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Why I pulled my son out of a school for 'gifted' kids

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Re: Why I pulled my son out of a school for 'gifted' kids

#71

Post by jkyle »

ryanhuff wrote: post #62
jkyle wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By that logic, what exactly is the parents job then? Why must only one person have a duty to raise a child? For most of human history "it takes a village" was canon with regard to child rearing. On most days of the week, a school is often responsible for the welfare of a child for more hours of the day than the parent. Seven or eight hours of school, several hours of after school activities. How can you not see thi…

My wife is a primary school teacher, and she barely has time to get through the mandated material. There is no time for "parenting" tasks, beyond basic safety and welfare. And even if she did, the child's family's values are often not in alignment with my wife's. More than once, simple discipline tools have been challenged by parent to effectively remove any consequences for ill-behavior by the student. So while you…

> she barely has time to get through the mandated material

My mother being a public school teacher for many decades, you'll get no disagreement from me that teachers are over extended and under resourced.

> There is no time for "parenting" tasks, beyond basic safety and welfare.

Most of parenting is safety, welfare, and being a positive example.

> And even if she did, the child's family's values are often not in alignment with my wife's. More than once, simple discipline tools have been challenged by parent to effectively remove any consequences for ill-behavior by the student.

I'm not sure consensus is a requirement for parenting. Even within marriages, consensus isn't guaranteed.

> So while you may view the role of school as an extension of parenting, many parents regularly stick their noses into the school environment to dictate their own norms, and you cannot have one teacher "parenting" 30 different ways.

I don't really see it as a view. Rather an observed fact. Whether they are equipped to do it well or poorly with or without conflict are details about the mode and quality with which they help raise a child rather. They rear our children by virtue of being a primary authority figure and adult mentor for most of their lives previous to adulthood.

"Parenting" is a bit of a nebulous term. Many don't think most parents do a good job of parenting. But child rearing is unambiguous. The school system undoubtedly rears our children.

Re: Why I pulled my son out of a school for 'gifted' kids

#72

Post by baldfat »

Kluny wrote: post #24
baldfat wrote: post #5

I was a "gifted" kid AKA they took my IQ score and put me in the program. (Horrible way to figure that out). I got to go to special things on Saturdays and take harder math classes in school. I totally sucked at spelling and still do and this is a known issue with people with a "mathematical brain" AKA can't spell to save my life but read at a high school level in 3rd grade and was doing calculus in 9th grade. My son…

I hope your son beat cancer since then.

Sadly he passed away from bone cancer (osteosarcoma) 2 years ago.

PS I usually say this so I can plead with people to help fund Pediatric Cancer Research. Only 4% of US Federal Grants go to Peds Research. American Cancer Society gives less than $0.02 per dollar for Peds Cancer Research. Adult research has little to no impact for the kids. I 100% support St Baldricks and Children’s Cancer Research Fund. We finally have our first Chemo in over 20 years this year for children because of St Baldrick's funded research!

Re: Why I pulled my son out of a school for 'gifted' kids

#73

Post by kamaal »

Make no mistakes this whole smart people/student/kid/employees kind of an elite club makes a mediocre person out of many people.

If you are thinking this is limited to schools alone, you are wrong. What do you think happens to all those employees at Google after they are made to go through all that algorithm acrobatics. You may be listed as someone who aced all interviews, has big grades on your mark sheet. But you will go there only find your self to be another face in the crowd. Your promotions/growth/rewards will come in a trickle. No matter how good you might actually be, you are no special snowflake in a crowd like that. The net result is you will end up demotivated, if not feeling bad about yourself.

Even a performance evaluation in situations like that will make you feel like crap.

And it always happens that the 'low performers' in the group are always given fewer of those plum opportunities. No matter how good you individually might be, you will end up getting labelled as mediocre. And worse, you will be made to believe that you are.

Re: Why I pulled my son out of a school for 'gifted' kids

#74

Post by kamaal »

volaski wrote: post #44
Someone1234 wrote: post #11

You tell a kid they're smart: You've immediately set them up for long term failure. "Smart" is a quantifiable hard limit. The problem with smart people is that as soon as they run up against a challenge/concept/issue they cannot immediately overcome, they get frustrated, because they "should be smarter than this!" Which often results in avoidable frustration/anxiety/depression. You see this a lot. "Gifted" "smart" ki…

There's a big difference between calling your child "Smart" and calling "Gifted". Sounds like wordplay but it's really not. I agree with your main point that "gifted" children end up failing way more than just ordinary smart children. But I've also seen a lot of children who grew up a confident person because their parents praised them a lot. They just shouldn't call them "gifted" because it implies that the kid alre…

>>But I've also seen a lot of children who grew up a confident person because their parents praised them a lot.

As long as things are going your way, confidence is good. When they are not, fake confidence leaves you completely blind to your own problems. And it kind of amplifies a negative feed back loop.

Almost every person I meet this days talks of 'optimism', 'hope' and 'confidence', often confusing that with laziness and inaction.

Reality doesn't care about our feelings. Taking a true stock of the situation and performing per it, will help us a lot more than textbook contextless confidence lessons personality development books teach us.

Re: Why I pulled my son out of a school for 'gifted' kids

#75

Post by Retra »

volaski wrote: post #54
Retra wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was told I was gifted at a very young age, and people expected a lot out of me. But by the time I hit 9 years old, I had already convinced myself that school was too easy -- I didn't value my grades at all. I would fail regularly and say "I don't care about a mark on a paper." I barely graduated high school. But the problem here wasn't that I thought I was gifted, it was that I didn't compare myself to my peers at…

I'm sure you're doing well right now, but are you sure it's a good decision to rely your entire life on a judgment made by your 9 year old self? I mean, what have we learned by when we're 9 year old? Maybe you learned some arithmetics and concluded that you've mastered the entire field of mathematics? Again, I'm not saying you made a mistake in your life, it may have worked out for you but it may not work for 99% of…

It's possible that I'm wrong. It's maybe even likely that I'm wrong. I guess my point is that, in the big picture, of the factors that make a child successful or not, being told they are smart seems to me to only be a mistake if you don't tell them anything else -- if you don't teach them what it means to be smart.

At some point, I learned that I wasn't as smart as I thought I was. That was a valuable lesson, and one that I learned as a child.

Re: Why I pulled my son out of a school for 'gifted' kids

#76

Post by antod »

powertower wrote: post #14

There is something very narcissistic about all that. Basically, among gifted students, their child's position was in the middle of the bell-curve. That is a natural thing when there are smarter kids around, that are a better scoring group then your previous one. The parents then go on to blame society and the school for not dedicating significantly more resources towards their child, at the expense of the other stude…

Did you read the same article I did? Or at least did you get to the bottom? IMO they seem to be saying something very different to that - eg:

> Before you enter the rat race, I urge parents to question what and against whom you and your kids are racing. It doesn’t freaking matter where your neighbor’s kid went to school. It just doesn’t. Please stop comparing, judging and drawing conclusions. The kids feel it. They know it’s happening, and it is hurting them very deeply.

They aren't complaining about the school - they are passing on their lessons of their mistakes to other hyper competitive parents.

Re: Why I pulled my son out of a school for 'gifted' kids

#77

Post by antod »

ThomPete wrote: post #20

A lot of the failure is actually on the parents here. It's not that hard to get your child into schools for gifted children without your child being especially gifted. Not saying it's easy but it's not really about how gifted they are. Here in NY a lot of parents push their kids and focus primarily on the skills thats needed to get into these schools without the kids having a natural urge to want to get into it. Lots…

> A lot of the failure is actually on the parents here.

That's the point they make in the article. Urging other parents not to fall into the same mistakes they made, and how much better things are now having corrected them.

Re: Why I pulled my son out of a school for 'gifted' kids

#78

Post by contingencies »

daxfohl wrote: post #12

Good for the OP. I, like many here, am an old child prodigy. Starting fatherhood 2.5 years ago, I wanted "prodigy" status for my kids too. Lots of ABC's and 123's in the last two years. Yet I'm already sensing that this is the wrong direction. Kids need fun and excitement to grow. They'll all eventually learn their ABC's and far beyond. How far beyond, though, is unrelated to how early they learn their ABC's. Rather…

Same but 1.5 years fatherhood here. My wife and I chose earlier this year to stay in China instead of migrating to Europe or Australia/New Zealand for our daughter's early education. There seem to be a decent number of concerned parents living here and we are collectively considering starting an independent school to avoid the currently poor options (extreme creationist Christian international school, Chinese primary schools) in a few years' time. There is some interest in established alternative models (Montessori, etc.). What struck me about the article was that they broke children in to groups even within the high potential performance group, and that was dumb. Thinking back to my own gifted/talented schooling experience in Australia, that never happened... we were all exposed to exactly the same challenges and often worked to overcome them as a group, which on the face of it seems a more realistic/adult approach to learning and work.

Re: Why I pulled my son out of a school for 'gifted' kids

#79

Post by simplyluke »

I've seen a lot of pushback against gifted/talented programs over the past year or two, and much of it is very valid. A gifted program starting in 6th grade is the only reason I finished school. Having teachers that knew how to teach to my personality type and learning style helped me discover a love for math, computers, and education.

My district's gifted program was the single best thing that happened to my education.

Re: Why I pulled my son out of a school for 'gifted' kids

#80

Post by contingencies »

brudgers wrote: post #31

Forty years ago, I was bused across Fairfax County. Apart from a few kids in the same swath of suburbs, my classmates were bused in from other parts. I keep in touch with some of them via Facebook. They were amazing kids and are for the most part amazing middle aged adults. The striking difference between my experience and that described in the article is that the educational structure of The Center was not competiti…

For others curious, Latin Ducunt volentem fata nolentem trahunt. means "Fate leads the willing, and drags the unwilling".
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