Magpie
DIS Legend
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2007
- Messages
- 10,615
In these recent threads people have been talking about gifted programs like they're some homogeneous group of high-achieving, well-behaved kids. Like the gifted program is a way to get your kids away from the "problem kids". Maybe it's like that where other folks are, but where we are every one of these gifted kids is considered "special ed". Some of them are high-achieving, many others are under-achievers.
In first grade one little boy was being shadowed because he was violent. He bit my daughter three times before they finally removed him! In my son's class this year there's a boy who is rather severely autistic and shows it in his behavior, but he's also brilliant in math. The classroom is open, because most of these kids can't stay confined to desks for very long. There's no homework, because they don't need the review and repetition. There are kids with tics, and anxiety disorders, and many with learning disabilities (my son included).
Bright, high-achieving kids often find these classes too chaotic. Gifted kids usually love them. If they don't, they don't stay long. Our district has other options for kids who just want academic challenge. There's French Immersion, and later there's the International Baccalaureate program, both terrific option for high achievers.
A school official once told me that too many really gifted kids were dropping out of school. We haven't got an enforceable truancy law, and there's no way to lock them up and make them stay. The gifted program was instituted back in the eighties as a way to keep these kids from leaving. To keep them interested and engaged! The idea was that while labels are not wonderful things, "gifted" was much preferable to the labels these kids were already wearing. ("Freak", "weirdo", "loser"...)
The gifted program is cheap. The class is just as large as any other class and the kids don't get any kind of special perks. It's located in the same school as all the other special education classes, so the gifted kids share the same bus transportation, further lowering costs.
Most of you wouldn't want your kids in this class. That's fine. It doesn't mean this class isn't necessary for the kids who need it, or that it should be scrapped. Or even that there's anything immoral about its existence!
I feel very lucky.
In first grade one little boy was being shadowed because he was violent. He bit my daughter three times before they finally removed him! In my son's class this year there's a boy who is rather severely autistic and shows it in his behavior, but he's also brilliant in math. The classroom is open, because most of these kids can't stay confined to desks for very long. There's no homework, because they don't need the review and repetition. There are kids with tics, and anxiety disorders, and many with learning disabilities (my son included).
Bright, high-achieving kids often find these classes too chaotic. Gifted kids usually love them. If they don't, they don't stay long. Our district has other options for kids who just want academic challenge. There's French Immersion, and later there's the International Baccalaureate program, both terrific option for high achievers.
A school official once told me that too many really gifted kids were dropping out of school. We haven't got an enforceable truancy law, and there's no way to lock them up and make them stay. The gifted program was instituted back in the eighties as a way to keep these kids from leaving. To keep them interested and engaged! The idea was that while labels are not wonderful things, "gifted" was much preferable to the labels these kids were already wearing. ("Freak", "weirdo", "loser"...)
The gifted program is cheap. The class is just as large as any other class and the kids don't get any kind of special perks. It's located in the same school as all the other special education classes, so the gifted kids share the same bus transportation, further lowering costs.
Most of you wouldn't want your kids in this class. That's fine. It doesn't mean this class isn't necessary for the kids who need it, or that it should be scrapped. Or even that there's anything immoral about its existence!
I feel very lucky.
