There's an audio book on the shelves of our library that entitled: 'When you believe it, you'll see it."

LOL! I don't think it's about Giftedness.

So Incogneato - your name goes way back! So glad you are here with us now! ((hugs))

That's been one nice positive fallout from the grade skip. DS's teachers have "permission" to see his brilliance. We had 15 minutes of complete gushing at our last parent teacher, LOL!

Other than that, it's been touch and go. A few of all three of my kids' teachers have seen their GT side over the years, but others missed it completely. I think in some of their defense, they were just overwhelmed about how to handle it. I remember DS's K teacher sending home random books from all over the spectrum after he completed even the extended version of the forced K curriculum.

The ones that were naive enough to admit their impressions have stuck with me the most over the years. DD1's 4th grade teacher for example spent half the year saying "I can't believe she's the youngest".

Those few comments are absolutely priceless!

Wow, I can't tell you how many times I've heard that one!

We heard it in K too, but at that time, I honestly thought it was all about her (very very tall) height, LOL! But Mrs. 4th made it about the work. DD was NOT ID'd as GT in 4th too, and I think that could have made a difference.

Do you ever find this "blindness" in other parents of kids the same age as yours?

Not really, it was weird how it was limited to the most professional school staff. DD1's 4th grade teacher was interestingly brand new that year.

Our K teacher who recognized DS6 was new, too. 1st grade teacher? An old hand.

Maybe I will throw in something else, to make this spin.
From my observation it is either really stupid teacher, or a gifted teacher that can't handle gifted students.
I have a few examples of stupid ones, that did not get my son at all, but also a really gifted one, ADHD but gifted, who could not handle him.

In defense of my son's teacher this year (who's not the greatest, most passionate teacher in the world) - she has 26 1st graders. Some who can barely recognize a handfull of sight words or add 2 single digit numbers (despite the fact we're at a high achieving school). She is trying somewhat with the high end kids. But I don't think she has nearly the resources, support, or understanding (no GT training is required at our school, unlike some other schools in our district) to make it really work. And no child left behind just accencuates this. I'm not making excuses for her. But I think the whole "system" is broke and doesn't make it easy to reach kids at the end of the spectrum.

We are probably going to stick it out for this year (socially, my son loves school and I'm about to start "hot housing" his math a bit (which he is excited about) with Singapore - thanks for the permission Trinity! ;-) ), but we're probably going to have to make some kind of change next year.

On the youngest comments, I was also going to say I feel like we get "Well, of course he's ahead, he's the oldest!" on our son as an excuse for his precociousness. He has an October birthday. As if 9 months would push him years ahead? We never really thought of early K for him. He was a very active preschooler and we were in GT denial.