Stupid Parents!

The BBQ Pit
1

This thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=49502
about jobs inspired this thread. I have been thinking about it for a while, but never got around to it. Here goes:

I teach Kindergarten at a nice private school. It’s not one of those super-expensive, incredibly exclusive schools, just a little on the hoity-toity side, but still nice.
It’s not a bad job: part-time, low pay, but pretty good benefits (no insurance, but plenty of sick and personal days). I love my job in general, I love all the kids (well, nearly all of them), I genuinely like everyone I work with, but…THOSE DAMN PARENTS!
Don’t people know how to raise children anymore?!? (My rant is not against the kids, it’s against their parents. The kids can’t help it.)

The whole concept of hand washing after going potty or before snack is completely foreign to your child. This explains why, when you bring in a snack to share, I will politely decline. If your kid doesn’t understand why he should wash his hands, I can only assume you don’t, either. Gross.

Please don’t send your little princess to school in:
Pick all that apply:

  1. the antique gold locket that was your great-grandmother’s and is irreplaceable
  2. the half-carat genuine diamond earrings you bought for her fifth birthday
  3. the charm bracelet with extreme sentimental value
    It WILL get lost, usually on the playground. If YOU want to go sift through the quarter-acre of woodchips (they’re 18 inches deep), be my guest, but I ain’t doing it!

That’s nice that you can afford that Ralph Lauren Polo/Tommy Hilfiger designer outfit that probably cost…what, $100? For a kid’s outfit? We do science experiments and art projects and cooking projects…in other words, we get messy. We have smocks, but come on. Save the pricey clothes for some other time. Or at least don’t bitch when Junior’s new ensemble comes home with glitter paint on it.

We DON’T do “Show & Tell.” It takes too long, and too many valuable or special things get broken or lost or somehow destroyed. PLEASE STOP SENDING IN SHOW & TELL STUFF!!! I explained this at the beginning of the year. STOP IT!

If you would like to send in a special treat for your child’s birthday, that is wonderful. Just remember, make sure all the treats are EXACTLY THE SAME! You just can’t, in a class of five-year-olds, send in some chocolate, some vanilla and some strawberry. Not everyone will get what they want, and it only causes problems. It’s even worse if you go around and ask each one which flavor they want. IT NEVER WORKS OUT, trust me on this one! You have more than one kid, so you should understand the whole idea of stuff being “the same.”

Your child is not the only one in my class. There are 20 kids in here. It is just me and one other teacher. We can only do so much. If you think that is bad, try a public school, where it is one teacher for 25+ kids. You want one-on-one private instruction, hire a tutor!

Your child is five years old. He should be able to get his own jacket on by now. He should be able to try zipping it. STOP BABYING HIM! We teach them the “flip” method. Lay the jacket on the floor and stand at the hood. Put your arms in the sleeves and flip the jacket up and over your head. Like magic! Jacket is on! Anyone over the age of two can do it. Why can’t your Kindergarten-age kid do it? Because you baby him, that’s why!

We had cupcakes today for a student’s birthday. What did your child do? Licked all the frosting off his cupcake (and getting it all over his face in the process) and demanded another one. Sorry, it’s a cupcake, not a frosting delivery device.
“But my mommy lets me just lick off the frosting and have more!” doesn’t work with me, kid. You gotta eat the whole thing.

At snacktime, your child wanted more milk.
He said, “I want more milk.”
I said, “What’s the magic word?”
You child paused, looked confused and said, “I want more milk, now?”
Don’t you teach your child manners? Please? Thank You?

You spent 20 minutes at Back-to-School night telling me how smart your kid is, then he gets here and I find out, that at age five, he can’t even recognize his own name. He doesn’t know his letters. He barely knows his colors. Read him a book once in a while, dammit!

We explained that your child needs a BACKPACK for school. Not a tote bag, not a mesh grocery bag, not a paper sack. A BACKPACK. How hard is that?

We also asked that you put your child’s name on the backpack. It’s freaking December! Why haven’t you put the name on the backpack yet? This is why I took a piece of masking tape and wrote your child’s name on it and stuck it on the backpack.

I sent home a paper lunch bag and asked that your child send in THREE (3) (one more than two, one less than four) fall items (a pine cone, a leaf, whatever). You sent in a grocery bag crammed with stuff!!! No wonder your child can’t follow directions…neither can you, shithead!!!

Read the newsletter I send home, dummy. I write a newsletter for our class EVERY WEEK! On my own time, I might add! Why is it still in your child’s backpack days later, all crumpled up? You look like an idiot when you show up at school with your child and it turns out school is closed that day for an in-service training seminar. Don’t say, “No one told me school was closed,” because it was in the newsletter AND it was on the school calendar you got at the beginning of the year.
Yes, we do talk about you when you leave and snicker at how stupid you are. A school-wide newsletter comes home every month. It lists all the days we are closed, closing early, holidays, special events, etc. READ IT!!!

State law requires we have field trip permission slips here, in the school, 24 hours BEFORE the field trip. You never turned yours in, even though it was sent home 2 weeks ago That’s why your child didn’t get to go. We kept asking for it, we sent home 2 more slips for you to sign, you never gave it back to me. Sorry. Your verbal permission over the phone is not good enough. IT’S THE LAW! Pay attention next time, dummy.

We are affiliated with the Catholic church. Not a parochial school, but just associated with the Catholics, hence the word “Saint” in the school’s name, the church across the street and the big cross in the common area. You knew we had chapel services once a week for the older kids, twice a month for the younger ones. Don’t suddenly decide, three months into the school year, that you are (pick one: Jewish, Buddhist, Born-Again Christian, Atheist, Wiccan, Pagan, whatever) and get all offended by a simple chapel service and demand that an alternative activity be planned for your child.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten something. I’ll think of it later.
Arrgghh!

2

Mostly, I love this rant. This is exactly why I could never teach school, although I recognize that it is probably the most important job out there, certainly ranks above a vast majority of the other jobs so many other people consider “prestigious.”

But–(isn’t there always a but?) a few things made me jump back.

This jacket method is cool, I about flipped in amazement when my niece did it. Heh heh heh. And I agree, the parents should be aware that if they don’t teach their child to do some things, it puts an unreasonable burden on others (such as a teacher who has 20 kids to get out the door). That said, I don’t think that “babying” kids is so bad. Not a 5-yr-old, anyway. I guess it’s the verb that bugs me. Our kids have 18 years to learn independence. Most of them grow up too damned fast. It drives me crazy to see parents pushing their babies and toddlers and preschoolers to be as independent and “grown up” as possible, as soon as they can. Argh! I think it’s terrible! So while I do plan to have my son able to zip his coat at five, I bristle when anyone frames this in terms of him being “babied” as if there is anything wrong with that.

I agree, read to the kid. Every chance. They’ll pick up a lot that way. But I hate the trend I see that parents feel their kids MUST have mastered a bunch of stuff before school begins. Too many parents are overly focused on “learning” when their kids should be focused on playing and being accepted for being themselves, developing at their own pace, learning from their own imaginative play. I hope OUR little genius knows his letters well before he starts school (Thank you sesame street!) but if he isn’t interested, we ain’t pushing it. My friend just had lunch with a top child development researcher, and the researcher begged her to NOT get caught up in the “we need a daycare with lots of learning actitivities and structure” movement. The researcher said what they’re discovering about the negative effects of that movement on the child (down the road), is depressing.

Um, nothing wrong with your rant per se. It’s just my chance to rail on a few things that are close to MY heart. Probably in four years I’ll be known as the parent of the most annoying sissy-boy five year old who can’t count to ten, but hey… LOL

3

Ok, I shouldn’t have used the word “babying”, maybe, but some parents do coddle (is that a better word?) their kids. I understand what you mean about letting them have 18 years to grow up, but a five-year-old should be able to get into his coat by himself. I have a couple who just stand there, coat in hand, saying, “But Mommy gets it on me.” A five-year-old should be able to put on his coat, and some are even able to zip it up. And there is a difference between a kid who truly needs help and one who is just lazy (or coddled).

I couldn’t agree more! But by age five there are some basic skills that need to be mastered.
No, they don’t need to be reading Shakespeare, but they should be able to recognize their printed name, be able to count to at least 10, be able to sing the alphabet, know their colors…things like that. Most of my kids can do this (and more), but there are always a few who can’t.
Case in point:
I have one this year who is young (December birthday) and he is also emotionally young. At this point I would recommend he do a Pre-First next year, rather than First grade. I tend to cut him a break on some things that I know he isn’t up to doing. I show him every day how to flip his coat on, but he still doesn’t get it.
I also have a couple (both boys) who are perfectly able to do things like getting their coats on, but choose not to, because Mommy always does it for them.

4

Let me put in my .02 about teaching your kid TOO much and sending him off to kindergarten.
My girlfriend had no life except her kids. When they started school they could read, add and subtract, knew colors and shapes and I can’t imagine what else. They were bored to death. The first one was advanced to first grade after a couple of weeks. However, he was a young kindergartener and the social problems were immense and lasted many years. When it was suggested he go into a split 1-2 class instead of the regular grade 2, he thought he was being punished by not advancing. It was a terrible mess, and trauma for every one. Now he is a high school drop out, after many unsuccessful years.
So, my point is, keep up but don’t push. The best adjusted kids are right in the middle of the pack. Make sure yours is.

5

:frowning:

Nicky turned five in September. He started kindergarten in September.

He can write his name, but he still doesn’t know all his letters. When he sings the ABC’s it often as not ends with “N G O! And Bingo is his name-o!” and usually contains at most 10 letters. He can put his jacket on, but can’t zip it.

We DO read to him. We DO sing the alphabet. We have flashcards that we use. We do quizes when we see signs and product packaging… I’m sorry! I wish he knew his letters, too! But he doesn’t. Not yet.

He doesn’t know how to zip up his jacket. yet. He was only 4 and a half last time it was cold enough for jackets. We’ve just started wearing them for the year, and he doesn’t even usually want it zipped.

I’m sorry I’ve failed as a parent.

6

Yes, by striving for mediocrity, we can all be the same and thus not have problems. WHAT CRAP.

Some of us wanted to get through school as quickly as we could with a minimum of wasted time. I found out years later I could have leapt from the first to the third grade.
Instead, I was kept with kids who could only read Dr. Seuss, while I was reading novels. I was bored, they were bitter and jealous, and I would have loved to just move ahead and move on. I wasn’t there to make friends, I was there to learn. Perhaps if such an importance wasn’t placed on fucking fitting in, our children wouldn’t be so incredibly stupid and would actually learn something in school and stop treating it like a fucking popularity contest and fashion show.

7

This thread makes me feel better about my somewhat dense 5 year old stepdaughter. She can sing all her ABCs, count to 10 in English and Spanish, and knows all her colors. Still can’t get her to learn to read or even try, though…

8

Gifted kids don’t have social problems because of acceleration. They have social problems because they don’t fit. My kid is going to be radically accelerated once we sort out the dyslexia issue - and you know what? There’s not a single piece of research out there which proves that acceleration is a Bad Thing. OK you need a receiving teacher who is happy with the idea and a kid who is happy but if that is the case, it’s better to accelerate than not to. We’re looking at our kid who will be graduating from high school at 12. That’s fucking scary but it is fucking better than leaving him to rot in school, bored shitless doing his imitation of demon spawn with his age peers.

And can I do a happy dance :)? My 3 yo who has severe developmental delays and who is collecting diagnoses at a great rate of knots can count to 20, knows his colours and knows his alphabet. He also cannot conduct a conversation and is proving impossible to toilet train and is raising non compliance to an art form but geez at least his academics are there ;). And self taught too.

9

I was always told that this was potentially a dangerous thing to do because (for example) it means that when the child is walking along the street anybody can read their name. This means that any old weirdo can pretend to be a friend of the parents etc. Basically, perverts can be cunning and children are gullible.

Couldn’t agree more about the designer clothes thing though.

Oh and add me to the Hastur list of people who think that it is a Good Thing for a child to be top of the class. Certainly I was always top of mine. It meant that I always had confidence in my abilities and belief that I’d be able to do whatever was presented to me. This is turn lead to the assumption that I’d go to a good university and get a good job. A little self-confidence can mean the world to a child.

Mind you I hear that schools in America are pretty fucked up when it comes to the desire to “fit in”. Perhaps y’all should consider school uniforms - they’re one hell of a great equaliser you know.

pan

10

Ok, I have to explain. This is a private school, no bus service, so the parents drop off and pick up their kids. Hardly any of the kids walk home; there are a few who walk, but they are in the company of their parents. They can put their child’s name on the back of the backpack (where it is against the kid’s back). It just helps when 6 kids all show up with identical Star Wars or Barbie backpacks to know which one is Billy’s and which one is Tommy’s and which one is…well, you get the idea.

OpalCat, I in no way implied you had failed as a parent. Your son would be classified as a “young five” or a “late birthday.” Many school districts require that kids be five before September 1st to be able to go to Kindergarten. If he can write his name, recognize his printed name, get into his jacket and can sing most of the ABC song, he’s fine. Some kids start Kindergarten kind of uninterested in the whole learning process, but then suddenly something clicks and they make huge strides.

I really, really, really HATE that “Hooked on Phonics” commercial with the smug mom who says, “My daughter was able to walk into first grade with her head held high because she could read.” It makes me want to reach through the TV and throttle her! As if there is something to be ashamed of if your child enters first grade and can’t read. I just know it makes some parents think, “Oh, no, little Mikey can’t read yet! What should we do? ‘Let’s order Hooked on Phonics’!”
(disclaimer: although I am in favor of phonics over whole language as an approach to reading, I hate this commercial that implies you MUST buy this program and that you child MUST read by first grade)

We work on pre-reading skills that lead up to learning to read, but you really shouldn’t force your child to read at a young age.

More on the “babying” issue. Part of our pre-reading skills are being able to look at pictures and figure out the sound the word starts with, and match up pictures with similar sounds (cat and clock, shoe and sheep, tree and train, etc.) I had a little girl last year (who used a lot of baby talk) refer to a cat as a “Meow-Meow”, a sheep as a “Baa-Baa”, the train as a “Choo-Choo” and a clock as a “Ticker-Tocker.” Ok, fine, if she was still two, but come on, this kid was FIVE and in Kindergarten. She also would say she had to go “make wet-wet in the potty.” Her parents though it was cute and actually encouraged this kind of vocabulary. That’s what makes me crazy.

11

It is my understanding that teaching kids “baby talk” can be very detrimental. It’s like having to teach them twice, or two languages- once with “baby talk” and once with real words. Seems stupid to me, but of course, the little gifted wonder isn’t talking yet, so… I talk to him like a kid, not a baby, even though he is only 13 months old. He has pet names for toys, but why teach him “ba ba” instead of bottle?

I thank you so much for being a caring teacher. I don’t suppose your school is in SoCal?

And BTW, I was in a “gifted” program, and I agree that it wasn’t my acceleration that I had problems with. I was bored. I was reading the 6th grade reading book in the 2nd grade, luckily with an encouraging teacher. But come 3rd grade, I was told that I couldn’t read those books anymore, that I wasn’t old enough or smart enough. Uh huh.

12

Kinsey, I just want to applaud you for being what sounds like a WONDERFUL teacher. Those kids are lucky to have you, even if some of the parents couldn’t care less.

OpalCat, good luck with Nicky, I hope that he is able to catch up to his fellow students. At least his mom sounds like she is doing what she can. Flashcards are a good thing, I still use them to help me learn things (like lines for plays). :slight_smile:

Like other people here, I was “gifted” (note: was). I was bored to tears. My advanced program was only one day a week and it only ran from 4th to 7th grades. I was emotionally behind my peers until I hit 5th grade when I suddenly made a startling leap into (and then maintaining) an emotional maturity ahead of my peers. However, my schooling suffered from all of this, including being bored. Instead of just whizzing through the dull or easy stuff, I put it aside and didn’t do it. This habit followed me into high school. My grades suffered and so have I, by not being able to pursue college in the capacity for which I have potential. It’s frustrating. So I encourage parents who have gifted or advance children to see about advancing them to a grade they would be more comfortable in, academically. You may find that if their overall performance merits them to be a grade or two ahead, then they will most likely thrive socially there as well.

Just my 2 cents,
Melpy

13

Humph.

I was a “gifted” kid who was accelerated. I skipped 3rd grade and went straight to 4th. I don’t think it did a whole lot, and was fairly traumatic to boot.

I was still bored in class, with the exception of the beginning of 4th grade, where I was miserable because not having attended third grade, I didn’t know the multiplication tables. One of our first tests was on multiplication, and I got the first F of my life. So for a few months, I played catch up and was horrified with the whole ordeal. Then I was right back to where I was before - getting A’s with no effort.

'course, socially, I was WAY behind the rest of the kids in the class. They were starting to get interested in the opposite sex, and wearing kid’s-style makeup (lip gloss, etc.) I was more into my Barbie’s and Star Wars toys. They had cliques that I did NOT belong to. I remember lying in bed when I was 8 years old, unable to sleep at one or two in the morning because I just couldn’t bear the thought of going to school. This lasted until midway through 8th grade, when I finally found a group of kids I fit in with.

So the result of me being pushed ahead a grade was that I still was bored with school, and now I didn’t even fit in with my schoolmates. At least before I was socially adept and didn’t dread going to school. I’d really advise against pushing your kid ahead a grade, unless he/she is socially as well as intellectually ahead of his class.

14

I had a lovely little 5-year-old who told her teacher early in the year that her mommy didn’t WANT her to wash her hands before snack. Luckily, I knew the teacher and she knew me, and she didn’t buy it for a second. My little angel also got a sudden practical lesson in “why it’s bad to lie” after the teacher spoke to me.

I’ve got another child in a gifted class, and I guess our (public, even) school is doing a much better job than a lot of them out there. She’s with children her age, her teachers give her work that’s appropriate to her level of competence, she gets challenged, AND she’s getting the social experience of being in class (half the time) with kids who aren’t her intellectual peers. I know how hard her teachers work to make this happen, and I’m almost pathetically grateful. I think having her with kids her own age has been a very good thing for her. What would we do with a 12-year-old high school graduate, anyway? Her Nobel prize will be just as valuable if she gets it when she’s 22 instead of when she’s 16. :wink:

When the prodigy started kindergarten (at a different school), I told her teacher that she might need to be tested for gifted, since she’d taught herself to read at age 3 and her preschool teacher had suggested it. Her response was to essentially pat me on the head and say, “They’re all special, dear.” I left it alone and three weeks later she sent home a note saying she wanted to refer my daughter for testing. I didn’t even say “I told you so” (what am I doing in the Pit??).

15

Did you go to high school? Did you drive/have a car/date while there? Perhaps you have a genius–we do, more later–but there’s more to life than graduating at 12 and being Doogie Howser. Repeat after me: socialization. S-O-C-I-A-L-I-Z-A-T-I-O-N!

About that “more later” part: first, I was a “gifted” child. I started in the G&T the first year it was available in my district–first grade, since this was before most districts decided it was better to start in third grade–and I was pretty well fucking miserable until I quit it in eighth grade. The only things I can be thankful about are that my parents didn’t allow the district to skip me up and that I got a car at 16. There’s a whole lot of real-life experience and learning that goes on as a child.

Second, my daughter is a 5-year old first grader. Yes, she skipped kindergarten. She’s very verbal, not bad at math, and we had her in a Montessouri day-care for the previous couple of years. On the public school’s scale she’s at a 4th grade reading level. We decided that one grade wasn’t bad, but two would cause social problems–unless any dad out there (and I only want dads to respond to this part) would let his little girl go on a car date at 14–and, not to sound sexist, but this is less of a problem for girls. How many of the guys here had first or second dates who picked them up? How many had girlfriends who drove all the time?

I want my daughter to be brilliant, and she’s working her way there. I want her to be world-famous for something good. But I also want her to be a well-adjusted adult (something I’m obviously not), a good friend to her friends, social, and a contributor to the human race both at large and at a smaller level; I guess the term I’m looking for is “well-rounded.” And I’m sorry, but I don’t see a 12-year-old high-schood graduate being anything near there.

Oh, so this isn’t a complete hijack, I’ll address the OP. My daughter will be 6 in January. She can read and write on a 4th grade level, she adds, subtracts, can figure out that 4 quarters is a dollar, and says things like, “Dad, that’s ludicrous.” But she can’t quite get her shoes tied or her coat zipped. You’re a teacher, you probably took an Ed Psych course or two (though teaching at a private school you might not even have college degree); go back to your textbooks and look up physical, emotional, and intellectual maturation curves.

16

Wow, you can spell. Let me get the Guiness people so you can have the acclaim due to you.

I was socialized when I went into school. I was socialized for adults. I could carry on a conversation and cared about more important things than nap time and milk time.

Getting out of school as quickly as possible was my goal, because I knew that life only got better once one was past that crap. I was not alone in that belief, as a few others who were advanced also looked forward to that day.

Public schools are abyssmal. They were created to ready children for factory work, and are still fact regurgitation factories. They generally do not promote learning or education, unless you are lucky and get one of those rare teachers who have a passion for what they do.

Being an adult is as great as I thought it would be, and the freedoms it provides made the hell of public school almost worthwhile. Going to school is only in small part about socialization. That is something which has been brought into the picture in the past fifty years. What school is about and should always be about is learning and expanding one’s mind.

The problem of most schools is not only that most teachers don’t care, or that the students are supposed to regurgitate facts without understanding their significance, but that the school is an ongoing popularity contest which creates a caste system based on beauty and money, with intellect being scorned.

Socialize all you want, {b}I’m getting a fucking education.**

17

Stofsky

Now there’s an idea! Socialisation? Of course being parent of a genius :rolleyes: I never thought of that, I’ve been too busy pressure cooking my kid.

Has your daughter been tested? Being intimately acquainted with the bell curve (although I am not a teacher) and having had my kid assessed by several psychologists, I am not making this decision lightly. If I leave my kid in an age level classroom, then the problems really begin. He gets no socialisation with kids who all think he is a weird geek. He’s got no social skills when faced with his age peers. He’s fine with older kids and adults (of course I know that’s my fault too if i just insisted that he sit and be bored rigid with kids who don’t want to be with him, he’d do just fine). Yeah right.

The school drop out rate for kids like mine is incredibly high. 1 in 10 suicide by 18.

It’s often the parents of bright kids who do fit in who seem to have the hardest judgment on those of us who deal with kids who are more extreme. We’ve been lucky - the dyslexia bought us years of time. As it is he does 30 minutes of schoolwork and has finished the primary curriculum. He’s going back into school part time for socialisation, not academics next year. We’re unsure which level he will go into for that.

I know early high school is not going to be easy. But here’s a fucking clue Stofsky - the other option is not easy or remotely workable! And faced with a kid who would learn nothing for the next 6 years if I placed him in school, I can’t see why that’s gonna work.

And I really would LOVE to see the research that backs your POV. Julian Stanley at Johns Hopkins has come out against radical acceleration if the schools can meet the needs of the kids. He is now against kids in college before the age of 15 and if I had access to EPGY and to the programs in the US I might be able to make different decisions. As it is, there are 2 schools with pilot gifted programs near me and both turned my kid down for being beyond what they could cope with.

I know of several kids in high school or college at incredibly young ages. As long as that was genuinely what they needed, they mostly seem to be doing fine. It’s the kids who are left in age level classrooms to get that all important socialisation who seem to have the behaviour problems.

Disclaimer here

I’m not talking about moderately gifted kids here - I’m talking about kids who both test at the extreme and who are tremendously capable at academics. If my kid tested at the extreme and he was happy in an age level classroom, I would be one happy bunny :).

18

To continue with the ongoing sub-thread about gifted kids: when I was in elementary school, I was bumped up a grade for reading only. From kindergarten through fifth grade, I was scared of the kids in the grade ahead of me. I hated going into their classroom. Maybe it’s different if a kid skips a grade and can become part of the group, rather than coming and going for one lesson a day. I think that practice only served as a continual reminder that I was different. And for kids, different is bad.

Also, I went to college with a girl who had skipped two grades. She went to great lengths to try to hide the fact that she was younger than we were. She (and her (im)maturity level) fooled no one.

19

AMEN! I wish I had been accelerated in school. I could read at age 2. In first grade, I was reading at an 8th grade level. I was never skipped ahead, although I was a little younger than everyone else due to my November birthday.

And I was MISERABLE. No one wanted to associate with the smart people. And even IN the gifted group, there were only a handful of people that I’d hang out with - the rest didn’t want to associate with me either. Being smart is hard in high school. Being a smart GIRL is even worse. And this was at the best high school in the county.

Furthermore…I agree on how teachers are. At my high school, I was lucky to have some wonderful teachers. Most of whom taught the advanced classes. However, they were NOT the majority, even for the advanced classes. Most were more concerned with getting through everything, or playing favorites, or teaching to the Maryland graudation tests.

As a final note…there were two 15 year olds in my freshman dorm at William & Mary. And they were some of the BEST adjusted people I met in my 4 years there. :slight_smile:

20

I’d like to comment briefly on this whole idea of education–accelerated learning and gifted programs.

First, I’d like to state that I am only 18 years of age, and thus might be unable to make the necessary conclusions about the long-term effect of the “gifted” programs I was in. However, I can certainly comment about how I felt when I was in them and how I feel about them now.

I was involved in gifted programs on-and-off from 2nd grade through 7th. In the first grade, I did well academically, but somehow wound up in a group of students subjected to the IQ tests given to screen for gifted and “mentally handicapped” students. I turned out to be a member of the former group, and, after completing the followup “comprehensive” IQ test required, entered my public school system’s gifted program in the second grade. It went fairly well, I must say–it met once a week, and for the other four days, I was just in my regular classes. It didn’t get along too well with the pace of normal learning–I had to play catch-up on classwork and homework more often than not. However, I cannot say that being in the gifted program through my elementary school education was an inherently bad experience. By the 5th grade I was, relatively speaking, socially well-adjusted.

Note the use of lots of qualifying statements in the previous paragraph.

Right before I entered the 6th grade, my family moved into a more affluent community, partly out of concern regarding the educational impact of the year-round calendar our school district was switching to. For the first time, I found myself in regular academic surroundings with normal students. It was hell. There’s just no other word for it. I did well, academically speaking, but I found myself poorly-adjusted for the complete change of circumstances, and the teachers, as well as the guidance counselor, just didn’t know what to do with me. Kids picked on me constantly in the halls and in class, teachers didn’t seem to notice my situation, and no one really seemed to care at all. They suggested that my parents enroll me in the county’s gifted program. What we didn’t realize at the time was that this was mainly just to get us out of their hair.

In seventh grade, I enjoyed a 45-minute bus ride every morning, after which I found that I could look forward to another day in even more depressing circumstances than I had gotten acclimated to over the course of my sixth-grade year. It wasn’t the community–it was in the same county and of comparable affluence to the one I was living in. It wasn’t the school itself–it was as new as, and actually based on the same floor plan as, the other one. However, it just didn’t work out. I didn’t fit in. Most of the kids in the gifted program seemed to be, in a word, immature. The teachers left their classes completely undisciplined in most regards, so as not to “stifle their creativity”, and the kids just walked all over them. Few did all their homework, there was no regard whatsoever for academics–most got C’s and D’s, even in their special gifted classes, and the kids were, in a word, wild. Worse yet, the electives (and PE) were integrated with the rest of the school, so the rest of the kids got to beat up on us snotty little intellectual twerps.

By the end of my seventh-grade year, realizing that I didn’t fit in with the gifted kids at all, and facing the reality that, perhaps, there was nowhere I did fit in, I had a bit of a nervous breakdown. I started contemplating suicide, threatening to go through with it, and wondering when the hell I had to go through every day would come to an end. I don’t mean to scare anybody here, but I can honestly understand where those Columbine kids were coming from when I think about middle school. My parents finally realized that something was wrong, got me out of the gifted program for 8th grade, and took me to a psychologist. By this time, I was basically dysfunctional, socially.

High school went amazingly well for me. We had an “International Baccalaureate” program there, but I deliberately avoided joining it, largely because the people in charge tried to make it look like some elaborate intellectual priesthood, and also because many of the students I knew from the gifted program were going into it. I eventually graduated about 14th in my class, with a 4.0 unweighted/4.56 weighted GPA, exceeded only by those IB kids. I’m not going to lie or exaggerate and say that it was easy. It wasn’t–I coasted through the academics and tried to survive socially. I still (in my freshman year of college) am somewhat socially withdrawn. However, it could’ve been worse. Many, not most by any means, but still quite a few of the gifted kids I had known, became heavily involved in drugs. Others became the exact kind of intellectual snots I frequently had found myself characterized as.

I’m not saying I know what the best solution is. I’m not saying that it’s inherently wrong to put your kids in a gifted program if they are brighter than the others. However, consider this on its own merits. Do not let teachers and administrators talk you into putting your kids in special classes just to get them out of their hair. Although, I’m sure, many of the gifted kids I know will turn out fine in the long run, the program really seems to have had too many casualties, and I think, honestly, that I was nearly one of them.

In other words, I agree in spirit with Stofsky. Social adjustment just doesn’t seem to happen under some circumstances.

Apologies for the excessive length of this post (and its lack of direct relevance to the OP). It took a very long time to type it.