[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Gifted children

[Laura Huntley]

catlady_de_los_angeles:
>Dear upfront persistent Laura, you sound like you could be speaking 
>of your own personal experience with some kids age 3 to 4 years older 
>than you. 

^_~ Slightly.  Although my biggest problem was (and still is) that the things that matter to me just aren't the things that matter to other kids, no matter what the age group.


>You left out, scolded by parents for bringing all this trouble on 
>themselves by fidgeting in boring class and not having social skills 
>with the other kids. Of course, THOSE parents don't bring their kids 
>to you.

Yes.  And the same thing happens to kids like my brother with ADHD, who will never find anything that involves sitting at a desk for hours on end very interesting -- parents and teachers alike really need to stop putting the emphasis on the little "behavioral problems" like fidgeting and try to look behind the problem to see what's really going on.

On a side note, I remember the first time I ever had a class that interested me -- halfway through my sophomore year of high school.  My teacher was talking about some subject that I'd never covered very thoroughly -- and all the little facets of it just were fitting together so *perfectly*...It was amazing -- sort of like waking up from a particularly tedious dream.  I just sort of sat up and went "Oh, wow, that is *wonderful*."  My teacher gave me the strangest look ever -- I have a feeling he may have thought I was being sarcastic, but nothing could have been further from the truth.  It was one of the best feelings ever.

>Hmm. Maybe she is arguing that the correct solution is to put the 
>kids in an entire 20 to 40 student class who are all the same age and 
>same intelligence, in a school where each grade has an entire 20 to 
>40 person class of the same intelligence and there are no classes of 
>dumb (excuse me, "normal") people in the whole school. 

^_^ Yeah.  That's pretty much my idea.  But there *is* the whole problem with the population not being able to support a regular (read: non-boarding) school of this type in each town...and some kids/parents being unable to deal with the separation of a boarding school.

Although Harry and Co. seem to deal with it pretty well...^_~ heh.

>Perhaps little six year olds aren't too young to go to boarding 
>school IF they can go home every weekend ... I'm thinking about the 
>travel time from any place in California to any place in California 
>... from big city to big city, you spend much longer in the airports 
>than on the airplane, but for small towns or out in the country, 
>there are LONG drives from the nearest airport...

At MSSM, which is for high school sophomore-seniors (and the occasional deferring senior) we go home every 3 weeks -- if there are no holidays during this time, we get an extended weekend (3 or 4 days) at home...as for things like April vacation (which all students in Maine get) we get a bit longer than the standard one week...and we get 3 weeks off around Christmas...

Going home (or at least leaving campus) is mandatory during extendeds and vacations and all students are ferried to wherever they're going by the school..my bus ride (one of the longest) is about 4 or 5 hours long -- it's not as bad as it sounds.  No one goes to the airport, for obvious reasons...there's only one in Maine anyway.  There aren't any students that *don't* live in Maine (tuition is paid for Maine residents, but it's pretty steep for someone from out-of-state who wants to go here) excepting foreign exchange students, who have host families in Maine anyway.

Speaking of host families, every student at MSSM who wants one gets one.  Usually a family right in town.  Allot of kids go to their host families on the weekends or afternoons for home-cooked meals or to engage in some activity or just sleep in a "real" bed...For kids taking some kind of extra-curricular activity (ballet, driver's ed, a driving test) a host mom or dad generally ferries the kid back and forth -- otherwise an RA takes him or her.

Also on weekends, quite a few of my friend's (real) families come and get them for a couple of days at home..obviously, this usually only applies to those living within an hour or 2 of the school.

All students are required to live on-campus, however, even if their home is within walking distance of the school.  I'm not really clear on why this is.

Incidentally, while once in school, students are more likely to be classified as 1st year, 2nd year, 3rd...(as opposed to sophomore, junior, senior) Freshman are *not* accepted...the standard reason being that kids that young aren't supposed to be emotionally ready for the stress of living away from home and handling the huge workload at MSSM without parental supervision.

Math, English, and Science classes are all separated based on difficulty.  E.g. Before Calculus classes include BC AB (before calculus, covering parts A and B), BC AB/BC (before calculus, covering parts A, B, and C) and BC squared (you get the idea now right?) below Before Calculus there's some other class and then "Integ" (whatever that means..affectionately referred to as "Advanced Counting")...Above BC is Calculus AB, AB/BC, and BC...then there's a few more optional classes such as statistics and multi-variable.

All first-years are required to take a version of Composition and Research..and then there are a variety of literature classes to take your second and third years.

For Math and English, you take pre-tests during the application process (M.C. for Math and an Essay for English) which determine where you start (this system isn't perfect, obviously, and the first week there tends to be allot of jumping up or down levels by several students)...

Science classes such as Physics, Biology, and Chemistry are also tiered in the same manner as the Math and English's..but there are no pre-tests...which is unfortunate...it's pretty hard to just guess where you belong.

Umm..wow. Well..my point is that it works out pretty well for people here.  The biggest emotional problem for kids here seems to stem from the fact that we're VERY far north and during the winter there's barely any daylight..plus the unfamiliarly large workload -- allot of kids get pretty depressed about mid-winter.

>From my experience, a school like this for younger kids could work if there were more RA's and those RA's had a bigger hand in discipline, support, etc...more like parental figures.  At MSSM, the RA's aren't really supposed to be like parents -- usually if they try it leads to great amounts of conflict.  Things work best here if RA's leave us to our own devices as far as getting our work done, handling our freedom responsibly, etc.  and only interfere when a student is breaking major rules, etc.

My personal opinion is that if a student at MSSM can't enforce reasonable restrictions on him/herself, and the RA's have to get involved -- that student probably isn't mature enough to be here anyway.

But, of course, younger kids would need allot more structure in the discipline area.

>Snap! I had one friend for only one year in regular school. I don't 
>know why she wasn't very popular with the normal kids either, but she 
>was very religious (in an appropriately childish way) and always 
>said: "Don't be so sad, Jesus loves you."

I had one friend from 2nd grade until I came to MSSM...although -- she wasn't so much a friends as sort of a social shield.  Don't get me wrong..I love her and she's almost family, but...I wouldn't have continued being friends with her for any length of time except for the fact that she sort of -- claimed me and refused to let me go.  She's sort of the kind of person that makes having friends a hobby -- and she's incredibly good at it..I'm not really sure why she wanted me -- or why she wanted to *keep* me (God knows I wasn't easy to stay friends with)...except that perhaps she could sort of relax around me, whereas with other people she had this elaborate facade going...or maybe she's just the possessive type, I don't know.

I guess though, in some ways, if I had wanted to make other friends, she would have prevented that -- but I had no urge to socialize anyway, so it wasn't really a problem...There have been times when I've hated her, but -- I don't know...for a long time she was the only person who was even remotely my friend, and I'm grateful for that...I know I wasn't easy.

I really couldn't imagine my life without her...would I have had other friends?  Would I have been more or less depressed?  It's really hard to say...but it's probably a good thing that I'm on my own now..time for little Laura to grow up and learn how to make her own friends.

laura


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