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"Jenrose" wrote:

"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message
...
Jenrose wrote:
snip

I agree...but I've also been in situations myself where the teacher and the
school were not interested in making ANY adaptations, so I skated through,
bored. Mom agitated, but they mainstreamed the gifted kids to the "CP"
program from the "advanced placement" for 11th grade...and it was terrible.
They said they did it to "bring up" the level of the CP class...yet we were
getting cutsy certificates with stickers on them for acing brainless quizzes
about poor movie adaptations of literature.

I agree that anything that puts a kid up as "separate" is lousy--but when a
kid is very bright and clearly bored by the curriculum, they're both
isolated AND bored silly--might as well cure the boredom if you can't fix
the isolation.
snip

Banty and Ericka have said they were in gifted programs

I was not (I'm a member of Mensa BTW). We did have 'tracked'
elementary grades where I went to school but no G&T - that was way
after my time. We didn't even have AP classes in HS.

I do not remember being bored in school, or being isolated or any of
the other things that have been posited as problems for a bright
child. I dealt with boredom by daydreaming. I didn't even get into
trouble for that very often.

So my point is - a bright child CAN and probably IMHO SHOULD be able
to deal with boredom. Everyone gets bored sometimes - even kids in
the GT programs. It is not the end of the world. Usually the child
will have some outside interest that they spend time doing - I knew a
boy who was a ham in 9th grade for instance.

My parents did do enrichment things - we traveled, we took music
lessons, she took us to the library weekly, we did things as a family,
we were in scouts, etc. But as dedicated as my mom was to seeing that
we had everything we needed, she did not go toe-to-toe with the school
administration on my behalf except twice - once was in kindergarten
when they were refusing to use a double name (like Mary Jane), and
once was when I was put into a group in 9th grade which was
non-college prep. (It was done alphabetically and she found that
there was a girl in my homeroom who was engaged.)

If a child hates school, it almost always IME is because of something
other than the curriculum being too easy. It's because of the
teacher's attitude or bullying or some other aspect of school.


grandma Rosalie