Homeschooled Teen Gets into Top Ivies, etc.

[marite]

But some highly talented students and families are better served in a traditional school setting. The "right" school is key.

The "right school" may not be enough. Sometimes, it has to be next to a college that would allow 8 or 11-year olds to take classes.
Homeschooling programs (and they are often group learning programs) are not as age and grade-bound as ordinary schools; another issue is finding peer groups. While it is highly desirable to have diverse friends, sometimes highly advanced kids are seen as freaks by their age mates.

[menloparkmom]

"sometimes highly advanced kids are seen as freaks by their age mates."
this happens more often than not. Such children will often prefer the company of adults to children their own age, simply because adults "know more" and are thus more likely to be interesting to gifted learners.

[epiphany]

Indeed. (Post 62). The greatest single reason that gifted students seek peer environments is the level of acceptance & immediate recognition of mutualities, that they too often do not find in a typical age-defined setting.

Isolation is painful, as is boredom. That's in addition to the fact that social isolation tends to stunt one's maturity. Gifted students who have more access to peers mature at a more expected pace than those separated from such peers.

[citygirlsmom]

My younger D is part of a program for "gifted" Ds...these kids are smart, funny, etc. and somehow, with all those brains, can work with the peers, in schools, etc. who are not as "smart"

You are only isolated if you do that to yourself...you have made the consious choice to not enjoy your peers, because they can't talk at the "higher" level you are....

I think the truely gifted are those that can get along with all types of intellects, from the contractor, to the 5 year old, to the kid in remedial math or reading, to the prof who teaches them physics

This, oh, they just have nothing to talk about with someone their own age is not a healthy approach to life

I know some incredibly smart kids who are not seen as freaks by their peers, and you know why? Becuase they interact with their peers like teenagers, and they don't worry if each and every conversation isn't at some "higher" level

Chelsea may be the most amazing girl in the world, but could her accomplishments- the french, the harp, the tests, could they have been accomplished without all the private lessons, tutors, etc...we will never know...but we do know she had many advantages....financial is one to be sure....

[marite]

Not to comment on CGM's D about whom I know nothing, but my understanding is that gifted classes address the needs of students who are only 1-3 grades ahead of their agemates, not the highly gifted ones. Gifted classes are geared to students with IQs of 130+, but for those who have IQs of 145+, they are not adequate.

Do we know whether Chelsea's local school even has gifted classes? Our district does not. MA devotes $0.00 to gifted education.

[menloparkmom]

The "freaks" marite and I were referring to are highly gifted children, like the 5 yr old in my son's K class who taught himself C+ computer code, and spent all his free time talking and working with the director of the computer center at their school. By the time he was 8, HE was the one who was called to fix any Mac computer problem that occured on Campus. By the time he was in 7th grade, he was writing code for the internet browser Mozilla, and gave a lecture at age 13 to Japanese Software programmers, while on the class trip to Japan.
Highly gifted children like that don't make a "conscious" decision at age 5 not to enjoy other kids their own age, they end up being avoided by normal kids because they are focused on learning about the areas they are passionately interested in, to the exclusion of all else.

[Narcissa]

Lol, well, I don't know much about people like this, but we do frequently have 4th and 5th graders take calculus or whatever math and science classes at the high school. And they do well too. Our schools math/science curricula isn't easy, either, considering 100% of ppl get 5s on the exams...but that might not say too much considering most classes are like that anyways.

[marite]

Narcissa:

What happens to these 4th and 5th graders after they've taken calculus at the high school?

[epiphany]

Post 64 exhibits some of the misunderstanding about the needs, motivations, and psychological-social world of the truly intellectually gifted. There is not just a quantitative (IQ) difference; there is a qualitative difference. They are a subset of learners with "special needs" on the high end, every bit as distinct as the "special needs" group of challenged learners with identifiable clinical patterns of their own. It's best to actually know something about the topic before expounding on it.

Just in general, the bottom line is that they need guidance, a differentiated curriculum & delivery of that curriculum, & teachers who can relate to them as students who are not just "high achievers." They perceive differently; they literally "envision" things differently.

Nor is it true necessarily that most or all of them are social misfits. Among them, some have an abundance of social skills & exceptional leadership attributes; others are painfully introverted -- just like the differences in the rest of the population. But regardless of individual personality, they are in fact distinctly different when it comes to their learning needs. (Hence, the common fallacy that they can just 'teach themselves' is as ill-advised as the policy of universally mainstreaming all "special" kids, no matter what the disability or syndrome.)

No one said that gifted students should be apart from others 24/7. Personally, & regardless of my advocacy for the gifted, I am ambivalent about 'segregated' schooling (for gifteds), but I'm glad that these schools exist where no other option serves their needs.

I never said "they have just nothing to talk about with someone their own age." (It's best if you not paraphrase others' words inaccurately, but perhaps you were referring to comments by other posters.) However, it is also true that they will seek refuge in adult conversation if they do lack people with whom they can communicate with mutual understanding.

The best teachers of the truly gifted are people who themselves are identifiably gifted. This has been proven time and again.

[lunar_years]

Lol, Narcissa, how frequently is "frequently"?

[Narcissa]

like one, two or even three a year

and then they take classes at local colleges or something.

ps theres a 11yo girl in my bc calc class this year

[marite]

and then they take classes at local colleges or something.

Taking classes at local colleges is a form of homeschooling--and it is not available to everyone who should take such classes.

Homeschooling does not mean doing all one's learning at the kitchen table, being taught by mom, dad or the neighbor. Many homeschooled students actually take classes in college. So the 11 year old who is in bc calc this year will be partially homeschooled next year--as was my S at a slightly later age. We were responsible for getting him into the appropriate college classes. The school had nothing to do with it.
Homeschooling, in other words, is arranged by parents rather than the school and does not have to follow the curriculum set by the school or the district.

[epiphany]

^^ a little more complicated than that, marite. Certainly it can be entirely household-driven & created. However, there are some public 'homeschool' programs which are top-down (providing the curriculum & the funds), & in that case the (non-site) "school" signs off on community college course approval, etc. as a supplemental option.

[marite]

You are right. I was under the impression, though, that most of these programs are designed for students who, for one reason or another, cannot attend school. In other words, they are not designed to address the needs of the gifted. If college courses are included, it may be because they actually replicate offerings of the school, or are continuation of the offerings (eg. college Latin if the school does not offer AP-Latin), college algebra which may not be any more advanced than Algebra II, and so forth. Am I mistaken?
My impression is that schools cannot require students to take courses that are more advanced than what k-12 schools provide. Thus, schools cannot demand that a student take linear algebra; it can only demand that a student take x number of years of math. Quite a few of our students do in fact take linear algebra and multivariable calculus.

[NYMomof2]

From the article, it appears that this family used college courses, EPGY's online gifted HS, etc., as well as local resources and at least one private tutor. "Homeschooling," in this and many other cases, could be better described as "family-arranged learning" or, as the child matures, "self-directed learning."

I don't understand the harsh posts about this family. The parents recognized their daughter's unusual abilities very early, and realized that she would not be best served in a traditional school. They arranged their lives, and applied the financial resources they had, to accomodate her needs in the best way they could, and clearly the young woman has turned out very well.

And I don't think we can gather from the article that they are more than comfortable financially. After all, as one poster pointed out, quite a bit of travel, lessons, and enrichment activities can be funded with the $20-30k yearly cost of a private school education. For all we know, they economize in other ways to make possible the private French tutor and the travel.