Sunday, March 29, 2009
Who will learn the least this year?
The introduction of "Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom" by Susan Winebrenner states that the group that "will probably learn the least this year" will be most able children. Does this surprise you? If these were your own children would you think that is appropriate? Or would you want more for your children?
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sad...but I would like to see the study, age group she is talking about, teachers involved. Rather a dramatic statement using a shock tactic to persuade. Funny, just taught my kids this on Friday!!
ReplyDeleteI agree Wanda. We in education like to use the shock factor a lot to get our point across. There are a lot of gifted people in this world that received their education in a regular education classroom and they have done amazing things.
ReplyDeleteFrom what little I have gathered, while gifted students learn concrete and abstract ideas faster and with less repitition, they also are very prone to thinking alot about what they know and how to expand on it. I do not think that they learn less than a child with average intellectual ability, but their giftedness could be challenged more in a regular education classroom.
Funny that you both think that!! I think of it this way -- On AIMS we expect each child to have one years growth. The average student accomplishes this. If we compare a gifted students test they usually do not make a true years growth. They have the potential to not only gain a years growth but to go above and beyond that. How do we help them do this?
ReplyDeleteI have felt for years that our gifted students are penalized. Yes, the majority of them do suceed in the classroom and go on to have successful live's, but is that the point. Shouldn't we ask, are they reaching their maximum potential. In my experience, the gifted stuggle in our schools because we have developed a structured model that we expect all students to perform in. This model is not the best for the gifted. They need more room for self expression, exploration, and thought development. I do not know of many environments in public education that allow for this. In addition, it seems to me that differiented education to many people means just giving them more work. This also is not always the best.
ReplyDeleteTed: When you say "the majority of them do suceed in the classroom" What is your definition of success?
ReplyDeleteYou are right Ted, they have put our students in a box and evaluate accordingly.
ReplyDeleteWe were having a family discussion tonight about AIMS and I realized that in Europe we only begin testing at a national/international level beginning at the age of 16+. Here it seems backwards. Younger students are tested relentlessly on a yearly basis, and my 16 year old is allready done!
At a younger level surely pencil paper tests are the least reliable to measure yearly growth. Children uder the age of 5 learn many things quickly before they come to school, yet we do not measure that with writing and reading. My Linguistics Book remarks that writing and reading came long after talking and music was common to humans. It is not a natural ability, but purely learned. Therefore, is is the purely learned ability which AIMS test and is it the purely learned aspect of their protential growth which we are discussing when we say that our gifted students lag behind by- namely making and interpreting symbols on paper with a pencil?
At the Parent Gifted Conference, one of the speakers made an exceptional point. Before we start cramming intellectual content down the brains of our gifted children, we need to think about what it is we want for our children (gifted or not). Do we want them to grow up to be happy, healthy, individuals that actively participate in the life process? Or, do we want them to reach some artificial goal that we as parents and teachers have defined as success?
ReplyDeleteBy saying that we may not be challenging them to their fullest potential, who’s potential are we measuring them against? I know a lot of very successful, wealthy individuals whose happiness is tied to working 90 hours a week and never being with their families (oh, wait, that’s me! except for the wealthy and successful part! LOL! ). If all we are doing as teachers is focusing on educating our children to their maximum potential, who's potential will they serve?
What is our goal as educators? To help kids learn to live a productive happy life. Or, to create engineered workers to fill the job market in order to maintain the social and cultural make-up of our society? I think this is a very heavy question that is not easily answered.
My goodness gracious that is a loaded question. I think that what we have to do is provide them with the tools and be available to help them reach their goals that they set for themselves. I would want to discuss these goals with them and their parents in an IEP type meeting once a year. What do you all think?
ReplyDeleteKerr is good with this stuff.
ReplyDeleteIn the introducation to our text, the author makes a very good observation . . . "Many teachers and parents believe there is no need to do anything speical for gifted kids," because they will eventually do just fine without any extra help. Sadly, it is many of our "underachiever," gifted kids that end up dropping out of high school.
ReplyDeleteI don't think IEP type documentation is needed in the education of gifted students. If we can win the battle of clustering gifted students so that their curriculum challenges them academically, then spending hours researching, developing, and writing an IEP type document becomes redundent.
IEPs are needed to ensure that disable students make academic growth. We already know gifted kids can make academic growth if the curriculm they participate in is challenging and interesting.
I believe the challenge to gifted instruction is found in the clustering model that allows teachers to take on the deeper concepts that regular students are not yet ready to participate in because they have not yet learned the over arching ideas. If we can cluster gifted students and allow teachers to go beyond a checklist of mandated standards, then I believe our gifted students will be provided with a foundation that will make them academically successful in the future.
Kristi: I couldn't disagree & agree with you more :). I think that whether we like it or not an IEP type document is coming for gifted students. I that it gives the student and parents a legal document that allows for them to require that they be given the education opportunities that they so deserve. I do think that it will be a very simplified version of an IEP, but it will have the legal bite that an IEP has.
ReplyDeleteIf we do not have the numbers for self contained gifted instruction, I agree that clustered is the best model that we have for gifted students. And we have to go beyond teaching to the test. We need to prepare them for AIMS and at the same time prepare them for the world that they will exist in and how to best use their gifted skills.
I feel that since I am a math teacher and things are structured the way they are, I am a minority in this book study. The math classes are designed in a sort of ability grouping manner. While I do teach inclusion students as well, my students are on the same level for the most part. I do have a couple of students that are more able than the rest, but they do not stand out too far and are not always the same students from day to day.
ReplyDeleteIf my child was in a class where things were being taught to the middle, and she was at the top, "learning" things that she already knew, I would not think it was appropriate.
This year I have had some trouble with my daughter not paying attention in class. She now likes to spend her time talking to her friends rather than paying attention in class. The teacher seems to think that because things come so easily to my daughter that she does not feel the need to pay attention. She continues to do well because the is smart -- but it is not necessarily her best. Rather than make the excuse that my daughter should be given alternate assignments that keep her engaged, I prefer to have her punished for not doing what is expected of her. As a third grader, there is so much that she can improve on. As she approaches middle school/high school I will expect that she be placed in higher classes that will keep her engaged.
Marisa, I can see your point, but what if . . . (and I preface this with the fact that I do not know the third grade curriculum) . . .
ReplyDeleteWhat if your child already knew all of her math facts and was able to do simple algebraic equations without any teacher intervention or instruction. Would you still think it appropriate that she had do the mad minute of math every day on simple addition, subtraction, or multiplication, when she can already do this in her sleep? Or would you want her to spend time working to expand her understanding of algebra?
I think we are mixing up our high achievers with our truly gifted children. I would be surprised if all 116 of the student currently in our gifted program were truly gifted, but there are some (like our music teacher's son) who can perform well above even the highest achievers in our school. It is not fair to hold him back and make him do math he can already do in his sleep.
I think the problem we face is knowing where to do draw the line. At what point does the child really know the content or skill so well, that practice is no longer necessary? I do not have an answer for that question. Hopefully, as we become better teachers we can find ways to work together to provide students who already know the material with extension assignments that take them deeper into the material and force them to really think about how to problem solve. We need to learn how to take them to that next level.
Great discussion! I would agree with you Kristi that not all of our "gifted" students are gifted and most high achievers and simply smart kids are placed appropriately based on math & advanced language arts. (like my darling 8th grader) But for the rest like the student you hinted to and my eldest...school has been one boring day after another. I had the particular student that you mentioned for gifted math in 5th grade. He was so far ahead of me it wasn't funny. I can still see him just resting his head on the table waiting for me to move on, bored to tears with what we were going over in class. I truly believe that I was a hinderance to his education rather than a help. These are the ones that I'm thinking of when I say gifted. What do you all think?
ReplyDeleteMarisa: What if she were challenged and started behaving? One of the true to form sign of a gifted student is misbehaving when they have already got the information. I keep thinking how frustrated I was in a math class in college and I got it the first time and the rest of the class needed 15 repetitions. I took lots of potty breaks and felt like banging my head against the wall and I only had to be in that class for 2 hours, two days a week. I couldn't imagine doing it day in and day out.
ReplyDeleteAccomodations can be made for the higher achieving students...their math mad minute could be over different material. There is nothing that says all students have to do exactly the same thing at the same time...it is just easier for us as teachers. A lot of math classes are ability based even at the lower levels...if not there are ways to adapt. Math Centers can be used that allow students to move more at their own pace. This doesn't eliminate whole group instruction, it is just a part of the class. Also, ALS is a great tool for assessing students and placing them at their ability level. Social Studies is a subject where all students can work on the same project but just w/different criteria so it is at their level.
ReplyDeleteSomething else...we are expected as teachers to all be teaching the same thing at the same time as the other teachers of our subject. This is a huge problem to really meeting the needs of the students. It is easier for schedule changes but it is not in the best interest of the students' learning.
ReplyDeleteThis is very true Cindy and the more that I see where education is going, the more that I realize that soon, we will have someone coming from the state/fed. government to make sure we are teaching standard such and such on the exact date that they have mandated it.
ReplyDeleteThe link that I'm posting to the video will talk about this as well.