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
#2> I will never forget the day I mentioned to another mother my concern about lack of empathy and kindness among the students, and she told me: “That’s not the school’s job.”
Is there nothing left that parents are meant to teach? Or is it all now the school's job? If so, why don't we go full Spartan and take the kids away from the parents right after they're born and have schools teach everything.
Re: Why I pulled my son out of a school for 'gifted' kids
#3Couldn't cut it, dropped out, parents wrote sour-grapes article, the system works.
Re: Why I pulled my son out of a school for 'gifted' kids
#4It seems like the optimal learning environment is one where you are
a) being taught at the speed and level that is at least in the ballpark of your potential. The reason this is needed is obvious: if you are being taught way beyond your capability you won't learn anything, and it's a disservice to be taught way below your capability as well.
b) in the top 50% of your local group of students, for self esteem reasons and also because you'll start to feel like studying and working hard pays off if you seem to be successful in school relative to your peers.
There's a real tradeoff between these two sometimes. Given two identical kids, if you send one to the school that is not up to his "gifted" potential but he is the smartest kid in his class he may well do better in the end than the one you send to a gifted school but he is obviously at the bottom of his class. The first will certainly be happier and perhaps learn the life lessons and habits that will make him super successful in high school, college and beyond.
We can at least start to address a) with these gifted programs and special education for the exceptionally challenged and so on. But addressing b) is also important and the laws of statistics sort of prevent us dividing kids into groups where everyone is above average for their group. In theoretical terms I can envision some sort of frequent rotation system where you're constantly shuffled from class to class so that one week you're top of your class and another you're bottom. Perhaps that would even help illustrate to kids the extremely hard to learn lesson that judging yourself against others is fruitless and destructive.
Re: Why I pulled my son out of a school for 'gifted' kids
#5I 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 (5 years ago) was tested to be "gifted" and after looking at the program we said no.
1) They would move him to a totally different school in our district.
2) They used a different curriculum and class strategies.
3) Being an "4.0 Student" in undergrad I knew the pressure to stand out besides the perfect scores. Kids would be worse.
4) We live in a dirty poor urban school district and I figured the "gift program" was going to get cut. It did the next year and he would have been right where he was anyways.
5) He had cancer and I kind of was mad that they would tell him these were his options without talking to us first, because there were medical needs that a local school afforded us (AKA we could run to school and give him his pain meds if necessary)
Gifted doesn't mean separate because the one thing that people with different brain strategies needs is the ability to figure out how to work with others. If there is no others they are bound to have trouble later on.
Re: Why I pulled my son out of a school for 'gifted' kids
#6[deleted]
Re: Why I pulled my son out of a school for 'gifted' kids
#7> I will never forget the day I mentioned to another mother my concern about lack of empathy and kindness among the students, and she told me: “That’s not the school’s job.” Is there nothing left that parents are meant to teach? Or is it all now the school's job? If so, why don't we go full Spartan and take the kids away from the parents right after they're born and have schools teach everything.
It takes a village
Re: Why I pulled my son out of a school for 'gifted' kids
#8> I will never forget the day I mentioned to another mother my concern about lack of empathy and kindness among the students, and she told me: “That’s not the school’s job.” Is there nothing left that parents are meant to teach? Or is it all now the school's job? If so, why don't we go full Spartan and take the kids away from the parents right after they're born and have schools teach everything.
> why don't we go full Spartan and take the kids away from the parents right after they're born and have schools teach everything.
I feel like that was the reason we had boarding school for the rich and apprenticeships in the early modern period. Children didn't stay with you in the city at around 12 you shipped them off to be an apprentices and live with the master or you went to a boarding school or college by 12 or 13.
Re: Why I pulled my son out of a school for 'gifted' kids
#9> I will never forget the day I mentioned to another mother my concern about lack of empathy and kindness among the students, and she told me: “That’s not the school’s job.” Is there nothing left that parents are meant to teach? Or is it all now the school's job? If so, why don't we go full Spartan and take the kids away from the parents right after they're born and have schools teach everything.
This isn't about adding to the burden of what schools teach or provide - it's about acknowledging that schools are fundamentally a place to educate _humans_ - so some things that are fundamental to the human experience ought to be considered. I don't think a generation or two raised on "your score must improve" is going to be the hallmark of social progress. I'd much rather have a population that understands empathy.
So I'll meet you half way and settle for schools that don't forcibly grind out any spark of individuality, creativity, curiosity, and empathy from their students as part of the hunt for ever higher test scores.
Re: Why I pulled my son out of a school for 'gifted' kids
#10It seems like the optimal learning environment is one where you are a) being taught at the speed and level that is at least in the ballpark of your potential. The reason this is needed is obvious: if you are being taught way beyond your capability you won't learn anything, and it's a disservice to be taught way below your capability as well. b) in the top 50% of your local group of students, for self esteem reasons a…
Actually, it's enough to be at approximately same level as your peers. Varying interests will balance things out. You might feel that some of your peers are stronger in math, but that biology is your thing and so on.
Skill-based splitting is also a good thing for at least one subject: foreign languages. Practicing with peers on a very different level will not work out at all.
And by the way, if your kid ends up being the best in the class for virtually everything, you need to move him somewhere where they will challenge him more. If you don't, then good luck later on.