I was 30 years old before I found out about our Native American heritage because, you know, unfounded and unreasonable shame. The whole family hid it. Not being white in the 60s was a pretty harsh existence. Had I known, I could have been proud of it. But my mother would never have wanted anyone to know this (it was on my dad's side) so - she hid it and insisted my dad do the same. I could never figure out why she insisted on braiding my hair that way given she supposedly didn't want anyone to twig to our background. So, without that knowledge, it just seemed like one more unfair way for people to make fun of me. Of the 6 children, including me, only my older brother (who died in a car accident when he was 6) and I showed any of that heritage.
Bigots suck. Bigotry at school directed at kids sucks even more. My own son with his Asian Indian heritage faced a fair amount, people used to mistake him for Mexican before 9-11. Guess what they thought AFTER 9-11.
When we lived in Puerto Rico, someone called him a s pic and he had to ask me what that meant. I told him, and told him anyone who used those kinds of terms was an idiot, especially when it comes from an adult (which it had). So we came up with a little speech for him to use and he wrote it down and memorized it - went like this: "I am NOT a "s pic". Technically I am a "wog" or a "half-breed". If you MUST impugn my ethnicity, you should at least get it right."
I swear, he lived for the day he could whip that puppy out and use it. But what you could do in the 90s would probably get you lynched in the 60s.
People who discount the experiences of children, especially experiences like this, are just as bad. "Oh you can't really complain because you are talking from the experience of a child". Being a child doesn't invalidate the facts when you've been abused like this. Taking that stance, no child will ever be believed, and no child will ever be helped. What an awful world that makes!
It would also need a paragraph or two explaining why it is recommended.
I read White Fang as a kid not Black Beauty. I finally read BB a few years ago since it is free in Project Gutenberg. I have also listened to the audiobook of White Fang. I consider Black Beauty to be the better book because of the broader perspective woven into the story. It was published in 1877 and tells about the culture and economics of England significantly into the rise of the British Empire. Karl Marx was living in London at the time, until his death in 1883.
Black Beauty is presented somewhat as an animal rights book but it is obvious in the story that much of the animal suffering it the result of human economic suffering. Marx would have approved. Also H. G. Wells was 11 years old in 1877 so his childhood influences could be better envisioned with that story.
Having to stumble around finding books wasted a lot of time on junk for me.
Then I was supposed to read Catcher in the Rye. I refused. LOL
I said Recommended, not Mandatory!!!
Of course I wouldn't recommend Harry Potter books so this is a problem.
I wouldn't read Catcher in the Rye either. I asked the teacher for a different assignment. Fortunately this was a High School English teacher who liked me so it didn't cause trouble. I had already read parts of it and didn't like it, I thought it was badly written tripe and found it very objectionable. Didn't care for "Lord of the Flies" either. Steinbeck wrote well but I found his stories very dark and depressing.
I don't understand why you wouldn't "recommend" Harry Potter books. I find them to be very well written and as appropriate and challenging for adults as they are for children.
I read both Black Beauty AND White Fang as a child. Also all the Walter Farley books - I would have loved to be shipwrecked on an island with a secret valley full of horses that loved me! Totally ignoring little things like finding food and water, of course.
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