We’ve been dealing with this at my 11 year old 6th grade twin daughters’ private school.
One of my twins is gifted and bright in every area.
My other twin is special needs. She is gifted in math, but she is slow at reading and she is not great at writing.
They are both get bombarded with lots of homework. My gifted daughter is really having trouble keeping up.
I don’t mind that my gifted daughter is given lots of homework. She’ll eventually be able to figure out how to handle everything, and it’s good for her to learn how to work hard because so far everything has been easy for her.
However, my special needs daughter doesn’t need the pressure. She performs at grade level (in everything but math), but not above. I don’t want her to be overwhelmed by homework. It’s not even really going to help her. Reading out loud to me is about the main thing that would help her, and she doesn’t have time to do that. She also needs to have a life. She’s wants to play sports, and that’s a very good thing for her.
In elementary school, the private school had a program for dyslexic students and that’s why we picked the school. Now, in middle school they have just abandoned the dyslexic students.
What really irritates me is that my daughter just can’t keep up with the amount of work that is given. She’s not fast enough. The homework grades are not great because she can’t complete the work. However, she still is managing to pull As on tests. What’s more important: finishing homework or doing well on tests? I thought the purpose of homework was to prepare them for tests.
I’m beginning to wonder if we need to put my daughter back in public school. However, there are so many other issues in public school (misbehaving kids, too large, etc).
I hate forcing all kids to perform at the same level. Some kids just can’t.
Be thankful that your school at least has the courage to give bad grades.
My high-school-drop-out friend has been taking courses at the “best” community college in the entire Chicago Metro Area (Oakton in DesPlains and Skokie), and every student gets an “A” no matter how much work and how stupid/ignorant they are, most especially if they are black.
My friends hard won “A’s” are rendered meaningless.
My son is pretty bright and very dilligent and hard-working. He is working his butt off in a middle school that caters to his type. He gets great grades, but we try to tell him not to stress over it too much as even without straight “A”s he is getting a great education.
I wish that my two younger twin daughters would be able to handle it, but I don’t think so. The fall-back is they can take AP classes in middle school so that will help.
I had friends that were super-smart in high school that just weren’t pushed and engaged hard enough. Of course they were the ones that got in trouble!