Let’s continue the discussion. We could write a book.

I resonate with every point you’re making. It’s real. And if teachers and parents of other kids don’t get it, it’s because they’re not in our shoes. That’s why we need each other–to acknowledge the insanity, to help each other through it, and, I hope, to someday create a solution. Heck, if our kids are gifted, we’re probably gifted, and we ought to be able to develop a creative solution and make ourselves heard by the powers that be. Oh wait, that’s right, they’re up to their ears in NCLB and standardized testing. *sigh*

“Hello! The school is part of the problem! They pile homework and pressure on the kids to the point where a kid really can’t make it through school without constant support from Mom. Then they tell us we’re overinvolved.

Conversely, if we tell them we’re taking back our family life and our kid won’t be copying dictionary definitions and doing 30 identical math problems every night, they tell us we’re lazy. We cannot win.”

I was batting it out with some idiot (I’m sorry, switched on mom is going to kick me off for saying that) on free range kids, the blog you reference here, switched on. No matter what I said, I couldn’t get it right with this person. I detailed the hours my daughter spends on homework and how we have no family life. How gifted kids in many schools can get five times the amount that regular programs issue. He then accused me of putting play in front of scholastics. Can you imagine?

Then I wrote how schools expect us to monitor, keep the kids on track and that it’s really not my job. He countered I was shirking my responsibilities. Huh? You can’t win. I gave up. I made my point eloquently and left.

Something else came through on that free range thread that was depressing. I was asked, why is she in the gifted program? This is a question we revisit all the time. I can’t say this on other lists, it would be considered elitist and I’m anything but. My daughter needs to be in an environment that caters to gifted kids.

To him, I left out that whole PG stuff, that rage to learn, rage to master that has nothing to do with grades, inhaling information, visual spatial, social/emotional, that gifted kids are a special needs group and responding to those needs is not privilege heaped upon privilege. To him, I simply explained some aspects were better for her because of the rote busy work we’d encountered beforehand. And the peer group. That she likes her school and if only there was a way to bring down homework to a manageable level, she’d be so much the richer, stronger and healthier. So why is she in the gifted program? Because she’s gifted! And that’s why I’m going to create a school. So gifted kids have a place to go.

What came through is, who the hell are these gifted kids? If rote work is good for everyone else, it oughta be good for these little buggers too.

One woman lambasted me for cringing at the rote copying dictionary definitions in 5th grade, saying her GT teacher mom would NEVER have tolerated such disobedience. The unspoken message, gifted kids are rich coddled kids who think they are better than anyone else. Never mind FAPE. They don’t deserve an education that meets their needs, they need to learn to do boring things like everyone else because it prepares them to do boring tasks later, she should have learned not to be a perfectionist by now, and if she can’t get it done in two hours, it’s her fault, she’s not managing time well.

My message? We don’t want to throw out the baby with the bath water. Let’s fix the bugs in the gifted programs, not dump them. For us, the considerations have always been gifted programs or homeschooling and even my reluctant husband now admits homeschooling would have been the better choice through 8th. We need to be putting the burden on the shoulders of the school, not the home. Because if we are doing most of the work, we may as well make it official and homeschool. I want school to do school so I can homeschool on the side.

The conflicting messages that come through are, if you monitor her work, you are overbearing and that’s why she’s not doing it fast enough, but if you back off and she can’t get it done, it’s your fault. And we know so many gifted kids have executive functioning shortcomings. So how come the kids are NOT learning organization at school?”

A quick little story. This comment is too long already.

When my daughter was in elementary, I considered a progressive private school in DC. I loved this school but we ultimately chose not to for financial and logistical reasons (the commute alone would have been nightmarish). Something caught my eye as I was perusing their materials. There was a list comparing constuctivist (and yea, I know, that whole Everyday Math thing, nothing is black and white anymore, I read Kitchen Table Math too) education and traditional education. Even if you don’t support constructivist education (I like aspects of it), you’ll love this story.

I got to the item that really spoke to me. We don’t want you correcting your child’s math problems. We want to see the mistakes so we know where the weaknesses are. We don’t want to see the parent’s math ability, we want to see the child’s strengths and weaknesses.

This resonated with me. My daughter was still young and in her current private school, the parents were always going over their kids’ math problems and correcting every single mistake. And then wondering why the kid made the identical mistake the very next day! I wanted to take a different approach, knowing my daughter hated us breathing down her neck. So I took this dilemma to the principal who completely backed me up.

But then we switched to public. Remembering this tidbit from the progressive school, I raised it at my first public school 5th grade Back to School Night. The answer I got from the math teacher was hardly what I expected. Having been in the system now for some years, the answer no longer suprises me. But it greatly disappointed me then.

She replied enthusiastically, no, no, we WANT you correcting your child’s homework. We do, we do! She then blathered on about how it allowed me to see what my daughter was learning in school that day, it strengthened the school/home tie, it created bonding (as if I need the school telling me how to bond with my child). I knew in that instant it was none of those things, it was dissembling. If we correct, she doesn’t have to! A busy teacher, nearing retirement, burned out, in an overstuffed large public school. She could use a little help. I don’t mind helping the school. But not in this way.

The unsaid but clear message is: If my daughter was weak in math (she wasn’t), we’d hire a tutor, she would hope. It became crystal clear. Homework was an extension of the school day and, congratulations, I’d just been hired as after school teacher. Problem is, I didn’t ask for the job and I wasn’t being paid. It was clear. They want you hovering, they want you there, they want you doing the work. But be prepared to be criticized roundly when you do.

I left free range thinking, he’s just some annoying guy I’ll never have to meet. Let’s pray he doesn’t become your child’s teacher .

I am sick and tired of reporters interviewing school teachers and administrators for their horror stories of “helicopter” parents.

Somehow parents (read “mothers”) are always under scrutiny, always deficient. Teachers and administrators, on the other hand, are presumed experts whose every utterance is a pearl of wisdom.

Hello! The school is part of the problem! They pile homework and pressure on the kids to the point where a kid really can’t make it through school without constant support from Mom. Then they tell us we’re overinvolved.

Conversely, if we tell them we’re taking back our family life and our kid won’t be copying dictionary definitions and doing 30 identical math problems every night, they tell us we’re lazy. We cannot win.