Curious--does being placed in an advanced program in public school mean...

[MommyInTraining]

In 2nd grade I was tested and then for the next year was placed in "advanced" 3rd grade at a different school that offered advanced classes. I remained in the "advanced" class throughout 8th grade.

 

I am just curious now because I never considered myself to be "exceptionally" smart. Was that test that I took to place me in the "advanced" program a test for "giftedness"?

 

Hoping someone can help me to interpret what being placed in an "advanced" class meant for me :).

 

Thanks for any help you can offer!

[KristenS]

Probably?

 

Every school has different requirements for what it takes to get into advanced or gifted classes, so it would depend on what rules your school used at the time.

 

I remember being baffled about it in school too, when I was sure some of my best friends were as smart as I was supposed to be ... didn't we make the same grades, and have fun doing the same creative things? But I was in the classes, and they weren't. Go figure.

 

But if you were qualified enough to be placed in a totally separate school because of it ... schools don't usually make accomodations like that unless they have to. So you probably really earned the 'gifted' label. :)

 

ETA: For what it's worth, the gifted folks I know don't usually consider themselves all that smart either. I think it just makes us more aware of how many things there are to know, that we don't know. :)

[Storm Bay]

It might mean gifted, it might mean bright. It could be something like an honours program. Without knowing the guidelines it's hard to say. When my sister and I were dc and went to CA for a couple of years, they had a gifted program with a clearly defined percentile that was for dc who were in the top 2 percentile (so could be in the top 1 percentile, etc, but not someone who scored 97th percentile.). Therefore, many bright dc were not in the program who could have done more advanced work.

[rockermom]

Probably?

 

Every school has different requirements for what it takes to get into advanced or gifted classes, so it would depend on what rules your school used at the time.

 

I remember being baffled about it in school too, when I was sure some of my best friends were as smart as I was supposed to be ... didn't we make the same grades, and have fun doing the same creative things? But I was in the classes, and they weren't. Go figure.

 

But if you were qualified enough to be placed in a totally separate school because of it ... schools don't usually make accomodations like that unless they have to. So you probably really earned the 'gifted' label. :)

 

ETA: For what it's worth, the gifted folks I know don't usually consider themselves all that smart either. I think it just makes us more aware of how many things there are to know, that we don't know. :)

 

I feel like I wrote this response. I felt the same way about my friends in school. I thought the whole "gifted thing" was B.S. I hated being singled out.

 

...and I agree, you probably earned that label.

[Storm Bay]

I feel like I wrote this response. I felt the same way about my friends in school. I thought the whole "gifted thing" was B.S. I hated being singled out.

 

...and I agree, you probably earned that label.

 

 

The whole "gifted thing" can be a lifesaver for some dc. Of course, being homeschooled can do the same thing. Some kids are just too bored in regular classrooms and will turn off or tune out.

[Mommy22alyns]

Any time I was tested to get into anything, I think it was the IQ test. My high school offered honors and AP classes, but they had a separate TAG program that I recall testing into. It was rather crap though - they pulled you out for some time in the basement supervised by a coach for some independent study thing and nobody was studying anything, they were typing up college applications. :glare: They didn't care for my idea of reading The Communist Manifesto and doing a Great Books-esque discussion/analysis on it. I opted back out of the program.

 

FWIW, I've never considered myself to be "exceptionally smart" either...

Edited June 15, 2009 by Mommy22alyns

[joannqn]

My experience in school was totally different. At my first school, there was a clear line between the three of us who eventually were tested and moved to a new school and the rest of the class. I remember being very aware of it. It was two boys and I. The three of us were ALWAYS grouped together for read, math, spelling, etc. I don't remember what the boys did, but I also remember getting out of class to tutor the lower grades or being sent to shelve library books while waiting for the rest of the class to catch up so I could rejoin the lessons. Then the three of us were all taken out of class for a test one day. The next year, we all were transferred to a new school where the expectations and work load were so much harder. I remember the transition from top of the class to just average was hard to accept at first.

 

From what I've read, the requirements for the GATE (gifted and talented education) classes, in the 80s in CA, were 130 or higher on IQ testing.

[joannqn]

The whole "gifted thing" can be a lifesaver for some dc. Of course, being homeschooled can do the same thing. Some kids are just too bored in regular classrooms and will turn off or tune out.

 

I agree, except that many schools need to get a clue and start testing/differentiating/accelerating earlier. Many don't test until 3rd and 4th grade and many students check out before then.

[Tree House Academy]

I have a different spin on the gifted classes. I was always in them in school - in middle school I was in the Commonwealth program (KY version of gifted, I think). Then, in highschool, I was advanced and took college classes as a sophomore and on up. When my older son was born, I saw tendancies of "giftedness" in him. For instance, he worked a 1000 piece, double sided puzzle (the pieces were literally the size od a penny) in about 3 hours one day. Then he tore it up and built the other side in about half that time. He was always an "outside the box" type thinker and his teacher in 2nd grade ps told me that she would be shocked if he wasn't gifted. He was not tested and then we pulled him out of ps. Working with him one on one, I now see very few signs of giftedness. He actually has some struggles that I never expected and lots of GAPS from being one of the smarter kids in his class (less attention paid to him than to kids who struggled more). Because if this, his work is average to slightly above average here at home.

 

That said, I have never heard anyone refer to themselves as "exceptionally smart." I always thought I was smart and could do anything I wanted to do...but "exceptionally smart"...NO. Now, the guy I dated in highschool, HE was exceptionally smart! He had a 32 on his ACT and never, not in his whole life, so much as made a *B* in school. However, he dropped out of college, got into drugs, and I think ended up working at the dollar tree for about 6 years. He finally went back and got a degree in History and straightened out, but good grief...talk about wasted potential! Exceptionally smart does not equal exceptionally gifted in common sense. LOL

[rockermom]

The whole "gifted thing" can be a lifesaver for some dc. Of course, being homeschooled can do the same thing. Some kids are just too bored in regular classrooms and will turn off or tune out.

 

We had a "pull out" program for gifted (at the time, a score of 140+ on whatever I.Q. test they used granted one that label). Our program was 1 hour per week of "critical thinking" and "brainstorming" activities. I was also given additional work (usually from teachers in higher grades) to keep me occupied when I finished what everyone else was assigned.

 

It was more like a punishment at our school. I think that being homeschooled would have been a lifesaver for students labeled as gifted in our school.

 

Until your post, I never knew that some states had special public schools for gifted children.

[Tree House Academy]

Isn't 140+ in the genius range? I remember the test being 125 and up for giftedness...may have been a different test, though.

[rockermom]

Isn't 140+ in the genius range? I remember the test being 125 and up for giftedness...may have been a different test, though.

 

It probably was. I was eight, so I have no idea. I would say it had different standards. I remember the paper they sent home to my parents explained the guidelines. (I wasn't supposed to read it, but I thought the sealed envelope meant that I was in trouble). 140+ with a 5 point grace... 135 and up could get in. They would consider that perhaps the 135-139 were having a bad day or something.

 

I don't know. It was TN in the very early 80's. How can I find out what test it was?

[MommyInTraining]

(KY version of gifted, I think).

 

 

 

This was in Louisville, KY around the early 80's.

[asta]

There was a pull-out, one day a week "other" school that I went to in grade/middle school.

 

At the time, it was called a "gifted" program, but the assortment of kids was... odd. The kids there weren't necessarily the "A" students. Also, the curriculum was all critical thinking, scheduling, patterning, "how to learn" type stuff. It was quite advanced, but that didn't seem to be the point.

 

Last year I was rifling through a box of stuff my mom had saved for me from my childhood and found a "progress report" from that school. Near as I can tell, it had more to do with developing the particular skills of HFAs and Aspies than anything else.

 

Strangely, my sister's kids have also done the program (30 years later).

 

Huh.

 

 

a

[Truscifi]

I also went to a separate school for gifted kids. The requirements for our school were both IQ and GPA - I think most gifted programs use IQ to determine eligibility, some also use GPA, but very few will let a child in on GPA alone. That always seemed silly to me, since so many 'exceptionally smart' kids don't want to do the work, while so many bright kids do.

 

I was originally tested in SC in the mid 80's, then again in Alabama in the late 80's. The separate school was a high school in Alabama in the early to mid 90's.

Edited June 15, 2009 by Truscifi
to add location

[Storm Bay]

I agree, except that many schools need to get a clue and start testing/differentiating/accelerating earlier. Many don't test until 3rd and 4th grade and many students check out before then.

 

 

I agree. The year I did this, all we did was work on bibliographies. The following year I went to a private school (much harder than the ps, so better) and my sister got to do some frog dissections, etc, which had a lot more to it.

[Storm Bay]

There was a pull-out, one day a week "other" school that I went to in grade/middle school.

 

At the time, it was called a "gifted" program, but the assortment of kids was... odd. The kids there weren't necessarily the "A" students.

Strangely, my sister's kids have also done the program (30 years later).

 

Huh.

 

 

a

 

 

Gifted kids don't always get A's, particularly if they're bored out of their skulls and don't bother to do all of the work. If it's done with a good IQ test then it's a whole different kettle of fish than if you simply take A students. Not all A students are gifted.

[OrganicAnn]

Have you thought about asking your parents? They probably were informed of your test results and why you were put in the separate class.

[Nan in Mass]

LOL

Most of our lessons were individualized, so I guess the idea was to offer enrichment to the students who could afford to spend less time on their regular lessons? I suppose it slowed us down a bit, too GRIN, if we were whizzing through the math cart too quickly. We were told not to boast about it to the other students. It was offered as a treat for working hard, and it felt like a treat. Somebody's father came in and taught a traditional shop class. I would have prefered to learn a foreign language, I suppose, but I certainly wasn't complaining about being able to go build something while my classmates were doing math and spelling.

 

Then we switched school systems and I spent all of middle school and half high school bouncing around. I was put in the high classes, but the teachers there didn't like me because I couldn't spell and hadn't memorized my math tables, so they'd send me back to the low classes where the teachers kindly explained that I was so far ahead of the class that I was welcome to just go ahead and do the assignment on my own and then read whatever I liked. Then those teachers would send me back to the high classes. Fortunately, the math got sorted out soon enough that I could take calculus. Sigh. The individualized school system that offered shop to the advanced students was wonderful compared the the traditional-minded new town.

 

-Nan

[KristenS]

I was originally tested in SC in the mid 80's, then again in Alabama in the late 80's. The separate school was a high school in Alabama in the early to mid 90's.

 

You might've gone to school with my sister ... was it the math school in Mobile that you got to attend?

 

I know our gifted programs in our city (early 80s) were IQ-based. Not sure what the middle school used (we moved, but I was just assumed to already be in it), and our high school was useless ... hardly any AP at all. My sis got to go to the math and science school in Mobile in the early/mid 90s. At least it was less mind-numbing there, though it sounds like they got up to a lot of mischief. LOL.

 

My kids aren't tested or anything, but as dh and I were both in the gifted programs and our kids are alarmingly like us, I'm assuming they are gifted. I am very glad that homeschool allows us to move at whatever pace is appropriate (as best I can guess it, anyway. Sigh.).

[Truscifi]

No, I didn't go to the one in Mobile, although it was an option we considered. My parents lived in Birmingham and didn't want to send me to boarding school, and the gifted high school in Birmingham (called RLC) was just as good - better IMHO :tongue_smilie:. I might have met your sister at various competitions though - we all went to the same ones. And we got into a lot of mischief too LOL.

[asta]

Gifted kids don't always get A's, particularly if they're bored out of their skulls and don't bother to do all of the work. If it's done with a good IQ test then it's a whole different kettle of fish than if you simply take A students. Not all A students are gifted.

 

Oh no, I know that. It was just odd, knowing now what I do about AS disorders, to see that report. It made the list of who I was there with make a LOT more sense. (I'd always wondered about a few of them...)

 

 

a

[MommyInTraining]

Have you thought about asking your parents? They probably were informed of your test results and why you were put in the separate class.

 

 

Well, I was raised by my grandparents. My grandmother may have known some info, but she is recently deceased.

 

Actually, it was my 2nd grade teacher who pushed for the testing for me after I didn't do well on it the first time around. She came to my wedding reception, so maybe there would be some way I could still get in touch with her :).

[Storm Bay]

Oh no, I know that. It was just odd, knowing now what I do about AS disorders, to see that report. It made the list of who I was there with make a LOT more sense. (I'd always wondered about a few of them...)

 

 

a

 

Interesting.

[aly9712]

I'm a teacher and at my school being in an advanced class is different from being in the gifted class. For instance, with math in 8th grade- there are 3 levels.

standard grade 8 math (pre-algebra)

advanced 8 math (algebra)

gifted math (geometry)

 

 

so it could really vary. You could have a gifted child (maybe just not gifted in math, taking any of the courses). You could have an advanced class in either the standard or advanced class...just generally in the gifted class, tracking would have to occurred way before grade 8 to prepare them for that level of math- so rarely do you see any child in there who is not "identified" as gifted. Hope this helps.