Since so many people here seem to have gone through or otherwise dealt with a gifted/talented education, I'm coming to you for advice. I was asked to be on a committee that oversees the G/T program in our school district. At the elementary level, there are numerous self-contained classrooms for gifted kids. At the high school level, there are numerous Advanced Placement and Accelerated classes. At the middle school level, there is... Honors Reading and Honors Math.
Now, to me this seems pretty stupid. They have a student go through second, third, fourth, and fifth grade in a class full of academically gifted students. They're challenged, engaged, and learning mostly at their own levels. They take these kids and drop them into, basically, a remedial school from their perspective. Sure, there's honors reading and math, but considering these kids are in eight classes a day, that's a drop in the bucket. Then, after three years of sitting on their hands and learning not much, they're re-engaged at the high school level directly into college-level courses. Still, the district is shocked at how many "gifted" kids do poorly their freshman year. Unfortunately, the budget is a major issue.
What constructive things can I bring to the school board for the middle schools to do to bridge this gap that will require minimal money?
In Hong Kong, we sort students into different classes (in the same school) according to ability. Say, we have 336 students in any single year. So you need 8 classes of 42 students each to accommodate them. What they do is they sort the best students into the same class, the worst students in the same class, and so on. You still have 8 classes of 42 students each (meaning the cost is the same), but the best students are taught together, at a higher level.
I went through Dallas TAG schools from elementary all the way through high school. I suppose inner city TAG programs are probably as close to a surburban white education as you can get, save going to private school. I'm doubtful it was all that beneficial, especially for anything before high school.
AP classes are certainly worth the time and money invested, but you can't offer those to middle schoolers.
Be a good/neurotic mom. My parents had me doing extra math in elementary school. I had about 1 hour of extra homework from my parents each day during classes 1-6. Give them extra work and challenge them yourselves.
Edit: My mom was a Professor of Education, so she had a bit of an idea of what she was doing.
This is a district-wide initiative, not a Meri initiative. I'm looking for things that the school district can do for middle school gifted kids to enhance their education that won't cost them much money.
I'm probably not going to be much help- my additional schooling was in things like mock trials, aerodynamics, and avionics. :unsure:
I went through this in high school. Was fun.
http://www.cgsva.net/cgs/default.aspx
Quote from: DontSayBanana on November 20, 2009, 12:23:46 AM
I'm probably not going to be much help- my additional schooling was in things like mock trials, aerodynamics, and avionics. :unsure:
And look at how far you've come.
My school had a policy like this. First grade students would go through the second grade curriculum, and so on.
Quote from: Monoriu on November 19, 2009, 11:48:02 PM
In Hong Kong, we sort students into different classes (in the same school) according to ability. Say, we have 336 students in any single year. So you need 8 classes of 42 students each to accommodate them. What they do is they sort the best students into the same class, the worst students in the same class, and so on. You still have 8 classes of 42 students each (meaning the cost is the same), but the best students are taught together, at a higher level.
:bleeding:
Quote from: Martinus on November 20, 2009, 03:13:21 AM
Quote from: Monoriu on November 19, 2009, 11:48:02 PM
In Hong Kong, we sort students into different classes (in the same school) according to ability. Say, we have 336 students in any single year. So you need 8 classes of 42 students each to accommodate them. What they do is they sort the best students into the same class, the worst students in the same class, and so on. You still have 8 classes of 42 students each (meaning the cost is the same), but the best students are taught together, at a higher level.
:bleeding:
What's wrong with that idea? You would rather have the bright kids and the mouth-breathers in the same class so the teacher has to bore the smart kids to death so she can teach down to the kids who are ignoring her anyway?
Quote from: Monoriu on November 19, 2009, 11:48:02 PM
In Hong Kong, we sort students into different classes (in the same school) according to ability. Say, we have 336 students in any single year. So you need 8 classes of 42 students each to accommodate them. What they do is they sort the best students into the same class, the worst students in the same class, and so on. You still have 8 classes of 42 students each (meaning the cost is the same), but the best students are taught together, at a higher level.
Ideally they'd even be in separate schools.
Teach them chess and bridge.
I went through a gifted/talented program (which for us was called AMG (Academically and Mentally Gifted)). Here's how ours was structured:
Elementary School: I tested into the program in second grade so I don't know what the first graders did, but from grades 2-3 we had this thing where they pulled us out of every other gym class to have a class with a gifted teacher, who went from school to school. She did stuff like teach us French, how to paint, how to do algebra... basically, whatever she wanted to do and thought would stimulate us (no jokes PLZ, she was a lesbo. :( ) Grades 4-6 were the same, only we were pulled out of every other reading class and every other social studies class, and not gym... dunno why.
Middle School: Instead of having "normal" English, we all were in a special English AMG class, where the focus was less on grammar and such and more on literature and a bit on philosophy. The creative shit from elementary school was not continued, except that we had a semester where we played chess every other day.
High School: We continued with English AMG, but by 11th grade you could opt for English AP and about half of the kids did so, including me. English AMG was also more of a lit/philosophy course, but we did a number of special projects, some of which were self-directed. For example, my final 10th grade project for that class was writing a computer game, which I did in Borland Turbo Pascal. :nerd:
IMO the approach our district took was kind of unfocused, but at least they tried. If you believe the media these days it seems like most of the focus now is on the fuckup kids who are probably beyond 'saving', and the gifted kids get mainstreamed and neglected.
Meri, probably the cheapest and best way to deal with situations like your districts is to train the teachers to use differentiated teaching - teach things in a way that is perceived by students on the levels at which they operate. One of the most powerful ways of doing this is to use analogies to "make the familiar unfamiliar" for the gifted kids. The typical middle-school concrete thinker might have to compare a cell to a town, for instance (i.e. the cell's different parts function like the town's water system, police, etc) while the gifted student might have to compare the cell to, say, a building (and then find out things about buildings as well as cells).
It is hard to do this kind of thing consistently, but you can do it often enough to keep student interest up.
BTW, as an aside, AP courses (AP art courses excepted) are pretty much the opposite of what actual gifted students need. Students who do well in AP courses are probably not gifted, just smart and motivated.
Teachers at the middle school where my kids go try hard at the differentiated teaching... or at least some of them do. The problem is the lack of policy on it. So far as I'm concerned, in a district like ours with incredibly low kids mixed in with incredibly high kids, every teacher should be required to do differentiation. Instead, it's merely suggested.
Another thing that some of the teachers are trying to do is Compacting. Basically, the kids take a short test to see where they are on the subject matters coming up. If they show that none of it is new to them, they are allowed to choose a project to work on instead of class subject matter. They are then graded on that project and relieved of the regular classwork. But again, none of this is policy. Teachers do it when they feel like it.
In Jeremy's case, they pretty much have to do both compacting and differentiated teaching or there's no reason for him to go to school. He hasn't learned anything in Science class in two years, and right now, he's helping teach the class. In Social Studies, the teacher (a good friend of mine) said that he had to compact with Jeremy or he was going to kill him. All of the stuff that they're going over is old news to Jeremy, so he sits there correcting the teacher on the minutiae to avoid boredom. It's annoying as hell for the kids and for the teacher. He's being compacted out pretty much to save everyone's sanity, and possibly Jeremy's life.
Next year, Riley will be coming into the same school, and she will have minimal support coming from a self-contained gifted class. Honors Reading and Math, but otherwise, unless the teachers choose to compact or use differentiated teaching, she'll be right back where Jeremy was at that age.
You're a teacher, Grumbler. Is it possible to make it policy to do those things in the classroom?
Quote from: merithyn on November 20, 2009, 07:38:14 AM
You're a teacher, Grumbler. Is it possible to make it policy to do those things in the classroom?
It is possible, and it should be done. It isn't easy, because teachers resist anything that makes them re-visit lesson plans they have used for years. They do have to be trained in it, have the time allocated to creating the differentiated lessons plan (each of which is, in essence, three lesson plans), and have to have support in evaluating the products of differentiated lessons (ie they need help in developing a grading scale/rubric/descriptive comparison), because sometimes it is hard to give comparable grades to a dance and an essay!
Plus, teachers often don't know what kind of recognition or feedback is meaningful to a gifted kid (who, being the snot-nosed bastards they all are, think they are smarter than the teacher and so don't thrill much to a teacher's "good job!")
But, yeah, it is possible. I wouldn't try to spring it all on them at once, though. Start with compacting, and require one or two lessons per quarter be compacted in every class, and give the teachers a professional day to figure out on a departmental basis exactly how to make that happen, and how to grade the project results. Then, make sure that doing this is part of the teachers' evaluations.
Quote from: grumbler on November 20, 2009, 07:23:22 AM
BTW, as an aside, AP courses (AP art courses excepted) are pretty much the opposite of what actual gifted students need. Students who do well in AP courses are probably not gifted, just smart and motivated.
It's funny that you would say this. I switched to AP English from AMG (i.e. gifted) English. While the teachers I had for both were fantastic, I definitely got more out of the AMG course. That class tended to feature much more lively discussion, for example. AP English was more like "Ok we need to rush through this book, then we need to rush through that book."
Students should be forced to work alone in small room without a roof, devoid of any input other than random messages appearing on the wall in front of them (spelled incorrectly), bothered by the nose whistle of the student one room over, and given alternating periods of too much nonsense work and long sessions of boredom.
This will prepare them for the real world.
Quote from: Caliga on November 20, 2009, 08:26:13 AM
It's funny that you would say this. I switched to AP English from AMG (i.e. gifted) English. While the teachers I had for both were fantastic, I definitely got more out of the AMG course. That class tended to feature much more lively discussion, for example. AP English was more like "Ok we need to rush through this book, then we need to rush through that book."
Plus, the tests are often ludicrous.
The association of university Latin teachers, whatever it is called, has terminated AP Latin, starting this year. May many subjects follow their lead!
Well yes, I always thought AP tests were just like the SATs. Something you did because it made you look good and that was about it.
Quote from: PDH on November 20, 2009, 09:58:33 AM
Students should be forced to work alone in small room without a roof, devoid of any input other than random messages appearing on the wall in front of them (spelled incorrectly), bothered by the nose whistle of the student one room over, and given alternating periods of too much nonsense work and long sessions of boredom.
This will prepare them for the real world.
:)