Posted on 08/27/2007 8:25:48 AM PDT by shrinkermd
My third grade daughter spends every Monday in a gifted pull out class, and is placed in fourth grade math.
Some schools do it right.
If I had ever received a reprimand like that, I would be contacting the Superintendent, my school board and the local news paper.
I would not rest until I had made her very, VERY sorry.
I regularly advocate Mensans to forget about college, take up welding, and thus get the world by the short hairs. If ‘it’s money that matters in the USA’ (Randy Newman), a trade is the quickest, most certain, and most independent way to get there. You can read Kant and Nietzsche very well on your own without a Philosophy prof making ludicrous suggestions all the time.
You both made excellent points. I was a gifted student in grade school (Chicago) and sent from 2nd to 5th grade. A new principal, who I hope is burning in hell, didn’t feel I should be advanced because I was too young. She told my parents that my presence in 5th grade would be disruptive for the other children. Principal Carry’s name is my Niagra Falls (3 Stooges reference).
We had a good school before her arrival - most of the teachers lived in the neighborhood. I was sent back to 2nd grade and so bored that many teachers would tutor me at their homes to keep me inspired. They also gave my parents advice on tutoring me at home. I actually wrote 2 plays that the school put on. I was the casting director. That was a great experience.
My parents (at the suggestion of those teachers) put me in a private school where I thrived.
Side note: One of my grade school teachers told me that the brightest people he knows dropped out in their sophomore year in high school because they weren’t allowed to reach their potential. He didn’t want that to happen to me. And I made sure that it didn’t happen to my daughter.
Pull em out and homeschool.
For those subjects for which you have no/little talent, try these resources (depending on the ages of your kids):
http://www.pottersschool.org/
http://www.pottersschool.org/
http://www.apexlearning.com/Courses/courses.htm
Or your city defects from the other systems and runs its own
school system.
“Can’t they solve one simple problem between them?”
Don’t you already have the answer to your question? ;-) By the way, administrators have the lower standardized test scores than even elementary school teachers according to a study of “educatinal leadership” by Arthur Levine, former president of Columbia Teacher’s College.
Have the kid do AP physics online.
Think of public anything. Public buses, public toilets, public telephones, public whatever.
It is obvious that not all students can achieve the highest levels so, to assure equality, they keep the bright students down. We must not hurt the feelings of the slow ones you know.
It also makes the teachers jobs easier, and that is important, too.
That's a (bad) blast from the past. The words I hated to hear were "Karl's in our group so we don't have to work." Grrrr!
My daughter is in 3rd grade and is encouraged to read off the 7th grade list. Accelerated Reader is an awesome program, and I have yet to find a smutty book on the list.
Ideally, it would be possible. Given the wide range of students' abilities and the time constraints involved in classroom teaching, though, extra time devoted to the underperforming students can't help but subtract from the time and attention that can be given to the advanced students.
“It must be the nature of government projects to seek an egalitarian ideal where true ability is discouraged to make those of lesser ability feel good.”
Quite true. Rarely is someone allowed to stand out as exceptionally smart and our culture does not idealize the smart or clever.
As for abilities, a lot of people have strengths and weaknesses, but unfortunately our school systems are not interested in developing the strengths and working on the weaknesses of each student.
With the way those with high intelligence are treated by their peers and sometimes even their teachers, it’s no wonder our school systems are falling apart. They refuse to chage with the times and realities that we are living in.
The editorial accurately describes the reaction of the government schools to NCLB. Of course, you are right that they were bad before and that the ed establishment hates being held accountable. Nevertheless, they are doing what the article describes, and in such a heavy-handed way that parents of brighter children are noticing.
I think it is best to think of NCLB as entertainment - watching our highly trained education professions lie, cheat, and cut corners to try to avoid being exposed is actually lots of fun.
Yes! What stare are you in? Start by googling “State Name + ‘homeschool convention’”. If that doesn’t work, start looking for statewide homeschool organizations, they’ll have information about that.
I wish I remembered names of good homeschool curriculum sources to give you, you’ll have to ask some current homeschoolers but you can get great catalogs full of materials to learn any subject you want.
You can multiply without a calculator? :)
I (used to) know how to do normal arithmetic quite well. For speed and accuracy I normally use a calculator, and recently when one wan't around discovered that I can't function without it at all well anymore. Slow and inaccurate. Sigh.
“I would wager money the average overly-bright kid would learn more in a library”
Much like me. I bombed high school but spent the majority of my time in the library. I still do go to the libary when I can and I have also started my own internet business.
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