A few weeks ago one of our neighbors held a political meet-and-greet for an incumbent state senator. I hadn't met the candidate before and didn't realize until the event that he is apparently "the" guy in the state senate who knows education. The other guests at the party were very much education people (and neighbors and friends of the host, of course).
At one point I wandered into a conversation between the hostess, a man wearing a school district polo, and another guest about why it didn't make sense for the school district to convert to K-8 schools. Since I'd arrived late (Vivian was sick; and it took until 7:30 that night to get Tristan to go to sleep) I didn't know how the school district man was.
Later, after some speechifying by the incumbent senator and a few supporters, I found myself next to the school district man and asked where he worked within the district. Turned out he was the superintendent of schools. Foot in mouth a bit, me? But the coincidence was lovely and I took the opportunity to describe Vivian and ask his advice. I mentioned I'd been looking at private elementaries, even though realistically, there's no way we can afford to send Vivian to any of them unless buckets of financial aid fall into our laps somehow. He suggested calling the director of gifted programs (that wasn't her title, exactly--I've forgotten the title and will have to Google her).
I'm not sure what good that will do me, but I do plan to talk to this person. I'm not sure if it'll do any good because I'm not sure how much the public school can really do for Vivian. Realistically, public school classrooms can only be so flexible. Public school is understaffed (particularly now; though I think it will be worse still in a year or two when Vivian is actually old enough to go). Teachers work full time jobs--more than full time sometimes during the school year--and they have lots of students to look out for. In our school district, gifted programming starts in the first grade, but you still have to get through Kindergarten somehow. A year from now Vivian could easily be reading on the 4th grade level, and I doubt the public school can actually send from kindergarten each day to do 4th grade reading. Nor can they necessarily provide appropriate materials within the classroom. And then there are her math skills, which are on a wholey different level.
Still. Maybe I'm wrong. I can hope, right?
Monday, August 23, 2010
Monday, August 9, 2010
School, School, School: Preschool
School is my obsession lately. What to do about Vivian and school?
Preschool was much easier. I fell into a knowledgeable group of fellow parents of gifted kids on a parenting forum I frequent, and found that other gifted kids had done best in either play-based preschools or Montessori preschools. Play-based preschools are very light on academics, so kids who were already ahead in the subject material wouldn't feel bogged down and could spend their time socializing and learning about the world through play. Montessori preschools are learning-based, but incredibly flexible in their approach to teaching, so kids who were ahead could move ahead at their own pace regardless of their peers levels and abilities.
We tired playschool when Vivian was 2; it didn't go well. Vivian's sensory issues meant that a loud, disorganized room of chaotic freeplay was miserable for her. She couldn't deal with it. So I spent the summer when she was 2 1/2 calling Montessori schools and asking about their programs. Eventually we found a lovely Montessori that, as a bonus, is a stone's throw from our house and the directress agreed to admit her even though she wasn't yet 3. She still had some trouble at first, but the teachers were great and she loved the "works" in her classroom, and she's been very happy there.
At our last parent/teacher conference, Vivian was the best reader in the school (with 1.5 years left in her 3-year cycle), and doing very well in math. Not as well as reading, because she likes reading better (and also, the math works are more fun to mess around with, I've heard). The great thing about the program is that the math work in the classroom can be used flexibly, and she shouldn't run out of work. I'm not sure how high-level the reading work goes, but since it's a bilingual program they can always start her on Spanish if they run out of English stuff.
What I worry about now is what she'll do after preschool. The third year in a Montessori preschool is considered to be Kindergarten, except that our district only recognizes private Kindergartens in private schools that go through 3rd grade; and Vivian isn't old enough to be placed into first in the fall of 2011. And yet I cannot, just canNOT, imagine her sitting politely and twiddling her thumbs in the 2011-2012 school year while the other kids learn the letter sounds. So that is our next hurdle, the next thing I'm worrying about and working on. And believe me, I spend a lot of time worrying...
Preschool was much easier. I fell into a knowledgeable group of fellow parents of gifted kids on a parenting forum I frequent, and found that other gifted kids had done best in either play-based preschools or Montessori preschools. Play-based preschools are very light on academics, so kids who were already ahead in the subject material wouldn't feel bogged down and could spend their time socializing and learning about the world through play. Montessori preschools are learning-based, but incredibly flexible in their approach to teaching, so kids who were ahead could move ahead at their own pace regardless of their peers levels and abilities.
We tired playschool when Vivian was 2; it didn't go well. Vivian's sensory issues meant that a loud, disorganized room of chaotic freeplay was miserable for her. She couldn't deal with it. So I spent the summer when she was 2 1/2 calling Montessori schools and asking about their programs. Eventually we found a lovely Montessori that, as a bonus, is a stone's throw from our house and the directress agreed to admit her even though she wasn't yet 3. She still had some trouble at first, but the teachers were great and she loved the "works" in her classroom, and she's been very happy there.
At our last parent/teacher conference, Vivian was the best reader in the school (with 1.5 years left in her 3-year cycle), and doing very well in math. Not as well as reading, because she likes reading better (and also, the math works are more fun to mess around with, I've heard). The great thing about the program is that the math work in the classroom can be used flexibly, and she shouldn't run out of work. I'm not sure how high-level the reading work goes, but since it's a bilingual program they can always start her on Spanish if they run out of English stuff.
What I worry about now is what she'll do after preschool. The third year in a Montessori preschool is considered to be Kindergarten, except that our district only recognizes private Kindergartens in private schools that go through 3rd grade; and Vivian isn't old enough to be placed into first in the fall of 2011. And yet I cannot, just canNOT, imagine her sitting politely and twiddling her thumbs in the 2011-2012 school year while the other kids learn the letter sounds. So that is our next hurdle, the next thing I'm worrying about and working on. And believe me, I spend a lot of time worrying...
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Welcome!
Writing the first line of a anything is tough. I always feel the stage-fright setting in when the big white box loads up, the cursor blinking impatiently above empty lines. Are my thoughts interesting enough to warrant so much space? Can I express myself coherently? Is anybody going to care?
I don't know the answers to those questions, but I do know that I need to write this blog. I have a blog already, a personal blog in a different location, and I often talk about my kids. But I don't talk about them honestly, the way I want to talk about them. I'm too afraid of offending my mommy friends. I don't want to be know as a braggart or a lair. I want to connect with other moms, but I fear that by posting, I'll burn more bridges than I build.
Why?
Because my daughter is really bright. I'm not saying she's a genius, but she's well ahead of the "average" kid in areas that count most to many people. She's terribly asynchronous, actually; as many gifted kids are. But that doesn't always help, because when she seems younger than she really is, her areas of giftedness are all that much more surprising.
At the age of 4 1/2, my daughter is a reader. Last week she read The Wizard of Oz to herself, and when I quizzed her, she could actually tell me the important points in the story. She read it eagerly, easily, and silently. She was somewhat unimpressed when I rented the movie version for her and she discovered that Dorothy's movie shoes are red, and there's a whole lot of singing. She watched half of it and got bored.
She can do math, too. She can add and subtract. She can count by sets. She can tell time on an analog clock. She is learning how to add change and work with money (which would work better if she wouldn't leave her play money on the floor for her brother to eat). She understands fractions, kinda. She can count forwards or backwards until she gets bored; and she can count to at least 30 in Spanish. Back when she was 2 she could count to 100 in Mandarin Chinese, but we stopped playing that game when she started her Spanish bilingual preschool and she's certainly forgotten by now.
That's the short list. I'll post more about her later, many, many times.
Her little brother is 9 months old as of last week. Is he as bright as his sister? Well. He's a baby, so who can say? He says one verbal word and signs two other words, which doesn't seem crazy for his age. (For comparison, his sister had 4 or 5 verbal words and no signs at the same age.) He also has a particular squeal which means "cat!!!" In the last month his other milestones have mimicked his sister's at the same age: he learned to sit himself up, he learned to crawl, and he popped out his first 4 weeks in just under 2 weeks.
And there's me. I'm 34. I used to be gainfully employed, but I got laid off last summer at 6 months pregnant. My husband, who used to be the stay-at-home parent around here, got a great job and went back to work the very week the baby was born. After nearly a year at home, I still feel odd to be here. Money is tight, but we're surviving.
But back to this blog. Why did I start it? Because I want to talk openly and honestly about my gifted kid (kids?), about the joys and the struggles, about my fears and my insecurities, how tough it feels sometimes to try to find my daughter a safe place in a world which both celebrates smartness and denigrates bright people. I'll probably blog about a lot of non-gifted kid stuff as well, because gifted kid(s) are still kids, and not all of our delights and challenges are related to giftedness.
Welcome.
I don't know the answers to those questions, but I do know that I need to write this blog. I have a blog already, a personal blog in a different location, and I often talk about my kids. But I don't talk about them honestly, the way I want to talk about them. I'm too afraid of offending my mommy friends. I don't want to be know as a braggart or a lair. I want to connect with other moms, but I fear that by posting, I'll burn more bridges than I build.
Why?
Because my daughter is really bright. I'm not saying she's a genius, but she's well ahead of the "average" kid in areas that count most to many people. She's terribly asynchronous, actually; as many gifted kids are. But that doesn't always help, because when she seems younger than she really is, her areas of giftedness are all that much more surprising.
At the age of 4 1/2, my daughter is a reader. Last week she read The Wizard of Oz to herself, and when I quizzed her, she could actually tell me the important points in the story. She read it eagerly, easily, and silently. She was somewhat unimpressed when I rented the movie version for her and she discovered that Dorothy's movie shoes are red, and there's a whole lot of singing. She watched half of it and got bored.
She can do math, too. She can add and subtract. She can count by sets. She can tell time on an analog clock. She is learning how to add change and work with money (which would work better if she wouldn't leave her play money on the floor for her brother to eat). She understands fractions, kinda. She can count forwards or backwards until she gets bored; and she can count to at least 30 in Spanish. Back when she was 2 she could count to 100 in Mandarin Chinese, but we stopped playing that game when she started her Spanish bilingual preschool and she's certainly forgotten by now.
That's the short list. I'll post more about her later, many, many times.
Her little brother is 9 months old as of last week. Is he as bright as his sister? Well. He's a baby, so who can say? He says one verbal word and signs two other words, which doesn't seem crazy for his age. (For comparison, his sister had 4 or 5 verbal words and no signs at the same age.) He also has a particular squeal which means "cat!!!" In the last month his other milestones have mimicked his sister's at the same age: he learned to sit himself up, he learned to crawl, and he popped out his first 4 weeks in just under 2 weeks.
And there's me. I'm 34. I used to be gainfully employed, but I got laid off last summer at 6 months pregnant. My husband, who used to be the stay-at-home parent around here, got a great job and went back to work the very week the baby was born. After nearly a year at home, I still feel odd to be here. Money is tight, but we're surviving.
But back to this blog. Why did I start it? Because I want to talk openly and honestly about my gifted kid (kids?), about the joys and the struggles, about my fears and my insecurities, how tough it feels sometimes to try to find my daughter a safe place in a world which both celebrates smartness and denigrates bright people. I'll probably blog about a lot of non-gifted kid stuff as well, because gifted kid(s) are still kids, and not all of our delights and challenges are related to giftedness.
Welcome.
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