OMG. I'm starting to believe hawkeye

@sozobe,

I was around at what I think of, in my solipsistic way, as the beginning of the gifted program stuff, in '59. Realistically, by the time it got to us, it was probably a prevalent thing. A few of us were asked to go to college - that is, I went for an italian class at a local college, once a week, for a year, when I was a high school senior. There were two of us, but the other girl dropped it, so it was Sister Aline Marie and I every Monday late afternoon.

Now that was intense. Talk about having to pay attention every second.

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@sozobe,

Quote:

I don't find the argument that gifted kids will be fine regardless to be a good argument against gifted programs. It reminds me of my friend Amy Rowley, who was the subject of a Supreme Court case in 1982 re: the need for special services in the classroom. She was Deaf, and needed ASL interpreters. The school refused to provide them. The SC agreed with the school, because Amy was doing fine. Sure, she could probably do better with interpreters, but the education she was receiving without them was good enough

.

SpEd kids are denied accommodations that would help them because "they're doing fine" all the time, just like what happened to your friend. I'd like Mo to see the school psychologist and the OT every week but "he's doing fine".

I don't get how this is an argument in favor of TAG programs.

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Not having read at all about an apparent conflict between special ed and tag, I see this at first glance as a false dichotomy. Fund it all, for heaven's sake. (See my take on no tuition universities.)

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@boomerang,

OK.

That is not, however, what I was saying.

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@ossobuco,

I don't have a problem with TAG. I have a problem with their chief argument in favor of TAG: that the kids with disabilites get some extra stuff so we should too.

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@boomerang,

It's an argument in favor of special ed programs AND other programs that allow kids to go beyond "good enough."

I completely agree with Osso that it's a false dichotomy.

If Mo's not getting enough services, that sucks. It's also not an argument against gifted programs, though.

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@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

I don't have a problem with TAG. I have a problem with their chief argument in favor of TAG: that the kids with disabilites get some extra stuff so we should too.

But who's making that argument??

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@sozobe,

You are! And a million other people! I've just been looking at it since you asked for a reference and I've seen it everywhere.

Quote:

She is getting supplementary services, just as kids in her class who have problems with reading and math get supplementary services

She is getting supplementary services because she's smart just as kids in her class who have problems with reading and math get supplementary services because they have brain damage.

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@boomerang,

Right.

That is not "the kids with disabilites get some extra stuff so we should too."

If there were no kids with disabilities, I would still want her to be challenged in school.

If there were no gifted kids, I'd still want the kids with disabilities to get adequate services.

It isn't if/ then, cause and effect.

The programs have similar purposes -- filling a gap in the regular curriculum -- but they are in no way dependent on each other. Each operates independently of the other.

And it's absolutely not some sort of weird entitlement thing -- ooh they're getting something special so my kids will too. I mean, what?

Some kids get both services -- I did, and one of sozlet's classmates does just in terms of content area. She's a great reader, but has a lot of problems with writing. So she's in the reading gifted program (none of these are called that by the way -- it's a book group), while getting interventions services for writing. (The writing one, btw, is the school newspaper. Math is something about logic.)

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@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

I said when I hear that argument what it sounds like to me is.....

That's what it sounds like people are saying: because your kid got something (bad), my kid should get something (good).

I'll guarantee you that I'm not the only person who hears that either.

I think TAG shouldn't use this argument in defense of their programs.

hey, boom... I'm confused by the use of (bad) and (good) here. Are you talking about a difference in social acceptance between the two services? That's it's "bad" (meaning there's a social stigma) if kids need or get SpEd, but it's "good" (they're admired) if they need or get Tag?

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@JPB,

I explained it a little more later:

Quote:

She is getting supplementary services because she's smart just as kids in her class who have problems with reading and math get supplementary services because they have brain damage

But yeah, now that you mention it, there is a huge difference there too.

Mo's just getting to the age where peer pressure is an issue -- he's only been stung by the SpEd label a couple of times when good friends teased him about it. This is the first year he's started to be a bit secretive about it.

He's only in SpEd classes for about 5 hours a week because he's "doing fine". Except he's not doing fine. When I met with the "team" last week it was almost kind of funny to watch their reaction to some things. Mo doesn't trust anybody and he is exceptionally good at hiding his problems/feelings from people. I gave them a few examples from the last week. They were floored.

But that's a different topic that I don't think anyone here can help me with!

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@sozobe,

I don't begrudge the kids their TAG stuff.

I don't really even care about TAG. I'd skimmed across a bunch of not too flattering references to it while doing other reading. And yesterday I came across a few gag-inducing entitlement type essays. I'm not going to spend any more time on it.

I'm sure your reasons are noble, you've studied this stuff, you know a lot about it, you're a fair person, but you should know that not a lot of TAG parents are quite so ethical and TAG is often viewed as a classist/racist structure.

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@boomerang,

Hopefully you were able to swing them around to getting whatever additional support he needs. It does fall to the parent, I think, to advocate harder for a child that needs help in keeping up than a child who is bored. Teachers, in both cases, send up flags for review but the parents of our TAG kids don't have nearly the advocacy burden that the parents of our IEP kids have.

Back to perceptions -- unfortunately there is a sting when kids tease each other about their differences and he's more likely to be teased for getting special ed services than if he was getting TAG services. Or, more likely, he'd feel one more than the other --- kids tease each other about everything! Does your school have ways that they try to de-stigmatize the special ed programs?

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@boomerang,

Hope the floored-ness translates into action from the "team"...

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@JPB,

Me too, soz, me too.

JPB, I think Mr. B and I have done a good job instilling "You need some extra help. So what? You're a smart kid. You know how to do a lot of things that a most kids never learn to do."

And he's lucky that his physical size and obvious strength keep most kids at bay even though he's really very gentle. When you add in how good he is at hiding his feelings I don't think kids try to rattle his cage more than once after he puts his hands in his pockets, gives them "the look" and says "So what?"

It's when he comes home that he crumbles.

And to his credit -- he's stood up for some of the other kids when they've been teased.

So to answer your question: I don't really know what the school does about the issue since Mo handles it pretty well on his own.

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@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

I don't begrudge the kids their TAG stuff.

Could have fooled me. Comparing fetal exposure to alcohol to getting a pony?

boomerang wrote:

I'm sure your reasons are noble, you've studied this stuff, you know a lot about it, you're a fair person, but you should know that not a lot of TAG parents are quite so ethical and TAG is often viewed as a classist/racist structure.

I haven't read about it great detail, but where I grew up and where I live now, access to these programs are strictly based on performance. I watched a young lady whose father is a local big wig doctor, board member of the airport, etc. get booted from an advanced language arts program because she wasn't putting in the effort. Her mother had a hissy fit and she was still booted. If the teacher arranged a field trip that required money, a fund raiser was held or the hat was quietly passed around to ensure that every student that wanted to could attend. It doesn't surprise me that people who are unfamiliar with the programs have misconceptions about them, but that doesn't make it so.

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@engineer,

Quote:

Could have fooled me. Comparing fetal exposure to alcohol to getting a pony?

You're ignoring what I actually said.

Quote:

I haven't read about it great detail, .... It doesn't surprise me that people who are unfamiliar with the programs have misconceptions about them, but that doesn't make it so.

You might want to read some more. I read about it in the Harvard Review link I posted.

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@boomerang,

I'll have to dig up the post a little later. As to your earlier post, I read what you said but let me see if I can paraphrase it. You said that some parents feel that since those with learning disabilities get significant resources, their children should get significant resources also. In reality, "gifted" programs are usually minimal in terms of additional resources. Maybe a resource teacher that comes in once a week, but often just a hard class that makes them do twice the work expected in a typical class with no additional benefit at all except that they will be better prepared in high school. No extra computers, maybe an extra field trip that they must pay for themselves, maybe access to the teacher's collection of worn paperback novels that aren't available in the school library. Maybe just a sympathetic ear from someone whose received some training on dealing with gifted students. Those AP high school courses require hours and hours of additional study and if you want to get the college credit, you have to pay for the exam yourself and hope you worked hard enough and were taught well enough to pass. I know plenty of great kids who put in 30-40 hours of extra study over a semester only to get a two on the test (no college credit).

I don't begrudge those students that need extra help the expenditures from the school system, but it shocks me to see people so vehemently opposed to the minimal effort we take to allow the top end to reach a little higher. By the way, that gifted students have significant social problems is well documented. They often have a very hard time fitting in with students their age, although they can often grow out of it. If you have a few hours to listen, just ask a gifted resource teacher about it.

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@engineer,

I'm not opposed to TAG at all.

You haven't read what I've written.

I'm not going to let you put words in my mouth and I'm not going to argue with you when you've misread things so completely.

I complained about ONE argument that is consistently given to defend tag because of the way it sounds in the ears of a parent with a disabled child.

I suggested TAG should rethink their argument more on marketing principles than anything else.

Edit: I'm not for TAG either. As I've said -- I don't know enough about it to be for or against it.

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Okay.... here's an article I had handy that I can post some quotes from.

Please note that I have not formed an opinion on such things.

Quote:

To begin with, AP classes at the high school level are usually difficult but often poorly taught, with an emphasis on short-term memorization of facts presented in lectures and textbooks -- in effect, one long test-prep session. Yet many parents seem to care a lot more about who is in these classes (namely, their own children and a few others who look like them) than about how they are taught.

Granted, it is hard to deny the superiority of the instruction in gifted-and-talented programs and some other honors or high-track classes, what with hands-on learning, student-designed projects, computers, field trips, and other enrichments. But research generally shows that it is precisely those enrichments that produce better results rather than the fact that they are accorded only to a select few. What happens in those classes is more decisive than the fact that they are homogeneous.[11] So if parents of those students were concerned about the quality of learning, they would have no reason to object to extending those benefits to everyone.

But object they do.

......

This is essentially what happened in San Diego, where an attempt to give a leg up to lower-tracked students was, as Elizabeth Cohen of Stanford University puts it, "the kind of project that you'd think wouldn't bother upper-status parents at all. Wrong! They said, 'What are you going to do special for my kid?'"
...

Notice what is going on here. It isn't just that these parents are ignoring everyone else's children, focusing their efforts solely on giving their own children the most desirable education. Rather, they are in effect sacrificing other children to their own. It's not about success but victory, not about responding to a competitive environment but creating one. As Harvey Daniels of National Louis University sees it, "The psychology of those parents is that it's not enough for their kids to win: others must lose -- and they must lose conspicuously."

...

Okay, I'm not even halfway through the article which has copious footnotes to research that supports it.

Read the article yourself at: http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/ofmk.htm

1 Reply

OMG. I'm starting to believe hawkeye

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