schooling and parental anxiety

[flea]

Ask Moxie's talking about school today, and the comments are focusing on gifted and talented programs, which in some areas seem to mean "ways we can pull out the mostly white, upper-middle-class kids from the rest of the unwashed masses" and in some areas actually seem to mean gifted and talented kids. There is a G&T program in our city's schools; I don't know what it means here yet.

I posted some of my feelings about how Casper's school this year is going. I'm sort of half-hearted about it; I didn't have a strong positive at the start of the year, and now that we have 3.5 weeks under our belts I am still in the same place. It's the classic middle-class anxiety - I want her to be at school in a special place, one that will challenge and stimulate her, one where she comes home full of new ideas, one that recognizes her for herself and helps make an individualized path to learning. I just want that all in a public school that takes all comers, including the kids whose parents don't speak English, or are only semi-literate, who don't have books in the house, kids who don't get enough to eat at home, who are smacked around or neglected. I think, in theory, that it should be possible, with a low enough student-teacher ratio (in practice, budgets do not allow for this). I think we saw a better approximation of it at our public Montessori magnet last year than we are seeing in our current public school, unfortunately.

Also, no long term reader will be shocked to hear that I an deeply snobby, intellectually. I am tired of being smarter than the people who are teaching my kid (I do grant that they have more training in education than me, and that I would be a disaster as a home-schooler).

We don't have a lot of options for schooling, here. We've already looked at most of the ones that would be at all reasonable for our values and our budget. This seems like the best of the bunch. And it's not bad. But I'm sad that we can't send our kid to a public school that is exceptional, remarkable. I'm sad that EVERY kid can't go to such a school.

Comments

[serrana.livejournal.com]

*sigh* See, I think at least part of why our school district doesn't think the lack of a TAG program is a problem is because of the standardized testing emphasis -- if the kid can already do the work now that she'd be expected to do at the end of the year, well, great! She'll still be able to do it at the end of the year and that will boost the class score! Win all around!

Um, yeah. And the way the district staff have talked to us over the last few months...well, it's been like every negative conservative stereotype about "educrats." I find myself in a position which is completely contrary to to my own ideological leanings, and not liking it much.

Of course, at the moment our Innovative Homeschool Curriculum seems to involve Blondie the Bear and Mr. Zebra having a running party, which is apparently going to be followed by a bout of noodle-eating. Well. We'll get to something more substantive after lunch, I'm sure.

[hecubot.livejournal.com]

Was your school experience similar to what you want for Casper?

I guess I don't expect that kind of school for Emmett or Matilda. Emmett's school is highly rated and he has benefited from being around a lot of smart kids, and having experienced teachers.

But he doesn't love school and I don't worry about that. I'm a bit leery of school being too all-encompassing of what it gives a child. I guess I just feel like it's healthy that Emmett's got other priorities besides school. It doesn't define him.

School is sort of his job. He does it well but he's far more engaged in what he does away from school.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

My school experience was really varied. I attended a private K that was very hippie-dippie (6 kids, mostly play); then grades 1-4 in rural Maine, in a standard small-town public school, homeschooled half time in 2nd grade because I wasn't challenged at all, and they thought about skipping me a grade, then returned to full-time in 3rd grade because my mother hated homeschooling and my parents split up, in 4th grade I was actually in a 4th-5th mixed class because of the small size of the school, and did some advanced work with a friend who was in 5th grade and ahead of her grade too. I remember mostly liking school okay; I remember being allowed to read in class if I kept quiet and was bored. I identified more with the teachers than the students.

5th-7th grade was public school in a wealthy suburb of Boston known for its public schools. For the first time I had intellectual peers in my classes. This was a great benefit. I was normal!

8th grade was a country day school in CT, fine academically (chosen because the local public school would have required me to re-do about 2 years of math and wouldn't take into account 3 years of French), a mess socially, but what isn't a mess socially when you're 13? Well, possibly not starting a new school where everyone has known each other since age 5 would have helped.

9th-12th grade, a very rigorous private prep school. My first year at a good college was less hard than my senior year in high school. I thrived on the work; didn't like the social environment much.

If we're judging by me, I am the Nerd Queen. School is what I do, it's what I love, it's what I'm best at. I'm not sure yet who Casper is wrt school. But she's there 10 hours a day (7 at school and 3 in after school). There's not a whole hell of a lot in her life right now that isn't school (and Polly Pockets).

[hecubot.livejournal.com]

I was in a gifted program in 5th and 6th grades, and it did offer the not-inconsiderable advantage of socializing with lots of other smart kids.

Mostly though I was one of the smarter kids in a decent but average public school. I think that worked out fine for me. I took AP and honors classes, and I did have opportunities in high school to challenge myself more - particularly in the magazine I created and edited. But that's pretty far off for Casper.

Within a couple years, though, I expect she'll begin to have some interests beyond school which will occupy a larger part of her psyche. For Emmett, baseball and even just socializing with his friends asserted itself by the time he was in 5th grade. Whether Casper leans more toward clarinet or dressage, or does what Emmett's godsister did (skipped homework for a whole year to work on her Harry Potter fanfic novel) is yet to be seen.

[gannet.livejournal.com]

Yes. This.

Theo just turned four, and now we really have to start considering what we want to do about this very dilemma.

Ack! What to do!

[loligo.livejournal.com]

Our district calls it their "Academic Talent Program", and it starts in fourth grade, I think. A friend whose son was in it raves about it, so I feel pretty good about that -- and I'm assuming Chuckles will end up in it, since apparently her smarts are already being discussed among teachers.

She has so much to learn about just getting along with people and being herself in the world that I don't worry too much about how challenging the academic content of her curriculum is right now. She's got other stuff on her plate.

But yeah, a couple months ago I did something I probably shouldn't have done and looked up the actual test scores and demographics for the two tiny "elite" school districts outside of town. One of them was just as white and just as rich I thought and I have no regrets about not moving there. But the other had more racial and economic diversity than I thought, while still performing better than the city schools, and I did feel a twinge of regret that we hadn't compromised our principles enough to move there.

[theblogofabrokenman.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

Oh I am with you on the intellectual snobbery. For long and complicated reasons I am having to take a degree at the same time as completing my Masters. I have great tutors for the MA, but am finding it disturbing (to say the least!) that I appear to be more intelligent than my degree tutors!

We are expecting a baby in December, and I am fully expecting it to be more intelligent than both of us. Not sure how I will cope with that.... :)

The Broken man

[burrell.livejournal.com]

Well you've heard me whining all year about kindergarten. Really all I want is a school that teaches her something without killing the will to learn in her. Why is it so hard to find? But I had a good feeling today when I dropped her off.

[cassandre.livejournal.com]

Hi, I happened upon your journal via serrana's, whom I also just met, and have friended you - hope you don't mind. I have a 3 and 1/2 year old and am interested in schooling. Also feminism and things bookish.

It's the classic middle-class anxiety - I want her to be at school in a special place, one that will challenge and stimulate her, one where she comes home full of new ideas, one that recognizes her for herself and helps make an individualized path to learning. I just want that all in a public school that takes all comers, including the kids whose parents don't speak English, or are only semi-literate, who don't have books in the house, kids who don't get enough to eat at home, who are smacked around or neglected.

That is beautifully put and encapsulates the dilemma exactly!