Parent Meeting Re: Gifted Students
Wanted: Education Opportunities For Gifted Students During the School Day
On November 12, 2013, a diverse group of 23 parents of students in grades 1-11 gathered to share their experiences with Glen Robbins, BISD K-6 Differentiation Specialist. The intention was a visioning meeting where parents could make it clear to Glen just how far and how deep students can go when they receive outside-of-school support and opportunities aligned to their advanced development. The hope was to inspire the creation of an in-school program with the capacity to serve exceptional children in intellectual and creative peer groups during the school day.
After the meeting some of the parents wrote in with recaps and suggestions. These appear below:
After the meeting some of the parents wrote in with recaps and suggestions. These appear below:
I'm sorry I had to leave the meeting with Glen last night, but I had planned on it ending at 8 pm. I guess everyone had a lot they wanted to say! There was obviously a lot of frustration, anger and grief that had built up over the years. I imagine that there is still plenty of "juice" left for a subsequent meeting - unless everyone stayed until midnight to vent!
I just wanted to summarize what I thought were the key points to emerge before I left.
1. Although many parents had arranged many enrichment or enhanced learning situations for their kids, there was united agreement that they wanted more of this to occur inside school hours. There was much frustration at how much time was wasted within the school day.
2. Parents did not want these enrichment/enhanced learning situations within school hours to be considered a privilege by the teachers that could only be earned by doing the normal school work perfectly. Instead, kids could pre-qualify by testing.
3. There was much enthusiasm for bringing together gifted kids during (and outside) the school day to form peer groups. Even if it was only for a hour a day, it would be valuable.
4. Teachers should be made aware (if they don't know already) that for gifted kids, proceeding at the normal pace of class is torture and leads to boredom and other problems.
5. Parent and community volunteers could be recruited to help teachers try to manage the diverse needs of the kids in their classes.
Thank you so much for facilitating this conversation. I'm sure Glen had plenty of food for thought, and I hope he is able to engineer change.
Best wishes,
David
What happens next? Are we forming a committee? Or a community? It would be great to have a HC community of families, although I know it is controversial.
Thanks again, Judy, for all you've given to our island community and families through the years!
Julie
I was heartened by the turnout and candor last night. It was good to hear common experiences, as well as the passion that people bring to this need. Clearly, everyone there puts a very high priority on their kids education.
I heard a couple of things that cause me to focus on next steps, so that this becomes part of a pragmatic effort to make our lives better, not only those of our children but parents as well.
1) First and foremost, I heard a need to challenge our children, in ways that delight and excite them.
2) Second, I heard a need to relieve their boredom, to show them that learning (and school?) can continue to be exciting, that they don’t have to wait to grow up to have some control over their own destiny.
3) And, third, I heard a need to reduce the pressures on their busy lives, to make, between school, homework, dinner, swim practice and everything else that goes on, a less hectic lifestyle day to day. Those are certainly all needs and pressures in our family life.
So my suggestion is that we start with something simple, trying to get more meaningful homework, starting with what the kids bring home and then working back into the classroom and what time the kids spend doing this there. Last night I heard more than one example of teachers insisting that the kids do the regular homework first, even when they have clearly demonstrated competence in this. There are a couple of ways to deal with this. One is reducing the number of exercises that a child does. The second is letting the child decide whether they know it, trusting them until they fail. The third is simply eliminating the issue, by showing that the child has already demonstrated mastery.
For our own children, I would love to see more parent-led take-outs that leverage the knowledge and expertise of the many professionals who live here, but it’s difficult to do this unless there is school leadership opening the door to this. Taking care of the homework problems is a stepping-stone towards this.
I welcome other people’s thoughts on this. These are difficult challenges, and I don’t think anyone person knows the way.
Rod
Thanks for the meeting. Here are a few notes:
Gifted students benefit from deeper exploration of content, rather than more quantity.
Gifted girls need a more social learning approach to math in order to stay with it. Competition is more attractive to the boys. Girls don’t get automatic peer admiration for math talent. When the program is designed to appeal to girls, they will stay engaged.
Erin