We got the test results today. I didn't think I cared so much about whether my son would get accepted, although I mostly assumed that he would. Or that if he didn't, it would be that there wasn't enough room in the class, he'd get an advanced learning plan for next year, and we might or might not try again next year.
But sure enough, here came the test results, and not only am I crying, but I'm about to throw up. My best friend will understand. My husband won't.
It's not for my social status. It's not for his social status. In fact, some of the friendships I most want to encourage involve boys who did not apply for G&T. Of the 6 children in his class who applied, I think my son is in the top 2. If the other top 2 girl gets accepted, fine. If anyone else gets accepted, well, okay. Maybe they tested better. There's only one child I can't handle if he gets accepted, and that's because he will make a point to rub my son's face in it, that "I got in the smart class and you didn't."
My son won't care either way, unless that one boy teases him. I played it so low-key, that we were just taking the tests to see where he'd be happiest, and that if he didn't get accepted, it didn't mean he wasn't smart.
But what's making me sick? He tested incredibly badly. I don't know if he didn't understand the tests, if he was clowning around, if the other kids were distracting, or if he just doesn't test well. Again, it doesn't change my perception of his intelligence. BUT, I think it's going to change the school's perception. Suddenly he's gone from one of the top students, to an overall testing in the 38th percentile, with one score in the 12th percentile!
So goodbye, gifted program. Goodbye, advanced learning plan. Hello, going back to being in trouble because he's bored senseless. Now it's in his permanent file that he's not gifted, not even bright, not even average.
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fireeyes24
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drew a picture on the back of a test i was supposed to take
failed every math placement test
had to repeat fourth grade at the school that did take me
and this was (is) all on my permanent record. my poor parents. eventually i did some more impressive (officially even!) stuff, but i can't imagine their heartache trying to figure out how i was ever going to get into college or like, take tests instead of drawing on them. i think i should call my mom and apologize... and your son is lucky to have a mom who is so concerned for his happiness. official or not, that's a gift.
I feel for some children that can not be understood like yours may be. It reminds me a bit of my nephew. I tell my sister, "Maria, Seth just isn't all 'here' yet, he is still way out there looking down and smiling." Seth is another very bored child, but he gets me and I get To him when we need to lol.
I hope something else comes up in the way of testing and if he is young enough, perhaps he is waiting for that little 'nose-rubbing' pal quite a way up the road of life. an advanced child simply missunderstood. he waits for his 'pal' in a place that the little friend has yet to reach. Hell, it may well be a place we have yet to reach. The thoughts of children amaze me - like they haven't yet been assimilated yet :)
peece,
dj
I remember, forty-some years ago, marching to the cafeteria to take an IQ test with an orange crayon and a black one. I failed miserably, and the school counselor told my parents I was retarded. "Nonsense," they said, and I went to do just fine. It wasn't until I was well into adulthood that I realized my lack of visual ability really could be considered a handicap. Pictures mean nothing to me, and so all those questions about which faces were the same were meaningless. My visual intelligence is still zilch (there's a family joke that I recognize my own children by smell), but my parents and teachers found ways to teach to my intelligence, not my disability.
My visual disabilities extend to typing. ;)
In any event- it's better to bloom late- in college and grad school- than to bloom early and get burnt out by the time they get to college. You can't put '4th grade gifted program at McKinley Grammar school' on your resume, you know?
peece,
dj
I've contacted his current teacher to ask for advice.
And...he was bored to death at school...but now? He's a very successful young adult with a great career doing something he loves. School just wasn't his thing.
So ... I guess my son will just have to accept that he peaked in kindergarten, in both sports and academics. :-)
The gifted program in his school turned out to be an "enrichment" program that was completely unsuitable for his learning style. Over the years, he quietly made it known that he had no interest in participating in linear thought processes sustained through weeks featuring brief "enrichment" sessions that the other children apparently enjoyed. We let it drop, finding that the improvements he was making in his social, cognitive, and overall school skills areas were more than sufficient to make us satisfied with his progress.
As he now is getting ready to move into middle school, the gifted thing has come up again..there's no question that he has intense interests supported by self-study, obsessive reading, questioning, and deep thought. But whether or not this turns out to be in line with the so-called "gifted" program at middle school still remains to be seen.
I can relate to what you're saying....my biggest fears for my son's school career are that he will (due to grades and "performance") be tracked away from where he should be...where he will eventually want to be once his strange little brain catches up. I'd hate for him to some day look back and wish he'd done better in math, had gotten better grades...because I can see that his future probably lies in the sciences.
Today, we went to visit his middle school, where he blew away his counselor with an in-depth analysis of the sound-wave physics involved with the sound-deflecting panels in the cafeteria ceiling as related to his noise issues. His point was that perhaps he needs earplugs so he can peacefully read during lunch. She completely missed what he was trying to say, gushing effusively over how "smart" he was. Sigh. Yeah, we take that for granted around here...but can he use ear plugs and read during lunch? That's the real question.
I guess what I'm trying to say is this: our little guys know what they need and what they want. They're pretty good at leaving the worrying up to us, aren't they?
Don't worry- smart kids find a way of being smart no matter where they are. And his teachers know what he's capable of. Ain't no fancy pants test gonna tell 'em otherwise.
As to testing? The IQ tests they give measure primarily reading and math and the overall score is based on that. Our children have auditory processing issues, and though daughter managed the tests just fine, we knew our son would not. We demanded complete nonverbal testing for him because we knew he would not respond to the teacher who was testing. That worked very well.
For our quirky Asperger kids, who operate in that "absent-minded professor" way and have social issues besides, gifted is a godsend. They are with other students who think the same way they do.
Dogmom, if I were in your situation I would do everything possible to have my son tested elsewhere. It does cost, I'm not certain how much, but if it is from a reputable place, the schools must accept the scores.
Otherwise you have to start the ridiculous process all over again in the schools. It'll take months, as you know, from start to finish, and they'll only test once a year - at most.
It's very frustrating, because truly intelligent children often do not test well. Sometimes on purpose. If they don't see the need for the test . . .
School tests are just about school, very little to do with life. Reminds of the guy I worked with who had a 135 IQ and was an awesome college student and he loved school. He ended up with a career as a forklift driver because he never found himself. Encourage him to be smart in life and don't get caught up in the metrics of the moment.
How did this become a very public competition that the children were aware of? How was it decided on one race (test)?
Be happy he did not qualify. My kid did and she lost her sense of mastery because of the TAG classes.
Count on school for the basics and take advantage of summer enrichment classes or activites which feed any special interests he may have. Sounds like he marches to a different drummer which is excellent.
I went on to graduate from an Ivy. This is not the end for your son's academic achievement.
Dogmom, there are some great homeschool catalog with some terrific resources out there (Timberdoodle is one). I'm not suggesting you homeschool your son but these catalogs have some great enrichment materials you could work on at home to help your son reach the intellectual and creative potential you feel he has.
Have you given any thought to changing schools?
As I recall your son is very young and you're dealing with a private school in the D.C. area. In my limited and admitedly outdated experience, elite private schools often put the greatest emphasis on conformity and pleasing the teacher (or the appearance of it and not getting caught). Obviously, they can select for that. If all of this is the case, and I really, really don't mean to be harsh, you might want to prepare yourself for your son not even being welcome at that school much longer.
(I'll admit to a degree of cynicism.)
I have two kids (also both brilliant : )) -- one is linear and mathmatical and built for standarized tests. The other is creative and ethereal and doesn't test nearly as well, but I know, and she knows, and even her teachers know that she is filled with a greatness that no test could measure.
Standardized testing is designed for certain kinds of thinkers, and all test scores should be viewed through that lens.
I would wager that Beethoven, Van Gogh and (fill in your favorite genius here) would all have done poorly on the same test.
Don't let it get you down.
My younger brother is a horrible tester, writer, and student. School bored him to tears and he only made it through high school by the skin of his teeth. But he's the one that taught himself computer programming and while he never took Calculus in school, he was regularly tutoring his older friends based on his natural aptitude and understanding.
So, long story short, I think that any G&T program that requires testing for acceptance is going to have a particular point of view or perspective. Don't get so caught up in the labels that you try to fit a square peg into a round hole - instead, take the time to engage his brain in the things that challenge and interest him. School isn't the only place to learn and excel, nor should it be the only determinant of a child's potential.
It seems to me that if he's in the top two in his class and he tested in the 12th percentile, something must be up with what happened while he was testing.
Lie to yourself much?
I knew both of my kids were fairly bright when they were quite young; my daughter, in particular, had an excellent memory and seemed to "connect the dots" very fast.
After some wonderful years in nursery school and kindergarten, she got to 1st grade and ran into trouble. The trouble was a teacher who didn't like free-spirited kids and set some traps for "Annie" that led to her feeling like a failure. The teacher was making noises about holding her back in first grade, where she was already very bored.
I considered home schooling and we checked out a private school, but eventually asked for a thorough evaluation by her public school, at the suggestion of a teacher friend. Annie took all kinds of tests, including an IQ test.
When my husband and I met with all of the evaluators for results and recommendations, we listened first to the IQ tester, who said that she was pretty much average. We were surprised, but there were the test results. Another evaluator discussed her difficulty holding a pencil properly and its negative effect on her handwriting (which is still terrible, but they have these computers now).
We finally got to an evaluator who had tested her in a number of areas (in a manner that interested and engaged Annie) and who was clearly bursting to talk. She felt that Annie was extraordinary in a number of areas, very bright, and definitely not a candidate for first grade retention. I was struck by how carefully this evaluator looked at the whole person and drew Annie out to determine what she was really thinking about. The school's principal selected Annie's second grade teacher himself, and also recommended her third grade teacher. We always worked to place her with teachers who could encourage a girl like Annie whose dreams and plans were a bit different from those of other girls.
The dreamer is now 21, a student at a first-rate college (Creative Writing and East Asian Studies), has already published some of her poetry, and is studying in Japan this year (she speaks Japanese). She became an excellent student.
You are at the point that I reached when Annie's first grade teacher thought she should repeat first grade: it's time to fight for your boy. I'm not even sure what you should fight for (i.e., what you can ask for), but you know he is not the person that ridiculous test said he was. It's one test and it sounds like it wasn't a very good one.
Are you familiar with Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences? If not, Google it and you will find plenty of information. You're already onto that way of thinking - that there are many types of intelligence and that children learn when they are taught (and tested) in a way that correlates with their preferred way of learning.
Fight for your son, dogmom. You have the tools, you can do the research, and you can ask for what you think he needs. It doesn't matter if the school administrators think you're a pain, he is worth it. I wish you all the luck in the world, and I believe in you.
The downside as I see it is that self-contained programs deplete the population of bright peers in regular classrooms, leaving other bright children, who may have just missed whatever arbitrary cutoff was used in that district, to wallow in an atmosphere that even further narrows its curriculum to adjust to the new level of ability. And peers learn from each others' interaction, questions, and general sense of priorities. I think at the level of the individual, there is little downside to the child put into the gifted classroom, which often nurtures tolerance and eclectic interests, but enormous downside to those left behind. It's reminiscent of the "cream skimming" that charter schools are often accused of (but which, as it turns out, is not borne out by the evidence). If an individual is not close to the cutoff, though, there is recent research that shows that children can suffer in a classroom of much more talented peers. I know that "mainstreaming" is in and "tracking" is out, but I am really mixed on this. My experience (as a teacher and then substitute teacher) is that some students do remarkably better when a teacher can slow down and really get those concepts in, so knowing that everybody is at the same level--say, with reading or math--can be beneficial.
The longer I'm entrenched in the business of schooling, the more gray everything has become for me. But of this I'm certain: what's good for the whole is not always what's best for your individual child. And you are the only advocate who will ever care as much about this boy who is your son. You need to figure out in your own mind where he will be happiest and most challenged (in a good way) and then fight for it. I'm wondering about the discrepancy between your expectations and the test scores. It red flags either a learning disability or a test-taking anxiety to me.
Good luck!
I have such ambivalent feelings about gifted programs, but we would have had to home school two of our children if they hadn't been in their stimulating, exciting, creative two day a week pullout gifted program. All children should have enjoyed such a fantastic school. The cutoff for acceptance was absurdly high. These are the valedictorians, the National Merit scholars, the Ivy League students. About three times as many children test as gifted as get into the program. It is very elitest. All their high school friends were made in the gifted program in third through 6th grades. These were great kids in all honors classes who never got into trouble.
But everyone else was left behind, and the PAG kids never learned there were many kinds of intelligences. What was good for my individual kids was bad for the community as a whole. My school system is good if you are gifted or need special services, but the vast majority of students might be neglected.
To its credit, Baldwin has a great music program. Instruction starts in third grade. By junior and senior year kids can have orchestra every day. The concerts are very impressive, and professional musicians have come out of the program.
You say you think your son is in the top 2 of the people who took the test. You knew he was smart and his intelligence would be recognized. And he may very well be smart--he may be very smart. But he may also have a learning disability or ADHD or something along these lines.
You say, "Hello, going back to being in trouble because he's bored senseless." Maybe he gets in trouble and is bored senseless because of an undiagnosed difficulty. I am far from an expert, but it sort of sounds like what happens to kids with ADHD.
There's a further danger in the possibility that her son will start thinking that he's stupid because his teachers and guidance counselors are treating him as though he was stupid.
So, it's best for him to get retested in the full range of aptitudes. My daughter tested for a high IQ but did sub-average to average on reading tests going into 4th grade and it was affecting the way teachers saw her. After re-testing her IQ to convince school authorities she had ability, we eventually figured out that a strabismus condition kept her from seeing the board, pages of her books, and the like and had to seek behavioral vision therapy.
To our surprise, the therapy worked. But it's not like resolving that issue ended the problems of elementary and middle school education. It was just one issue.
There are many kinds of intelligence.
Your son has a long time timeline - who knows where his intellect will take him?
Studies have shown that people who do "average" scholastically can achieve tremendous things in life. It isn't about grades or being perceived as intelligent, it's about connecting with life in an authentic, curious, interested way. You don't need a "program" to do this.
Smart people are a dime a dozen. Loving, kind, generous, thoughtful, compassionate, concerned, giving people? Scarcer, maybe.
I have extensive professional experience in this area, and two non-AIG kids of my own who are both brilliant in their own ways. There are no tests for five year olds that are conclusive of anything, except that these tests are pretty inconclusive of anything.
We have a great billboard in our town with a picture of Albert Einstein that says "Einstein wasn't Einstein as a child."
Hang in there. Around here 33% of our students are labeled "gifted." All the parents have the t-shirts to prove it.
And if that boy teases him, tell your son to punch him in the nose (not really).
And in a more serious vein, if you are concerned, ask them to retest him.
I would suggest to you, as some others here have, that you get your child reevaluated/retested. Have an M.D. and an audiologist rule out any vision or hearing problems. Then take your child to good speech and language pathologist and/or psychologist, who specializes in educational testing and evaluation of children, and with whom your child is comfortable, to get formal, legal diagnoses and documentation of any learning problems that your child might have that would effect test scores,classroom performance and educational planning.
Test/evaluate for Specific Learning Disorders, Cental Auditory Processing Disorders, Non Verbal Learning Disorders, ADD/ADHD, etc. I recommend using someone private, outside the school system. Such a person can help you advocate for your child at school and provide you with the expert documentation that the school cannot ignore.
Some brilliant people are just not good test takers. Maybe your kid is one of those or maybe he was thinking of something else instead of focusing on the test or maybe the person administering the test did not clear give clear instructions. Who knows? As you are concerned, have him reevaluated, but remember that high test scores often only reflect the ability to get high test scores.
One of the issues with IQ is that it is based on an assumption that if you are capable at one type of intelligence -- visual, for example -- you'll tend to be good at math and verbal. The scores are averaged. For someone with a deficit, this gives a meaningless score.
Any good school and teacher will know your kid and not pay attention to the test.
Throughout his elementary school years, I had to fight with teachers and administrators who did not think he was in any way exceptional because his test results were so crappy. I finally discovered that he didn't even finish the tests because he was a slow reader. The tests were always given in a group setting, too, and this was distracting to him. It wasn't until I moved him to a private school in 7th grade, and a very special teacher recognized his abilities, that he really started to shine.
YOU know your child is smart and that the tests don't show the truth. And you can see from the responses here that a lot of us have had to deal with the indifference of mass education, so you have a lot of support. Please just keep on knowing what you know and don't let the obviously incorrect test results discourage you. Arrange to have him tested individually. If you can't have the full battery of tests, just have an IQ test or whatever the psychometrician recommends. Don't believe those stupid tests.
To me, the strongest indicator of giftedness is who a kid's peers are. If they mostly hang out with other smart kids, they are smart! When I looked at kids for testing for gifted, what their gifted friends said was always more accurate than what most of the teachers said. I also taught regular ed for eight years, and felt that a gifted curriculum was the best for everyone, although I do agree that homgeneous grouping (that nasty word, tracking) in reading was more effective for my students than heterogeneous grouping. This was true, even in the gifted classes.(Don't know about math; never taught it, except as a side issue in the gifted units I taught.) Fight for good teachers - they are not only in the gifted classes, as I discovered for my daughters. You are an advocate. Teach your child emotional (and physical) self-defense skills.
Oddly enough, being bored easily is NOT a sign of intellectual superiority, despite what our society is trying to tell you.
school, I shot coffee out my nose. I'm sorry, I just can't believe that in this century we have schools and programs that go by this name.
So what are the other schools for, the "Shafted by God, and Talentless?"
The score does NOT change who he is, and I think that's the most important thing to remember. Life is subjective, and these tests are flawed and biased. Some of our most brilliant historical figures didn't test and school well.
I was moved ahead a grade as a child and then placed in a gifted program. I hated it. My brother tested well, but after my experience, our family chose not to put him in a gifted program. He is happy, well-adjusted, and earns a good living. Me? I've had some problems, mostly due to some pretty powerful expectations my parents and I placed on me.
Have you read any of Mel Levine's books? Excellent thought on how kids learn.
You could argue with the school district. You could get some independent testing.
But what I recommend is to spend some one-on-one time with your child, doing what he likes to do, observing how his mind works. I think you might discover he has some wonderful gifts that aren't on any of their tests.
From this piece, it seems likely to me that you're more concerned with the label. What do you care if some other little boy gets in instead of your son? How does that child's acceptance signal your son's failure?
If you're not just concerned with the label, prove it. Put in the time with him to develop his intelligence. Do the logic problems. Take him on nature walks where you discuss ecosystems. Encourage curiosity about his surroundings. There's nothing the school can do for him that you can't.
Wow, thanks everyone for reading. I read every single comment, and I was overwhelmed by the kind, supportive nature of every comment, with only 1 or 2 exceptions. Every one of you that took the time to write ... I really, really appreciate it.
Since he's in kindergarten, it's not so much whether his homework is "right" as whether it gets done. So I don't correct his work, just sign the paper saying he did it. He's mostly judged on classroom work, and I'm obviously not there for that.
I'm going to keep encouraging the reading and writing through the summer, and then we'll see how 1st grade goes. His current teacher (who has taught for 20+ years) is beyond shocked that he didn't get accepted. She suggested it could be a maturity issue, a matter of listening skills. There are some exercises we can do, not "teaching to the test" but really, listening skills couldn't be a bad thing to learn.
The happiest part of my day? The one child who would have made a huge point of rubbing my son's nose in it? He didn't get accepted either. He's a nasty little braggart who puts everyone else down everytime I see him, so I know for sure it'd come up eventually.
Now she's volunteered to talk to the principal and next year's teacher. He might not "officially" qualify for an ALP, but she's going to make sure he gets an "unofficial" one.