I had an interesting experience over the weekend while at breakfast with two friends. Both are teachers who stopped teaching full time when they had children, just in the last couple of years. One has her Masters degree and worked with Special Ed students and the other was a regular classroom teacher in a very affluent school district. Neither one of them knows much about Graham or, more specifically, what he’s doing these days intellectually. I tend not to talk much about it among my friends with school age children. The discussion they were having is the reason why.

Talk turned to obnoxious parents they have encountered over the years and both agreed that the worst were parents who “insisted that their children were brilliant”. Apparently, both had frequently run into the “hot housing” parents we previously debated and both my friends described parents who absolutely insisted that their children were “special”. Both teachers described withholding opinion, but seeing testing results that proved that these kids were bright but not GT. Both friends described a process where those kids were ahead due to involved parents but usually by 3rd grade, were merely considered “bright” as their classmates had caught up to them academically.

I was very interested in this discussion. Was this my kid? Am I over-involved? Is his early reading and aptitude at numbers just an advancement that will level out in elementary school? The public district we currently live in does nothing in the way of gifted ID until 3rd grade. I was really thinking that we may need to find a district that looks at things a bit differently as I have a 2.9 year old kid who is reading. What the heck am I supposed to do with him in the next 2 years?

But both my friends, who I do respect a lot, were pretty insistent that parents shouldn’t attempt to tell a teacher, especially at the beginning of the school year, about their child, but should let the teacher draw their own conclusions.

Overall, I was really disturbed by the conversation. They both thought grade skip was a really bad idea and both very much thought that boys (especially those with summer birthdays like my son) should be held until age 6 before starting Kindergarten.

I am perfectly willing to be an advocate for my child. But this conversation brought home the need, I think, to have Graham independently tested before school, at age 5. Otherwise, I really get the impression that sort of blowing off parents who ask about issues related to their kid and GT is the norm. I really think until I have numbers in my hand, I run the risk of being mocked as one of “those” parents behind my back. It was really very uncomfortable for me.

I've had the same sort of experience with friends who are teachers.

Whoever "those" parents are, they are apparently doing a tremendous disservice to HG+ kids! (Assuming "those" parents actually exist and are not merely urban legend...I wonder sometimes, having met loads of parents of GT kids, but never having met a single identifiable hothousing parent IRL...)

It drives home to me the urgent need for education of teachers about GT kids. It wouldn't take much out of an education class to introduce the idea that kids might have different learning needs. And you have to figure that over the course of a 30-year teaching career, most teachers are going to run across at least one HG+ child (though probably not much more than one) and quite a lot of MG-GT kids. It would be nice if they could at least recognize them if they saw them...

*sigh*

I think you are right to seek independent testing. If nothing else, you will stop second-guessing yourself Knowing that I am not wrong about my kids has helped me be a better advocate.

It is true that teachers don't take kindly to parents telling them that their kids are brilliant at the beginning of the year. Whether or not it is fair of them to react that way is another question, but knowing that can help you plan your advocacy strategy.

We enrolled our DS in K and did not start advocacy for a grade skip for several months. The reason is that even if you have scores, the teachers will want to see proof in the form of performance. So I made sure that DS did every boring scrap of homework that he received. I asked the teacher to assess his reading level. I didn't say, "DS is reading at X grade level." I knew where he was but I wanted her to find out for herself.

Ignore them on the redshirting issue. And the gradeskipping issue. I'm sure you've done more research on the topic recently than either of them.

Cathy

Here's what I often see about "those" parents. There ARE kids that test in the 115-130 range. These kids are VERY bright, and will generally top their class for the duration. But these kids don't test GT, particularly in schools using harsh cutoffs.

I see teachers assuming most of these "pushy" parents land in THIS range, rather than giving them the benefit of the doubt, or....*gasp*...actually testing the child! But 4/5 times, they are right, the child really is not GT.

But like Kriston, I rarely come across kids who aren't at least bright, and worthy of some level of differentiation.

What I have seen though, is kids who might be ADHD with parents latching on to a hopeful GT label instead. In their defense, they are often told their child's concerns could be explained by giftedness. I'm thinking of a specific child with this one. I saw the scores....VERY average, except in PSI. The scores there were typical for an ADHD child, and I believe the child is borderline at least. The child is not gifted. But for me, that's 1 child out of about 30+ (local) others, that all tested at least in the 120 range on at least one key index.

Another situation is when the child tests say with VCI of 119, but full scale of 104. Another specific child....VERY bright, very verbal and NOT 104 average, even if "not gifted". But that's the full scale stamped on his paperwork, so to the school, he IS "one of those", *sigh*.

Catherine, I'm sorry you've had such discomfort. Been there, done that! But in time, what I've seen work is thoughtful comments that don't dwell on the subject. I've actually seen progress with one of the moms (teacher) from an after school activity. She started out very negative toward grade skipping, but I think I've won her over to "special cases", .

You are learning to have a dual nature, which is needed to survive. You'll find safe places like this, to share to your heart's content, and learn how to keep the conversation elsewhere with others.

Oh, and Catherine....I didn't share the above to suggest your child might be one of those scenarios! I'm trying to look at it from another perspective. You do have your "work" cut out for you, but you also have time. I'm glad you found a place like this so early into it. Welcome!!!

Sounds like a very interesting conversation!

I think this is great info for you to have because it took me a little longer (I very meekly told the school I thought my kid might not by typical and waited about a year to get pushy) to figure out that "all parents think their kids are gifted" and testing helps. We didn't get testing until late into K, but it definitely allowed me to advocate more effectively afterwards. To be honest, I don't think most schools will take outside testing seriously. Our school did their own IQ testing and still didn't take it seriously! The only thing that got their attention for us was testing above level on their own curriculum. That finally convinced them that we weren't "those" parents, but in a heap of trouble.

I believe there are many hothousing parents in some districts and many parents pushing for their kids to be identified as gifted. I've heard comments from school personnel in the last two years about kids being tested repeatedly who aren't close to the GT cutoff and parents incensed that their kids can't have the dinky GT pullout available! Teachers experience those parents and they are more prevalent than parents with kids with IQ >145, so of course, a teacher's first response is likely "yeah yeah" to parents thinking their kids are brilliant. I think many kids with two-three years of quality preschool start K "ahead" and even out by third grade. But again, that hardly applies to the GT crowd. Wherever my kids were at the beginning of K compared to the crowd, the gap just widens at a horrifying rate. As hard as I thought K placement was, it's much worse only a few years later.

Regarding starting early, again I suspect that teachers have a global perspective and believe many boys would do better held back and they may be right. But that doesn't mean *your boy* would do better held back. Because of experience with the norm, teachers think in terms of the norm, but that doesn't apply to you and your son. It doesn't sound like he's anywhere near the norm.

I think your friends can be right and you can be too! They are describing the most common situation and you are in an uncommon situation where their experience no longer holds. Once we had scores last year, I figured out that my kids' teachers were unlikely to *ever* see another kid like them teaching 20 kids a year for 30 years. That helped me understand their perspective much better -- this was new territory for both of us. They were telling me what worked for them with other kids -- but those kids weren't like my kids. Getting testing can help you feel less worried that you are just hot-housing, but it may take the school a while to adjust to having a new situation too. I felt like testing allowed me to own being one of those parents, someplace I couldn't have imagined before my kids started school, but a place that became rapidly necessary once the mismatch was apparent. Even though with numbers, I still risk being mocked as one of those parents, I'm absolutely certain I need to advocate for my kids and any good teacher we've encountered agreed with us once they knew my kids! I'd try not to worry about this stuff too soon and just have fun until you have to deal with schools in the future. You are so well prepared to advocate once you have a school age kiddo.

Hi Catherine,

How awful. So sorry.

(Part I)

The idea that other kids "catch up" to gifted students eventually is a major fallacy in education circles. While I expect that some catching up does occur, it's because the bright kids are HELD BACK, not because the others start to go faster. Bright kids don't run out of cognitive steam when they're 7.

A way to respond to this statement is to say that a child can't run down a road if someone puts a fence in his way. Teachers and school systems can be experts at erecting fences. My 5 year old's kindergarten teacher told me that "silent E is damaging at this age" when I asked if she could help him with his reading! Talk about erecting a fence. No wonder everyone else "catches up"!

> I was very interested in this discussion.
> Was this my kid?
> Am I over-involved?
> I have a 2.9 year old kid who is reading.

You are not being over-involved. You are responding to something your child wants to do, that he enjoys, and that is good for him. My 3 year old daughter loves reading lessons. She also loves making sand castles, and she's NOT missing out on childhood because she's learning how to read at 3.

A toddler can't learn to read because some "obnoxious" parent forced him to. It just doesn't work that way. If a kid isn't ready to read, he isn't ready, and you might as well try to teach your cat to read. At least she'll sit on your lap and purr the whole time.


-----------

(Part II)

The US educational establishment has some deeply wrong-headed ideas, and you came up against them during that breakfast.

The two worst offenders are 1) everyone must move at the same pace with age-mates and 2) gifted programs are "elitist". This is garbage.

These ideas are products of a philosophy of phony egalitarianism that's rampant in US education right now. The basic idea is that doing everything at the same time is good and accelerated programs for top learners are bad.

Many of these ideas come out of teacher education programs, which spend too much time on ideas like "diversity" and "promoting equity," whatever that means.

Take a close look at the syllabi for the courses for an M.Ed. at Stanford (see link below). For example, the titles of the math/science courses look good, but if you read the syallabi, you'll see that a lot of focus on how students feel about math and science and what it means to be a *teacher*. Where is the content here? This stuff strikes me as glossy yet lacking substance.

http://suse-step.stanford.edu/elementary/curriculum.htm

I'm writing about this to help you see where your friends and other teachers are coming from. It might help you when you have conferences with teachers.

Unfortunately, (certified) teachers have had these ideas drummed into them and many accept them without question. Far too many are taught that "socialization", whatever that means, is more important than mathematics and science and reading. There's a lack of understanding that socializing happens on the playground, not during math class.

I think most Americans are unaware of how abysmal our teaching training programs are and how much damage they do. I don't want to sound like I'm an angry raving fruitcake here. I just think it's time for this stuff to be debated openly.

Cheers,

Val

I have two teacher friends who have gifted children and one of them believes in holding kids back, even gifted kids, to give them an extra year of childhood. This is common practice here, especially kids with spring or summer birthdays like my son. My other teacher friend told me that this is the real reason the Kindergarten teacher recommended holding back my son for "not coloring in the lines" when he started Kindergarten at age 5 already reading at about a 5th grade level. He read his first book at age 2 1/2 and on the first day of Kindergarten, when the teacher handed me a note with instructions on what to do with the school supplies we had brought, I handed it to my son and had him read it out loud and follow the instructions, proving that he could read and comprehend something that he had not read before. I didn't think I needed test scores before he started school because his vocabulary and reading ability were obviously at a high level. It didn't make any difference.

I can't understand why some teachers feel that it is right to hold kids back from learning. It seems very wrong to me.

Another teacher at our public school, who thought my son was probably highly gifted, recommended that I homeschool when I asked for her advice, so that it what I have been doing since he finished Kindergarten and he just turned 10.

At our small town public school they don't allow gifted kids to learn above grade level and then they assign a lot of homework so that kids don't have time to really learn much outside of school, so if I had kept my son in public school it might have looked like the other kids caught up with him academically, but then again, maybe not. My husband's older highly gifted son from a previous marriage was similar in some ways to our son and he was academically advanced even though he was kept at grade level. He just refused to do the busy work the school assigned and spent a lot of time reading things he was interested in and also a lot of time on the computer. Even though he could make the highest scores on tests, he got bad grades, and eventually dropped out of school. He never learned to work hard and dropped out of college.

I am sure there are teachers who have talked about me. I have had to learn to not worry about what other people think and focus on what is best for my child.

Hi Kriston,

You are soooo right. And unfortunately, too much of what you're saying goes against the grain in US education circles.

Unfortunately, too many school systems accept that idea that a bright kid is doing fine because she's at the top of her class. And because the teachers don't see a lot of very bright kids, they can continue to believe that they don't exist.

Kind of along those lines, I've stopped keeping quiet about what my kids can do. I don't brag or even make a point of bringing up the subject, but I also don't hide what they can do. If the topic comes up, I'm honest. I guess I just think that, just like gifted athletes, bright kids need to be allowed to be themselves everywhere, not just once a week in pullout classes!

Gifted children: like to play hide and seek, love cartoons, can do algebra in second grade. It's all good!

Val

Val wrote:

"The idea that other kids "catch up" to gifted students eventually is a major fallacy in education circles. While I expect that some catching up does occur, it's because the bright kids are HELD BACK, not because the others start to go faster. Bright kids don't run out of cognitive steam when they're 7."

Exactly what I was thinking. I think this is true even of the bright kids. The kids who start out ahead b/c they are bright, are held back until the others catch up. I think for GT kids this can also occur - the love of learning is beat out of them and they begin to look like everyone else. I read a post once that said something like "I sent my very bright kid to PS and got back an average kid."

My Aunt who is a teacher said the ONE thing she hates most about her job (not poor pay) is having to tell all the parents that their children are not gifted. I've heard this from my other teacher friends as well. I just keep my mouth shut.

I too wonder if my son will even out by 3rd grade from not being challenged in school. The other kids are catching up skill-wise but I still think there are pace issues for DS. Getting all the testing done just seems to take so long and I wonder about getting achievement testing done now given he's not made much progress this year in school. I doubt achievement testing now would accurately reflect him.