Teachers, what is your reaction to a parent who thinks their young child is gifted? (degree, arrested)
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I was bored to tears in my classes as a kid, but learning how to cope in that kind of environment was an important part of learning how to function in society.
I find this a really disheartening view.
I don't want to teach my kids to suck it up and deal when they're (inevitably) world-weary and bored. What they need to know is how to find a way to not have to be in that position in the first place.
There is a HUGE difference between talented, gifted, and highly gifted kids. Of course you don’t see much difference with yourself. You may have been talented but if you had been highly gifted, you’d be a college professor vs. a school teacher.
Mmphm. Not necessarily. She might have been an incredible school teacher. Or an artist or an inventor.
Or, given the wrong circumstances, a street bum. But anyway around it, she'd be a fascinating bum, and an engaged bum.
Being highly gifted isn't necessarily something that goes hand in hand with professional or financial success, particularly in a society that mass-produces the average and endorses mediocrity as enthusiastically as this one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by flik_becky
I don’t care for parents who say “Yeah, my daughter is gifted too. She loves school, has lots of friends and is in advanced classes.” Talk to me when you are in tears, devastated that your child may be suicidal at age nine because they don’t know how to deal with the torture of fellow students and teachers but pretends to be an adult online so that they can find friends with common interests. Very scary isn’t it? Don’t force them to go underground. Don’t force them to snap. Be there for them. Although smarter than some of us, they are still children. Screw what the parents think about them. Screw what mainstream crap you were taught in college and can be read in magazines. Do what you know is right in your heart.
Mmphm. Not necessarily. She might have been an incredible school teacher. Or an artist or an inventor.
Or, given the wrong circumstances, a street bum. But anyway around it, she'd be a fascinating bum, and an engaged bum.
Being highly gifted isn't necessarily something that goes hand in hand with professional or financial success, particularly in a society that mass-produces the average and endorses mediocrity as enthusiastically as this one.
Yes, a poor generalization and I agree 100%, believe me. I have a very gifted under achieving father. Under achieving is an understatment. He's the kind of "genius" who would be a polygamist cult leader if he didn’t have so many people from his own family who have stood up against him. (Yes he actually tried.) Trust me, these smart kids need support to help prevent crap like this from happening.
I was bored to tears in my classes as a kid, but learning how to cope in that kind of environment was an important part of learning how to function in society.
Yikes, what society are you living in where being bored to tears is part of functioning in it? While I sometimes feel a bit fidgety when waiting in line at the post office or something, I can't imagine subjecting a child to being bored to the point of crying to "prepare" him for that. Actually, we homeschool, so I just take my kids along on boring errands and they handle their boredom in line just like everyone else... no special lessons on being bored necessary!
Either children are gifted or they suffer ADHD. Actually it seems to me that there aren't any normal children these days. Everytime parents come to me and tell me there child is so gifted, I always think that we will see
Yeah that is what I mean. They do stuff that makes you go wow how can he/she know that. How old was he when you got him tested? How is schooling different for gifted children.
For what I have read, here in CA schools can not enroll children younger than the cutoff day. And then my dd would have to go to half day kindergarten before I could even request her to be tested.
I have recently found a private pre-school for 4 1/2-5yo but my dd misses their cutoff by a month. Which is interesting to me since these kids will be in Kindergarten with my dd. It is a class geared for kids held back a year by their parents.
At this point we are debating whether to enroll her in a montessori school. Which is a lot more expensive than regular pre-school.
Yeah, a teacher told us during a parent/teacher conference that our child had learning disabilities and didn't understand the homework assignment. When we asked about the assignment she told us that she had told the kids to tell her what states the child had been in. Our son had written just about every state so she thought that the child didn't understand the assignment. when we told her that he had,in fact, been to all of those states, she just stared at us and said..."I haven't been to that many states". we just smiled at her and said we were sorry to hear that.
my sister was labeled as being immature for her age and the school wanted to hold her back a year because she'd drawn pictures of the family and didn't give the men of the family hair. my mom pointed out that our uncles and grandfather was bald so she was actually drawing an accurate picture
testing is one way to tell if a child is gifted but the results are drawn by people who don't ask for more information and unfortunately kids are being dumbed down because of the testers experiences and not the childs.
With all due respect, Incakola, I believe that your personal experience is so strongly coloring your perception of giftedness that it's rendering you somewhat unable to see that your experience is not precisely the same as everyone's. You start off by saying, "As for the 'gifted and talented' label placed on some children by IQ tests and such, I really don't believe in it," but then offer as your reasoning, "I thought the whole thing was a hoax when I was in one of those programs as a child." I know you know that your thinking the "whole thing was a hoax...as a child" doesn't necessarily mean that the whole thing truly IS a hoax. It's not. Some g/t programs may be poorly run, but this does not invalidate I.Q. differences nor all of I.Q. testing.
I'm sure you realize that no psychometric measure of anything is 100% perfect, but I'm also sure that you realize differences exist in any population. Let's take height -- most people from a given group will be of average height, but some will be quite tall and others short. I'm sure you also realize that intelligence works the same way. However, you said,
"When it comes to children who have a unique talent for learning math and other academic disciplines, I don't really get the idea that they need some kind of special treatment in school." Then you add another personal reflection to support this contention: "I was bored to tears in my classes as a kid, but learning how to cope in that kind of environment was an important part of learning how to function in society."
Let's deal with what you're saying a piece at a time, starting with "I don't really get the idea that they need some kind of special treatment in school." I'm sure you wouldn't deny that a child with an I.Q. of fifty needs special treatment, of course, and if I were to ask you why that is, you'd most likely say something like, "Her brain function is so radically different from that of neurotypical ("normal") children that she needs to be taught differently, using different methods, in a smaller classroom with teachers who are aware of the best practices to use in educating someone with those special needs."
You'd be right, of course -- though many children with special needs can and should be integrated into the mainstream classroom, many children's needs are too extreme and need special intervention. Again, we're back to that idea of the bell curve bubble around the middle -- most kids will be in a range of "normal" and a little to one side or the other, and most teachers can do a genuinely effective job in teaching them. However, some kids will be far off to the side -- too far off to mainstream them effectively. At some level, it would be cruel to force a child with an I.Q. of 50 to do the work expected of a child with a "normal" I.Q. between 85 and 115.
Okay, now let's flip things: Do you think it would be appropriate to place a child with an I.Q. of 115 into a class intended for children with I.Q.s of 50? I'm guessing you would probably say no, and the reason you'd probably give would be something like, "The class wasn't intended for them -- it wouldn't be an appropriate education." You'd be right.
How different is that, I ask, from an exceptionally or profoundly gifted child being placed in the mainstream classroom? The difference between a child of 115 and a child of 50 is 65 I.Q. points. The difference between an exceptionally gifted child and "normal" one is less than that. If you said that a normal child would not "fit" in a classroom intended for children with an I.Q. of 50, you now understand why it is that extremely and profoundly gifted children also do not "fit" in a classroom intended for children with I.Q.s of 100.
I heartily and readily concede that few children meet this definition -- but you must also do the same and concede that few children have I.Q.s of fifty. When either of those extremes occur, it must be the job of the school to do what is reasonable and appropriate to accommodate them. Moreover, it is the law that they do so, not merely a friendly concession.
I find this a really disheartening view.
I don't want to teach my kids to suck it up and deal when they're (inevitably) world-weary and bored. What they need to know is how to find a way to not have to be in that position in the first place.
Ha! Good luck. Your kids must be in pre-school or younger.
But seriously, some parents of gifted children believe socialization is extremely important, and given the option of a gifted school vs. a traditional public school they choose to have their kids learn to get along with the rest of the world first. Serious academics can come later.
My friend's daughter is a scary genius, just like her father. And while she's leagues ahead of her classmates intellectually she's happy and healthy and not world weary and bored at all.
She's the only gifted child I know, and I know ALOT of kids. I don't buy that baloney of kids acting out in the classroom because they're so gifted they're bored. It's an excuse for bad behaviour.
Ha! Good luck. Your kids must be in pre-school or younger.
But seriously, some parents of gifted children believe socialization is extremely important, and given the option of a gifted school vs. a traditional public school they choose to have their kids learn to get along with the rest of the world first. Serious academics can come later.
My friend's daughter is a scary genius, just like her father. And while she's leagues ahead of her classmates intellectually she's happy and healthy and not world weary and bored at all.
She's the only gifted child I know, and I know ALOT of kids. I don't buy that baloney of kids acting out in the classroom because they're so gifted they're bored. It's an excuse for bad behaviour.
How on Earth is it an excuse for bad behavior? When the class is spending 40 minutes in something and you finish it in 10 then what? I was lucky that I loved reading. I finished many books in school when others were doing work. I did have some teachers who wouldn't let us read books after finishing work. I just had to sit there for half an hour with absolutely nothing to do.
Yes, when you finish early you do free reading, or homework or whatever, quietly. But some kids act up instead, and some parents claim it's because they're bored because they're so smart.
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