Family Forum / Parenting / Parenting / January 2008

    Why would you want to pay for the privilege of having
him in a school that does not challenge him and that surrounds
him with people who think learning is not cool?

    Teaching, when done well, should never burn a child
out on learning.  Children are not burnt out by being challenged.
They get burnt out by inappropriate work loads or unreasonable
expectations.

    When the situation entails evaluation by someone who
doesn't have any information on or interest in the child's
actual abilities and achievements.  Even though his grades
will be significant for college applications, they won't
mean much if he isn't able to demonstrate achievement in
other areas as well.
    It can be a very legitimate question if you're considering
putting a child in an extremely elite program versus a less
competitive program that nevertheless will provide an environment
in which the child will learn well and develop his skills
competently.  There is sometimes a disadvantage to being
a middle-of-the-road student in an extremely competitive
program.  Evaluators don't always weight those situations
appropriately.  But it sounds like in this case, you're
"smaller pond" is not providing him with an environment in
which to build his skills.  He's just coasting.  That hardly
serves anyone.
    As far as building confidence and self-esteem goes,
kids develop that by overcoming obstacles and experiencing
successes, not by being handed accolades without having
worked for them.  The latter seriously *undermines* confidence,
as the child realizes he isn't performing as well as the
accolades suggest and often becomes terrified of having
the "lie" exposed.

    A child who has not learned any study skills and who has
not developed a strong work ethic and who has gravitated toward
a group of friends who do not value learning or academic achievement
is not likely to suddenly "flip a switch" and become a successful
student once he reaches high school.  He may develop more of an
interest once the chips are down and his successes (or failures)
are likely to have a more significant impact on his future, but
he may not be able to turn up the required skills nearly as
quickly.

Best wishes,
Ericka

Your son may be much higher than average in intelligence ("gifted"). I
suggest looking at the resources at Hoagies Gifted
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org and at the Johns Hopkins Talent Search
http://cty.jhu.edu/ts/grades26.html

Our son and his friends are the

Maybe, and you should also think about his skipping a grade at the
current school.

Being bored in school because he is not learning much is more likely
to cause burn-out.

The Johns Hopkins Talent Search for grades 7-8 uses SAT or ACT test
scores as an admissions criterion. If he gets a good score one of
these tests, that is one sign of being on track. By 11th and 12th
grade I think a student who wants to study at a good university ought
to get a 4 or 5 on Advanced Placment exams in a few subjects.

I suggest you talk with the teacher and the principal, if necessary,
to find out if there are other options.  This year DS2 started 4th
grade declaring that he hoped Math would finally be hard this year.
He's in a full-time gifted classroom that works out of the 5th grade
book, but after the first 2 weeks, it was clear that he still wasn't
being challenged.  We asked his teacher what she could do, like we've
done every other year.  Every other teacher told us that he would be
given enrichment activities or could work independently from a
different book.  That has slightly appeased my son, but he still
hasn't felt challenged.  This time however, we actually got someone
willing to work with us to find not just a passable solution, but one
that actually meets his needs and helps to create a path forward for
years to come.  We spent a week discussing options and in the end, got
permission to send him to the Middle School for Math.  He's now in an
accelerated pre-Algebra class that he loves.  He's still getting As on
everything, but he feels that he's finally learning, not just doing
busy work.

What are his thoughts?  At 10, he's certainly old enough to contribute
to the discussion.  I'd ask him how he feels about being top of the
class vs in the middle.  When DS1 was accepted into a full-time gifted
classroom in 3rd grade, he was very excited about the chance to
actually be in the middle of the pack.  He said he knew that teachers
can't accommodate everyone, so if he was in the middle, he would have
the best chance of the teacher actually teaching to his level.  As
mentioned above, DS2 likes to be challenged, but he also takes great
pride (a little too much sometimes :-) ) in being at the top of his
class.

Annie