Fed up with standardized tests May 19, 2012
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, gifted, teaching, Uncategorized.Tags: education, gifted, gifted education, standardized exams, teaching
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When I was a kid, I remember taking Iowa Basics tests every couple years. I remember this because I was both stunned and disappointed. I was usually impressed because my grade equivalencies placed me at least three grades ahead of then current placement with the gap widening as time went on. The disappointment was because nothing ever came of it. I sort of assumed that everyone I was going to school with must have similar scores because I was kept with the same people, in the same grade, without even so much an acknowledgement.
Well, okay, there was an acknowledgement – there were usually comments about how my math computation scores were so much lower than everything else. (This is what led me to believe, for many years, that I was bad at math.)
My kids haven’t used Iowa Basics, and I find this very disappointing. In a move that I can only assume is a result of No Child Left Behind (or, as I affectionately like to refer to it, the “Lake Wobegon Law” because everyone must be above average), there has been a shift away from tests like Stanford Achievement or Iowa Basics to NWEA Map testing.
The only way I can describe this is useless info that’s providing a moving target. The test provides percentiles and approximate ranges for competencies in various subfields. It is frequently renormed. In many respects, it’s the same as any other standardized test.
My beef is that, as far as I can tell, the only purpose of the test is to see how your student(s) compare with the rest of your district or nationally. On the other hand, I will say that it’s not the only one that does this. However, it seems like there are a lot of schools moving this way, and I see it as a huge detriment. The reason is that I don’t think you can make decisions about a child based strictly on their performance compared to a norm. However, that’s exactly what teachers want to do. They see an area of relative weakness in a child and want to hold them to that level for all of their abilities. I am left to ponder why it is they never want the child to be working at the level where they are capable and make an attempt to bring the weak areas up to par with the strong areas. Of course, if you have nothing to determine where they’re actually achieving, it’s hard to implement that type of education.
This leads me to wonder: how does a child working at age level help them to develop skills above age level? If you’re teaching a child stuff s/he already knows, aren’t you just holding them back?
The complaints I received about my ‘lousy’ math computation scores are one example of this. I have several tests showing this problem which constantly elicited comments from teachers about how I was poor at math. I get the impression that they looked for personal weaknesses but never really made the connection that my average was different than most of the other kids. Their solution, therefore, was to have me work on more computation at grade level.
Scores that only consist of a percentage relative to norms tell you is that one’s performance relative to everyone else may be an area of weakness. It doesn’t tell you, however, where you’re really achieving. It’s a bit different if you have a grade equivalency sitting next to the norms. It turns out that my ‘lousy’ math computation scores implied that my computation was equivalent to the average child two grades ahead of me. And it should be fairly obvious that if they wanted to me to be achieving more strongly in computation, they would have been giving me more computation at 2-3 years ahead of grade level. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened, and most often, it’s still not. It’s a lot harder to dismiss a child’s achievements when you have a solid basis of comparison (a kid two or three years older) than some vague percentile. Those percentiles don’t give teachers a true picture of achievement; how many teachers have frequency tables for a normal distribution sitting nearby? My impression is that it leaves them only feeling that when a child is at a very high level, the child is learning and thriving in their current environment. They have the mistaken impression that the child is having their needs met, when in reality, the child could be seriously underperforming relative to their potential. Likewise, they may get the impression that a child is struggling but fail to realize that it’s because they lack basics from prior years.
I therefore would like tests to go back to giving grade equivalencies. I think this illuminates the level of child achievement and gives teachers a better idea of what they are actually dealing with. There is a good amount of research showing that teachers are actually some of the worst identifiers of children’s intellectual gifts, and taking away the frame of reference that grade equivalencies provide is going to make it worse for the child and parents or other advocates.
What my kids read… May 3, 2012
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, younger son.Tags: astrology, books, paranormal, reading, skepticism
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The younger son has had a fear of reading due to his perfectionistic tendencies. In the past few months, however, he’s really taken an interest in it, especially when there are comic books available. (Yay for Marvel comics!) I’m really not too picky about what my kids read. I’m of the opinion that the more you read, the more you learn to think critically.
Or at least, that’s what I thought until the younger boy brought a book home from the library on “Unsolved Mysteries.” Basically, the book talks about all these events that are apparently paranormal. As a scientist who is also a bit on the skeptical side (though I don’t like the term skeptic, despite our subscription to Skeptical Inquirer), I have to admit that it got my hackles up a bit. At first, I wanted to go complain to the librarian.
The funny thing is, though, that I had to sit back and remember that I used to read this stuff, too. I remember checking out books on the Bermuda Triangle and astrology. In fact, I, at one point, went through and plotted out full astrology charts for everyone in my family. I fascinated my family by finding out interesting little factoids like that my sister was actually a Taurus and not an Aries, like we’d always thought, because her sign didn’t fall on the normal dates the year she was born, for some strange reason.
As I continued to read and learn about this stuff, however, I started coming across counter points to all the supernatural phenomena I was interested in. As I became more educated as a scientist, I began looking at how people were conducting their ‘experiments’. And, probably most important, I wanted to know how things worked: I wasn’t satisfied with explanations of, “It can’t be explained!” Eventually, I began looking at things much differently.
I realize the younger boy will probably be walking around for a while talking about the stuff he reads in the book. However, I’m trying to look at this as an opportunity to introduce him to questioning things that he reads and get him thinking about whether or not he can find what might be a more realistic explanation of how things work. It’s a slow process, and it won’t be helped by not exposing him to these things. And having a cultural reference to these things aren’t always bad: we still like to joke about my sister being bull-headed.
Permanent position April 24, 2012
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, research, science.Tags: academia, funding, science funding, soft money
8 comments
The other day, I was talking with a professor who was asking about my employment situation. After clarifying where I was at, he said, “But your husband has a permanent position, right?”
“Permanent insofar as he’s on soft money, too.”
One thing that’s become fairly obvious is that there has been a bit of confusion about our research center. A lot of people don’t realize we run entirely on soft money, which is a very uncomfortable situation to be in. It’s even more uncomfortable when both members of a couple are in that situation.
I recently read this article about the money trail in academia, and it got me thinking: what would happen if PIs were in the same situation as some of the rest of us. That is, what if they not only had no tenure, but also had to bring in their own salary? (I say this is the realization that, in some places, this is the case.)
I have a lot of thoughts on what may happen, but I’m going to put them in a separate post. In fact, by the time this post has been published, I will already have my post written so as to be untainted by potential comments. In the meantime, however, I’m curious what you think. Do you think this sort of system would help or hurt academia? Encourage or discourage competition, quality, efficiency? Do you think this would motivate the system to change or would it just be more of the same?
Evals, part two April 21, 2012
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, engineering, teaching.Tags: evaluations, teaching
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I got my ratings for teaching last semester, which I discuss here. I didn’t get back any comments, however. When I went down to campus this week, I found out that the secretary for the dept. has to type all of the comments in and give me a typewritten copy…and they’d been sitting in my box for two months. (I didn’t realize I still had a box since I wasn’t teaching this semester!) This is apparently to maximize the anonymity of the students.
Of the 90ish students, 11 left comments. I’m kind of surprised because it seemed like before, fully half of the students left comments. Usually I like to pull out a sample, but since there are so few, I’ll just put them all down…numbered so I can refer to them more easily.
1. Relatively easy course. Good use of Blackboard. Made communicating easy and quick.
2. She didn’t do a very good job of explaining some assignments. She was a very nice teacher, though.
3. Cherish is a good teacher. I just don’t think this course is necessary.
4. Need to learn more about the fields.
5. The course was interesting and I enjoyed covering some topics. Cherish is very good at covering topics and explaining things.
6. This course has some good content but I don’t think the majority helps out.
7. LOL
8. A very interesting course. I learned a lot about what being an engineer means.
9. Very good job with the class. The extra help in figuring out my next semester was very helpful. Thanks!
10. I very much enjoyed this class. The instructor made it fun.
11. Set up syllabus that is actually going to be used. Changing it multiple times is too confusing.
First, I was amused at #7. I wish I knew what part they were LOLing about.
That said, I have to say I’m overjoyed with the comments. I’ve really never had comments that overwhelmingly positive. (Yay for teaching engineering students!) There was actually some good feedback in there, as well.
I’m glad #1 liked the use of blackboard. I’ve decided that I’m going to use it more than I did this semester. It made it so much easier to keep track of assignments. There are probably two or three assignments that can’t be submitted on blackboard, but I’m going to require all the others be submitted that way. Also, I’m going to spend a lot more time explaining how to use it as some students were really confused once we got into things.
Number 2 said I didn’t do a good job of explaining some assignments, and I think that’s a very fair observation. When we were talking about lab notebooks and reports, it was very clear that some of the students were confused as to what I expected. Having been through it once, I have a much better way to frame out those assignments in particular for future use.
Numbers 3 and 6 are probably the same sort of thing. Realistically, I’d say that half of the students in the class really didn’t need the class. On the other hand, you can never tell which students are going to be in the half that do, so they hit everyone and hope it sticks.
Number 4 – that was another assignment that needs work. For that assignment, I had student groups give presentations on subfields of engineering. It was obvious that I need to provide more guidance about what sources to use. Some of them got very fixated on one little aspect of the subfield and didn’t give a very good overview of the subfield as a whole.
The last comment is probably the only one that annoyed me. I told students at the beginning that the syllabus was subject to change, and being the first time I’d taught the course, I pretty much guaranteed it would change. So how many times did I change it? Once, and I made a mistake on the homework list that needed to be fixed near the end of the semester. Honestly, I’ve had teachers who give a syllabus and then don’t even bother to use it…so I guess this will be a learning experience for that student. (BTW, my ‘syllabus’ included a full list of lecture topics, assignment requirements and due dates, etc. so that they pretty much had everything laid out for them. It wasn’t the typical, “Here’s your books, grading scheme, and office hours.” You know that’s going to require a revision when you’ve never done it before.)
I have been asked to teach this class again in the fall…along with one or two others. I have some choices to make, but given how well this one went, I really think I’d like to do it again.
Grad student advice: Picking a topic April 17, 2012
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, engineering, grad school, physics, research.Tags: advice, advising, advisor, dissertation, grad school, research
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It happened again yesterday: one of the email updates I received had a post from someone asking someone to give him a good topic for a dissertation.
It’s not an absurd question: some of us don’t have much if any guidance from advisors, though I get worried that this is indicative of a problematic advising relationship. I’m also not saying an advisor should give a student a topic (at least not for a PhD), but they apparently aren’t even addressing the topic with the student. However, I figured it’s a question worth addressing on the blog. If nothing else, I can post a link whenever I see the question pop up, which it seems to do with regularity.
The real simple answer, in my experience, is to start reading. Read journals in your field. Look at what interests you. Try to think of gaps or problems that aren’t addressed in the research you’re reading. And don’t forget to go back and read the references for the most interesting articles. Other ideas are to get involved in projects or try to choose something from a class project (I discuss this here). Generally, you’re going to be spending several years on something, so let your curiosity guide you. If it’s not interesting now, it certainly won’t be in four years. (In fact, even if it is interesting now, you might be sick of it in four years, but it’s best to make that four years as tolerable as physically possible.)
The question in my mind is whether you should talk to your advisor before or after you start doing this. Some advisors do give their students projects, but my experience in physics and electrical engineering is that most don’t. (My friends in the biological sciences, particularly medicine, have indicated that, in their fields, getting a topic handed to you is the norm.) However, even if your advisor doesn’t give you a project, s/he is likely to have an area of interest where they’d prefer you work. My MS advisor was very much the exception in that he expected his students to pick topics outside of his primary research area as a way for him to learn more about other areas. I think his rule of thumb was that it had to require electromagnetics…beyond that, you were pretty much on your own. On the other hand, if you had no particular interest, he did have suggestions, so he didn’t leave you hanging, either.
Therefore, as you’re looking at topics, be sure to check in with your advisor on a fairly regular basis to make sure that you’re not going too far astray (been there, done that) as well as making sure they still ‘buy in’ to your project (done that, and it’s not fun when they aren’t terribly interested). You also need to take into consideration whether or not you have the facilities and equipment and, probably, funding for your project. If you want to go into a certain area and need funding, you’ll likely need help from your advisor. It’s also a good idea to do this early because it gives you an idea of how invested your advisor is in your project and how well you communicate. Figure it out early before you get four years into a thesis project only to have your advisor tell you you’re an idiot and won’t be graduating. (Yes, it does happen.)
The take away message should be that you should try to use your curiosity and creativity to find a project, and that you need to make sure your advisor buys into it. Don’t ask total strangers as they’re so far removed from the situation, you’ll never get anything useful.
Some of my readers are wise in the way of advising, so I’m curious what they have to add.
It’s not easy being…gifted. April 10, 2012
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, gifted, homeschooling, older son, societal commentary, teaching.Tags: Aspergers, Aspie, education, gifted, gifted education
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see more Very Demotivational
I was surprised at how many people misunderstood my post on Asperger’s. However, I suppose it’s bound to happen when people go on a rant in print. What I’d like you to do, if you felt I was being offensive to Aspies, is go back and read the post, substituting “gifted” for “Aspie”. Or you could use the word ‘green’. I still feel pretty much the same way. The point I was trying to make was that labels suck.
Nicoleandmaggie left a comment in yesterday’s post that said:
I agree with the above folks that diagnosis of syndromes is important for treating the negative aspects of those syndromes, and that’s as true for giftedness as it is for Aspergers as it is for PCOS.
I’m not convinced this is true. I can homeschool a child who is gifted without ever having a clue they’re gifted while being able to keep them adequately challenged. Likewise, I could probably do the same with an Aspie child (since people used to keep giving the older son that ‘armchair diagnosis’). The problem is not the mental state of the child as much as the fact that we expect all children to sit in classrooms with other kids their age and function exactly the same way. With both Asperger’s and giftedness, it’s amazing how those labels suddenly don’t become as important when in a workplace setting.
If you’ve ever hung out with physicists or engineers, the ones that stick out are NOT the socially clueless, nerdy, fixated types: it’s the ones who make decisions emotionally and adhere to societal norms. Really, the place we need these labels is when we have such an artificially constructed environment that necessitates ‘normality’ and conformity. Further, the teachers of these classrooms (especially in elementary) tend to be of the personality type that values social conformity over rationality or innovative thinking. Giftedness is viewed as a threat to the social fabric, and I would guess that Aspies, with their nonconformity to societal values, are in the same boat as the gifted (and it’s twice as bad for those who are both). All this, despite the fact that the ‘teacher lecturing to kids sitting quiescently in their desks’ method of teaching has been shown to be one of the least effective methods of communicating information.
In my own life as a student and as a parent, I’ve had a fair number of teachers who think that gifted kids don’t need to be challenged, they need to be brought down a notch. And, as a parent, the looks I get from teachers when the subject of giftedness comes up is far worse than having to say there’s an IEP for educational autism in place. (And what good are labels like exceptionally gifted when no one has a clue what they mean anyway?!) Yet, as an adult, I have never had to even address most of the differences my kids display in unstructured environments. When not in school, people learn to deal with those who are different or to try to avoid those who are so different that they can’t deal with them. I am thoroughly convinced that the reason we need labels is not to help the kids but to help the teachers deal with kids they don’t understand or don’t like. Which makes me wonder why we keep using this model where we stick kids in these situations that almost always result in a negative impact on their self-esteem.
I think there are two solutions to the problem, best when used together. First, I think the role of teachers is all messed up. Second, I think the whole classroom organization scheme is messed up, too. The older boy attended a gifted school for two years where the premise was that each kid could work at an individual level toward their own specific educational goals. The teachers in this scenario became facilitators. It’s actually a lot like homeschooling, except there are more kids and some of the learning comes from interacting with those kids. In this scenario, the teachers need to be educated about differences, keep an eye out for problems a kid may have, but they also have to understand the material they are teaching very well. (Given elementary education training is more about classroom control than ensuring a very thorough understanding of the material, this changes the nature of how teachers would have to be educated.) In this scenario, kids who had different needs were able to have those needs addressed without drawing undue attention to their differences. It significantly reduced the amount of peer issues and, especially, bullying. The interactions were organic, not forced.
A lot of the education was done through self-paced computer programs. This meant one kid would get through five years of math in one year while another might struggle getting through a single year during that time. But it didn’t matter…they could excel where they were able and allowed to take it more slowly when necessary. And there was no judgement attached.
Creating this sort of classroom environment is probably somewhat more expensive than a regular classroom, but I’m not sure. (How does the cost of textbooks and workbooks compare with computers and easily updated software?) We’re so used to the notion that education means suffering, both through too fast or too slow academics as well as through social stigma for all our differences. I don’t think people really are making an effort to correct these issues, which are often linked, because they are too stuck on the idea of doing things the way they always have been done.
This means we continue to need labels. And I still think labels are stupid.
I. Don’t. Have. Aspergers. April 8, 2012
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, gifted, older son, personal, societal commentary.Tags: Aspergers, Aspie, diagnosis, education, school
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Today, I came across this post talking about expression of Asperger’s in women.
I have to admit that I’m understanding how my son felt in school. When he was in 6th grade, the school decided to do an evaluation and said he was Aspie. The whole thing was rather traumatizing for him. He talked about how the school psychologist talked to him like he was a toddler, using small words in a loud voice. It was very patronizing. He started calling her the psychopath-ologist. The next year, the ‘diagnosis’ followed him to the gifted school he attended. I talked him into going along with it because there was help with social skills and things that he really did need some help with. He said he was okay with getting the help. However, he did keep insisting he wasn’t Aspie, and the teachers kept saying that his refusal to accept would make it hard for him to adjust.
Here’s the problem: he’s not Aspie. When he was 4, this first came up. I took him to out of town to two researchers who specialize in Asperger’s to have him examined. Nope, not Aspie, they both said. However, it’s obvious he’s probably gifted. It was at this point that giftedness could probably be problematic in a normal classroom.
Given my history with the public schools as a child, this had never been a blip on my radar. I constantly had problems, but very often I and my parents chalked this up to the fact that we were pretty much considered ‘poor white trash’. Now I can look back and see how that perception along with my very visual approach to things confluenced to make school hell for me.
But as an adult, I keep seeing things about Aspergers. And people keep saying my son is Aspie. And I suspect people think I’m Aspie. And I’m not. I simply am not. I am amazed at how many traits of Asperger’s are also present in the gifted, and given my experience with my son, I’m sure that there are a ton of kids out there who are being misdiagnosed as Aspie when, in reality, they’re perfectly normal…for gifted kids.
I know people who have kids who are Aspie, and I understand it’s hard to deal with. However, I am getting really tired of this ‘medicalization’ of a gift or a personality type or whatever you want to call it. The problem with calling gifted kids Aspies because they may show some of the same traits is that those labels become a capsule to describe the student. So-and-so is an Aspie, and so every thing they do that seems off or quirky or different becomes a sign of their disability: there is something WRONG with them. How many times do people look at these kids and say it’s a sign they’re brilliant? In my experience, almost never. By the time older son was finished with sixth grade, the fact that he had a college-level vocabulary was being used as a sign that he had a disability, and the psychopath-ologist was claiming he was actually hyperlexic. His English teacher, who at the beginning of the year was saying she thought he was a very bright boy, suddenly said he didn’t seem gifted when asked by the psychologist.
I don’t have any issues with parents of Aspie kids, or even Aspies themselves. However, I am really sick of how society seems to have taken a hold of this ‘diagnosis’ and turned it into a way to categorize anyone who is socially awkward, shy, or quirky. For a lot of kids, all of their gifts and abilities are now being viewed as some sort of dysfunction that falls under the category of Aspie.
And it’s not just kids. I’ve seen this and experienced it as an adult. Maybe I tend to fixate on things, but I need to do that to solve difficult problems. Maybe I feel things more strongly, but why is that a sign of Asperger’s instead of Dabrowski’s Excitabilities? Why are all these things viewed as a problem rather than a sign of uniqueness and intelligence? I know a lot of people view the label as a way to better understand those who are different, but it also seems like a way to write them and their gifts off as an oddity.
Terrified of homeschooling (again) March 27, 2012
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, homeschooling, math, older son, younger son.Tags: acceleration, gifted, gifted education, homeschooling, homework, older son, younger son
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Last night, the younger son was working on his math homework while I sat next to him and played sudoku. I’ve found that this is the best way to oversee his homework because I don’t really pay attention to what he’s doing unless he asks for help, but I’m close by in case he starts getting frustrated. And really, I can’t concentrate on anything important when I’m interrupted every ten minutes for an explanation.
The younger son has started running into problems with a concept now and again. After he gets so many wrong, the program will switch gears and have him work on something else for a while. Then it goes back and tries the subject again. This happened for the first time a few days ago. He complained, saying it was repeating questions. I told him the program thought he needed more practice. Last night, it happened again.
“Mom, the program thinks I need more practice. But I don’t. I know this stuff.”
“Well, you’ll have to prove it to the computer.” And he answered every question correctly. The fact that he got peeved about repeating questions is a huge improvement from the kid who would avoid doing pretty much anything for fear of getting it wrong…and if he did try and get it wrong, there would be a major emotional blowout to follow. That kid is a distant memory…but was around as recently as six months ago. This, in my mind, is why you need to present challenges to perfectionists.
I’m now anxious for another reason. I really thought the younger boy would slow down in his math progress. Yes, I did up the amount of time he spends from 20 to 40 minutes per day, my reasons for which are elaborated in another post. And he no longer gets everything right. In fact, on his daily practice, he’s usually hitting somewhere between 80 and 90 percent correct answers. But he’s still not really slowing down.
At the end of the year, he’s going to be three years ahead in math. We didn’t expect this, and this puts us past the ‘drop dead’ point where the school can do anything. His school only goes up to 5th grade at his campus. The other campus starts at 6th and goes through the end of high school. Realistically, he’s not ready for that with his reading and writing. So now we’re obligated to keep going with his current math program for the next three years. Because of the structure of the courses, he will have to slow down signficantly. However, we’re still looking at a realistic possibility of him being through algebra 2 before he starts middle school. At that point, we are going to have to see if the school is willing to let him join a bunch of high school students for geometry or precalc…when he’s 12.
I’m nervous about this because of what is going on in his classroom. He’s not participating in the regular math class, but he does work on addition and subtraction drills. His teacher is putting on his report card that he’s ‘beginner level’ in math based on these drills. I really am not worried how he’s doing on this because of the fact that I know he can add two and three digit numbers in his head, even though he still writes some numbers backwards when writing the answers. I am guessing the pressure of timed quizzes, the act of writing, or perhaps lack of interest are causing his poor performance. (Incidentally, while he may not do every problem, all the problems he does are correct.)
I am concerned that teachers in the future are going to look at this and believe he doesn’t know math rather than looking at what he’s accomplished through the online math program. And I’m worried this will have a negative impact on our ability to accelerate him when the time is appropriate. But, mostly, I’m frustrated that so much of the assessment of his abilities rests on judgements of things like basic arithmetic or handwriting when it’s become so obvious to me that he’s got some serious abstract thinking abilities. No teacher is ever going to see that unless they give him some challenging material. (I have to admit that I had no idea until we started down this path with the math program.) Likely, they won’t because they’re so stuck on what I consider to be somewhat superficial things.
Based on my experience with the older son, I guess this is starting to leave me terrified that the younger boy will eventually need to be pulled out of school. I have that thought every time I get a note about some problem at school. Admittedly, most of them are small things that I don’t have to worry about. The thought is sitting just under the surface, though, and pokes an eye out every time something seems amiss.
For now, we’ve decided to just keep him moving through regular school while supplementing math during the school year and language arts during the summer. I imagine that in about 3 years, however, we’re going to hit a pretty serious fork in the road. I’m a person who doesn’t take well to waiting, however, so even now it’s still on my mind a lot.
Observation as a parent of a gifted child: laziness March 23, 2012
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, gifted, homeschooling, math, older son, societal commentary, teaching.Tags: acceleration, gifted, gifted education, high school, older son
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The older boy couldn’t seem to make it out of bed to get to high school on time, and when there, couldn’t make it from one class to another in the allotted amount of time. He was spending time in between classes socializing, and outside of school, he wasn’t doing his homework.
In the past week, however, he’s been getting up at 7 a.m. without fail so that he can catch a ride to the library and study economics for a few hours each day. He’s made it through two chapters, including doing all the study guide problems and writing out definitions for vocab words.
His plan is to finish the economics course by the middle of May so that he can take the CLEP exam. This was the course *he* really wanted to do. When we were going through the list of possible topics, he picked it out and said he wanted to do it.
Lazy children don’t do these things, so he’s obviously not lazy. On the other hand, it was pretty obvious his high school classes just weren’t doing it for him.
When we went to a specialist in gifted assessment, she said, “I don’t believe in lazy. Kids aren’t lazy, but they can be unmotivated when presented with something that isn’t sufficiently interesting and stimulating.” That was about seven years ago, and I didn’t believe her. I started to wonder about it when, in sixth grade, the only class he did well in was the only one that was accelerated: math. For the record, he really isn’t all that crazy about math. It wasn’t until last year, after the older boy studied like crazy for his US History CLEP exams and passed them, that I had to admit that she was right.
Now I’m wondering what he’d be doing if he’d been able to accelerate at the high school. The school doesn’t allow students to take AP classes until their junior year. Doing early enrollment at the college (without his GED) wouldn’t have been possible without his counselor signing off. (Given she fought my parents tooth and nail when I was in high school, and he had the same counselor and was doing poorly, I doubt that would’ve ever happened.) But looking at him, I’m seeing what a huge mistake they’re making with these policies.
I feel like I ought to tell them this. But I am also tired of fighting it and feel like it’s just better to focus my efforts on my own kids. This mental fatigue is the kind of thing that makes me see why so many people pull their kids out of the system. There’s just no energy to deal with it, especially when it’s obvious what the solution is. The school, in the meantime, has mired itself down with pointless rules that keep people from excelling, and in some cases, succeeding.
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I’m so (over)excited! May 15, 2012
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, gifted, societal commentary.Tags: adulthood, overexcitabilities, social skills, socialization
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I’m not sure why, but whenever I hear the word “intense”, I think of some hippie smoking pot and saying something like, “Whoa, that’s like, so intense, dude!” The problem with this image is that it’s exactly the opposite of what I should be thinking of. What I really think I should be thinking of is…me…on a normal day.
I’ve read a lot about Dabrowski’s Overexcitabilities as they apply to children. It had never occurred to me to think about what they would mean in terms of being an adult or myself in particular. I see so much of it in terms of education and children, but little in terms of how it affects adults. On the other hand, if you have these overexcitabilities (OEs), they don’t just go away when you become an adult…at least in my experience.
I’ve started realizing that having OEs means a couple different things, most of which is generally explained in Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration. That is, you have to deal with a lot of psychological upheaval and you constantly question things. You try to change your way of thinking about things to create some sort of internal consistency which then decreases the amount of internal discord you’re dealing with. So you deal with problems and come out a different person on the other side.
Going through the process changes how you look at things and interact with the world, and this is where it starts to get problematic. First, the vast majority of people don’t ever go through the process or, if they do, they end up ‘reintegrating’ back at the lowest level. This level is generally where your behavior is either average social behavior (conforming) or psychopathic (completely self-indulgent). Ignoring the latter, we can say that the average person, having generally been comfortable going along with society’s rules, ends up being very uncomfortable around someone who has rejected some or all of society’s rules for their own internal validation system.
In other words, when you interact with a ‘normal’ person, you’re going to come across as weird.
Adults who have OEs, like kids, are going to come across as having intense personalities. Maybe they’ll be really good at being laid back and letting things go, possibly as a result of the whole positive integration process. But what if they don’t? I can imagine that people with these OEs may not be able to keep their interests, passions, opinions, or intelligence under wraps. In fact, it’s likely they may feel it’s unnecessary to do so because they reject the notion of social conformity as a good thing.
As an adult, I’m much happier because I generally have a choice in whom I can hang out with and how I spend my time. I also feel like I’ve been able to find like-minded individuals who are open to being ‘weird’. However, I’ve also learned that it doesn’t mean being an adult will be super easy. In addition to all of the normal adult stresses in life, interacting with diverse people has become a major issue. Someone who feels strongly about anything and refuses to shut up in an effort to conform is going to find themselves upsetting others, even if inadvertently. And having the internet as a soap box means you’re more likely to get someone riled up. On the other hand, it’s also a great way to find people who aren’t put off by your lack of social mores.