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Old 04-26-2013, 04:41 PM
 
1,356 posts, read 1,936,667 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Momma_bear View Post
Yet another arrow towards parents of gifted students. Gifted students are not special snowflakes. They are students who are entitled to a free and appropriate public school education. They are entitled to the same thing that every other student. They should not be pushed off to the back of the room because they are smart and will get it no matter what the teacher does or says. They are entitled to have a curriculum that reflects their abilities.

It has nothing to do with labels and everything to do with meeting the needs of ALL students, not just the average ones.
As someone in education,I was pretty explicit in stating that educators should differentiate and meet the needs of their students. That's what equity in education is. I was pretty clear in contrasting that with the current cultural fetish for G&T labels.
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Old 04-26-2013, 04:46 PM
 
11,642 posts, read 23,823,980 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler View Post
ITA! We are celebrating "smart" being something you ARE instead of something you DO when the doing is way more important than the being. In the end, the vast majority of us end up somewhere in the middle and, as someone else posted, half of those at the top, didn't start out as "gifted". It's not gifts that we should be celebrating.
Gifted education is not about celebrating anything. It is about meeting the needs of students who are far from the mainstream.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler View Post
When I look at my daughter I have to wonder what would have happened if we'd left her back with her peers. Maybe a little more maturity before she took AP classes might have helped. Maybe, like you, she's just tired of the expectations that come with the label. Whatever the case, I don't see any of this helping to motivate her to do more when it's the doing that matters.
I think you have to look at the specfic program with your daughter. As I have said many times, gifted students are smarter than average, not necessarily more mature. I prefer gifted programs that keep kids with their age mates.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler View Post
Thomas Edison started out working in a patent office and after reading hundreds of patents, started inventing. He wasn't just born with an IQ of whatever. He did something. I'm questioning why we're celebrating being born with a high IQ when someone with a lower IQ willing to put in hard work can pass them right by. I think we should be putting the emphasis on hard work regardless of IQ. I think we have this backwards.
The doing part is up to the person. Education should fit the person. Do you have any doubt that Thomas Edison was a genius?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler View Post
My best friend in high school had an IQ of 180. Einstein had an IQ of 160. My friend dropped out of college and has had one dead end job after another (but she's a great partner for Trivial Pursuit!!). Einstein changed the world. If IQ were all it's cracked up to be, she should have lit the world on fire. She didn't. Why? She chose to be instead of do. Einstein did.
She did not drop out of college because she was gifted.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler View Post
We are putting the cart before the horse. We need to teach our kids to work hard. Unto those who are given much, much is expected. At least there should be.
Without gifted education we would be teaching gifted kids not to work at all.

My youngest son has two non honors classes (Civic and Theater Tech) as our school does not do honors classes for middle school social studies or fine arts (they do for high school). In Civics he does the homework in a few minutes. He doesn't read the book. He never studies. Never ever. He doesn't have to study. He has an A+ for each of the first three quarters.

If his entire schedule consisted of classes like his Civics class he would have no idea how to work because he wouldn't have to work at all. Thankfully, he has harder classes where he has to learn how to work hard.
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Old 04-26-2013, 04:49 PM
 
11,642 posts, read 23,823,980 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Octa View Post
As someone in education,I was pretty explicit in stating that educators should differentiate and meet the needs of their students. That's what equity in education is. I was pretty clear in contrasting that with the current cultural fetish for G&T labels.
I find it laughable to think that a teacher is going to meet the needs of all students simply by differentiating instruction. It just isn't going to happen (yes I have taught).
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Old 04-26-2013, 04:50 PM
 
1,356 posts, read 1,936,667 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Momma_bear View Post
I find it laughable to think that a teacher is going to meet the needs of all students simply by differentiating instruction. It just isn't going to happen (yes I have taught).
Then keep laughing.
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Old 04-26-2013, 04:55 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Octa View Post
Then keep laughing.
If you think it can be done give me an example of how it can work at the secondary level.
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Old 04-26-2013, 05:33 PM
 
1,092 posts, read 3,425,521 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler View Post
I would agree with this. My point is that when I look at the "gifted" kids in my graduating class and the "gifted" kids who have tracked with dd. They seem to get more average with time (including dd). I find myself wondering why she had to be in a special program and double promoted to keep her challenged when it all seems to even out in the end.

What good are college classes at 14? Does taking such classes early equate with learning the material better? I would think that someone who takes a college class at 22 and learns more would be way ahead of someone who took the same class at 14 and learned less. What I've found with dd is that being ahead today doesn't guarantee being ready for what's next. I'd rather she learn what she learns well than push her ahead just so she can be ahead??? Seriously, I'm not sure what the point in being ahead in school is anymore. It doesn't seem to have helped dd in the slightest. In fact, I think she would hae been happier if she'd just stayed with her friends. I wish I had a do over on this one.

FTR, I've known a lot of "gifted" kids because dd was in a school with a large G&T population. At 15, they're looking pretty average. AT 9, they all looked extremely intelligent. It really does seem like their peers are catching up.
As I posted earlier, my son was double promoted as well. He was popular before and after, but never saw himself as such. When he graduated high school at 16, I didn't think he was mature enough to attend college out of state, so he went to Community College and transferred, which I wasn't happy with. CC was actually was a great experience though.

At 13 my son was ABSORBING as much as his adult classmates when he applied himself. He actually began winning awards, competing against adults in their 20's, 30's, and 40's, by the time he was 15-16. He gave up Friday nights in high school because he loved a class that was offered from 3pm-10pm. He did his first serious internship at 19, and won a regional award competing against veterans in his field. He's also been recognized as one the top college students in the country in his field--many of the other college students that have received the same awards are in their late 20's and some are even in their 30's.

It was not always an easy journey, and he and I both questioned if we made the right choices. He's pretty consistently said he's happy with having accelerated since graduating high school.

My son doesn't drink or party much, but he didn't like be excluded from activities due to his age. Once he turned 21, there was no longer anything that identified him as being younger than his peers.
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Old 04-26-2013, 05:43 PM
 
1,092 posts, read 3,425,521 times
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MommaBear, I agree programs that are geared towards same age classmates is preferred--and that was why I first responded to this thread. But if faced with choosing between subject and/or grade acceleration, or having my child be bored out of his mind all day, I would choose the acceleration.
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Old 04-26-2013, 06:26 PM
 
Location: Whoville....
25,386 posts, read 35,418,651 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Momma_bear View Post
If you think it can be done give me an example of how it can work at the secondary level.
Here's what I have done so far:

I teach chemistry. I differentiate every time we do a lab with the questions I ask of each group. I know who needs their hands held and I know who to tell to figure it out. I know who to ask the higher level questions of and who to lead through the lab step by step (except someone needs to tell my principal that because he says I give too many orders...well, some kids NEED orders.).

I've also found, in chemistry, that if I pace fast, the majority of my students will march to keep up. It's when I back off that they get lazy. If they feel they can't miss a step, they'll stay in step. I will have to pull my floundering students aside and work with them after school to catch them up but I have to do that anyway.

I'm working on question sets to go with the labs that the students can discuss in groups. I was introduced to the jigsaw earlier this year and I like it. I use it this way: I assign students, randomly, to groups and give them a question to answer. Then I regroup and each person in the new group gives the answer the old group came up with and they then are tasked with agreeing on the best answer or writing a new one. It's time consuming but I find it works for all levels as long as the students are putting in some effort.

In math, I try to leave, at least 30 minutes of work time in class so I can go around and help students individually on their level. I am trying to use the guide on the side model here. Next year, I'm going to flip the class to appease those who think I need to do more showing the students how to do things as opposed to assisting them in finding their way (they won't watch the videos but I can stop the whining). I've also found that grouping kids so that the higher performers help their peers helps them reinforce what they know.

Lecture is an issue. There's only so much I can do here. My lower performing students do set the pace there but I try to include more advanced topics in my discussion even though I don't test them.
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Old 04-26-2013, 06:28 PM
 
Location: Whoville....
25,386 posts, read 35,418,651 times
Reputation: 14692
Quote:
Originally Posted by Litlove71 View Post
MommaBear, I agree programs that are geared towards same age classmates is preferred--and that was why I first responded to this thread. But if faced with choosing between subject and/or grade acceleration, or having my child be bored out of his mind all day, I would choose the acceleration.
I did and regret that decision. In hindsight, I do not think grade acceleration helped my dd. At the time, the jump actually kept her with her peers but now that she's in high school, we're finding she identifies with her age mates more than her classmates and that is a problem. If I had it to do again, I would not have allowed her to be double promoted. The combination of a grade skip and accelerated classes in high school has her in classes with kids who are often 2 years older than her when she wants to be with kids her own age.
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Old 04-26-2013, 06:43 PM
 
Location: Australia
8,392 posts, read 3,473,381 times
Reputation: 40353
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler View Post
Here's what I have done so far:

I teach chemistry. I differentiate every time we do a lab with the questions I ask of each group. I know who needs their hands held and I know who to tell to figure it out. I know who to ask the higher level questions of and who to lead through the lab step by step (except someone needs to tell my principal that because he says I give too many orders...well, some kids NEED orders.).

I've also found, in chemistry, that if I pace fast, the majority of my students will march to keep up. It's when I back off that they get lazy. If they feel they can't miss a step, they'll stay in step. I will have to pull my floundering students aside and work with them after school to catch them up but I have to do that anyway.

I'm working on question sets to go with the labs that the students can discuss in groups. I was introduced to the jigsaw earlier this year and I like it. I use it this way: I assign students, randomly, to groups and give them a question to answer. Then I regroup and each person in the new group gives the answer the old group came up with and they then are tasked with agreeing on the best answer or writing a new one. It's time consuming but I find it works for all levels as long as the students are putting in some effort.

In math, I try to leave, at least 30 minutes of work time in class so I can go around and help students individually on their level. I am trying to use the guide on the side model here. Next year, I'm going to flip the class to appease those who think I need to do more showing the students how to do things as opposed to assisting them in finding their way (they won't watch the videos but I can stop the whining). I've also found that grouping kids so that the higher performers help their peers helps them reinforce what they know.

Lecture is an issue. There's only so much I can do here. My lower performing students do set the pace there but I try to include more advanced topics in my discussion even though I don't test them.
Re bolded: Does this mean your job isn't being eliminated after all? If so, this is good news for you and your family.
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