I really liked this book, and there is a new edition in the works. I heard Dr. Rogers speak recently, and enjoyed her presentation very much.

My DS was in a cluster group in 2nd grade, that was very frustrating to him, because most of the kids were 'academically' advanced - (basically they were bright boys who were a year older due to late Kindy starts) - in handwriting and other small motor skills such as looking up words in the dictionary and then writing the definitions down on worksheets. According to the teacher he was her 'lifesaver' in class discussions. My son seemed to be aware that he was the only kid who actually understood and could talk about the books they were reading and was mystified that he was the 'slowest' in all the group work. It was his hardest year emotionally. We had meeting after meeting at the school, but no one 'got' that there are different levels of gifted, and that gifted kids are not advanced across the board. The teacher was quite convinsed that he could 'do the work if he wanted too' based on his ability to have a conversation 'like a little adult.' ((tears)) She treated him as though he had an attitude problem, and eventually, he had one. She and the school physchologist were also convinsed he had ADHD. It was pretty sad.

I am so grateful to the Davidsons for greating these various resources to help families who are going through this kind of thing. There is a lot of well meaning people out there who are filled with misunderstandings about the needs of gifted children.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Elementary teachers are generalists with a focus on reading, they are not allowed to specialize. In upper elementary some schools start to let teachers specialize a little with one teacher teaching Science/Math and another teacher teaching Reading/Writing/Social Studies. Also, math teachers are in high demand and get higher pay when they teach at the secondary level. Most people who are good at math and science can get much higher paying and more highly respected jobs than teaching. When our country places a higher value on education and educators, we will have more highly qualified teachers.

Wow. Quite enlightening. Thanks Cathy.

This explains a lot to me about why so many US kids have trouble with algebra. Let's face it: Algebra I is not so tough. But if the kids never really understood what they were doing in 3rd+ grade, it makes perfect sense that they can't apply concepts of division, fractions, and signs in algebra.

Your posting gives me better understanding of why "math facts" drills are so pointless. They aren't just dull; they also allow the schools to pretend that the kids are learning something when they're just memorizing basic facts without understanding how to apply ideas.

I've been thrilled to watch my eldest son blossom as he comes to understand the different ideas behind a fraction (eg it signifies a portion of something or one number divided by another, etc) and apply the ideas in algebra. A while back I wrote out 2x = 4 and asked him to solve it stepwise. He drew a line under 2 and 4 and wrote 2 under each line and then solved it properly. I was so proud of him....

Schools should be able to teach this stuff. It's not rocket science.

Val