Ok does anyone find the whole "gifted and talented" aka GT insulting

[JohnKleeb]

Like I admit some kids are more smart than others but what the hell, "gifted and talented", you mean I am not gifted nor talented because I am not advanced smart. Anyhow, most people I know who were there werent condescending snobs but still I think its insulting.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

1. When I went to elementary school it was called "TAG"

and all the "smart" kids got pulled out of class to go do special things.

As it turned out, most of the TAG kids couldn't handle AP classes in high school.

So much for talented and gifted

[JohnKleeb]

3. I remember that from elementary school too

I dont know how all of them have turned out in high school because well I dont see everyone from elementary school on a day to day basis since we got 600 people in my class alone about but from I know some of them are doing well.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

7. they're all asshats

it is insulting and elitist and wrong. They took kids into TAG based on their "Group IQ" score, a score that is found by just observing classroom behavior, nothing else. So really, TAG was for snot nosed ass kissers.

Schools should be ashamed of themselves for not truly testing kids intelligence and for not giving those who don't shine in a group situation opportunity for intellectual advancement

on edit, please note: Im not taking about AP or Honors Classes, im talking about the "special" program that was designed for "smarter" young kids that pulled them out of the regular class to go do "special smart" things (elementary level kids)

[redqueen]

9. Your experience is yours...

in my school, TAG members were chosen based on test scores.

Thanks for insulting me anyway, though! 'Preciate it!

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

12. Anytime!

:evilgrin:

I'm glad your school had some form of logic in its decisions to let kids into TAG.

and please note: Im not taking about AP or Honors Classes, im talking about the "special" program that was designed for "smarter" young kids that pulled them out of the regular class to go do "special smart" things (elementary level kids)

[redqueen]

15. Yeah, those are the classes I went to.

I attended the "special" program for SMARTER kids... and we did do "special" things... like moving past the curriculum that the average kids were still trying to digest.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

18. were you in a gifted class?

I mean, you didn't sit with the "average" kids for most of the day, and get a few special hours of something totally different each week? Cause thats more what I am referring too

[JohnKleeb]

20. That was what happened at elementary school with me

They didnt have their own special class but they would be taken out of the class room occassionally. I got taken out of the classroom for different reason though since I had speech therapy and a learning disablity on math which was hell since the teacher treated me like crap.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

21. And That is what I find so wrong.

There was always a big show of the TAG kids having to leave each class and it was like, they are better then everyone else cause they are in TAG. That was the most insulting part.

If one was in a gifted class that moved at a different speed then "average" kids, but the average kids didnt have to deal with the
"smart" kids getting special treatment, im not as insulted by it...

[tjdee]

207. So we are supposed to sit there being bored?

How do you propose to get G&T kids out of class without saying "it's time for the G&T kids to go?" That's "a big show"?

I would imagine that there isn't sufficient funding in public schools for G&T kids to be in their own classes all day long. I was told for my daughter's kindergarten that they purposefully don't do a "smart" class because they like to have all ability levels in one class.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

225. There wouldn't be a real need for these types of programs

if class size was smaller allowing teachers to really work with an individual and cater to each kids needs. If teachers could really mentor and work with students individually, to either help them excel or help them get it just right, it would be better then the situation now, with classes to big to teach everyone. Thats what TaG is for...to get the "smarter" kids out and give them the challenge they could get if classes were smaller. Or, an entire class could be tailored to be either advanced or regent (the state standard we have in NY) level. But pulling kids out in front of other impressionable little kids and giving them extras like field trips is unfortunately wrong in my view, and thats been my experience with these TaG programs.

[redqueen]

22. It was certain gifted classes.

Some classes with the rest of the class, then we left for certain classes. Nothing totally different ... just advanced classes in science, english, etc. That's how it was in grade school and middle school.

In high school I went to a TAG magnet for a while... it was wonderful. Most of those people are very successful now.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

26. I think we are talking about two different things

When I was in elementary school (and thats all im using TAG to mean, an elementary school program), we used to have all day with one teacher (except for gym, art and music). It was always a big thing when the TAG kids got to pick up and go do "smart" things. It was really shitty for impressionable young kids to sit there and watch the smart kids go off and get special treatment while we were left feeling dumb in our seats.

[redqueen]

28. Oh, no.. it's the same thing.

I remember quite clearly the shitty treatment I received daily from the "regular" kids because I had the audacity to learn faster. When the subject for advanced teaching started, we all left to go to the advanced classes.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

33. In my school

TAG wasn't about moving ahead with the curriculum, as much as it was a supplemental addition to the "smart" kids curriculum.

I just think its wrong to pull kids out of classes for that reason. Do an after-school program or something. Public Schools, especially at a young age, should be egalitarian.

But for High School, its a different story. Because we were with different people for every class it didn't matter who was in a smart English or smart science class. We had AP/Honors/Regents/Rx levels of classes at my school and in other schools from the area where I went to high school.

When you are a little kid, its pretty damaging to see the smart kids get special treatment and feel dumb because you are not part of it.

I take this issue to heart. I wasn't in TAG, and it took me till I was in 8th grade to feel smart about myself in an academic way. Luckily, i picked myself up by my boot straps, and took almost only AP classes in high school. I was one of the only kids in my school to have taken every AP class offered, except AP calculus, lol.

[redqueen]

39. So force the smarter kids to stagnate at the regular kids' pace

or make them stay after school.

Don't agree with that at all.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

52. No

Im saying make it egalitarian. Either make a different program, and allow any kid who wants a challenge to enter that program. But don't allow kids to be together and then pull the smart ones out just cause they are "smarter." Its bad for the kids who have to stay and for those who have to go

[SlavesandBulldozers]

105. oh we wouldn't want those geniuses to stagnate

that would make them like all the regular kids.

[redqueen]

106. Um, no.

It would not.

Nice attempt at a flame, though! :eyes:

[SlavesandBulldozers]

104. ah, the "regular" kids

they were so lucky to be in your presence for the small time they were allowed to be. Hopefully you didn't get treated too shittily from all those regular kids.

[redqueen]

108. What's your problem?

Are you upset that you didn't make good grades? Did nerds beat you up in school?

What?

:wtf:

[SlavesandBulldozers]

124. yes

I was taken into the chemistry lab and had the shit beaten out of me with trig books.

sniff. sniff.

[Name removed]

125. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

127. wow, didn't they teach debate in your fast-track AP magnet program?

cmon you can do better than that!

[JohnKleeb]

30. I think your system is similiar to what my school ahd

Now I think they just ship off all those kids to this elementary school thats specially designed for those kids. Now for the most part, Ive had no problem with people who were advanced like that, but there is an exception, didnt really happen to me but happened to my brother, my brother got held back in Kindergarten because they wanted him to be with people closer to his age, his birth is in late August so instead of a Freshman this year he was in 8th grade, there was this kid in the neighborhood who really looked down on him because of it and was such a snob to my brother, which I think explans why hes sort of anti intellecutal which I dont like but I do see why he had problems with this kid.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

34. I hate that excuse

"hold kids back to be with there age." Kids only make age a big deal cause adults do. Im sorry your brother has to put up with that.

[JohnKleeb]

36. Ah it helped him for the better anyhow

His best friends ended up being in that second Kindergarten class, but I thought it was a little unfair to him at the time because I had someone I knew with a brother the same age but he was allowed to go on to 1st grade odd thing was though he was actually younger than my brother. Our cousin whose a few days younger than my brother but goes to a school in a different county was a Freshman this year too. I dunno, I think the decision helped him but some of the kids that had been his friends sorta in his first go around in kindergarten ended up being dicks to him but the expereience I think ultimately made him tougher and very willing to stand up for himself. Ive really never had any personal problems with someone who was in those classes but the whole concept I guess pissed me off since I was on the other side being in Special Education and being treated like I was dumb, like I remember once in 6th grade, the special ed teacher tried to get me to only have 10 words on my spelling tests, I was like no I wanna have 20 like the others too.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

54. I think you hit the nail on the head

its about making kids feel equal, and giving them all the ability to excel. Not about picking and choosing who should get speical treatment

[name not needed]

55. Same here

Where I used to live, they used to pull the TAG kids, which I was at the time, out of class and have them do whatever. Here, they have special classes, and all go to one school. I wasn't a part of that, cause I hated the sons of bitches and was having more fun beating the shit out of them.

[JohnKleeb]

57. Speaking of beating the shit out of kids

I wonder what happened to that kid I beat the shit out of in 1st grade. I didnt hate them really, some of my best friends were in it and they didnt look down on me, and its me who people go to get their history questions answered.

[AngryAmish]

162. I bit a kid first day of first grade

'lil bastard took my ball. I almost got kicked out of school.

Anyway, he ended up in jail for assaulting a clerk of an adult bookstore for not selling him peep show tokens.

[JohnKleeb]

171. I forget why I beat the shit out of this kid

Was a long time ago for me, the only thing Ive had to a fight since with a person who wasnt my brother was in 7th grade, kid goddamn always had to make fun of me.

[redqueen]

116. I have to ask...

whose ass were you beating the shit out of?

Are you proud of that?

[name not needed]

155. Not really.

But some of em were just friggin annoying. There was this one kid, I won't name any names, but he'd walk around with his hands behind his back, leaning over, looking at whatever the hell it was you were doing.

[yewberry]

44. Minor point here.

As one of the kids that was pulled out of classes and marched out in front of whole class, do you really think it wasn't humiliating for us? We were stared at, made fun of, and generally made to feel that we had done something wrong.

It sucked for us, too.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

51. Maybe at your school,

but the the TAG kids at my school wore that shit like a badge of honor. Being able to leave class and be smarter then everyone else sure put them on a high horse.

and they would be the ones who made fun of the average kids cause they didnt go to TAG like they did.

[yewberry]

63. Yes, at my school.

At the same time, though, my cohort was the pilot program in the district, and the faculty did a spectacularly bad job managing it.

We were all transferred to a new school at the last minute and didn't have homerooms or schedules. The kids who weren't in the AA program (that was our name for it) were told that we were in a "special needs" class. Hardly a badge of honor.

Again, it sucked for us, too.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

68. It sucked for both sides of it...thats all Im trying to point out

everyone had different experiences with positive or negative on either side this. The point is though that it didn't have be done in such a damaging way to anyone.

[yewberry]

78. Preaching to the choir here!

Yup, it sure didn't!

[tigereye]

175. I think all kids should have the opportunity

to be challenged. Some schools put all kids in those types of environments and do not have a separate program. I agree with you that it sends kind of a weird signal... some kids based on IQ, etc. are seen as more able to grasp more complex concepts and succeed in those areas, but there are many and very complex kinds of intelligence. All kids should get that chance.

I was in advanced classes in high school - we didn't have that kind of stuff in elem. school. I never felt that I was superior to anyone, but I bet some of the kids who didn't "test up" probably felt slighted in some way.

[Name removed]

102. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[redqueen]

109. You should talk!

:rofl:

[proud2BlibKansan]

83. Even that is not foolproof

On any given day, even a total numbskull can do well enough on a test to score as 'gifted'.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

101. ah the easily bruised egos of those who have had their

specialness pounded into their skulls.

[redqueen]

112. Or their asses kicked by dumbasses...

:puke:

[mark414]

201. i was in that group

and i agree with you

though i think ALL american education should be at the "gifted and talented" level because US education SUCKS

oh and PS i wasn't an ass kisser :)

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

276. lmao!

:rofl:

hey, i turned into one :P

[Catchawave]

147. I don't labels on kids. period.

Mine were average goofy kids, they turned out just fine, and all very successful.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

173. all labels are wrong

IMHO...glad to hear that they turned out just fine :)

[SarahB]

169. Me too!

Elementary school was like nothing. Mastered it by 3rd grade. In high school, I could handle AP. Just not in math. :(

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

174. math...

...the work of the devil :evilgrin:

[BlueIris]

2. I always did. Especially because, in our school system, it was my

opinion that the program, despite its snobbishly-stated claims, wasn't meeting the needs of children who had the capacity to study above grade level. At all.

And, regardless of content, the whole thing in our area was marketed in the most offensive, classist manner of like, anything ever. Just the name, as you point out, "talented and gifted" is elitist and exclusive in a unnecessarily negative fashion. And don't even get me started on the fact that the administrators for the program in our district has some really bizarro criteria for who they "let" into the program that had nothing to do with the kids test scores.

[JohnKleeb]

4. elitist, yeah thats the word that came to mine for me

Whats funny for me is people have seen how I am in history, and think oh he must take advanced classes or is going to an incredibly good college but most are shocked when I tell them I am learning disabled.

[BroadwayBrat]

5. Speaking as one of those GT kids

I was in the Gifted and Talented program from 7th to 12th grade. Now in my school, G&T took the place of english. I enjoyed every minute of it, down to the three years of almost failing the class. I rebelled every day. I didnt want to be in the class...It took 5 years to get my ass in gear. In my school, the Gifted kids were not the snobs....we were just normal

[JohnKleeb]

6. Oh I dont have a problem with GT kids themselves

Believe me one of my best friends was in GT and hes very down to earth still, I just find the whole concept to be insulting to people who arent in these advanced classes.

[philosophie_en_rose]

46. Speaking as a former GT kid...

Our program was an "enrichment" program. We had special field trips, special projects, and special privileges. (I could get up and go to the bathroom, whenever I felt like it. Permission always granted. :))

We traveled to zoos. We discussed current events. We learned how to become better students.

However, I often I often wondered whether or not we were the students that needed those programs the most.

[JohnKleeb]

49. They didnt get any special field trips when I was younger

I am sure it wasnt a big deal, I never had an individual problem with most of them probably because in history I was probably smarter than them, after all I was the one who knew all the presidents by the time I was 5 and was self taught as far as reading went but in other areas I had a learning disablity, didnt really bother me until people I knew started using it as an exucse.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

58. Thank you!

your last line is spot on: "However, I often I often wondered whether or not we were the students that needed those programs the most."

They give so much to allow the smarter kids to move ahead, but dont give half as much to those who need help just getting to "average"

[philosophie_en_rose]

62. Every student deserves a chance.

If I run faster through a program, I think that I deserve to continue to learn. However, the TAG program was not really about that. As Kleeb stated, TAG is not AP.

Unfortunately, AP and those programs are short changed, as well as all other educational programs.

[JohnKleeb]

64. AP is fine with me really

In fact I feel like a dumbshit for not taking AP courses but then again, if I had taken AP Government, I wouldnt have gotten to have the class I did and those people made my the day in that class.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

65. agreed

its sad that schools are more willing the help those at the top then help cover everyones needs...

[SlavesandBulldozers]

110. that is how school is a reflection of society in general

take the haves and give them more.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

120. so true...n/t

[distantearlywarning]

189. Or maybe...

Stifle the smart ones so they don't embarrass the not-so-smart ones by pointing out their ignorance? Sounds like a Republican strategy to me. But what do I know? I'm one of them damn inteelectuual eeeelitists.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

193. or maybe

we could actually give education a resonable sized budget so everyone could become TaG

[SlavesandBulldozers]

265. ah yes. the smart ones are so stifled by being around the regular ones.

and what fine character it builds in those little geniuses.

[WeRQ4U]

266. Jesus, this just won't end will it.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

267. ok I'll stop

but just because you asked:)

[WeRQ4U]

268. Woo Hoo!!

:toast:

here's to that!

[JohnKleeb]

269. hey the fighting is over

Can I brag about something here though. I only understand chemistry because it was taught to me using sexual inneudo.

[WeRQ4U]

270. Start a new thread if you want a good discussion....

People will never plow through this thing to participate. It's too daunting.

[JohnKleeb]

271. I want this to die out

but its all good.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

278. it just wont die, right?

lol

[JohnKleeb]

281. its gonna rival revacts' dupe thread

if we dont watch it :).

[SlavesandBulldozers]

272. i was going a little overboard

thanks for reeling me back in!

:grouphug:

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. We wouldn'y need GT programs if we could tailor every kid's

education to their personal needs.

But since we don't have the resources for that, we end up putting them in tracks.

But fwiw I think every kid has something special about them.

[RPM]

I rather liked the label...

but that's only because of the side of the label I sat on...

[JVS]

204. Don't forget the fringe benefits

[kick-ass-bob]

10. This is just one of many, many "magnet" classifications.

We have a ton of magnet schools, from GT to international studies, to foreign languages, etc.

I don't really think it's insulting.

[MisterP]

11. it was sorta nice for me in elementary, but I couldn't get much

insight into it because the district pulled the funding after its leadership was caught embezzling...

[tsakshaug]

13. what's worse

is some of the teachers assigned to work with these programs become snobs because of what they teach.

[redqueen]

14. What should we call them?

Can you come up with a better name?

I'm sure the people who set it up thought they were doing average kids a favor by not calling it the "smart class", because that would imply the other kids weren't smart.

Holy fuck it's hard to please people.

[JohnKleeb]

16. Hell if I know

maybe advanced would be a better name.

[redqueen]

19. .

I'm sure someone would eventually start bitching about that, too.

*sigh*

[JohnKleeb]

23. Do people complain about AP ever?

I am not bitching about it but the whole "gifted and talented" thing to me ever since I was young always suggested to me that they were superior than us somehow, I know its not the case, it bothers me I guess because I was called "learning disabled" up until I was in 7th grade until they changed it to "learning differences"

[philosophie_en_rose]

69. How about "kids?"

Why should there be labels? I've always been in the "smart kids" group, but they didn't need to call me that to provide a quality education.

I've experienced the frustration of being held back by teachers who "taught to the middle." However, the problem is that there aren't enough investments in schools. Every student suffers in that environment. Not just TAG martyrs.

[redqueen]

79. TAG martyrs?

That's nice... *sigh*

Interesting idea, but I'm not sure that it's realistic from a logistic point of view. Some systems need some kind of differentiating indicator for various reasons... we can't know without interviewing the administrators of the school districts what the requirements are or why they exist, even.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

114. how about elitists?

i think that's appropriate.

[redqueen]

118. Yeah...

Kids who would do better in a more advanced setting are elitists...

Sure... that sounds familiar, actually...

Hmmmm... who says shit like that?

:shrug:

[tigereye]

180. I never felt like an elite then

and I certainly don't now. Having a certain measurable and probably somewhat limited definition of intelligence does not guarantee that a
person is actually smart.

Hey lady. :hi:

[redqueen]

233. Hey!

:hi:

I don't feel like an elitist either... and I STILL don't get why you don't see this kind of resentment and anger at kids who are good at sports.

:wtf:

[tjdee]

208. Yeah, when you're 10 you're really an elitist.

:eyes:

[SlavesandBulldozers]

264. good point.

perhaps that isn't the right term.

[AngryAmish]

17. In my grade school it was called "Creative Arts"

I was in it and kinda hated it. First of all, it was all the nerds. Except they could pontificate all they wanted, which I hated. Second, the creative parts seemed to mainly consist of making us write poetry. I did not like poety then and my esteem of poets have been going down ever since. (Except for Lemmy. Lemmy is cool.)

Should there be gifted classes. Of course. One kid a year behind me would read comic books all day in class. He would get perfect scores on all the tests, but the material was beneath him. He was bored out of his mind.

[sir_captain]

24. I think the real question

is whether or not educational tracking is a good idea to begin with. I have no problem with the concept of having more challenging and stimulating work and environments for kids who can handle it, but I do have a problem with tracking in general--the way it's set up in Europe for instance.

I went through private school, so never had to deal with this sort of thing--can anyone here tell me how it works--do the kids in the gifted programs end up having an advantage over those who are not--do they get tracked at higher levels of classes that are not available to those in the normal programs?

[WeRQ4U]

38. There weren't really any preferences where I grew up.

We were all placed into the LEAP program at a VERY early age, like 7 years old. We participated until high school. I think there was like 20 of us or so. The placement was based upon IQ tests and the like. None of us had a clue as to what was going on at the time. We all just did what we were told. And we were only segregated from the other kids twice a week.

We were then allowed, along with any other children that were able to do so, to enter into advanced classes when we got to highschool. I was in AP History, Math, English, Science and Economics / Social Studies. It wasn't just those 20 kids either. Like I said, ANYONE who could handle it was allowed to participate.

[tjdee]

25. Ah, GT....those were the days.

I think it should be called advanced....I used to be GT. Some of the kids made fun of me because...gee, I got good grades. :eyes:
Good times, good times.

[JohnKleeb]

27. I think its stupid when kids do that to each other

Looking down on people for good grades.

[redqueen]

29. Wasn't that so much fun?

Did they only make fun of you? I got to get beat up a few times by the "cool kids"... good times indeed.

[tjdee]

37. I'm a girl, so I didn't get beat up...

I don't know why people hated the fact that I did my work so much, LOL! I mean, damn!

Eventually I started to 'hide my light under a bushel'....which is a damn shame.

That's why sometimes I hate this "everyone is special, no one's better than anyone else" thing. Everyone has different strengths and everyone has value, but some people *are* smarter. Some people *are* more special.

Course, people will just make fun of and ridicule those people. Sigh.

[redqueen]

42. I'm a girl, but I got beat up by cool girls.

I agree... we all have different strengths and weaknesses. Why isn't it sad and pitiable that I didn't get ribbons for sports, because I sucked at them? Should we stop having sports competitions, since the less athletic children will feel bad about their lack of athletic ability?

Sigh indeed...

[tjdee]

47. DUH, LOL, red QUEEN....

For some reason I missed that when I was writing my response!
I guess I'm lucky--I don't know if I'd have been able to take physical stuff.

I sucked at sports too... I was okay with that, LOL.

[redqueen]

56. hehe...

Well you never know... you might have assumed I was a female, and then find out I was really a gay man. :P

[SlavesandBulldozers]

119. interesting how you felt pitiable about not excelling in sports

yet you revel in your own intelligence. do you sense anything ironic about that?

[redqueen]

121. No, I didn't.

Read more carefully.

I was giving an example of another IDIOTIC reason to WHINE.

[tigereye]

183. hey RQ

want to see my academic games and honor role "letters?" We actually had those for our high school jackets. ;)

[redqueen]

235. Really?

"Letters" for honor roll?

I can't imagine being proud to wear that... it was the reason I got my books knocked out of my hands, got pushed around during recess... ugh.

[tigereye]

237. I never had a problem

I was teased verbally for being a "nerd" but I was always carrying so many books no one could get at me. Plus they all wanted to know answers to homework, etc. Plus girls didn't fight much in my high school.

It was weird, but I wore them. ;)

[WeRQ4U]

40. Never got beat up....

But that's because I was kind of a jock too.

[JohnKleeb]

41. and some of the GT people I knew were pretty popular themselves

Like GT for us wasnt all people who got labeled nerds, in fact ours really was a diverse set of people, the friend of mine I mentioned is a jock and pretty popular, same with many of the girls.

[redqueen]

43. I don't think we had any jocks in my TAG group.

It was just the usual nerds...

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

59. the kids who were in TAG in my district

became the core of the "cool" kids in middle and (some of) high school

[redqueen]

66. Wow...

I can't even imagine how that works... here the nerds were always shit on by the cool kids and the jocks... the one year I went to the TAG magnet HS was the lone exception.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

70. what part of the country did you grow up?

I went to school in Nassau Country, NY, just outside of NYC...and academic competition was, and still is, what it's ALL about. Not sports....so maybe my case is a bit out of the ordinary

[redqueen]

71. Texas

Here it's SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS... and a little education if you feel like it. ;)

Guess that essplains it!

[JohnKleeb]

74. explains a lot

to me because I know how Texas is on sports, absurd to say the least and this coming from someone who loves going to the football games every friday night.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

76. very much so...

I still always find it amazing to see how differnt things are all over the US...

sorry if i offended you above, i wasn't trying to :hi:

[redqueen]

80. Thanks, but not needed...

:hi:

[JohnKleeb]

81. Sorry if I offended too

Sorry you got picked on too, theres nothing wrong with being smarter than most, I like giving people help when I can.

[IChing]

31. I was T/G and special ed at the same time

[Mutley]

165. me too!

I was GT for English, History, Social Studies and Special Ed for Math and Science. I've always been horrible at math... to this day I still count on my fingers. :blush:

I got ridiculed for reasons having nothing to do with grades...

[WeRQ4U]

32. I was in what they called L.E.A.P.

Learning Enrichment Activities Program

When I was young, I had to go, twice a week, to the high school with a bunch of other kids. We sat around and did mind puzzles and word games. We did strange activities and played intellectual games like Chess and Othello. It was odd shit. Reminds me of the pool of "The One" candidates in "The Matrix". We all sat around bending spoons with our minds.

It was actually quite pointless and only provided the other kids with something to make fun of us.

[MissB]

35. I don't find it insulting.

In our district, they don't consider kids for TAG until at least 2nd grade (the theory is that kids' intelligences "even out" around 3rd grade or so).

They don't do pull out classes around here. They just integrate advanced material for the kids.

[Dervill Crow]

45. Yes.

I have limited personal experience with the program, but anecdotally looking at how several TAG students turned out in comparison to my non-TAG kids makes me wonder about the criteria used to determine who is talented and gifted and who is not.

I think I was much more traumatized than my kids that they didn't receive the TAG label. It galled me having to listen to one mom in particular bragging about her TAG daughter. Especially since said daughter actually was still wetting her pants in the 6th grade and did so TWICE in my car. :puke: She happened to be a co-worker and was always weaseling something about her daughter's GPA or TAG activities into the conversation.

I'm so glad my kids are pretty much all grown. Getting sucked into that competitive mom thing is really hard to avoid.

[sundog]

48. yeah, it's a slippery slope...

it was aia where i was... academically intellectually able... and er... umm... i was in it :blush:

in retrospect, i don't think it was cool... cause it can lead to a lot of crap feelings & separatism at a young age

[democracyindanger]

50. I was in TAG

And yes, I consider you beneath me. My towering intellect casts a long, dark shadow.

[jpgray]

53. It's tough to make a determination on intelligence

People who do well in school can either be really smart, hard workers, or good at school. Or a combination of two or more of these things. being smart is one option out of many. That said, I was in "GT" classes in elementary and decided to give up on them because I was lazy and missed my friends. The sole other kid in these classes who stayed finished high school when he was about fourteen as a result, so maybe I would have been some kind of prodigy had I worked hard at it. It's all in what you want, though--I'd prefer having all the free time, none of the pressure, and all the social experiences the regular curriculum offered. I had no great ambitions then and (obviously :)) I don't now.

[Orsino]

60. Turned me into the elitist I am today. n/t

[DrGonzoLives]

61. Nope

You have to have some way of letting the the smart students grow at the elementary school level, or they just end up not caring and not trying.

[Nikia]

67. My siblings and I were talented and gifted kids

My sister and I started off at a larger city school system. They started the talented gifted program for the second half of second grade based on scores from the standardized test and an individually administered IQ test. I don't know what I scored, but I overheard one teacher say that the minimum IQ for the program was 135. The program consisted of 10-12 individuals in each grade from all of the elementary schools in the system. My first year, I was the only student from my elementary school and grade level in my gifted class. Over half the students were from one of the elementary schools, which turned out to consist mainly of richer neighborhoods. The class met once a week and it was held at a different school. We met on different days different weeks so that we did not miss the same activities continuously that were held on certain days. The classes did involve above grade level activites. Our homework was often puzzles from Games magazines that my parents did not seem to be able to help me with. At the end of the year, we were required to do a research project. Honestly, I felt dumb in that class because I was used to being the smartest one in my class.
When I was in fifth grade, we moved to a smaller rural school. The gifted class only met for half a day once per week. Classes were grouped 1-3 and 4-6. I really excelled in that class and did not feel dumb. The activites were more fun and we did not have homework. It was also nice to have my sister in the same class.
To my suprise, my little half brother was also was put in the gifted class. It was particuliarly suprising since he did not do as well in school as my sister and I did. He is very creative though and likes really exploring areas that he is interested in. If he is interested in the subject matter though, he doesn't like doing all the busy work related to it.
In both schools, I was made fun of for being a nerd. No one should be suprised that at both schools while about half the gifted students went on to graduate at the top of the class and go to good colleges, the other half became juvenile deliquents and/or high school drop outs.
I don't know what is the best solution for educating the "gifted".

[Lydia Leftcoast]

72. I was in a gifted class for fifth grade, and even though the homework

was burdensome, I loved it, because the teacher treated us almost as if we were adults and encouraged us to discuss the issues of the day and to work on creative projects. It was refreshing to be in a class where reading encyclopedias for fun was not considered "geeky." If we were impatient with the pace of the class in a given subject, we could work ahead at our own speed.

When we moved to a new district, I was in the supposed "enriched" sections, but in fact, students were assigned to enriched classes as much on the basis of social class as on the basis of raw intelligence. I was often surprised to find kids whom I thought of as really smart relegated to the middle tracks, just because they weren't affluent. Besides, there was little difference between the content of the "enriched" classes and the content of the regular classes.

Based on my own experience, therefore, I'd say that an honest gifted and talented class, where the students are selected on the basis of intellectual achievement and promise instead of on the basis of status in the community, is a wonderful thing.

By the way, during my own teaching career, I found it incredibly easy to figure out which students were actually bright, which ones were just adept at bullshitting, and which ones were dim bulbs. It wasn't just the quality of their schoolwork but the complexity of their thought processes. For example, on an essay test, the dim bulbs would write down a few disjointed facts, the bullshitters would regurgitate back what I had said in class without comment or analysis, and the really bright students would come at the question in a way that showed that they had truly thought about it.

[hfojvt]

73. I was in such a group in junior high

but we never did anything. But one of the kids I remember from there is now a math prof and I do have an MA.
Still, the label seems to me to take away from all the work and all the reading I did. I studied for my grades - they were not a gift.
People say I am musically "talented" as if I have not spent many hours practicing my violin.
Of course, I spent alot of time playing basketball too, but I still am not a very good shot. So there is some "gift" when the effort pays off.

[Burma Jones]

75. Not to the GT kids

It's pretty tough to offer a public school curriculum that satisfies everyone. I have a son that just finished first grade. He is well above grade levels in reading and math. He's also been in speech therapy for language delay since he was 2. He exhibits small flashes of Autistic behavior. So, academically, he's advanced, but socially he's behind. We send him to a Private School because of the class size and extra attention. If the public Schools were funded adequately, so class sizes for Elementary School Students could be kept under 15 students, there would be little need for any GT or any other sort of segregation by perceived intelligence, motivation or other arbitrary standards. You do not see GT programs in Private Schools because they tend to have small enough classes to educate everyone.

[SheepyMcSheepster]

77. i was an AG kid, i can see how it is insulting to others

we did a lot of work though when we came out of the regular class. we did loads of process writing, which isn't exactly loads of fun.

i have mixed feelings about pulling kids from class and labeling them as "better than you".

i found the program very beneficial, but i can't help but agree with a previous poster who said that this time and money could probably have been better spent on kids who actually had a problem with school.

but what do you do when you have kids that are bored by the "average" pace? should they be moved a grade ahead? i don't know. it seems a shame to not challenge a kid who can handle more than what his/her contemporaries can.

for the record, it wasn't so much fun being identified as a "gifted" kid. i would have much rather been labeled normal. i guess it depends on the social environment at the school. it wasn't my impression that we were elitist, we were labeled nerds and made fun of.

edit: our vetting process was based on individual IQ tests, teacher's reccomendations and a few other apptitude tests.

[Blue_In_AK]

96. My daughter was in the program here in elementary school...

...and got pulled out of class, but she thought the other kids were snobs (at the tender age of 7) and opted out. The teachers still recognized that she was gifted, though, and always gave her more challenging things to do on the side which seemed to work. Our middle schools and high schools have parallel programs for the bright kids so that basically all the kids in the more advanced classes stay together all through high school. That way they're no more nor less special than the other kids in that particular class, and my daughter didn't seem to have a problem with that. Plus, there are AP courses, of course. I do think it's important to challenge the brigher kids, but I think pulling them out of class and calling attention to them when they're in grade school is probably not such a good thing.

[redacted]

82. Many criminals have high IQ's.

Statistics show that if you don't give those kids something to do -- they'll make stuff up to occupy themselves -- and you might not like it.

Now maybe it needs to be handled differently. Maybe, just maybe, kids who were smarter than everyone else felt strange about it too.

Being the smartest kid in the class is not an enviable postion. Just think of all the nasty things other kids said or did to that kid.

Everyone has their battles.

[AngryAmish]

166. Not in my experience

Most criminals are quite dull and have poor impulse control.

[luvLLB]

84. Here ya go...my child has been in G/T for 6 years..and here is why.

A High Achiever vs. A Gifted Learner
A High Achiever:

Knows the answers
Is interested
Is attentive
Has good ideas
Works hard
Commits time and effort to learning
Absorbs information
Copies and responds accurately
Is a top student
Understands ideas
Grasps meanings
Is a technician
Is receptive
Prefers sequential presentation of material
Is pleased with his/her own learning
Needs 6/8 repetitions for mastery
Listens with interest
Is a good memorizer
Answers questions




A Gifted Learner:

Asks the questions
Is highly curious
Is intellectually engaged
Has original ideas
Performs with ease
May need less time to excel
Manipulates information
Creates new and original products
Is beyond her/his age peers
Constructs abstractions
Draws inferences
Initiates projects
Is an innovator
Is intense
Thrives on complexity
Is highly self-critical
Needs 1-2 repetitions for mastery
Shows strong feelings, opinions, perspective
Is insightful; makes connections with ease
Responds with detail & unique perspectives

Based on a concept from : "The Gifted and Talented Child" by Janice Szabos, Maryland Council for Gifted & Talented, Inc

[proud2BlibKansan]

85. For a kid who hasn't even graduated from high school yet,

you are incredibly wise.

I teach elementary school. I have been doing it longer than you have been alive. And you just nailed it. Most elem teachers HATE that GT label with a passion. It means nothing and says nothing about real smarts.

And once you get out of school, no one categorizes people into groups of 'gifted' and 'average', etc. That is what drives me the craziest about this. We are supposed to be preparing kids for life in the real world. But in the real world, the gifted are not separated from the non gifted. Life is not as elite as these groups in school.

[JohnKleeb]

86. Thanks

Oh the whole 'gifted' and 'average' barrier has long been broken honestly.

[proud2BlibKansan]

87. Real wisdom

and street smarts will take you a lot farther in life than a high IQ.

People skills are lots more important than IQ scores.

Understanding your own level of intellect and being able to capitalize on your own strengths and knowing your weaknesses is a lot more important than just being smart.

[JohnKleeb]

88. I think thats true

[WeRQ4U]

90. This is exactly the reason some of these programs are necessary

Without them, many high-IQ students would languish. They need to be treated differently.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

92. The problem is many High IQ students aren't in these programs

There isn't a standard to which "smart" kids can follow to be sure to get into these programs.

what is needed is smaller class size so that the teacher can focus on more of the individual students needs.

[WeRQ4U]

94. But that is idealistic and impossible. Class sizes won't go down.

I think that the right kids will be chosen so long as the criteria do not include their last name and their finances.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

113. TOTALLY WRONG.

my story is similar to yours, but i wasn't as lucky. Basically i wasn't doing great in school as a kid. They choose kids for the TAG program in my school district based on a "group IQ" score (see my firsts posts in this thread for further details on that scam). I never got chosen to go. My mom had an independent IQ test done, and, needless to say, I should have been in TAG no question. She went to the school and they REFUSED to do it, just because of my crappy "group IQ" score.

Kids who should be placed in these programs are not as lucky as you.

and on edit: Maybe if the govt. didnt give so much money to the military, there would be enough cash for education so small classes wouldn't be "idealistic":eyes:

[Nikia]

95. At my first school system

Students were placed in the program by IQ. Students who scored high on the standardized test were given individual IQ tests. If the student scored 135 or higher, he or she was placed into the program. I think that teacher could request the individualized test for some individuals who they suspected didn't show their full abilities on a multiple choice test, but only students with high IQs got into the program.
I suspect at the rural school and my little brother's rural school that there were more students in the program than only those with 135 IQs or higher. I am not sure which criteria they used. My parents were not rich though and my little brother did not receive perfect grades.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

117. My school did TAG

based on a "group IQ" score. I should have been in tag cause my IQ was over 135, if that was the criteria, but at my school it wasnt an individual score that got you in. Some of us were not lucky enough to get in I guess.

[Nikia]

133. Weird

How does a group IQ test work? How do they selct individuals that way?

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

134. its based on how you act in your class

participation, your body language...basically a person sits in the back of the class with a clipboard and picks out who they think is smart :eyes:

[tigereye]

185. there is no legitimate IQ test

that would be based solely on that.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

186. exactly. its totally illegitimate

and fucking stupid, but thats how my school district does it! and thats why im saying "group IQ"

[tigereye]

199. usually a group IQ means

that a group paper IQ test is administered, and I suspect that the validity of that is not nearly as high as an individual test.

I doubt any public school district would make that kind of decision based on so little information...

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

202. When I was being tested for my learning disability,

by the school district's psychiatrist, I had to take an IQ test. When his test confirmed the IQ my mother told me, I asked him what got kids into the TaG program, and he explained it was just this "group IQ" test. no input from the teacher, just the elementary school principle and a few "school administrators" sitting in on the class a few hours the first few weeks of school. My mom had also told me the same thing. I don't think he (and my mom) would have lied to me:shrug:

[distantearlywarning]

192. Ok, that's the lamest IQ test I ever heard of!

That's completely ridiculous! What if you are naturally introverted and shy so you don't speak up in class? What if you do all your reading outside of class?

How could anybody possibly know anything using this method? No wonder you are pissed about this whole thing.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

194. im still holding the grudge!

:grr:

on edit: I cant stop laughing about this :rofl:

[JohnKleeb]

197. and there's two of my qualities

I am very introverted and shy, and I do a lot of my heavy readng outside of class.

[proud2BlibKansan]

97. I disagree

They need to learn to interact with non-gifted people. They aren't treated differently once they are out of school. That's what we need to prepare them for.

[JohnKleeb]

98. actually even when they get to secondary school

they're not treated differently, sure some of them have AP courses but other than that nah.

[WeRQ4U]

103. This is not the problem.

The problem is children not getting special attention and then languishing in subjects that they find boring and unstimulating. Therefore, the children receive special, additional, attention because they are talented intellectually.

They spend every waking moment of their lives with people you refer to as "non-gifted". Believe me, even though I was in the advanced school system I was, first and foremost, a child. I interacted with other "non-gifted" students all the time. Learning to interact with those specific people is not a problem, and if it is, then perhaps they have social interaction problems in general. This can happen with any child.

The special attention they receive in addition to their every day lives is what challenges them to reach their potential. Many kids need this. I was one of them. If we make students learn the same stuff, regardless of their potential, then you do not nurture those with talent. SHould we make all students take art and not allow those students gifted in the arts to study further, simply becuase they must learn to associate with "non-artists"?

[proud2BlibKansan]

135. See my response #130

As far as your question about needing enrichment in the arts, I see that as a parental responsibility, not the school's. I was a 'gifted' arts student and my parents put me in dance and drama classes after school and on Saturdays. I went to arts camp in the summers.

[Nikia]

115. But elementary school is boring if you get it right away

Elementary schools may vary, but at my school we spent at least a third of the year reviewing what we already had learned the year before. We spent a long time learning basic concepts. I know that it is important that children learn the basics like reading and math skills, but a lot of time is spent on it for those who understood it well the first time.
In secondary school, usually very little time is spent reviewing concepts learned before and less time is spent on the same material. At many high schools, classes are offered at different levels.
After school, there are many different careers requiring many different skills and experiences. Some gifted students do end up in challenging careers. Others end in jobs that can be done by people with half their IQs. I am not sure how one can adequately prepare students for the world of work in elementary school, especially since there are so many different worlds of work. For example, the work dynamic was completely differnt working at a fast food restaurant compared to when I had a temp job at a large company working in an R&D lab.

[proud2BlibKansan]

158. But didn't you need to know how to count change

when you worked at that fast food restaurant? And didn't you need to know how to read and write when you worked at the R&D lab?

I understand your complaint about being bored in school. I just believe that we need to pump up our instruction and teach teachers to meet the needs of the gifted kids in the classroom instead of pulling those kids out.

[Bouncy Ball]

216. Thanks, thanks a lot.

WTF?

So a kid who is 7 and can't read and a kid who is 7 and reads like a 17 year old, the first kid gets help, the second kid...fuck him?

TRULY gifted kids and people ARE very different. Their thinking processes are different. Gifted kids often don't do very well in the classroom, not because it's too hard, but because they are wired up so differently the classroom isn't really designed to accomodate that.

Prisons are FILLED with people with incredibly high IQs.

So just keep bashing them, that's real nice. You have NO idea.

Not only is it hard for the kid and their parents, but you get NO fucking sympathy or quarter from ANYONE. Who the fuck cares if your kid is bored stiff in class? Who the fuck cares if your kid doesn't fit in with the other kids because they think differently and that comes out in what they say? Shit. Fuck 'em, right?

[WeRQ4U]

89. These programs serve a purpose and discarding them for their name is wrong

There is something to be said about challenging a child who needs to be challenged. I know from experience. When I was 7 years old, my parents went to my parent teacher conferences. My grades were VERY poor (whatever "grades" they had back then). My parents were dumbfounded and were crushed to have my teacher tell them that I was "Just not that bright" and that I may need to repeat the grade due to my level of achievement. Well, my parents did not believe what they were hearing. They hired a professional to figure out what was going on.

My parents did not tell me about this until a few years ago. They hired the lady for 3 separate days to follow me around during class, to do verbal and congnitive studies with me after class, and to figure out why I was struggling. My parents were not supposed to contact her until those three days were up. She called back after the first half day of observing me. She said "Your son isn't handicapped...he's bored out of his mind."

After that, I was placed in the advanced learning classes. My IQ and learning skills tests placed me into the L.E.A.P. program with another 15-20 kids and my grades and participation immediately improved. From that point on, I excelled.

I'm not trying to be elitist either but what would have happened to me if not for those classes? I'd probably be diagnosed with some learning disability and prescribed Ritalin or seomething.

What I'm getting at here, is that these programs provide a very important function for children and parents. Children who are able to challenge themselves and succeed should not be kept shackled. The feelings of inadequacy are not felt by the children who are left OUT of these programs, it's felt by the parents. Sorry.

[JohnKleeb]

91. I had more a problem with the name itself than the program

[WeRQ4U]

93. I read ya.

But whether you call them "gifted and talented" or some obscure acronym, they will still be in the program and they will still be different. They will still be subjected to childhood cruelty do to their intellectual skills.

I still think that parents have more trouble with things like this than kids do.

[Rabrrrrrr]

99. Bless you! My schools, alas, had no advanced classes

So I was stuck with the proles, bored out of my fucking mind every goddamn day because, for instance, my chem class had the smart people like me, who understood things quickly, all the way down to the idiot airheads who still couldn't tell the difference between a bunsen burner and an erlenmeyer flask half-way through the semester. Same with physics, my math classes (though, thank God, my school let me skip a grade in math), frickin' everything.

The learning disabled had their own classes, and the proper attention they needed.

The few of us academically and intellectually advanced had nothing, and most of us did not graduate at the top of our classes (though of course we were in the top 20%) for the simple reason that, hey, we can do the homework in the thirty-minute bus ride to school in the morning, because the classes were all dumbed-down (from our perspective) for the average people, so why fuckin' bother studying anything? Er, no - it wasn't a case of not studying. It was a case of being able to study everything in that thirty-minute bus ride.

Our valedictorian was smart, but not as quick or brilliant as we were. But he also worked his ass off (which might very well mean he WAS smarter than us...) to be valdictorian.

I hardly ever cracked open a school book at home, did hardly anything study-wise, took level 2 classes if I wanted to (some of the more fun english classes were level 2, like science fiction), worked a job, was in drama guild, orchestra, a bunch of clubs, and was very active in my church with youth group, choir, and a lot of weekend retreats, and playing D&D pretty much every Friday and Saturday night until the wee hours of the morning, and still ended up graduating number 13 out of 479.

So, I don't know - maybe it was good we had no advanced classes - gave me a lot of time to do those other things that kept me sane after the drudgery of listening to teachers drone on and on and on to try to teach everyone in the classes. :-)

[WeRQ4U]

111. You made the best out of your free time... others might go to jail.

And I'm not exaggerating. Without some direction, the most brilliant students will languish in boredom and FIND ways to occupy their busy brains. And it isn't always CON-structive.

[Rabrrrrrr]

You are very right - a few of my insanely intelligent friends

ended up in drugs and shit jobs, or getting married too early, or just otherwise fucking off.

Really sad.

One, in particular, one of the fastest, most incredible minds I've ever known (and his two brothers were two of the un-challenged geniuses in my class), didn't finish college, lost his job in the meat department at the grocery store for theft, spends his days drinking beer and smoking dope and working at a garage as a mechanic. Which being a mechanic isn't a bad thing, but considering he was putting together and designing computers in high school in 1982, and had a working knowledge of chemistry and physics better than our chem and physics teacher, is a pretty fucking sad state of affairs.

[WeRQ4U]

129. I have a very good friend in the same situation...

He was in all the advanced classes with me. He NEEDED that attention and that push for more. He was one of the most brilliant children and young adults that I had ever met. Insanely smart, very witty. He went to college to do "Beautiful Mind" type math shit. But when things started to bore him, he got complacent. He ended up leaving college, moving home. Now he smokes a ton of meth and dope, plays guitar, deals blackjack and plays poker on weekends. And this was when the challenges stopped coming for him AFTER high school.

Imagine what would have happened if he had been forced to remain in normal classroom cirriculum. We're talking unibomber type shit.

[Rabrrrrrr]

126. And I was lucky that I was good at entertaining myself

and being able to look above all the bullshit and see what was happening. I realized it was gonna be up to me.

And yes, I do consider myself lucky that whether due to parenting, or adults in my church who cared for me, or whatever, that I was able to see that, while school was stupid fucking boring, it was important, and that, despite my classmates, I should try to learn things and learn to deal with it.

[proud2BlibKansan]

100. The answer is to improve the quality of

instruction in the classrooms so it meets the needs of gifted kids, not to pull them out.

[WeRQ4U]

122. Just another idealistic "should be"... it simply can't happen.

Fist of all, I'm not trying to be snooty here, but when I refer to the courses and classes I took while in the advanced, segregated class, I'm not talking about activities that the average student would want to or could do for that matter. You could not integrate what I was learning into a normal classroom, the other 2/3 of the class would fail, plain and simple, either for lack of interest or lack of ability. And you can't have that either.

Beside, if anything the classes in school are becoming more catered to the current administrations "No Child Left Behind." The schools make medicrity the standard. There is no way a child with higher standards can achieve what they are capable within the current structure, without some segregation.

[proud2BlibKansan]

130. The gifted kids are coming back in the 'regular' classroom

It is already happening. So are the severely handicapped kids. Research supports a 'diverse' group of kids in a classroom improves achievement for ALL kids. It's also less expensive to educate everyone in the same setting. Gifted programs are incredibly expensive, so they are the first to be abolished.

So consider yourself fortunate. The days of segregating kids is going going gone.

[WeRQ4U]

137. I do consider myself fortunate.

They abolished the L.E.A.P. program in my school system close to the time I finished it. I was for money reasons.

I was not segregated from the class the entire time, mind you. It wasn't like I went to MIT for Minors. I was just sent to different setting once or twice a week. The rest of the time I spent with my fellow students. And I'm simply saying that there is no way possible to integrate into a normal classroom setting, what I was doing in L.E.A.P. Hence the segregation in the first place.

[proud2BlibKansan]

146. Check this out

http://www.njagyouth.org/colortest.swf

[JohnKleeb]

149. what the hell is that, I keep on getting zero

[proud2BlibKansan]

154. I guess you just aren't

'gifted'. LOL

That darn ole left brain right brain stuff - it's fun to mess with isn't it?

[JohnKleeb]

161. Its biased towards the left brain aint it?

funny since all my past psych tests have me as a left brain.

[proud2BlibKansan]

163. It depends on how you approach it.

Looking at the words alone would be using your left brain. The colors bring your right brain in to it. Think about what you did and then try again and do the opposite. So if you looked at the words first, concentrate on the colors this time and try to ignore the words.

[JohnKleeb]

164. Both came to mind, I guess I am more whole brain than anything

[proud2BlibKansan]

170. I think it is probably most difficult for whole brainers

But if it is any consolation, being whole brained is really better in the long run than being either too left or too right brained.

[JohnKleeb]

179. Oh hell yeah it is

I love creative writing but I also love me my sports statistics.

[Rabrrrrrr]

212. Hey - 100% on the first try!

Woo hoo!!

[AngryAmish]

168. The dim kids will just pull them down

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

176. not if we had smaller classes

where teachers could give ACTUAL individual help and mentoring

[patcox2]

249. 50% of them have to be below average.

All the mentoring in the world isn't going to make a dimbulb above average.

Its kinda unfair to the dummies, I think, to lie to them and tell them they are smart.

You must also live in Lake Wobegone, where all the kids are below average. the normal distribution curve having been repealed by the simple expedient of having smaller classes, who knew.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

277. yea, i must be crazy to think

that class of 10-15, instead of 25-30 wouldn't help kids at all...:eyes:

[distantearlywarning]

107. I was in a program like this.

Other than this program, I hated school. I was horribly bored, had an attitude problem (probably because I was bored), and felt like other kids didn't "get me". Gifted programs probably kept me from getting into more trouble than I did - they were the one thing that kept me identifying with school at all.

I'm sorry for anyone out there who felt stupid or unimportant because they weren't identified as "gifted". I can assure you that being in the gifted and talented programs at the schools I attended was not the cool thing to do, and I certainly didn't feel special or like I was elite. The nerdy kids were in gifted, and everybody knew it. Bullying was one reason why that program was such an important thing for me, actually.

In fact, reading these posts brought back an unpleasant memory from third grade: I had to leave class one day a week to go to gifted school. I loved it so much - we played cool inventive games on the playground - it was the only place I fit in. And my teacher thought I was a bad student because I was messy and not a very obedient child, so she would make fun of me for going to gifted school. When I had to leave in the morning, she would say things like, "Class, DEW has to go to her SPECIAL SCHOOL now. Isn't she wonderful? She probably thinks she's smarter than the rest of us..." You can probably imagine how popular that made me with my classmates. :eyes: I was 8 years old and all I wanted to do was go to gifted so I could play fun made-up games on the playground and make puppets and learn about geology.

And by the way, I learned how to get along just fine with "NORMAL" people even though I went to gifted classes as a child. Somehow. But I'm sure that the vast majority of former TAG kids are unsocialized jobless recluses living in their parents basement. They probably spend all their time thinking about how superior they are to other people too, just like they were taught to do in gifted and talented class.

:eyes:

(Yes, I was a little offended by some of the comments in this thread.)

[redqueen]

123. Sucked, didn't it?

Yet, to read some of these comments, we're all elitsts who think we're super geniuses.

:rofl:

[amandabeech]

205. Big time.

No GAT, no LEAP, no AP in my school long, long ago. I was completely bored and completely ostracized as "the smartest thing on two feet." I haven't been fond of people since I was 10.

[tjdee]

131. So not the cool thing.

Kids are so cruel...ohhh, he/she's doing their homework, and is getting more work! Let's call him/her names!

:shrug:

[distantearlywarning]

136. Clearly it's still a threat to some people...

judging by some of the comments made here. I am actually a little shocked by the anger in some of these posts.

You know, I wasn't a star athlete in junior high or anything. And the star athletes got pretty preferential treatment in my schools. Their bad grades were sometimes overlooked, they were very popular, they got out of class to go to away games, etc... But I never once thought that just because I couldn't play volleyball like the jock girls that they should have let me on their team so I wouldn't feel bad about my comparative lack of athletic ability.

Sometimes you just have to accept your limitations and move on. This wouldn't be a very fun world if everybody was forced to "dumb it down" for the sake of those who weren't as talented (in whatever genre - art, music, sports, book smarts, whatever). All that variability makes the world a good place. I got to hone my academics and the volleyball girls got to go to away games. That's ok, for me and them.

[tjdee]

139. And then people limit themselves, too.

I started to get really sick of being picked on. So I didn't raise my hand, I pretended to not know the answers to things, I tried to not stand out. I quit the Academic Decathlon, etc. etc. etc.

I don't imagine I'm the only one who did that.

You make a good point about the sports thing...redqueen said as much too.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

140. but the problem is kids who should be in these programs

and arent. Its not just hurt feelings, it FUCKS you up. Becuase of that TAG shit, i wasn't allowed to be in the advanced Math or Science class in middle school. So i had to waste my time for two years to "catch up" to the smart kids. except i wasnt allowed to be moved ahead when it was clear that I was well ahead of the rest of the class in both classes. I had to spend 3 years of high school without a lunch period to be able to take classes so I could be in AP's and be caught up with the smart kids.

[distantearlywarning]

143. I agree. That is pretty lame.

There's no reason why anyone who can demonstrate academic competence should be prevented from taking harder classes. That's just stupid.

Then again, there are a lot of stupid things about public schools. If I had kids I would never allow them to attend one (and screw that "socialization" nonsense - that's just a sour grapes kind of comment).

If it helps, I actually went through this experience in high school once myself. I transferred schools my junior year, and I was a punker/gothy kind of kid, and they wouldn't put me in advanced English for some unknown reason. I guess because I looked like kind of a burnout. My test scores were excellent, so I think they were just being douchebags. I finally had to get my sophomore creative writing teacher to call them and tell them that I needed to be in college-track English.

It was definitely not a good experience, and didn't make me feel good about the school or myself, so I feel for you.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

159. At my high school they allowed

the student to choose what level of class he would be in (AP/Honors/Regents). It was great to finally get a challenge at school.

All Im saying is that the program itself is inherently unfair. I have nothing against you folks who got into it, only the fact that having a program like this excludes people who need it most based on some thinking an administrator may have. Just like what happened to you in English...

[WeRQ4U]

138. My teachers and fellow students did the same things to us...

It was NOT, by any means, an elitist society. Kids don't work that way. Again, I stress that adults perpetuate these types of thoughts. Not children.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

141. thats really shitty.

Im sorry you had to experience that, but in my school it was the complete opposite. The TAG kids got a lot more respect from the teachers, and had a lot more opportunities then the "regular" kids

[JohnKleeb]

144. like the field trips and stuff that some have dicussed?

I guess everyone experiences something different. I guess I have a bias against this because I have a learning disablity and for most of my years in the school system, it was LD: Learning Disabled. Then you see these other kids who are GT: Gifted and Talented. I admit its not easy being smart but I have to say, I'd rather would have gone through that than having people assume I am a dumbass because I am learning disabled. So I admit I am biased but I really dont have anything against people in these programs themselves but the whole labeling I guess you could say really confused the hell out of me.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

148. Im in your boat John

I too am smart and have a learning disability. I wasn't ever diagnosed till high school though, so i never had to deal with the cruelty of being made fun of. I have nothing against people in gifted programs, but not everyone who should be in them is there and thats the problem. Its the system used to pick kids for these programs that i have an issue with (at least at my school). and the name makes everyone whose not in them feel dumb and not special, imho

[JohnKleeb]

153. I was diagnosed very early on like at 5

The whole wording of it all sucks ass, I was called disabled because of something that is only real noticable once someone gets to know me but they're gifted and talented, I wasnt even that hardcore learning disabled, its gone down as Ive gotten older but its there, I have to accept that. As I said some of my best friends were in the program, the people in them arent snobs, and Ive always thought it was stupid when smart people got made fun of. Ive been made fun of in the past because of things related to my differences, like I used to talk a little funny and got made fun of for that, got made fun of for my very akward shyness, etc.

[distantearlywarning]

151. For what it's worth

I don't approve of children being publicly labeled LD or being pulled out to go to "special ed" (or whatever they call it these days). In the schools I attended, that was just as much of an "uncool" death sentence as being in the gifted classes. There was only one way to be and that was right in the middle. Any little chicken who fell outside of the first standard deviation in either direction got pecked to death. Children are awful.

[JohnKleeb]

156. Fair enough

I agree that its mostly the quote on quote normal people who can be the biggest dickwads since they go after both those they consider intelluctually superior and inferior alike.

[WeRQ4U]

145. It seems as though you had quite the difference experience...

Most people that I talk to were not at all enamored by being in the "special class". WE all know now that it helped out quite a bit in the long run, but no one in high school wants a label, unless that label is a positive one. "Especially nerdy smart guy who has to be taken out of class to learn more" is not a handy moniker to don when you are 7 or 8 years old.

And I feel for you and how you describe your circumstances. But you have to realize something. Your experience in "normal" classes as some like to call them, is the situation these "special classes" are intended to remedy. In your case, they obviously did not. And that's too bad.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

152. But thats the problem!

when you are pulling kids away to give them a better education, you are going to leave behind kids who should go too.

It was different in my school. If you were in TAG it set you up for your whole 12 years in the school district. It was an honor at my school, and if you werent invited, its obvious you werent good enough. I know i sound so dumb, but that shit fucked me up for years, espically when they place you in better science and math classes. I had to wallow for years before anyone realized my potential.

[BiggJawn]

128. They wanted to "jump" me about 5 grades.

From 4th to High School Freshman.
My folks said "nNo, he'll have social adjustment problems"
So I stayed where it was appropriate for my age to stay, got bored shitless, lost interest in learning, got lazy, never fulfilled what potential I might have had, and as for the "social adjustment" business?

I'm almost 50 and a cynical Loner. All my LTR's have been with women 5-10 years older than me.

Coo-Coo-Ka-Choo, Mrs. Robinson...

[distantearlywarning]

132. I guess what that says

is that society thinks that the poor little hurt feelings of the kids around you who wouldn't have been skipped grades with you were worth more than your wasted potential. But hey, who gives a crap about the your feelings, right?

Smart is not valued in this society. I'm sorry this happened to you.

[BiggJawn]

200. Probably all for the better.

If I had "lived up to my potential", who knows? I might have grown up to be Kenny-Boy Lay or Tin-Man Cheney.

[48pan]

142. Everybody thinks their kid is GT. He's not.

One in twenty kids falls into that category. Unfortunately, unless their parents are rich, they get thrown in with everybody else and are often bored to tears.

[WeRQ4U]

150. Thanks for the discussion - I'm OUT!!

And no I'm not going to "special classes." I'm going home to have a beer.

[distantearlywarning]

157. Do supergeniuses drink beer?

I thought that was just for all the normal people. You know, all the ones who are beneath our supergenius notice?

B-)

Ok, just kidding. It was nice talking to you. Enjoy your beer.

[JohnKleeb]

160. Wait nerds drink beer

I had no idea, ha just messing with you, I dont hate overly smart people in fact Ive been mistaken for what you guys were in the past, of course that changes when I give people crap for using LD as an excuse.

[Left Is Write]

167. I was in so-called "gifted" classes, but I do not believe I am "gifted."

I think that's a label that should be reserved for only a few very extraordinary people.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

177. smarty-pants

:P

[Chovexani]

172. Not really

Maybe it's just because I was considered gifted/talented, but the fact is GT kids have special and specific needs and the label is meant to set those kids aside so they can get the support they need. Life can be absolute hell for GT kids: at school you get praised by teachers which in turn earns you the wrath of other kids (no one likes a "brain", as evidenced by the rhetoric during the last two elections, and hell by some bullies in this thread who are proud of the fact they beat other kids up); expectations are often set impossibly high for you by parents and others, and you're made to feel utterly worthless when you fail to live up to them. Trust me, it's no fucking picnic.

What I find insulting is that some kids who aren't GT seem to be threatened by the very existence of GT kids, and then set out to make their lives hell because they feel slighted or inadequate. Really, it's not all about you. :rant:

[JohnKleeb]

181. the same people who go after brains go after no brains ya know

well so called no brains, like just because I am learning disabled dont make me a dumbass, hell in many regards I was more advanced than many GT kids, taught myself how to read young and taught myself the presidents, however when it comes to science and especially math, I am dreadful.

[Rabrrrrrr]

211. And a lot of them are doing it now as adults, in this thread

I'm surprised at the vitriol being spewed at the people who were gifted as youngsters.

I like how you said it: gifted have specific and special needs.

Just like the learning disabled do.

If you had a kid who was really good in music, you would push them ahead, have them join community orchestras or, as we had in Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Youth Symphony, for the really gifted musicians. Or if they were a brilliant sports person, they'd be out doing sports with people of equal talent. No one would say "No, that's just fucking unfair to separate the really good athletes from the average athletes and let them play games by themselves at a higher level." No one would say that.

I don't understand why so many people in this thread are concerned and/or afraid of the idea of also separating (at times) and offering the special programs that the very intelligent kids need.

Jesus, you make the suggestion that smart kids should have some special programming for themselves, that will challenge them and keep them interested and let them excell as far as their talent will allow them, and people go all fuckin' apeshit about it and scream "unfair" and "awful" and "elitist" and "how outrageous".

Well, here's a great big FUCK YOU to anyone who thinks the above average kids should be forced to be mainlined and stuck with everyone else. FUCK YOU TO HELL AND BACK.

[redqueen]

234. I pretty much share your sentiments.

I don't get the resentment... I really don't.

[WeRQ4U]

236. I can't believe it...

I thought that the resentment felt by students against those who labeled "gifted" would end when they grew to adult-hood. Sadly, it seems as though those students will pass on the resentment to their children. And for what? Resentment stems from two things in this thread:

1) They were not "chosen" to be one of the participants in the programs even though they and their parents insisted that they should OR

2) They are parents of a child that was not chosen for such a program and they insist that they should have been.

Your analysis of it being like sports is exactly right. I was in athletics as well. In addition to being "annointed" as "gifted", I was the captain of the high school basketball and track teams. And I know for a fact that those institutions encounter the same criticisms from participants that were not chosen to participate. The parents INSIST that their child is good enough and therefore the system is flawed for not choosing them. The children believe what the parents say and the cycle never ends.

It just sucks.

[Rabrrrrrr]

295. One WOULD think that maturity beyond junior high would end the bullshit.

But, sadly, there are even democrats who act childish. it's not just the freepers who can't handle the truth sometimes.

[Guaranteed]

275. Yup.

Dealt with that shit for 10 years. Had enough of it.

[Withywindle]

178. I've looked at this from both sides now...

...It ain't roses either way. I'm sorry.

I was in my elementary school's TAG program as a kid. I was kind of a prodigy in reading and writing--doing both on a 4th-grade level in kindergarten. (I had a pretty isolated childhood, so I dove into books VERY early in life and never completely came out.:)) And yes, I got to do the field trips and all that, and it was great. They also let those of us who were excellent readers go up to other classes for English--by second grade, I was taking English with the 6th graders. By 8th grade I was taking community college courses. Anything to do with reading or writing--which also included Social Studies, History, Spelling, languages, anything involving spoken-word performance, giving speeches, or dramatic recitation, of course--I aced like an aced thing because it came naturally to me and I enjoyed it immensely, and it was so, SO wonderful to not be forced to slow down or wait or hold myself back or pretend to understand less than I did.

The flip side of that, 'cause there always is one, is that I had a SEVERE learning disability in math that was never diagnosed properly - I couldn't have an LD, I was "gifted"! It wasn't understood at the time just how often they go together, that kids are very often both in different fields and my case was not that unusual. So I also got to experience the humiliation of just not getting it, of being in tears because everyone else got to go outside after they finished their math problems and I was only halfway down the page, just...not...getting...it. I had a teacher literally accuse me of faking it to get attention! I had to take Remedial Math three times to graduate from college. I'm 35, and 8th-grade algebra is still simply beyond my comprehension. I just cannot make my brain work that way. So I'm a professional writer now, and my boyfriend balances the checkbooks.

It all balances out in the end, and for every strength there is a weakness (and vice versa).

[JohnKleeb]

182. Math is such a funny subject for me

When I was in elementary school most everyone thought damn I must be a math genius but the came algebra work and math class with Super Mario didnt help me one bit in 7th grade, and Ive been on the defensive from math ever since.

[Withywindle]

184. Different kinds of math seem so different,

with the way people's brains work. Even I was halfway competent at Geometry, for example ('cause I could visualize it; it wasn't pure numbers per se).

[JohnKleeb]

187. Yeah like I love sports statistics but I could never do trig

[distantearlywarning]

188. It is funny,

I had a lot of trouble with both Geometry and Trigonometry in high school, but have been an excellent student in graduate-level Statistics. It just makes sense to me somehow in a way that Geometry and Trig never did.

[Elidor]

190. I consider you gifted and talented, Grasshopper.

Gifts are not measured by report cards, nor talent indicated by financial success. You have things to offer that many young people have not yet matured enough to see. You are blessed with a questioning mind and a good nature. And you're funny.

[JohnKleeb]

191. The school didnt agree

ha its ok, I am always in the middle of things really.

[jonnyblitz]

195. I could tell by your behavior in Boston that weekend

that you are gifted and talented. :P

[JohnKleeb]

196. Jonny

being drunk and high on special brownies aren't the same as being gifted and talented, and if you must know the truth, I havent drank since that of course will be changing shortly. How are you by the way? I havent been on as much since I been busy.

[Radical Activist]

198. Its mostly bullshit. The new form of school segregation.

You put all the kids from rich white families whose parents have time to help them at home or hire tutors in the "gifted" section where they don't have to work as hard. All the poor and black kids go to the lower track courses. Its insulting, and robs children who aren't in the the gifted programs of a good education.

[tjdee]

206. You are wrong.

I was a poor black person in Gifted and Talented. It wasn't so we didn't "have to work as hard". :eyes: I actually got homework from school, *and* from G&T.

I was bored shitless in the regular class, and as a parent it was frustrating to watch my kindergartner (well, she just finished), who knows how to add and subtract, be stuck "learning" what the friggin numbers look like, because that's what they learn in kindergarten.

The problem with state schools is that they cater to "average". They teach to tests, and all that sort of thing. Part of that is because they are not always fully equipped/funded to teach kids of all different levels. We have special education for learning disabled kids, why shouldn't we have things for kids who are *above* average?

:eyes:

[Radical Activist]

230. Most schools don't just cater to just average students.

They have a track system where students get a poorer education if they're stuck in a track that is difficult to get out of, and the "gifted" programs are part of that. I might agree with you if it weren't obvious that the placement of students into gifted programs has a lot more to do with socio-economic background than the actual intelligence level of the child. If you were a poor black person placed in a gifted program then you're the exception to the rule.

Some people get slapped for rolling their eyes so much.

[redqueen]

232. She told you you were wrong, but you won't listen... why?

I was also poor, and half Mex, and was in TAG most of the time I was in school.

Maybe in some districts it has something to do with socio-economic whatever... but that's certainly not always the case.

[Radical Activist]

238. Because anecdotal evidence does not trump broad trends.

One person's story doesn't invalidate a different reality that is true for far more people.

[WeRQ4U]

240. That's funny because it's been the basis for every opponent so far.

One persons's tale of mistreatment based upon their own limited set of circumstances. It's the "Throw the Baby out with the Bathwater" argument. And it's really lame.

I said it before, and I'll say it again. So long as the schools are doing the programs using test test results and uniform standards that do NOT include socio-economic qualifications, and so long as they are done at a young age, before the pressures of financial and social life skew the results, you will have a program of children that NEED the extra attention.

WIthout it, the children labeled "gifted" will not recieve the attention that they need and deserve.

[redqueen]

253. What broad trends?

Where's your proof that in most cases it's based on socio-economic whatever?

[distantearlywarning]

261. When I was first placed in gifted and talented classes,

my parents were so poor we bought all our clothes at Goodwill. We lived in a house that didn't have running water until I was three. We grew our own vegetable garden to supplement our meager grocery budget. I don't know what my dad's salary was at that point, but I'm guessing it would be less than $10K in today's dollars.

Although, granted, I'm not black, you have to admit that "lack of running water" = pretty damn poor. Probably many inner city black kids had more amenities than I did as a child.

[JVS]

203. Greatest laugh in AP European history

Jim: You gifted kids think you're so smart. Five points, five miserable points on the IQ test and then I'd be one of you!

Mike: 130? That's far too low!

Gifted students: Bwahahahahahaha

Non-Gifted students: *scowl*

[stevans_41902]

210. In my class there was only 1 guy who was deemed "gifted" and I think

it was one of the contributing factors to everybody kissing his ass and telling him how smart he is all the time. He was and still is an arrogant asshole who thinks he can say even the most rediculous thing and everyone should think he's sooo smart. I think a lot of the stuff that the gifted kids do at the high school level should be taught to ALL students (filling out job app, resume/ college app.) I think hard work produces a lot more in the long run than being gifted. Ex. the guy I am talking about got kicked out of college b/c he failed all of his classes 2 semesters in a row. I guess he was too "smart" to take school seriously. I am not trying to stereotype students who are or were in a gifted program, I just think that telling a kid at a young age that they are smarter than their peers MAY lead to them thinking they are better than everyone else and dont need to put in as much effort.

[Wapsie B]

209. I've got no problem at all with TAG programs

as they're called here. It is shitty that some kids are treated badly because they are academically gifted enough to be in the advanced classes at their school. There should be some way to give them the respect they deserve, just like successful athletes would get.

Having said that I do have a real problem with the idea that students who can handle advanced academic work are the only gifted ones at the school. I've seen the term "dim bulb" used on this thread and elsewhere and I have to tell you I find it irritating to say the least.

Maybe that dim bulb won't be able to do trig or turn in a coherent essay in English Lit. But they may be able to build a racing engine on a car or wire a house or make a fantastic meal. Who's to say that these kids aren't just as gifted? There are a number of intelligences and academic success is only one measure of a person's gray matter.

This post is at the bottom of the thread and may not be read by anyone. The flame wars above have long since died out. But I don't care. This is a subject that really gets to me in a way. A lot of kids get labeled average when they're anything but that.

[BattyDem]

213. I was in one of those schools ...

up until the 8th grade. They didn't continue the program in high school, so we all went back to "regular" schools. The kids had no problem with us because we didn't "flaunt" our intelligence ... we were just regular kids. But a lot of the teachers were real bastards! Anytime one of us would ask a question, they'd say something like, "I thought you gifted kids knew all the answers." Also, we had a couple of the high school text books while in elementary school, so obviously, we were a little bored because we had done the same exact work the year before. When we tried to explain that to the teachers, they had absolutely no understanding - one of them actually said, "You may have had the book last year, but now you're going to study it the right way!" :eyes:

Even when I was in the "gifted" school, a lot of the teachers had attitudes. If we acted up or simply behaved like "normal" kids, we were reprimanded and punished. They'd say, "You're supposed to be gifted ... stop acting so childish!" We'd all look at each other and think, "But ... WE'RE CHILDREN! We may be smart but we're still kids!" :-(

If I had to do it all over again, I would have stayed in "regular" school because when you're a kid, being labled "gifted and talented" is a lot of pressure and you're forced to perform like an adult when you're just a child. But like I said, the other kids weren't the problem ... it was the ADULTS who made us feel different!

[JohnKleeb]

214. As I said, my problem was never wth the kids themselves

Just the perception of them that is given to the "regular" and "normal" kids though I never was considered that either, Ive been in special ed my whole life, its not that noticable but people knew it was there.

[BattyDem]

215. Oh, I know you didn't say you had a problem with the kids ...

I'm sorry if I made it sound like I was ticked off at you, LOL!

I just figured I'd share my experience with DUers because I know many have children and I think people should know that having a child attend a "gifted" school is not always a positive thing. There are pros and cons and even though the kids get to experience a lot more than they would in a regular school, the psychological price could be a bit high if the GT program isn't run by people who understand that "intelligence" and "maturity" are two completely different things.

Being "gifted" isn't all it's cracked up to be, especially when you're surrounded by adults with bad attitudes. All parents should learn as much as they can about GT schools and programs before allowing their child to attend because not all of them are designed to meet the emotional needs of "gifted" children.

JMHO :-)

[JohnKleeb]

218. Gotcha thank ya

Yeah those adults you seemed to be around didnt seem to get it, intelligence doesnt always equal maturity, like many people with great intellects have no common sense what so ever. I am not upset I wasnt in GT, but the whole name really ticked me off because people like me were being labled "disabled" because we were slightly slower learners and we werent as quick as the rest of the class yet you have these more smart people who are "gifted".

[BattyDem]

219. I don't understand why they have to label everybody

Being labeled, no matter what that label is, makes a kid feel different - like they don't fit in. I knew "gifted" kids that had no common sense and no real talent. They were intelligent ... period. And I knew "slow" kids that were terrific artists or musicians or athletes. Different kids have different strengths, weaknesses and talents. Labeling them as one thing or another doesn't really do anyone any good.

I always thought it would be better if they made an effort to identify every child's strengths and talents - and then provided an education that allowed those strengths and talents to be developed to their fullest potential.

[JohnKleeb]

221. I agree with what

I just cant get over having a negative connation on my back for a lot of my early childhood and here people like you had a really nice label on you, I tell you this, I never used my learning disablity as an excuse, I downplayed it whenver I could.

[BattyDem]

226. I'm sorry they stuck you with that negative label. It really isn't fair.

:hug:

People learn and process information in different ways. Why can't that be accommodated without making kids feel bad about themselves? :shrug: It's funny ... I don't think kids ever really have a problem with the differences - it's the adults that make them an issue, which then makes kids aware of them and some can be real jerks about it. :eyes:

For what it's worth, I've read many of your posts on DU and I think you're very intelligent, thoughtful and wise. :-)

[JohnKleeb]

228. Thanks, I appreciate that

It doesnt bother me anymore but for the longest time in elementary school, I really did feel different since I had to take special ed classes, speech therapy, occupational therapy, the whole nine yards, it was all so very weird for me. Oh yeah believe me, Ive only had a problem with one GT kid and he was around my brother's age and the problem I had with him wasnt that he was GT its that he ridiculed my brother, pretty stupid on his part since my brother is tougher than he is.

[Bouncy Ball]

217. I hate this topic, yet it's a topic in our lives.

I never had much sympathy for GT kids either. I saw it as "elite."

Then I had a truly gifted kid. That's not a brag, BELIEVE me--there have been MANY days I honestly wished she were just NORMAL. Just freaking NORMAL. I've cried over it. It's hard. They're so....different.

Gifted kids (I'm not talking about bright, I mean beyond the pale) don't think the same way other kids do (same for adults). They often don't act the same. The other kids notice pretty early on. They start to get marginalized, socially. Teachers "don't know what to do" with them. They get frustrated with them. The kid is bored stiff in class. Behavior problems might start to crop up. Etc etc.

Prisons have a pretty high number of people with very high IQs.

Fortunately my daughter's school has an incredible pull-out GT program. In that class, she gets what she needs. It has sustained her since first grade. If it weren't for that, honestly, I don't know what we'd do. I really don't. The GT teacher is incredible, has tons of training and background in how their thinking processes work, etc. and really helps them "fit in" in the regular classroom better.

But other parents give parents of gifted kids shit about it constantly. Or your kid gets a homeroom teacher who feels the way about the GT program that proud2lib feels about it (on this thread) and says smart-ass things to the class like "It's time for the SPECIAL kids to go to their SPECIAL FUN class" just to sow a BIT more division and resentfulness between the two groups. Nice, huh? I'm not saying proud2lib would say that to her class, but it's the same attitude.

So screw my kid, right? Who cares, right? She doesn't deserve any help learning how to get along in the regular classroom, does she? She doesn't deserve ANYTHING extra, no enrichment, no understanding. Just sit there and fucking languish, kid.

For the record, I was a gifted kid, too. But there was no program, no enrichment, no nothing. School was EXTREMELY difficult for me, but not for the normal reasons. It was pure hell at times.

If you think of it this way, it's easier to understand: have you ever read Charly? Flowers for Algernon is the other title. The guy has a VERY low IQ and has an operation that raises his IQ dramatically. He didn't fit in with others and in society when he had a low IQ and once he has the incredibly high IQ, guess what? HE STILL DOESN'T! He has the SAME problems, just coming from the other end of the spectrum!

All he wanted to be was normal. Sometimes that's all I want for my daughter, too.

But screw the gifted kids, right? Who cares. I don't care WHAT you call them, WHAT label you give them, but any kid who falls outside of "average" in either direction is going to need help in school. School is geared for and aimed at that middle ground. Did you know gifted education is classified under special education? Yep. Because they are just as much in need of modification as learning disabled kids. AND some GT kids ALSO have a learning disability. It's called a "dual exceptionality" and it's fucking hell for the kid and their parents.

I don't know, maybe there was a reason I had a kid like this. When I taught high school, pre-child, I used to sort of blow off the GT kids. I thought "Hell, they're GT, they don't need a thing."

I couldn't have been more wrong.

[JohnKleeb]

220. Ive never had a problem with them as individuals

but I think it hurt the way I felt about myself a little because here I was being labeled as "disabled" and here tehy were being labeled "gifted", kudos to your daughter btw, shes a smart girl, I know that from your many posts about her but the whole idea really gets to me since Ive been on teh opposite side of the coin my whole academic life.

[Bouncy Ball]

222. You're not as different from them as you might think, though.

That's all I'm saying.

Besides, you seem like a VERY bright guy. Damn, I would have given anything to have whole classrooms of John Kleebs!!!

[JohnKleeb]

223. Of course

Why do you think I get mistaken for GT in the past? Having a learning disablity isnt a defect but the way the connation is, it sure felt like it for the longest time, I never had anything personal agaisnt my GT friends, didnt bother me but hte labeling offends me to this day, I admit it i have a biased having been labeled disabled while they got the nice label. I have to say and I know this may sound unfair but they got it a lot easier than people in Special Ed do I think.

[Lorien]

224. Just a comment; my dad is a psychologist at a state prison

and the vast-VAST-majority of inmates have I.Q.'s under 90. He has no inmates at his prison with Mensa level I.Q.s.

I went to both schools for the gifted and a public school. I attended the public school for only four years, but my GPA fell during that time. So I definitely agree with you on the need for "special ed" for GT students.

[Withywindle]

227. Duel exceptionality...

...I hadn't heard that term before,but it sounds a lot like what I had as a kid: prodigiously gifted in reading/writing, absolutely hopeless in mathematics (I'm 35 and my math ability is at about a 4th grade level, that's as far as it ever got). Because I was labeled "gifted" I was expected to be able to do everything well, and that just wasn't the case.

I loved Flowers For Algernon! What a great book, and how heartbreaking.

Best to you and your daughter. The best gift any kid can have is a parent who truly works to understand where she's coming from. :thumbsup:

[Skittles]

229. don't get me started, Kleeb

I find it absolutely DISGUSTING

[WeRQ4U]

231. What do you find "Disgusting" exactly. Is it the label or the program?

[Skittles]

294. the label

I dislike that label - I think accelerated programs are just fine but to label the children "talented and gifted" is just bullshit

[Bouncy Ball]

273. Thanks.

My daughter thanks you, too. :eyes:

[Midlodemocrat]

239. I have two kids in the GAT program here.

It is absolutely ridiculous and a comlete waste of taxpayer's money. The system has school based and center based gifted programs, and both of my girls chose to do the school based so they could be with their friends.

Everyone in this stupid neighborhood is convinced that their kids are gifted, so they pressure the kids until I could scream. One mom was so convinced that her kid was going to the gifted program, she had him telling the other second graders that he wasn't going to be going to school with them in third grade. Guess what? He didn't get in.

The ironic thing to me is that both of my girls are pretty bright, but they are really hard workers, which is why they were tested. My son, on the other hand, barely passed 7th grade this year, but has an IQ of 148.

Go figure.

It sucks. Labeling kids sucks.

[WeRQ4U]

241. Kids will be labled whether we do it to them or not...

It's going to happen. If you are good in school and the other kids are not, you are a "brain". If you are good at sports and the other kids are not, you are a "jock."

Sure, kids struggle with labels. But I think kids are much more resilient than we give them credit for. Parents however, have a harder time handling this kind of stuff. I think a lot of the torment that children experience originates with parents.

[Midlodemocrat]

243. I agree with you about the parents.

The pressure here to get your kid into the GAT program is unbelievable.

When I was teaching high school back in the 80's, I had a true 'genius' in my AP history classes. He was 14, brilliant and already taking classes at the University in math and science.

That to me, is a gifted kid. My kids are what we used to call 'good students'.

[WeRQ4U]

244. To me, you don't have to be Doogie Howser to be "gifted"...

If you have an IQ of a certain level, you get bored with the material in a normal classroom setting, and your basic skills are well above the norm, then you need additional work to do. Otherwise it's wasted. Especially with how poor our public school system is right now, where mediocrity and uniformity is the norm.

[Heidi]

242. When you're 42 . . .

like I am, you'll come to regard it as a "given." To be told, at a certain point in your life, that you have "potential" is insulting. At a certain point in one's life, these descriptors are less a compliment than an assessment of one's achievements.

You're very young though, JohnKleeb, and I think it your case "gifted and talented" in an assessment and a challenge. What will you _do_ with the fact that you're gifted and talented? That has to be about who you want to be, though, and not about what others think of you and your abilities.

[MadHound]

245. Gee, so because it might be insulting to some kid like you,

A kid who is above the norm in intelligence should just be left in the normal curriculum, to be bored to tears, and rot in classroom hell? Gee thanks, been there, did that in elementary school, and it nearly fucked up my entire school experience. Luckily I graduated to a bit more enlightened jr. high, and much more challenging high school curriculum where I blossomed. Many kids who went to elementary with me didn't make it though. One of the smartest people I know dropped out of school, and is now using his vast intellect pushing a broom and pickling his brain. Damn, I think a few special classes would have helped him, eh?

Look friend, I'm sorry if you think the whole gifted and talented schtick is elitist and condesending. God knows, most of the brainiacs I went to school with wished they weren't so damn smart, including myself. It is a hell of lot easier to get through school, unnoticed and unmolested if you're not above average on the intelligence level. There is a distinct anti-intellectual bias, both in schools and in this country as a whole that I simply don't get. What, you feel threatened by us? Or are you so damn insecure that our mere presence theatens your precious ego?

We have special classes for those who are on the low end of the curve, makes sense to have classes for those who are above it. Otherwise you are going to waste not only an intellect, but a real live human being. I got lucky, I was stubborn enough and had supportive parents who got me through the hell of elementary school. Many many kids I knew didn't have these advantages and sadly fell by the wayside. You got lucky friend, you were average. It is an absolute hell to stand out from the crowd when you're in school.

[JohnKleeb]

259. I wouldnt have a damned problem with it

if it had another name other than "gifted and talented", I felt many people in there were yes my intelluctual equal or I at least thought I was near their level of intellect. Then you have people like me and some others who were labeled learning disabled because it took us a little while than most to get the grasp of a lesson but when we got it, we got it. I dont have a problem with intellucutalism in fact I feel like there were some people in school who thought falsely I was one, I never felt like an intelluctual mostly though. I am not threatened by smart people at all, and I just think its unfair that those people got labeled as gifted and then you have people labeled disabled, when they have more in common than they dont. There are so many misconeptions on what it means to be learning disabled, even people who are it sometimes get the impression they're not as smart as everyone else becasue of how it was presented to us at an early age, I cant tell you how many times Ive seen people try to use theirs as an excuse, I dont flaunt mine but I wont lie to people and say I dont have one because I am ok with having it, its part of who I am and I think considering some of the obstacles I faced in elementary school, I made out ok.

[ProfessorGAC]

246. Perhaps. Maybe The Program Should Just Be Called Accelerated

That's both true and doesn't imply others have no gifts or talents.
The Professor

[nickgutierrez]

258. That's a pretty good solution.

I was in one of these programs as a young kid - it pretty much was just an acceleration program, mixing in a kind of creativity training.

Although, I do admit it felt a little weird to leave my 4th and 5th grade classes for an entire day once a week... even knowing as I did that I probably already knew what they were teaching.

[InvisibleTouch]

247. An ex-friend of mine...

...considered herself "gifted," and would let everybody know it at regularly spaced intervals. She went to great pains to appear individualistic and offbeat, but there was always something forced and desperate about it. In truth, she wasn't all that talented - just pushy. Not to mention a liar, a fraud, and a traitor.

Which is not to disparage the genuinely gifted/talented people out there. They do exist, and I think it's great if there are school programs for talented kids that nurture and encourage them. Just saying that everyone who claims membership, doesn't necessarily belong in that category.

[patcox2]

248. Since everyone is now above average,we need a way to recognize the bright.

You see, we are all living in Lake Wobegone now, where, for fear of offending the stupid and the parents of the stupid, "all the kids are above average."

I think back in olden times, it was more common to segregate the stupid and get them the hell out of the classrooms where they hold back the bright kids.

But since we cannot even acknowledge that some kids are stupid (instead we criticize and punish schools and teachers for being unable to do the impossible and eliminate the bottom half of the bell curve) we have switched to labelling the high-normals as "gifted and talented."

The dull normals who are offended by this should reflect that the alternative would be even worse, we would have to acknowledge that exactly half of you out there are below average, and we can't have that, can we?

[UncleSepp]

250. YES, but for religious reasons

When I was a kid in those classes, I used to object to the "gifted" name because it implied a giver of gifts. It conjured in my mind an image of a God handing out talents in the Heavenly Lunch Line. "Billy, here you go - extra helping of drawing! Suzy, how about... here you go, math, that's good... Sorry, Johnny, you should've got here sooner. All I have for you is the ability to turn your eyelids inside out."

[WeRQ4U]

252. LOL

I never thought of it that way. Kind of like when Sports Athletes thank God for the win, or say that God helped them be successful. Yeah, asshole, like God is a Cub's fan?

[UncleSepp]

256. Or people who thank God their kid survived a disaster

when other people's kids didn't. OK, so God decided that your Tommy was worth saving from the bus crash, but your neighbors' Jackie just had to go?

[redqueen]

254. Whether you assume it's from genetics or God... it's there.

Some people are naturally better at sports... some at math... some at reading...

[UncleSepp]

255. Right, but if it's from genetics, it isn't a gift

I know it's me taking things very literally :-)

[norml]

251. That should be SMARTER, not "more smart"

No gold star for you.

[JohnKleeb]

257. cut me some slack will ya

My writting gets its grades for its content not my grammar.

[lastliberalintexas]

260. Well, my parents and teachers were absolutely thrilled

when the school system in my area finally started an advanced program. I'm a bit older than you are, and had to endure 4 years of school without any advanced programs. And to tell you the truth, I don't even remember what they called the advanced programs- the label just wasn't important to me or any of the kids in the class.

For the first 4 years of school, I made my parents and teachers absolutely miserable. I hated school. Hated it with a passion not seen again until my hatred of Bush surfaced. I fought my mother for more than an hour every single morning before school because I didn't want to go. My parents had to ask my teachers to give me extra work so that I was kept occupied, and after my teachers realized I'd stop bothering them- even if only for a while- if they let me read a "grown up" book, they were usually glad to do so.

You see, I don't remember a time before I could read, and my mom says I was reading in earnest by age 3. My parents and grandparents did the homeschooling thing without even realizing it, and I understood quite a bit of Spanish and German and knew how to write, and add and subtract before kindergarten. If I'd had to endure 15 years of that kind of school, the one without the advanced programs, where I was literally bored to tears and distraction and caused distractions myself, I would have wanted to slit my wrists. Even with the advanced programs, a part of me still wanted to drop out, get my GED and go on to college. Colleges look down on that kind of thing, though, so that never became a real option for me.

I never thought less of anyone else because they were or were not in the advanced classes, or because they were in the "special ed" classes of my youth. I, however, was singled out as different, by both my peers and some of my teachers, for being such a nerd, or a smart girl, or some other such silly name. How dare nature allow my synapses to fire in such a way that I seemed to be smarter than the average student! The nerve.

But the sad truth is that I was. I'm not a genius by any means, and I won't be giving Einstein or Cassatt or Gutenberg a run for their places in the history books. But I and many other students needed more than what we were getting from the system, and I'm darn grateful that they at least came up with what we had. I don't know what I would have done without it, anyway.


And please don't think that this is any kind of a braggard post, or that I am asking for sympathy. All I am asking is that you understand how incredibly dull it is for a student who is already reading at the level of a high school senior to be subjected to Dick and Jane type books. And what that student must endure in such a system. I would imagine it was as frustrating for me as it was for another student who didn't quite grasp fractions or understand how to diagram sentences to be put into that position without any other alternative.

Without some sort of segregation in the academic classes, there is no way to even attempt to tailor the curricula to the students' needs. Are you going to teach at the upper level and assign your entire first grade class To Kill a Mockingbird? Or are you going to teach to the lower level and assign your 10th grade class Fudge? And the kids in the middle get ignored in either of those scenarios. So do we instead teach to the great middle and ignore the needs of the more advanced students? Or even worse, screw the students with special needs?

I probably should have read the thread before responding, because I might find that it really is just the name that bothers you. But I really hope it's just the name and not the actual program.

The American public school system can certainly do better for all its students. But that is another thread entirely.

End of rant.

[JohnKleeb]

262. Oh yeah its the name

I was pretty smart at a young age too, self taught in reading, knew presidents, states, capitals at a young age too. My problem with the name is because of the contrast I had being labeled as disabled even though I was at least as I was concerned just as smart as them.

[xmas74]

263. no I don't find it to be so.

For some of those kids this is the only chance that they have to shine. Let them have something that doesn't depend on who their parents are, how much money their family has or how well they can hit a ball.

[Pacifist Patriot]

274. I find it misleading. I'm in the multiple intelligences camp.

There are more types of intelligences than are tested for in IQ tests or catered to in schools. We all possess them to varying degrees. Woe to the child who has strengths in areas that are not tested or valued.

As far as I'm concerned, we're all gifted and talented...in some way. Sometimes it's just easier to identify than others.

[Pithlet]

279. I was inclined to disagree

Until I went into another thread where some people who were in it were telling others who weren't to get over it. :wow: Now, I heartily concur.

[JohnKleeb]

280. I saw that

I was never upset because I wasnt it but damnit did I hate being labeled learning disabled while someone I felt my equal was labeled gifted and talented.

[Pithlet]

283. The problem with those programs

Is they often don't pick the truly gifted and talented. At my school, it was based a lot on who the teachers liked, and the grades they got. I always tested well, but I hated school. I was never included in these programs that could have very well helped me to learn to love school because I didn't get all As. By the time I got to middle school, I was already labeled, and no amount of good grades and hard worked turned it around. I was still excluded. And anyone who tells me to get over it is going to get a big steaming pile of STFU.

[JohnKleeb]

284. labeling is such a petty thing in academics

I dont care that I wasnt in it but I do think its petty that people who and if you asked them they would agree that we are intelluctually similiar got labeled as gifted and talented then I got labeled as learning disabled for no good reason, I dont mind having LD at all but I think the way its explained to you that you have one makes you really feel different and yes outcasted.

[applegrove]

282. It is the politically correct way of describing kids who may have

trouble in school if they are not looked into. Same with any kid. Opportunity abounds for any child if they get caught early.

[JohnKleeb]

285. I dont see that at all

The kids at my school who were put in the program werent trouble makers or potential having trouble in school at all.

[applegrove]

287. Becoming bored is a problem. So is learning to hate math because

it is too easy for them. They used to skip and skip and skip kids..but stopped that because they miss the social stuff if they are much less mature than their classmates. So if the LD kids get extra help and can in some cases overcome an issue completely..why shouldn't the gifted get a chance to overcome boredom with extra lessons. Nobody in any of these cases I describe has to be a behaviour problem. That happens too.

As to the name "gifted"? It implies a certain amount of luck.

[JohnKleeb]

288. I dont have a problem with the program itself, the name pisses me off

because hte LD kids are labeled disabled and that gives them the idea of being not as good as their classmates but "gifted and talented" on the other hand has an implication that there somehow better. The quote on quote normal kids get bored with class too, I think smarter than average kids needs should be paid attention but priorities should be on first on those who have a harder time with the material.

[applegrove]

289. There should be funding for all.

[JohnKleeb]

290. That I agree with but from a pratical stand point

Help those who don't get the material thats needed first before you help those who are past them. Its great that they're smart and all but they understand the material thats needed to do well in post elementary school, so while they should not be outright ignored, the priority of the funding should be direcetd at those who have a hard time understanding things.

[applegrove]

292. Education should be enough of a priority that there is room for all kids!

[JohnKleeb]

293. I agree with that too

but you have to get everyone on the same page first before you advance some beyond the others.

[ikojo]

286. For all the talk about improving the self esteem of children

I don't understand this focus on "gifted and talented" kids. What it proves is that those kids do well on tests.

Everyone has something that they do well or better than others, it's just that in our culture we value sports prowess and book smarts to a degree but not too much lest one be called a nerd.

[Endangered Specie]

291. It is just plain stupid, and pointless.

[WeRQ4U]

296. LET'S GO FOR 300!!! - It aint dead yet baby.

John Kleeb, it seems to me that your distaste for the "gifted and talented" programs is a misplaced disgust for your own label as "learning disabled." Perhpas a solution would be to stop referring to kids as "learning disabled" and instead call them something else.

[redacted]

297. ADD (or ADHD)

I posted this in the other GT forum abut felt compelled to share here as well.

I was in 2 schools: in one I was GT and in the other I had a learning disability. When the new school found out I was GT in the old school (when they finally tested me.) I was labeled as lazy and ridiculed.

I have ADD -- female type, no hyperactivity. This is not unusual for ADD'ers.

It's the way the edu system handles it -- really I think they don't know who to handle "different" kids of any type. Public education is designed to deal with the masses.

And I suspect that in many schools the GT program is filled with the kids of amibtious or prestigous/wealthy parents.

I know, myself, that by the time I got to high school -- they just let me take classes with the seniors -- and then they threw me into the local 4-yr college as soon as I could drive there. That is what finally saved me from self-destruction.

[Rabrrrrrr]

298. I'm just gunning for post number 300

did i get it?

[Rabrrrrrr]

299. Whoops, this is 299

[Rabrrrrrr]

300. And here's the big 300!!!!!

:woohoo: for me!

[WeRQ4U]

302. Congrats.

:toast:

You worked very hard for this... cherish it.

[Bouncy Ball]

301. This is to everyone:

Look, call it whatever the hell you want. Call it the Racoon Class. Call it the Purple Goldfish Rainbow. I don't really give a shit what anyone calls it, and neither does my daughter.

But of course, back when kids were placed in homogeneous reading groups (many moons ago) and they were called "Bluebirds," "Redbirds," etc, the kids figured it out anyway.

As they would if you called GT pullout classes something totally innocuous.

I don't care if it doesn't have a name or label AT all. But it is NOT stupid, disgusting or pointless. I don't know what my daughter would have done without it. No, yes, I do. She would have totally shut down like I did. Just did enough to get by. Got in trouble a lot. Got accused of cheating a lot (I didn't and wouldn't). Got totally confused a lot (different way of thinking and wondering why you are not like the other kids).

The kids notice who is "different" and who is not no matter if there's a special class for them or not. That goes for kids who fall on ALL sides of the range of "normal." They notice by first grade, at the latest. And the kid themself feels outside of things, cut off from the others.

In her GT class, the teacher told them "you are not weird, you are just different." That was such a relief to my daughter and to the other kids in there. No one tells them "oh you're so special, you're so incredible." They have to work hard, no excuses. And they don't get ANY free rides, either at school or in THIS house, just because they think differently, just because they move along faster. It doesn't make you any better of a PERSON, in my opinion. It just means you were wired up differently.

But the mainstream classroom is aimed at the center. So kids with learning disabilities struggle, kids who are advanced struggle (just not in the same way), and kids who have a learning disability AND who are advanced? Fuggedabout it, that's hell.

So yeah, let's just chuck all these special programs aside. Kids better just be born hitting right AT the middle, or well.....too bad for them, right?

And by the way, the "feeling bad about it" is NOT all on the side of the kids who DON'T go to the GT class. Last year, my daughter's main teacher would tell the class "Ok now it's time for the SPECIAL kids to go to their SPECIAL FUN class" really smart-ass. She hated the GT program and seemed to intentionally sow discord and division among the kids. If a GT kid asked a question in class, she'd act surprised and say "Why don't you know that already? I mean you're GIFTED..." I heard her say this when I was coming up there to watch things one day, I was in the hallway just about to go in and her door was open. Thank God she wasn't saying it to my kid, I'm not sure what I would have done.

My daughter would come home and cry because of how she was treated in her class. I'll never forget her face looking at me and saying "I can't HELP how I am, why does she make fun of us?"

Also, it's standard procedure in many districts and schools to assign the more advanced kids to the not as capable teachers and assign the kids who need more help to the better teachers. It's about the high-stakes testing. I like that the kids who need more help get better teachers, but since the first grade, my daughter has been with the teachers who get fired, the teachers who don't have a clue what they're doing, the teachers with major anger management issues, the teachers who don't even know who Barbara Jordan was (example from this year), etc. But you know, THAT'S ok because these kids don't NEED good teachers or anything.

:eyes:

If ANYONE thinks they are lucky, you can stop thinking so. They are not. Not at all. There have been too many times when I have just wished for normalcy for my daughter.

[Rabrrrrrr]

303. Beautifully said, Bouncy Ball!

:bounce:

[redqueen]

304. Excellent points... you can call them whatever you like...

the kids will figure it out, and get their feelings hurt or not, accordingly.

Well said.