http://www.barefootwriter.com part psychology, part writing, part gifted advocacy, all barefoot Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:02:49 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 http://www.barefootwriter.com/?p=109&cpage=1#comment-435 jackipet Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:02:49 +0000 http://www.barefootwriter.com/?p=109#comment-435 When I read your post, it was like deja vu. That's exactly what happened to me. I, too, took the SAT when I was 12 and scored high enough to easily get into an ivy league school. But my school district didn't believe in rapid acceleration or allowing kids to skip grades so I was stuck. Since my parents were struggling immigrants, they couldn't help me very much. The school tried to accommodate me as best they could - in 6th grade, I was taking 8th grade classes. But by 8th grade, I found myself taking those same classes again for the third time. In some cases, I was certain that I knew the coursework better than the teachers. I was desperately bored, watching the clock constantly and praying for 3:15 pm. I stuck out like a very sore thumb. If it wasn't for my Friday classes at a local college, I really don't know what I would have done. Upon graduation, I won every award but one - and I deserved that one, too, but suspected they felt the need to give it to someone else so I wasn't the only award recipient. I will forever remember that year as my completely wasted year. If the true be told, much of my elementary school experience was wasting time and waiting for others to catch up. My high school experience was better - I attended a magnet school where I graduated in the top 1% of a class of 1,000 students. But even high school was often an exercise in waiting. My college and professional life have not been all that different, truthfully. The irony is that I honestly never believed that I was gifted at all - I just assumed that others weren't doing their homework or something. It was only after I started having children that I came to see how truly important this gifted education issue is. Frankly, most teachers know absolutely nothing about gifted kids - they have difficulty identifying them, particularly if the kids are more right brained than left, they don't know how to help them, and I suspect they're a bit afraid of them sometimes. There's no easy answer for those kids but there's no question they need appropriate education and as many advocates as they can get. Thanks for writing this article! When I read your post, it was like deja vu. That’s exactly what happened to me. I, too, took the SAT when I was 12 and scored high enough to easily get into an ivy league school. But my school district didn’t believe in rapid acceleration or allowing kids to skip grades so I was stuck. Since my parents were struggling immigrants, they couldn’t help me very much. The school tried to accommodate me as best they could – in 6th grade, I was taking 8th grade classes. But by 8th grade, I found myself taking those same classes again for the third time. In some cases, I was certain that I knew the coursework better than the teachers. I was desperately bored, watching the clock constantly and praying for 3:15 pm. I stuck out like a very sore thumb. If it wasn’t for my Friday classes at a local college, I really don’t know what I would have done. Upon graduation, I won every award but one – and I deserved that one, too, but suspected they felt the need to give it to someone else so I wasn’t the only award recipient. I will forever remember that year as my completely wasted year. If the true be told, much of my elementary school experience was wasting time and waiting for others to catch up. My high school experience was better – I attended a magnet school where I graduated in the top 1% of a class of 1,000 students. But even high school was often an exercise in waiting. My college and professional life have not been all that different, truthfully. The irony is that I honestly never believed that I was gifted at all – I just assumed that others weren’t doing their homework or something. It was only after I started having children that I came to see how truly important this gifted education issue is. Frankly, most teachers know absolutely nothing about gifted kids – they have difficulty identifying them, particularly if the kids are more right brained than left, they don’t know how to help them, and I suspect they’re a bit afraid of them sometimes. There’s no easy answer for those kids but there’s no question they need appropriate education and as many advocates as they can get. Thanks for writing this article!

]]> http://www.barefootwriter.com/?p=35&cpage=1#comment-419 ssikiss Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:25:24 +0000 http://www.barefootwriter.com/?p=35#comment-419 a bit blasphemous, no? kinda reminds me of those trucker hats and t-shirts that say "Jesus is my homeboy!" a bit blasphemous, no? kinda reminds me of those trucker hats and t-shirts that say “Jesus is my homeboy!”

]]> http://www.barefootwriter.com/?p=30&cpage=1#comment-367 barefootwriter Sun, 26 Aug 2007 19:18:59 +0000 http://www.barefootwriter.com/?p=30#comment-367 Thanks. :) Back to working on my poetry (and vetting it on poets.org), so I hope to post more soon. Thanks. Back to working on my poetry (and vetting it on poets.org), so I hope to post more soon.

]]> http://www.barefootwriter.com/?p=30&cpage=1#comment-366 bryteline Sun, 26 Aug 2007 14:28:36 +0000 http://www.barefootwriter.com/?p=30#comment-366 Nice work. Why don't you blog more often? Nice work. Why don’t you blog more often?

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