Moving States Repeating a Grade

On the subject of the "gifted class" I certainly hope it's not a
separate "accelerated" classroom. I was hoping for something more like
a "special" that certain kids are pulled out to do a couple of times a
week for an hour here and there.

I was pulled out in elementary school to do advanced math for 1 hour a
week - with about 5 other kids - it was no big deal just something
different and interesting as I remember.

I'm not saying my son is gifted - his last school tested him with an
IOWA test (whatever that is) as being in the 95th percentile but he's
just bright not "gifted". (He did so well largely due to the catholic
school he was in drilling him so hard!) Gifted in my book are those
kids that find things like latin and calculus easy!! (I didn't!)

No - An interesting math or science hour now and again with other
curious kids would be nice - he would enjoy that - but it's not
essential. (I am intrigued about the possible bad behavior prerequiste
that someone mentioned!)

As an interesting note - I was just looking at the 3rd grade science
curriculum for his new school. There's a whole section on "pest
management" - he's never done that - so there's one thing that will
be new!

As for academic acceleration for bright kids - I don't like the idea of
that myself. Which is precisely why I don't want him to be in 4th
grade this year when he's really only eligible to be in 3rd - whatever
his academic achievement to date is. In fact thanks for the phrase -
that is how I'm going to approach the school - i.e. please justify why
you think academic acceleration is the best approach for my son -
because that is exactly what they will be doing.

Finally as for the boredom issue - as an example my son actually knows
no Spanish - so it was all new to him last year and he hated it because
it was "boring". I think the teaching method is probably dull. So you
can't always blame kids being "too advanced" as the reason for them
being bored. Kids can also get bored because the subject is too
difficult for them and it goes over their heads. And let's not forget
that the most common reason for being bored in school is
boring/unimaginative teaching methods. (I'm sure we can all remember
those teachers with little flair for teaching from our own school
days).

Great discussion - thanks for all the input.

In misc.kids.moderated, iclavdius wrote:

On the subject of the "gifted class" I certainly hope it's not a
separate "accelerated" classroom. I was hoping for something more like
a "special" that certain kids are pulled out to do a couple of times a
week for an hour here and there.

There are many types of gifted programs. They have different costs
and different benefits for different kids. Schools usually make their
decisions based on the cost of the program and their own prejudices
about how to treat gifted students. Parents bring a different set of
prejudices.

The research suggests that one of the best ways to teach gifted
students is to do some form of accelaration, teaching them at the
level they are ready for with other kids working at about the same
level. There are lots of variants of this, including grade
skipping and subject accelaration.

I was pulled out in elementary school to do advanced math for 1 hour a
week - with about 5 other kids - it was no big deal just something
different and interesting as I remember.

Pullout classes are one of the cheapest forms of gifted programs and
can work well for students who are gifted in just one or two subjects.

I'm not saying my son is gifted - his last school tested him with an
IOWA test (whatever that is) as being in the 95th percentile but he's
just bright not "gifted". (He did so well largely due to the catholic
school he was in drilling him so hard!) Gifted in my book are those
kids that find things like latin and calculus easy!! (I didn't!)

The Iowa Test of Basic Skills is a commonly used test of academic
achievement. It is not a very sutiable test for determining whether a
student is gifted, since it is an achievement test, not an ability
test, and it has a low ceiling (so distingusihing between the top 10%
and the top 1% of students is not very reliable).

It *is* a pretty good test for checking whether placement in a
particular grade is appropriate. A student who has scored in the 95th
percentile at the end of a year should *not* be asked to repeat the
year.

If the student is not gifted (hard to tell from the information you've
provided), it would make most sense for him to continue in the normal
sequence of grades, without skipping ahead or being asked to repeat
grades. Dropping him back a grade and then putting him in a gifted
program makes very little sense to me.

No - An interesting math or science hour now and again with other
curious kids would be nice - he would enjoy that - but it's not
essential. (I am intrigued about the possible bad behavior prerequiste
that someone mentioned!)

Although some gifted students act out because of boredom in school,
bad behavior is *not* a prerequisite to getting into gifted programs.

As an interesting note - I was just looking at the 3rd grade science
curriculum for his new school. There's a whole section on "pest
management" - he's never done that - so there's one thing that will
be new!

One new unit does not seem like enough justification for repeating a year.

As for academic acceleration for bright kids - I don't like the idea of
that myself. Which is precisely why I don't want him to be in 4th
grade this year when he's really only eligible to be in 3rd - whatever
his academic achievement to date is. In fact thanks for the phrase -
that is how I'm going to approach the school - i.e. please justify why
you think academic acceleration is the best approach for my son -
because that is exactly what they will be doing.

Ah--it seems like you have bought very strongly into the idea that age
is more important than ability in placing kids in school. More often
it is the schools who have this fixation, and parents who want their
children placed where the education will match the kids' abilities.

One of the papers explaining the justification for accelaration
in "A Nation Decieved: how schools hold back America's Brightest Students".
The paper comes in 2 volumes, the first presenting the argument and
the second providing the scholarly research to back it up.
It is available at http://nationdeceived.org/

I think you need to examine why you want him to repeat a grade--is it
really in his best interest, or do you have some other issue that has
more to do with you than him? (The same question has to be asked of
parents who are trying to get kids to skip a grade, of course.
It can be very difficult for us as parents to separate our dreams of
what things should be like for our kids from the reality of what is
really the best fit available for them.)

Finally as for the boredom issue - as an example my son actually knows
no Spanish - so it was all new to him last year and he hated it because
it was "boring". I think the teaching method is probably dull. So you
can't always blame kids being "too advanced" as the reason for them
being bored. Kids can also get bored because the subject is too
difficult for them and it goes over their heads. And let's not forget
that the most common reason for being bored in school is
boring/unimaginative teaching methods. (I'm sure we can all remember
those teachers with little flair for teaching from our own school
days).

There are many reasons why a student might be bored, including lack of
interest in a subject or poor teaching. A student who is a quick
learner can also get bored even in a class with new material, if the
material is presented too slowly for him.

It is extremely difficult for even a very talented teacher to make a
class interesting for a student who has already learned almost all the
material, especially if the rest of the class has not.
I can easily understand whay a school would not want to take on this
challenge, just because a parent wants their kid to be the oldest in
the class.


------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
(Senior member, IEEE) (Board of Directors, ISCB)
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Affiliations for identification only.

"Kevin Karplus" wrote in message
...
It is extremely difficult for even a very talented teacher to make a
class interesting for a student who has already learned almost all the
material, especially if the rest of the class has not.
I can easily understand whay a school would not want to take on this
challenge, just because a parent wants their kid to be the oldest in
the class.

I really don't have a good answer for the original poster, I can see the
arguments on both sides.

I did want to point out that it isn't as simple as wanting the child to
be the oldest. Even assuming all children in the new school start
exactly on their birthdays, there are going to be approximately 1/12 of
the children (all of them with birthdays between September 8 and October
3) that are older than him. Not knowing the local culture, it could be
that another 3 months of boys are regularly held to the next year, so
there could be 1/3-1/4 of the boys that are older. The reverse of this
would be that if he continues on in his current grade, he could be
younger than his closest (male) classmates by 3-4 months. I don't know
if the school he is moving to would share this information or not...

Personally, I wouldn't hold my child back in this case unless they had
already been having trouble, either social or with academics, but it
isn't my child.

(As a child, I was in exactly this position-- my birthday is early
November. I went to first grade where the cutoff was in December, and
then moved to somewhere the cutoff was early September. I continued on
to second grade. I was very bored academically-- second grade was behind
where first had been in my old school, so I can't imagine having
repeated first grade. However, I had trouble making friends throughout
school, and when I finally did settle in with friends in middle/high
school, they tended to be a grade younger than me-- but the class I
would have been in had I started there. So I do think there is a real
concern here.)

Liz

I just think they'll enjoy the school experience more being with kids
their own age (this has nothing to do with their education more if it
will be more fun I suppose.)

As an aside, even if my son went into 4th grade - I don't think there
will be much new stuff there either (the catholic school he went to was
probably doing 5th grade work in 3rd grade). So putting him into 4th
grade won't solve the repeating work problem either!

Because my son has been in a very intensely academic program - I think
it's too much - it's not the kind of childhood I want him to have. I
also want them both to be with children their own age - because that's
where I know they will be most at ease. School isn't just about
academics.

In high school - that's when I'll expect them to start getting serious
about advanced courses etc. But for now - I want them just to be kids.

In article . com,
iclavdivs wrote:
I just think they'll enjoy the school experience more being with kids
their own age (this has nothing to do with their education more if it
will be more fun I suppose.)

This depends a lot on the kids, and you know them better than I do.

I know that my son plays quite happily with kids a year or two younger
than himself, with kids his own age, and with kids a lot older.
Age differences often matter more to parents than to kids.
In school settings, kids generally play with their classmates,
regardless of the age differences.

As an aside, even if my son went into 4th grade - I don't think there
will be much new stuff there either (the catholic school he went to was
probably doing 5th grade work in 3rd grade). So putting him into 4th
grade won't solve the repeating work problem either!

So you're effectively looking at holding him back *two* years
academically, so that he can be with kids his own age?

Because my son has been in a very intensely academic program - I think
it's too much - it's not the kind of childhood I want him to have. I
also want them both to be with children their own age - because that's
where I know they will be most at ease. School isn't just about
academics.

If his previous school was pushing him too hard, then backing off a
bit seems reasonable, but if going into 4th grade is already going to
be an easier load for him, why drop him back another year?

In high school - that's when I'll expect them to start getting serious
about advanced courses etc. But for now - I want them just to be kids.

One can be a kid and still learn something in school. Some skills
(like fluent reading and foreign languages) are much easier to acquire
when one is young---waiting until high school makes it much more
difficult. If you do make him repeat a year, be sure the school can
provide a lot of enrichment activity to keep him from getting really
bored with classes.


------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
(Senior member, IEEE) (Board of Directors, ISCB)
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Affiliations for identification only.

iclavdivs wrote:
I just think they'll enjoy the school experience more being with kids
their own age (this has nothing to do with their education more if it
will be more fun I suppose.)

As an aside, even if my son went into 4th grade - I don't think there
will be much new stuff there either (the catholic school he went to was
probably doing 5th grade work in 3rd grade). So putting him into 4th
grade won't solve the repeating work problem either!

Because my son has been in a very intensely academic program - I think
it's too much - it's not the kind of childhood I want him to have. I
also want them both to be with children their own age - because that's
where I know they will be most at ease. School isn't just about
academics.

In high school - that's when I'll expect them to start getting serious
about advanced courses etc. But for now - I want them just to be kids.


What would you be doing if you weren't moving? Would
you be considering holding them back then, as well?
Although you can make the argument that they'll be
starting somewhere new and won't be known, or won't
be judged by what grade they were in/"should be" in etc.,
it seems to me that moving is something of a red
herring here. The ultimate decision is whether
repeating a grade is best -- and the move shouldn't
really factor in.

Age differences won't make a difference if your children
treat them matter-of-factly/nonchalantly. Which requires,
of course, that you do as well.

As in all things, YMMV.


Scott DD 12 and DS 9

On Thu, 7 Jul 2005 08:53:07 EDT, Kevin Karplus
wrote:

[...]


Ah--it seems like you have bought very strongly into the idea that age
is more important than ability in placing kids in school. More often
it is the schools who have this fixation, and parents who want their
children placed where the education will match the kids' abilities.


We've certainly run into this kind of attitude with the schools
concerning our youngest, who is advanced in many areas, especially in
math. The schools have been extremely reluctant to do any kind of
advancement, even though we have had quantitative (WISC and
Woodcock-Johnson tests) and qualitiative assessments that he is
capable of working several grade levels ahead in most subjects. After
a lot work (mostly by my dw, I must admit) and discussion, they
finally agreed that next year they will advance him for math class.
Instead of staying with his third grade class when they study math, he
will go to the 4th grade "G&T" math class (their G&T program doesn't
start until 4th grade). But it was like pulling teeth to even get this
far.

It seems the reluctance by educators to advance kids ahead of their
age group is the worry that they will be behind their class peers in
social skills. Whereas there might be an element of truth to this, I
don't think it is sufficient reason to keep a kid bored in class.
After all, suppose you had a kid that was working at a grade level
commensurate with his chronological age, but for some reason was
socially delayed? I don't think anyone would argue that he should be
held back a grade solely for social reasons. Similarly, I think we
should view a child able to work above grade level as being
"chonologically delayed."

Nick

--
Nick Theodorakis

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