bdgr, I cannot recommend music strongly enough. If your son shows the slightest interest in it, please do something about it.
I’ll cheerfully dredge up an old recorder (block flute) for him to learn on. Either that or some art supplies, you name it. I am so glad to hear that he is no longer candidate for the special ed class. That would be like using a scalpel for a box knife.
Thanks Zenster, I agree music is a must. Being a musician, I have a metric crapload of instruments around here. I even have my own recording studio. He has a recorder, and he is learning to play on his grandmothers stienway. Plus there are half a dozen keyboard instruments around here, including a rhodes and a hammond organ, syths, harmonicas, trumpets, guitars and basses. I even have a mandolin somewhere out there in the studio. Poor kid doesnt have a chance…He’s going to be a musician like it or not(which might conteract the mensa memberships effect on the girls…I gotta be carefull there…maybe make him take up accordian).
bdgr, I think I love you. No wonder we get along. I am so happy for you and especially for your son. You have a veritable candy store for any creative mind. Would that I had grown up in so music infested a home!
Piano, piano, piano! It is the 88 String Guitar (thanks, Tom Lehr). It is the ultimate composing tool. It is the best exercise bench for fingers to have in preparation for guitars, saxamaphones and other instruments. It is so very cool that your son is immersed in such art. I cannot possibly approve to a greater degree.
Strange thing is, I grew up with a stienway in my livingroom and never touched it. I was a violinist. Then I went out and bought an old moog synth, learned to play it, and then learned the piano…I always did things the hard way. Eventually I sold the violin(wish I still had one, but I probably wouldnt play it).
I love music, and I hope he gets into it as much as I have.
I don’t think so, Scarlett. I remember it quite clearly and my registration date is after the Winter.
Congratulations, bdgr! And congratulations to your kid, too!
I remember reading the thread in which you posted about the three-dimensional thing and thinking “They gotta get that kid into gifted classes or something.” Glad to see you’re gonna do so!
Speaking as a ‘gifted’ child myself, lemme tell ya from firsthand knowledge that the LAST thing you wanna do is bore that kid! CHALLENGE him! Follow HIS choice of learning materials and topics… nurture that brain of his!
'Cuz if you don’t, you’re gonna get a burnout like me. I realized there was no point in doing homework, no point in even pretending to pay attention in class. I’d learn the material on my own, ace the tests, and sleep on my desk… graduated with a firm barely-gonna-make-it 71% (needed 70) in most of my classes. Because I knew I could, and it was easier. No challenge for me, no reason to try.
No college. Figured it was more of the same.
I still learn things, I adore it. Just not what ‘society’ might want me to learn. I’m happy with it, too… but by most standards, I’m ‘maladjusted’.
All because I wasn’t challenged in school.
Cool! Congratulations to you and the little bdgr!
So are you going to get one of those bumper stickers? You know, the “my gifted child is smarter than the principal at xyz Elementary” ones?
I know what you mean, thats the way i was exactly. I did go to college, but I dropped out. As most parents, I want better for my kid. When my parents would go to the principle, and point out my test score etc…they would just tell them tough, we dont have any way to do anything differant. Now, we have options, and my kid has a better chance than I do.
Congrats and commiserations on the kid! Maybe we can have a mid-cities dopefest with kids & such.
Violin is my absolute most favorite instrument to listen to. I have some belly dance music you really should listen to.
I could so give you a reason to play the violin! 
Ok, I don’t meet with the folks at the school until monday, but after reading some information the diagnostician faxed over…Papers and correspondance documenting a lot of this trainwreck. Basically the pricinciple seemed to be letting the counselor (the one who thought being shy an and playing video games makes you a mass murderer) run the show on this, even thought the diagnostitian is more experianced, and technically over the counselor.
Im Starting to think that it will be best to get him the hell out of that school. Private schools are not really an option, unless he was to get a scholership(looking in that one). But the Fort Worth ISD has an applied learning school, and a montessori school. Anybody out there have any experiance with either of these kind of schools?
From what I understand it is a crap shoot to get him into these schools anyway, as they go by a lottery system. But I going to try.
Hey, now, don’t be dissin’ the accordion. I play the accordion. Sorta. Urkel played the accor… uh, never mind.
Good for you for standing up for your kid like this! Sounds like you’re doing all the right things. As for the schools with the lottery admissions - perhaps seeing your son’s scores might score him a guaranteed winning ticket. Goodness knows it doesn’t hurt to ask!
I’m not going to offer any advice, as you’ve gotten tons here. But I wish you and him the best. He sounds like a great kid and he’s got a great dad!
Me and Mrs Bdgr are going to go out there on Tuesday(she is off then), and talk to them. Hopefully there will be something they can do.
Good on you for considering just getting him out of that school. Even if it means another public school until you can place him somewhere better. My brother was held back a grade because he was gifted. He was branded in the school system and carried the reputation of a trouble maker and lazy student through every school in the district. Teachers made up their mind about him without ever meeting him. They knew his type. When he repeated the 7th grade, he did so in the learning disabled class where the teacher recognized what was going on. By the end of the year he was doing Calculus and reading things that I was assigned in college literature classes. Yeah, he was the only gifted in the class. Most of the rest of the students were downs, but the thing is that they had enough support that he could get what amounted to indvidual tutoring. The next year he was put back into the general population and went back to being a D student and his dismal reputation.
I don’t think Montessori would be ideal. It’s basically for younger kids, learning through play, no structure. I I don’t know anything about the FWISD school. Try like hell to get him in Country Day or Westlake Charter School.
Westlake is the first (in Texas) Charter School to be run by a city. They are starting with elementary, and will add 1 grade each year. They just did the lottery for it. It is an International Baccalaureate Program, which allows you to skip 1st year of college. Very demanding, 2 foreign languages, etc.
I agree, the school is not supporting you. Transfer him out. Call Tarrant Cty Community College and see if he can take a class in something he is interested in. Try a drama class - that’s what my family enrolled me in. That covers a lot of material - stagecraft, confidence, literature, etc.
The FWISD Montisorri school goes all the way through eighth grade…Intersting. I will check out the westlake, but the whole school uniform thing sends up warning flags for me. Ive always taught my child that being an individual is important.
Gotta disagree that Montessori is for “little kids”. My son’s 9 years old, in third grade, and thriving at a Montessori elementary. I don’t have time or energy to write more tonight, I’ll come back to it later, but I think a good Montessori school can be an excellent place for a very bright child because the curriculum is so individual and adaptable.
If you don’t go the private school route, I would suggest you try to find an advocate on your public school board.
If you make the school board aware of the crappy job this principal/teacher/counselor has done for your kid - maybe they can make some changes. This could help both your child and future children. At the very least, it may get him into the correct class.
Good luck and congrats!
Congrats.
Here’s the thing, though, is it just generally Special Ed or are the 504 programs, IEPs, etc with it?
Here’s what I’m getting at:
I have a hearing impairment, and I am also gifted. I was having trouble in class because, besides not being challenged by some things, I was also not hearing the teachers when they spoke while writing on the blackboard, and so on. So I was put into YTP, the Youth Transition Program, which is for students with disabilities*. I was put on the 504 Program which requires teachers and future employers to make accomodations for it.
YTP is mostly for learning disabled students. I was the first student put into it who is even regular ed, much less gifted. But it’s required; otherwise, I wouldn’t have the necessary accomodations made for me.
I’m just saying that before you get mad at the school for trying to put your child into this program, you could consider that they might mean the 504 program or a YTP program, not Special Ed itself. (YTP is a department within Special Ed at my school.)
*I don’t really consider my deafness a disability, but that’s what the school thinks
Um, can I come over? Please? Please please please? Can I? Can I? Can I?
Sounds like a great place to grow up. Congrats to you and the fam.
(If you want to get rid of the Rhodes, drop me a line)
504 is fine. Thats what we wan’t them to do, and thats what school is supposed to do. What they were trying to say is that he is academically impaired…which he is not. Thats what the tests proved, not only is he not academically impaired, he is gifted. Again the lady who told I should raise a stink about it is the head special ed diagnostician…its her job to determine if he belongs in special ed to begin with, she is adamant that if he went into that program it would be a horrible msitake.