epiphany: school is supposed to educate AND NOT BE COMPLETELY BORING! (no, really. epiphany.)

[cimorene]

Last night's lecture (course for classroom assistants), the second from a Special Education teacher, was mostly about the national guidelines for building local and school-level curricula/course of study.

The teacher talked about leveling and how it was abolished entirely in Finland in the mid-1980s, all the way from elementary school up to high school (where the Finnish system splits into entirely voluntary technical schools and academic high schools). Even reading and maths are integrated for the whole class and Finland also has no what she called "elite" (or inherently leveled) schools. There isn't money to truly provide special needs children with THEIR education all the way throughout the country, which has many rural areas dotted with tiny rural schools with as few as 2-3 teachers and 15-50 students. Imagine, then, how little provision is possible for children of above-average intelligence. The lecturer admitted to me that these children are frequently not provided for; the ideal is that the teachers are meant to look at each individual pupil's level and provide them with more to do (or less to do, and more help), but the only REQUIREMENT is that the basic curriculum be taught in a certain way to everyone (except for special-needs students for whom a formal process provides exceptions).

God, I mean, just imagine how boring (I suspect, though, given that Finland has some of the best education in the world going by tests and so on, that it's actually still less boring than my childhood was). I was bored, and many many people are bored even in advanced classes (even primary school classmates who IQ-tested into the special weekly "Gifted and Talented" additions, as they were called in Alabama, but then didn't make the performance-based cuts to the top advanced levels of English, History, and math in middle school at grade 6).

There is no question that a child of above-average intelligence is in less need of help than a child with learning difficulty. Of course, the resources of society should be aimed at the latter, because the former is just bored, and the odds are, has the intellectual resources to find something else to do, and keep themselves occupied. But that's not to say that the deeply-ingrained habit of utter boredom and superiority imprinted on these children by inadequate primary school doesn't harm them! I actually didn't realize until the last several years how much it harmed me, but I am starting to think now that it was a lot worse for me than I suspected.

I am so accustomed to boredom, so used to it from the first day I transferred from a private Montessori school in New York to the Alabama public schools at age 6, that it didn't even occur to me until last night's lecture that the AIM of schooling is actually not only to "challenge" every pupil (a platitude I've often heard and which, let's face it, is problematic and in many cases not actually meant) - but to keep them occupied. The infinite variety of ways to occupy yourself "After you finish your work" was so familiar to me that I sat dazed and confused for several minutes while the lecturer talked about the ways classroom teachers can and do try to provide extra material and assignments for the above-average so they don't just sit twiddling their thumbs! "Isn't thumb-twiddling an essential, indeed, the MAIN point of school?", I thought at first.

I estimate that from age six when I started reading my own novels in class (first with Babysitter's Little Sister, quickly on to Babysitter's Club and Nancy Drew and thence to YA and adult fantasy from my parents' library), I was never without several personal books brought to read per day in my extra time, and I typically finished at least one per day all the way up through 7th grade, which was the first time I encountered classes I couldn't get through even if I kept reading the entire time the teacher was talking. I still remember the staggering force of my epiphany, in 7th grade "social studies" (really world history) that not only could I be engaged if I listened to the teacher only instead of reading while listening with one ear, what she was saying was actually complex enough to require more than one ear's attention to understand! Through high school, I was still able to finish a novel in a day to a week reading only in the time after I finished my work; but in primary school, I probably spent a good 50%-70% of my school hours reading.

And, hey, I have just fully realized the magnitude of that. Because... that is wrong. That is FUCKED-UP. And that should be obvious - should have been obvious to a long string of teachers who kind of weren't doing their jobs, not that it was really their fault with the utterly inadequate resources given to public education in Alabama.

Comments

[laughingrat]

I think the bad effects of letting down gifted children are really underestimated because, sure, we can generally perform on a level with the "normal" kids even if we're not being educated up to par. But what happens is we're let down very early, we're not engaged (I think this might be what you mean by "occupied," but that word made me shudder because it speaks to me of humiliating busywork), we're not taught how to study because, well, we don't *need* to study at first, and then when things get hard, a lot of us hit a wall and literally don't know how to work.

I've heard people talk about that with a little sneer--"Those 'gifted' snots ain't so smart now!"--but really, it's genuinely a problem. It's not that we're lazy or arrogant; studying is a skill that many of us never learned. And since performance is also integral to how so many gifted kids are taught to think of themselves, when they can't perform up to their usual standard, their world drops out from under them. They become not just poorer students, but unhappy, less developed individuals who have no idea of their real potential, who can't live up to that potential; when performance is the only thing anyone valued in you, not being able to perform is world-shattering.

If I'm passionate about this, it's because I've lived through it. Which sounds arrogant...heh. I'm sorry. I don't mean it that way. It's just...looking back, how much more would I have gotten out of college, for instance, if I'd known that it was normal and okay for college to be hard, and that it didn't mean that my brain had suddenly failed me? I'd've had more courage, taken more risks, worked harder. Maybe. :) Same with any creative endeavors where I've shone a little at first, then hit that skill plateau. Now I'm stuck trying to fix all this at 33!

[ilyena_sylph]

Oh, lordy, yes.

[effex]

So, so familiar. Except that they took my books away (seriously, the school asked my parents to check my bag every morning) because they were afraid it was ~distracting~ me. The California school system failed me hard.

[1001cranes]

oh lord, my elementary school life.

this is all I can remember, from my youngest years -- reading ahead in reading group, when I was in elementary school, and getting in trouble because then I wasn't properly engaging with the rest of the group, when how could I? because they were still on chapter two, and I was already done. And you know kids, like... if you can go faster, go farther on ANYTHING, you don't want to be held back. Doesn't matter if its reading or soccer or what-have-you. The first -- and wow, possibly the only time? -- anyone ever tried to fix this was in sixth grade English, when everyone else was reading Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher, and because I had read it several eons ago, Mrs. B had me read Uncle Tom's Cabin. Even made new questions and worksheets for me and everything. It's one of those only things I remember from that year, and I was so goddamn grateful to have something to do its almost ridiculous, in hindsight.

[norah]

In the US it's called "differentiated instruction" and every teacher is supposed to get some training in it. But it is HARD and it takes resources and support (and more training than most teachers get) and very few teachers do it well.

[fairestcat]

My elementary school gifted-ed teacher used to tell us that the highest concentration of gifted individuals in the state was in the State Penitentiary. As an adult, I'm fairly sure that was an entirely made up statistic, but the point has stuck with me. He was trying desperately to warn us about boredom, about losing interest and giving up on school entirely because of that boredom, and about how tempting it can be to just walk away.

He only had us for three years (district-wide program, 2nd through 5th grade), before we went on to the two middle schools, which had decidedly inferior gifted ed classes, and then to high school which had an appallingly limited range of honors or AP classes to choose from. In middle school and high school I watched his warning play out on too many of the kids who'd shared those elementary school gifted classes with me. Drop-outs, drug use, sharp drops in gpa due to lack of interest in turning in assignments/attending classes that offered no challenge whatsoever.

These days every district and school knows it takes more resources to handle students with special education needs, but too few recognize that that means gifted kids too. Letting kids get bored in class is dangerous. For myself, I coasted through high school with ease, getting mostly A and high B grades despite missing 35 days of school in one school-year. And when I got to college and ran into classes that actually challenged me, classes that actually required studying and reading challenging material I floundered. I'd never learned those skills because I'd never needed them.

[acchikocchi]

In retrospect I thank my stars my parents put me in a Montessori elementary school because there was always more to do. Admittedly the "work at your own pace on what you want directive" meant that I spent most of first grade sitting under a table in the corner reading all day, but with a little nudging in the right direction it worked out. XD;;; At any rate, I'll never forget hearing about a close friend my own age at a traditional school, who came home crying one day because he wanted to learn multiplication and the teacher wouldn't let him until every person in the class had mastered subtraction. Augh.

[guinevere33.livejournal.com]

Do not get me started on the elementary school teachers who wouldn't let me read or draw once I finished my work because "it sets a bad example for the other children." WTF was I supposed to do once I finished my work - stare at the wall?

[southpaw526.livejournal.com]

'There is no question that a child of above-average intelligence is in less need of help than a child with learning difficulty.'

Don't be so quick to assume that above-average intelligence and learning difficulties are mutually exclusive, because they aren't. A learning difficulty (disability) does not necessarily mean lack of intelligence.

[lotesse]

One of my pet issues, being myself a survivor of a gifted childhood, is the intersection of emotional and mental intelligences. I don't so much mean socialization, because baby geeks are never going to have an easy time with that. I mean that I think most kids learn some big lessons in early grade school about work, persistence, failure, and guilt that gifted children miss out on.

No matter how smart you are, there's going to be a point in your life where inborn intelligence isn't enough - when you're going to have to work for it. I suspect that for far too many bright kids, that point doesn't come until college, when they don't have the support structure, social freedom, or flexibility to cope with the insecurity that accompanies things not being easy any more. If you can hit that wall at eight, you probably have a parent who can support you, and you probably have teachers who are willing to deal with your upset. Do it as a teen or twentysomething, and you lack all that. I've seen lots of bright kids flame out when they hit the wall for the first time, because their shame takes them down.

[harpers_child]

i actually had a teacher try to fail me my eighth grade year because i would read novels after i had finished my work. this was English class and we were diagramming sentences and reviewing basic punctuation. for two semesters. using textbooks from the sixties. it was 1998.

i ended up with a D in the class due to my "in class participation" grade, even though i could correctly answer anything put to me without thought and completed all my work and the busywork she'd assign to just me.

[supergee]

Here via laughingrat. Waiting for the slow kids was my great childhood trauma. I've gotta say it beats "Father Flotsky's gonna hurt my tushy again," and it forever vaccinated me against communism and other systems that say we can make people equal. And I've managed to last about 60 more years despite it. And I think I've run out of positive things to say about the absence of ability tracking.

[sinatra]

here via laughingrat as well...aha, oh god, I may or may not be sitting in the college library tearing up just a little because yes, this, my life right now.

I went from being top ten of my high school graduating class and never having had to apply myself to anything ever, to failing out of my first year of college. Granted, some of that was due to illness and depression, but also...I tried to be a Physics major, which I thought was a wonderful idea despite the fact that my (rural, public) high school had never even offered basic Physics. I always had some Impostor Syndrome going on because I knew I never actually worked at anything, and then suddenly I couldn't coast anymore and I crashed and burned and it all felt validated. I felt like taking my transcript and waving it in front of my parents and teachers and telling them, "Look! I always told you I wasn't smart, I'm just good at faking it, and here's proof."

Most of my close friends and I were "TAG"-ed (Talented And Gifted) from early elementary school, but there was never an actual program set up to serve TAG students. Math was the one exception, and I think my high school actually turned out a few very successful math-oriented college students. Most of our teachers would tell us that they would have some "additional work" to keep the more advanced students challenged, but they very rarely followed through with it. I don't blame them; they were overworked as it was.

Right now I'm still kind of hitting the wall and attempting not to quite flame out. I don't know how to stop telling myself that if I can't get an A+ without breaking a sweat, I might as well give up entirely.