Sounds extremely frustrating. How long has your daughter been studying? It is common for students to finish in five years. Expensive, but common. Five or six years for a double major is normal, as you gathered. Students who finish in 3 - 4 are usually highly motivated and/or paying their own way and not taking out loans for living expenses (i.e. they have a very strong intrinsic or extrinsic motivation to get out of there, whether it's just drive or grinding poverty--in my case, a little of both). On the other hand, some universities seem to have started really piling on the credits required, with minimum flexibility, sometimes it seems to keep students in and paying. I'm a little surprised that business cannot take ANY Japanese related credits as electives. Are there truly no social science or other Japanese courses that overlap with the business electives? But this would be consistent with some trends in higher education which seem to treat a school as a business, not a non-profit or public institution charged with achieving a goal related to the well-being of our society as a whole. If I were her, I'd go talk to the business department. Languages are tough to negotiate because they're so culture-specific. They can't just pick up a bunch of credits from business electives and call it Japanese language related. On the other hand, there are probably a bunch of Japanese language electives that, if the school is worth its salt, should count towards a business degree. I'm thinking of any technical Japanese courses, study abroad credits if she studies business courses in Japan, etc. The other option, hard but a real option if the school is really going to say, "Nope, every major chosen has effectively three full years of classes that are exclusive to itself", is moving to a school that is less money-grubbing and more education-friendly. I wouldn't necessarily suggest that right off the bat, but if she goes in and they give her a load, let her know that she CAN transfer many credits and at the very least have two integrated majors. If I were dean of a foreign language department I'd be bending over backwards to make my major double-major friendly, because people are getting practical these days. But in academia people do seem to live in bubbles sometimes! http://catalog.wwu.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=10&poid=4593&returnto=1885 Above is an example of a Japanese major from what I'd call a student-friendly university (where I went, where they actually seem to think that their goal as a state institution is to provide students with efficient and meaningful preparation for life and a career... fancy that!). Note that the University of Washington, like 1.5 hours south, has about 20 more credits and none are allowed to overlap with anything else! This is just to give an example of how some universities have much better programs than others even if they don't have the ending salaries to get up in the rankings.

I'm so sorry to hear pregnancies are rough for you. I had some friends go through that and it was just so difficult to watch (tried not to just stand by but there is only so much you can do!). I will say that first grade even in private and public school is a year of solidifying skills: learning to read fluently and learning math facts. It is the year many kids make that leap to the "age of reason" and they finally start to really think things through and ask questions that are less charming and more interesting. My daughter just completed first grade in a good public school. If by the end of this year, your daughter understands that: --the world can be divided into categories that help us understand how things work (solid, liquid, gas, non-Newtonian... okay maybe not that last bit, haha) ;) --how to add and subtract numbers 1 - 12 by memory (IXL math is GREAT for this) --she can read a story and tell you the main characters, the plot (what was the problem and how did it get solved), and the setting-- Then she will have learned pretty much everything she really needs for second grade. More history would be great, but I agree that in your situation, with two little ones out of the belly and one in it, those are just going to have to come from videos. Fractions--if you can cook at ALL with her, using cups, 1/2 cups and 1/4 cups, tsps and so on, are all she needs to know. Or, if your family can afford music lessons with parks and rec or someone coming to your house, it's a great year to start and that takes care of wholes through sixteenths (though sixteenth notes usually come in year two ;) ) I hate TV but I'm always amazed at how much my kids learn from PBS kids. If that means you have the energy to sit with the family at dinner, go for it. I wish you the best of luck. First grade is a great year for her to become more independent. And first kids can be great at that! So... as a mom of two older ones, this is like my MO on a daily basis, even not being pregnant or homeschooling. I guess if I were pregnant I'd have them eating worms, lol!

Some girls don't start until 16. While unusual, it's not pathological. Same with breakouts--though I'm all for acne medication if it's leaving scars. Any reason you're concerned about this? Did the doctor say anything?

Depends on how much you pay yourself. ;~) I think it's worth making jam and drying etc. as a hobby but in terms of replacing prepared foods, I've realized that I would have to be basically making the wages of someone who didn't graduate from high school to say that I was making that money back. Of course if you use it as an educational project that's different. But just the labor itself is ridiculously expensive on such a small scale.

A boy from my high school actually suffered from this: he wasn't able to even get into college at all due to low SATs. They'd been passing him through. The school failed him. He never played college athletics outside of community college. :( It's disgusting behavior, and tragic that this is happening to these young people. I agree that there should be options that do not tie athletics to schooling, but one problem is that boys actually don't mature physically enough by the end of high school to play against full-grown men in highly physical sports. Even if they've finished growing upwards, which many of them haven't, especially not the big boys who will be potential pros, they certainly don't have the bone density and all the strength they need to play with full-grown men. Some boys can do it, but not all of them. College--not that I agree with the present system, mind you--is a good place for boys to continue growing and playing sport before they get to the pro level. I won't talk about girls because it's a totally different system--there just isn't the money in girls' sports, fortunately or unfortunately. :|

See, I'm not sure about that. I supposed I'd have to follow celebrity magazines, but even those use many outdated photos. The image I have in my head of Zelleweger is of a woman from at least 10 years ago. I have no idea what she does in her personal life, but all I can say is I can find you images of me that look MUCH more different, between the same time period, and again, I am not a celebrity, I don't make money on my looks, and I haven't even had braces, much less any "work" done. I think it is entirely possible to get most of those changes due to age and being more muscular and losing body fat. As for the eyes, that's where she looks most different, but she's also wearing a lot less eye makeup, so who knows. As for the criticism of the topic... it's gossip, yes, and if it's banned I'll stop, but I don't mind putting in a good word for another lady. :)

Screens are terribly addicting! My kids wouldn't have them except that they got them as gifts from their father. We have similar rules to others: 1. No screen time on school days--period. 2. Screen time is earned, a minute per correct math problem / grammatically correct sentence (age appropriate). Sometimes translation of text counts. 3. Schoolwork does NOT count towards screen time earning. My kids spent probably maximum 12 hours each over the entire summer watching any kind of screen, including TV, and that includes with babysitters. I am very happy with how this rule has been working for us. The consequence of "stolen" screen time is no device for one week; if they do it again within a week of getting it back, a month. We've never had to go beyond that as they know I'm serious as I've had to suffer through imposing that consequence a few times. UGH.

She just looks older to me, but I may be naive. My jaw widened and nose got bigger as I aged. I have DEFINITELY not had plastic surgery (no $ for that, hah!) but there was a definitive change around 35. Plus, thicker eyebrows change my whole face. I'm so glad I'm not a celebrity!

Do it if you can't do right by your kids without it. Otherwise, follow your gut. That's pretty much my thoughts on a lot of things. Mind you, we love public school, ourselves. I just wouldn't take the money if I thought it would compromise my values. Good luck. It's hard to say no to cash!

What is preposterous? That public schools are run on money and that funds are limited? This is not only not preposterous--it is common knowledge. That many gifted programs around the country are de facto racially segregated? Why, this has been on the front page of the New York Times. That the squeaky wheel gets the grease? I think we can all agree on that folk wisdom. That teachers are paid about 60% what others with a master's degree get, but have student debt to address? That school funds are set from the general fund and that they are then further allocated among programs, including special education, gifted education, support services, general education, and extras like services for needy children? If it sounds preposterous, check the budget allocation process for your local school district. And if you don't think that raptor dad's suggestions amounted to a major policy change with some facilities restructuring and teacher training (not saying it's impossible, far from it, they're great ideas that I support!) than I'm guessing you haven't worked on a public project over a long period of time. There are always costs, and those costs come out in money somewhere. In our district, which is fantastic, most of the costs for special enrichment programs are processed by individual families in the form of lost wages due to one educated person's spending a good 20 hours a week on the PTSA. Edit: I really do not want to appear as a troll. I think that many people have a vastly different perspective on public education than I do. I am just going to leave it at this. If you have any more insights into the ethics of the decision--rather than trying to convince me that it would really be okay for me to do something that, with the knowledge I have of the system, is wrong--please send me a personal message. Thanks!

That sounds nice in theory. Education is money and money is a zero-sum game. Somebody has to pay the teachers, and I think that's where a lot of this gets lost. Every single minute, every hour, that someone gets something, another person gets less. Every aid, every blackboard, every piece of chalk, every form filled out, every Google form designed and submitted, is quantified in a school's budget, and that gets compiled into the district, the state--you know this, I'm not giving you new information. So I wonder why you think kids are missing opportunities? There's no money sitting around not being used. No. It either costs more overall, which is worse for the person paying for it (taxpayer), or the money is taken from one bin (say, breakfasts for homeless children at school) and put into another bin (say, training and support for differentiated instruction), and that is worse for those who received the services from which the funds were taken. Change means hiring or retraining. Facilities. Materials. Hours of labor. Managing change means administration to manage the funds and staff. Maybe you're already paying an administrator but I guarantee they aren't sleeping every afternoon. And educators don't work for free. From my perspective, it looks like a whole lot of resources are spent on squeaky wheels, bells, and whistles, and far, far to few to address real problems. I can see that from an outsider's perspective, it seems so simple. "Just" change this and that, and we all live better. But there is nobody to manage these changes as administrative bodies have been gutted over the past few years. So workers will oppose change unless it benefits them directly and there's nobody to advocate. Nobody to write the grant to adjust the facilities in the extra attendance zones to accommodate these kids. I know that in theory this is not new to you. I'm not pretending you are not aware of funding shortages. I just want to lay it out so you can see that I'm not talking about some theoretical zero-sum game in which I'm whining about someone taking some ethereal education bubble from me or the poor. I am talking about the reality of our schools all the way from universal pre-k (taken from full-day kindergarten plans) to universities (in which STEM investments are gutting the humanities). You've taken an honorable route, which is to take care of your family's own needs. I do the same. We have to. There are no leftover funds. I know two teachers and neither owns a car--they take the cheaper lease. The superintendent could quit and we'd still only have, let's say in the case of your suggestion, a helper in five more of those districts. And keep in mind that's with no superintendent. Every kid deserves an enriched curriculum but every kid will not get it because there is not enough to go around. So who gets it? Every public service IS a zero-sum game, and the tax base is getting smaller and smaller and further and further away from those who use the services. There are few easy solutions, but there are no free solutions. :)

Hmmm... I think we have different interpretations and experiences of that song, but I don't want to derail the thread. Certainly we agree that pretty much everyone in our society that has not been literally under a rock has probably had some experience, direct or indirect, of racial stereotypes and that it's important to know where they come from, and books like Black Like Me are a critical part of that.

This would not be discussed in front of the other kids. My daughter has the same issue: she would rush through math and then sit there and doodle and read. Hurry up so you can have fun waiting, basically. So to me that sounds VERY consistent with what you've said about your daughter in other posts. I guess if it were feedback like what you got, I'd filter it and try to interpret it in a positive way, i.e. not problem-focused but solution focused. "You need to go over each worksheet at least once to make sure there are no mistakes. When you finish, ask for more advanced work." That is what gets them higher grades in our school, anyway. Tough call.

"but they have heard songs like Baby Got Back and that black people have rhythm" I just would like to say that Sir Mix-A-Lot is one of the most enlightened rappers I've heard; the song is about not dieting and appreciating a woman's body for what it is, NOT about black women having big butts. I feel the need to defend my fellow Seattlite because I've seen him several times and he is actually a very intelligent, decent person who is a positive force in the community. http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3493200073.html (Warning: He does quote some rap stereotypes so there are one or two swear words in that article, but he is speaking against that type of talk.) This just goes to show how important it is to read things in context and I think that reading Black Like Me in context is critical as well.

Opinion without reading the thread: Depends on the age of your teens. I could see how some young teens may not be ready for some themes. For older teens (15 - 18) I am having a hard time seeing which things you'd need to censor. I'd wait until then. After reading the thread: We just have different opinions on this. That book is, to some extent, about evil in human hearts and sins of omission and how evil begets evil. Reading it without the depth of evil and sin described is in some senses not reading it. I think you lose the theme when you lose some of the evil. I assume you are religious since you are trying to keep them from this depiction of evil, but if not, sorry for my assumption. My question to a Christian would be, would you read the Bible without the genocide of the Philistines? Without the death and destruction in Revelation? Would you read the New Testament without the story of the prostitute and throwing the first stone? There are horrible stories in the Bible, absolutely vile things. But they are instructional. Every single story in Black Like Me, in my memory, was instructional in that way, but about the same themes happening in our own country very recently. I believe that any child who can handle the Bible can handle Black Like Me. The middle road for me, I suppose, would be to go through with a Sharpie and mark out all the swear words and n-words. I had never heard the n-word in real life, in anything other than history books condemning its use, as a teen, but I was completely able to handle it. I was not traumatized and that book actually did a lot to put it in context for me. I am so glad I read Black Like Me and Invisible Man before being exposed to gangsta rap (I knew about rap but didn't listen to the uncensored version, which you had to buy, before college, when I met kids with huge CD collections). Best of luck. What a great journey to be able to explore that with your kids.

I'd enroll at least for one year at least. I sent my children to school in Europe for a year, then bilingual school and supplemented with English at home and it's been totally worth it. It's an unbelievable opportunity to be overseas. Best of luck to your family. International moves are so challenging!

The program is the way it is because of the extremely strong advocacy on the part of parents. Warning: Long, irritating, generalization-making rant ahead. Read at your own peril. But I'm leaving it up just so if anyone asks again I can just refer them to my many, many issues with this whole thing. Some cynicism ahead. I am sorry but this has just been my experience not so much on this board but on the Internet boards for gifted education and education in general. :( It is not meant to be personal. Telling 300 parents that I don't think that chess club from age 3 and IQ test prep means your child is a special needs student by the state's definition is not likely to go over well. Have you ever heard the quote (I think it's Margaret Atwood) "Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse for some." The people who have the most to lose with a change in the program have already demonstrated that they will fight tooth and nail to get their kids every single service they possibly can, regardless of whether any other child loses out, and regardless of whether public funds are intended to serve the interests of individual families at the expense of the state, the community, and less-priviledge children. In fact, I hear precisely that attitude on this board to some extent, though I came back here because I got a much more moral response overall than certain other boards, i.e. more on gifted forums. Get what you can for your kid--it's a dog-eat-dog world so if you can use a loophole do it ("Loophole"="exepmtion" based on a "special need", never mind that if "not gifted in every area equally" is a "special need" and so is being gifted in every area, I guess all kids have special needs... ). I am pretty sure that of the parents who have commented on my thread at the gifted advocacy forums (not WTM), nearly every single one of them paid for multiple private (i.e. unregulated) tests and got exemptions to ensure that their child, whom they were uniquely qualified to evaluate as one of the truly special in this world, got public services. (You can see this in their other posts.) The repeated suggestions, on four different message boards, that I try to get my kid any number of exemptions to skirt the rules, have really dampened my enthusiasm for humanity, to be honest. It's been a very sad journey for me to see just how willing people are to game the system because "after all, you're all your kid has", as if that justifies things like abuse of public funds. I mean where does that end? Not to mention, it's deeply hurt my belief that the public school system is a meritocratic system, at least mostly, and for all children to succeed through hard work. I mean this has been the nail in the coffin I guess. So I am just not the person to advocate from within if I don't get there honestly. I have no faith in the exemptions or that they will be used ethically. I will navigate my family in a moral way. I will comment on public policies from a position that I feel comfortable in, which is to say the position where I did not take more than I earned, more than was set out for my by the people of my state for my kids. So again, I contacted the principal and asked how I can best achieve a good mindset environment for my kid and my family, one of high expectations and achievement, while at the same time respecting every child at that school, profoundly gifted, profoundly prepared, or in need of any kind of special services or what. She is very experienced and not in any way responsible for the individual choices that families have made to get into that program--she is just working to make the school work for every child. And that is what I'll advocate for. At the very least I was in a much better gifted program as a child so I have that going for me!

They offer IQ test prep in the district, but it is banned.I actually saw one family--white, native English speakers--coaching their child on specific questions before the test. I thought that was pretty brazen! (I only mention race because I talked before of certain sub-cultures having different attitudes towards test prep so I wanted to let you all know that I do see that it happens everywhere!) The program is only one grade level ahead. So that is, to me, not in any way a program driven by the needs of highly gifted children. In fact it's much more driven by the needs of children like my own child, ironically... Anyway, your many points are valuable. I contacted the principal to talk about mindset and self-talk in a highly segregated school in a way that keeps a child positive towards 100% of the student body no matter what their advantages or disadvantages are, and I am looking forward to hearing back from her. That is too bad! Does she get another chance next year? Verbal IQ tests are a bit screwy, in my opinion. I always did poorly until I figured out the trick, and then I aced it, getting a really superb, out of this world score as an adult. So the intelligence was always there, I just didn't understand what they were asking for. I know that sounds strange, but honestly, I think English majors speak a different dialect of English.

I never kept you all posted. :) My daughter passed the math portion (99th %, 135 - 145 IQ in math) but for the verbal portion did well on the subject matter (also 99th%) but below average verbal IQ. So she did not get in. She got recommended for testing again this year, but doesn't want to spend two Saturdays doing it. I don't know whether I should ask her or not. I will say that I wrote letters to the school board about my issues with IQ test prep (which had been advertised by after-school program) and the idea of self-recommendations, and they actually changed it for K and 1st and now test 100% of pupils in-school. I know that sounds crazy to take away from instructional time but for such a high-stakes program, I'm glad that nobody had time to prep. I feel good about making my voice heard. I don't think I was the only one. It changed the program to be more egalitarian. This year I think her math score will go down as she's been in public school for a year, so I don't know if it's worth it. It is a lot of work for a 2nd grader who has a very slim chance. I'm almost ready to say, don't take the test, instead you will do another gifted program that does enrichment outside of school, and just do a few special classes with her. Make her feel special and give her the work to get her into the advanced track in high school.

Thanks! That's sad about your brother and yet another reason I'm not sure I need to know a number. Both my kids are bright in their own ways. I'd hate to be biased towards one even subconsciously...

So. We did the test around the holidays. Test results went out today. I told her it was a practice test and she has no idea that there were any possible results. I have floated the idea of her being challenged in school and she said, "Uh, that's okay. I like being smart." we will continue challenging her at home regardless. Anyway, now I'm the nervous one be ause it's a NUMBER and I don't know if I need that in my head. I like seeing her in a qualitative way. I might have an objective person look at it and just tell me if I have to do anything and then tear it up. pardon the typos. This was written on a phone.

It is supposed to be a discussion, not a lecture. I'm not invoking the existence of god. If you read carefully, I'm discussing the conceptualization of things outside of space time. For the vast majority of people, the only object that they have heard of, which is not in space time, is the idea of a god as the final cause. I don't believe in god but I do think it is interesting that a great deal of progress in theoretical math and philosophy came about from trying to reconcile the idea of god as a cause, god as all-knowing and merciful, etc. Finally, I did not say that theoretical physics IS mathematics IS science. There is a huge difference between an overlap in subject matter at one point (namely, what numbers refer to) and being the same thing. I will engage in meaningful discussion but I am not going to explain myself if explanations are not read. It should be clear that there are many schools of thought regarding math but you must define your terms before beginning the debate.

How utterly depressing. My neighbor teaches 10th grade English, gifted and general education, and they read two novels (international) the first month, and they have to write long essays as well as turn in a daily journal of words they themselves identify, not to mention projects on content to demonstrate understanding and ability to think critically about the text, as well as tests on content. I know because I asked. :) My own 10th grade was at an "average" school but we read a novel a month, and we had spelling and grammar at the same time, plus a project for each novel. On the other hand, my own state apparently scored above both Finland and Singapore in TIMSS tests so... we might not be Massachussetts but our schools aren't failing, either.

Disagree. You can solve problems that involve absolutely no computation. Geometrical constructions. Proofs. Finding a general relationship between any function and its slope at any point -i.e. inventing the concept of calculus. I also do not think we should call math a science. It is not. I was using the term "problem" in a most narrow sense. If you include proofs, etc. as I said later, then not only is mathematics only problems, but pretty much all learning involves problem-solving, even drawing. I am not suggesting you're wrong to use that term to apply to proofs. I just thought OP meant "problems" as in "computation problems" because that is what most kids see. Moreover, I could easily leave the term "science" but that is a theoretical question. Does mathematics exist outside of spacetime? Is it sensical to speak about identity and the law thereof, without invoking a notion of space, which is to say, the material world? This is where theoretical physics, analytic metaphysics, logic, and mathematics overlap and I wouldn't be so hasty to say that math is not a science. However, I agree that it's debateable! "There is a range of views among mathematicians and philosophers as to the exact scope and definition of mathematics.[7][8]" (From Wikipedia, sorry :blushing: ). Temporal relationships belong in the realm of physics. THAT is science. It may use math as a tool, but math itself knows no "time". Now this conversation is getting exciting! Let us say that spatiotemporal relationships are outside the realm of 'pure' mathematics. What, then, do we mean when we say that a=a? Is it possible to conceive of quantity outside of spacetime? How do we know that our concept of quantity is not dependent upon our mental framework, which is structured to process sensory input in terms of space and time? Without time and space, there is no law of identity, as far as we know: http://www.oberlin.edu/faculty/mwallace/LeibnizsLaw.html All the qualities that you could name to me, are spatiotemporal. Even when we move from the metaphysics of God the Final Cause, to describe the attributes of God in a non-spatio-temporal sense is always a struggle. I personally read quite a bit about it and ultimately it was said to be a matter of faith, that all of our metaphors essentially "translated" a non-spatio-temporal god into human terms, but that we could not conceive of the true perfection of god, primarily because we could not get the non-spatio-temporal aspects. Whether it is possible to conceive of quantity or quality without appealing to nature is an ongoing, and extremely lively, philosophical debate. I bring up god because god is the most familiar example of a non-spatio-temporal object to most people. There are other suppositions about non-spatio-temporal objects, particularly if by "space" one only refers to the three dimensions in which we experience our existence daily (without respect to those that we might be existing in, without realizing it on an everyday basis, or time). However, these are so theoretical that to use them as examples here would probably not be fruitful. The point is, just try to explain "1" without using a spatial example. (Spoiler alert: I've probably read a good 20 academic papers on whether or not this was possible and attempts to do so and arguments about whether or not it was done, and believe me, it's harder than you might think!) Exactly. But now you are contradicting yourself - see beginning of post. No, I did not say that mathematics did not involve computation, which is a part of determining relationships between things. I did not intend these to be mutually exclusive categories. I was very clear that computation is a part of mathematics. We can distinguish between fruits and apples, but that does not mean an apple is not a fruit. Regarding the use of the word "problem", that is why it is in quotes: because it serves as an example of the use of "problem" in the academic sense, it's not an example of a computation problem. I believe that the OP's question is ultimately semantic so it's not going to be useful to continue on assuming terms. I think they should be defined, which I tried to do, though we may disagree on the definitions. Let's use your sense of "problem", by which, nearly everything in academia (not to mention life) is a "problem" and if you can produce a definition of mathematics I'm perfectly happy to use it. I just don't want to go around in circles. Incidentally, regarding the debate on math as a science: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics#Mathematics_as_science :001_wub: Gödel...

I guess my feeling is that this isn't so damaging, but it IS why we after-school. I would pick up a great phonics program and use it with him regularly. Let him know that there is a time and a place for estimation, like in math, but being exact is always better if you can do it. I wouldn't say don't worry, as in, don't think about it but I would plug along nonetheless. Good luck! They do a mix of phonics and guessing at my child's school. I just tell her, don't guess unless your eyes are fuzzy or you literally cannot figure out the rule, but then go back and clarify.