GroupNewsBlog: On Mixed Up Kids

I sometimes feel, even at 49, that I'm still a mixed up kid. Unlike the situation that Jesse Wendel writes about here
both of my folks were very supportive and patient with me, in the midst of their own struggles to make sure we would survive poverty, racism, and other facts of Queens Village life...

But I wonder sometimes why I am so set against having children (meaning me, not others), and glad not to have them at this ripe middle-age. And I think that, rather than the reason being because I didn't see good parenting in action (I did), it's that I'm still that mixed up kid, and balancing my own inadequacies is going to be my work during this lifetime.

for a bit of personal meta and a question, inspired by Jesse's post (which I highly recommend, both for the post itself and for the comments), please follow me...

Jesse took his inspiration from a Time Magazine article, the point of which is this:

"... our education system has little idea how to cultivate its most promising students..."

When I was growing up, while there was some attention paid to what would be known as 'special' children, I think there was scant systemic support, within the system, for gifted kids. My own experience is that the support came in the form of busing. The point of busing was integrating the schools, but it had the effect of putting potentially gifted kids together, kids who might have scored high on whatever tests they used at the time, but who might have foundered in the rough (at the time) environment of PS 147, were chosen to take a little schoolbus, from a corner that I think I could still find today, to Flushing's PS 192. But that was a partial solution for that time, not now.

Here's what I wonder after thinking about all of this: what kinds of programs are out there, in public schools, that support/cultivate/honor and understand gifted kids while keeping them in the midst of gifted, average and struggling kids? Of course, there are schools for gifted kids, but isn't it reasonable to think that most kids will be better off getting the support they need in the context of a diverse community?

I'm hoping that parents who are happy with their kids' education weigh in and share the experience..

•  I'm not there yet

  My kids are babies and my own education didn't involve busing.  My mom made sure that I all the resources I needed were at the school I attended.  

  PS:  You should probably cross-post this to MotherTalkers and BlogHer too.  

  by fabooj on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 08:39:40 PM PDT

  •  If there's nothing else, there's always a library

    I haven't been to a public school library since the advent of the Internet.  Maybe public schools don't buy many books anymore and spend all of their money on IT equipment?

    But even if your school is crap, smart kids can always visit the library at their school to get the stimulation they may not get in their classes.  

    by YoyogiBear on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 08:54:18 PM PDT

    •  Not in my area

      My local libary blows big time.  I think I have more books in my house than this place does.  I have checked out some of the school libraries and was pretty impressed.  

      by fabooj on Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 06:54:29 AM PDT

      •  One of my friends in high school called the local

        library a 'cesspool of knowledge', which I thought was funny.

        I don't know... for a high schooler, I thought it was OK.  The county had some sort of book loaning program so if the local library didn't have what you were looking for, they could request it from another library and the combined resources of the county system was decent, I thought.

        I guess my point is, if you're a nerd and your school has nothing to offer, they at least have a set of encyclopedias, some news papers, some magazines, the so-called classics and some other books.  I'm not sure I know any true geniuses but for most people, the library does offer some sort of escape and stimulation. They just need to use it.

        I think there's some decent historical examples of people who had only a crap library and yet they were able to teach themselves new things with it.  Malcolm X comes to mind.  What did he have?  A closet of old books at the prison?

        by YoyogiBear on Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 07:25:19 AM PDT

        •  That's true

          When we moved to the 'burbs of Los Angeles, I was pretty impressed with out local city and county libraries.  They had everything and yes, they also have the book loan program.  

          The city's been redeveloping their libraries so they look like they belong in the neighborhoods they're sited.  Which is okay, but when I lived in Hollywood, our 3 libraries were closed at the same time for renovations.  Two reopened 3 years ago, but the number of books were severely reduced, though they did raise then number of foreign language books (Hebrew in these cases) available.  

          Now I live in El Sereno (just outside downtown Los Angeles) and the local library has very few English books.  The library has very few books, period.  The books are now mostly Spanish, English, then Chinese.  It seems I've read probably 70% of the English language books available, the rest I'm not interested in reading.  There's also a (too big, IMO) video section and a lot of computers, so that's good.  The library does offer many programs in several languages and has  a screening series too.    

          As for the book loan program, I've noticed income discrepancies that are denied.  In my old neighborhood (upper-income), if I wanted a book I rarely had to wait more 3 days for it to be available.  In my new (lower-income) area, I've had to wait weeks for books to get to my area.  

          by fabooj on Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 08:57:41 AM PDT

  •  you're right

    good suggestion: I have to admit to being a bit reticent because I'm not a parent...these are just observations that came out of my own experience and the original post.

    but thank you for the suggestion. and, btw, I meant to tell you, I love your YearlyKos pics (although it feels like a year ago now...)

    by Terri on Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 06:52:28 AM PDT

•  Talented and Gifted programs

  We had a 'TAG' program in my elementary school.  Naturally, I wasn't in it ;-)

  To be honest, I think it was just a chance for the kids to go fold origami and learn a few Japanese words.  I'm not sure why, but they seemed to do Japan-related activities at my school, for a period in the late 70's/early 80's, anyway.

  I don't know how kids were selected for it and actually used to resent the fact that those select few (one of whom was a teachers son) got to leave class to go do fun stuff while we were stuck in regular old classes.  Some of the 'TAG' students  didn't even seem particularly smart at my school.  Why couldn't I join?  I don't even know how kids were tapped to be in the 'TAG' program.  Maybe my parents weren't engaged enough or my childhood lisp made people think I wasn't 'Talented and Gifted'.

  FWIW, I don't think the genius kids should necessarily be isolated with other smart kids.  They're going to need to learn how to get along with the rest of us at some point anyway.

  by YoyogiBear on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 08:48:44 PM PDT

  •  I agree, gingerly...

    it just seems right to me as well, to have times when the genius kids should be able to relax with each other, and times when they are learning how to appreciate everyone who isn't a genius...in kind of equal measure...

    but this is just a sense, not grounded in research at all...

    by Terri on Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 06:55:04 AM PDT

  •  No Japanese here

    In Kansas City, I was one of the 9 TAG students.  I always scored 3 or 4 grade levels higher and my mother really pushed the issue with the schools (the schools were reticent to push me ahead since I was a year younger than most of my peers).  At any rate, I was sent mostly to inner-city schools with strong Black Pride tendencies (I went to Phillis Wheatley Elementary School, for goodness sakes!), only going to a suburban school for a few months after we moved back to KC from a brief stint in LA.

    Later, when we moved back to the LA 'burbs, I was also in the GATE program for the rest of my educational career.  I wasn't a good student...okay, I did mostly As and Bs, but that was only because of extra credit and ass-kissing.  I rarely did my homework and did pretty bad on tests that weren't essays (where I could bullshit.  A lot.)  I agree that that most of the GATE students weren't that much smarter than those in the regular classes, but we all had parents who were overly engaged in our school affairs and most of us had private tutors.  

    FWIW, white students in my school seemed to be automatically placed in the GATE program regardless of ability.  My school was mostly Latino and Asian.   I was one of 4 black students in the GATE program (the other 3 were brothers), while I can only think of maybe 8 or 9 Latinos in the GATE program.  The rest were Asian.  

    That meant from 4th - 6th grade, I was placed with the same 60 students.  7th and 9th grade, that number doubled and in high school, 5 of my 7 classes were with different combinations of the same 200 kids.  Since something like 95% of us took classes during summer school, we got to see each other all year long.  I learned to not-so-quietly detest these people.  They all hung out together during lunch and breaks, I chose to hang out in different areas of school

    They even tried to lump us all together in PE.  Most of the GATE kids in my class were in tennis or golf.  I did fencing with 4 other GATE students.  When I took jewelry, the other GATE students couldn't understand why I didn't take a different elective like ASB where I didn't have to "mingle the non-advanced kids".  When I decided to take regular biology instead of Honor biologies, it was talked about for weeks; I needed an easy B, rather than a hard-earned C.

    But back to the isolation, I think that you're 100% right about that.  I graduated from high school a year early to get away from those people.  I went to a JC (forever!) and eventually to a 4 year.  Many of my peers who were accepted to privates schools and prestigious UC schools were usually back home by sophomore year because they couldn't cope with others.  I mean, when you see the same people for 12 years, with rare interactions with others, going to a new school with 12K other faces has got to be hard.  

    Many of them never finished college, live at or near home and work jobs that they used to mock, teasing the regular and remedial students that that was how they'd live.  One of the remedial kids from our school is a mayor of a nearby city.  Another was one of the youngest councilmen to have been elected. More than a few of the Regular kids I had in my classes are small-business owners and some of them even employ the GATE kids.  That's rich.  

    by fabooj on Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 09:24:25 AM PDT

    •  Academic success doesn't correlate to success in

      life.  It sounds like your GATE classmates are a good example.  One of my favorite quotes (from Calvin Coolidge) addresses talent, genius & education and I think it's very apt:

      Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

      I guess I have some sort of class/academic resentments that I need to work thru, but I'm more impressed by someone who is, say, self-taught, or someone who had to really scrap to get where they are.  It sounds like you and some of the non-GATE kids did so and I suspect you're richer for it.  If not financially, then in life experiences.

      by YoyogiBear on Sat Aug 25, 2007 at 06:37:38 AM PDT

•  I was in one of those gifted programs.

  It's odd...I went from being considered one of the "slowest" learners in elementary school for several years, to having them realize I was totally bored and being dropped in high school college prep classes for the "gifted students".  We weren't segregated, though...we had core classes in English, Math, etc. that we tended to take together, but other classes were with our friends in the general population.

  I always felt that "gifted" children could pretty much learn anywhere, so long as they had some encouragement from those around them.  Both the "gifted" and the "slow" tend to be singled out by their peers and made fun of...at least in the neighborhoods where I grew up, which definitely weren't upper class.

  Of my children, none qualified for "gifted" by any means...although my youngest was stubborn, as I was, and simply refused to invest time in anything that didn't interest him.  And the oldest, who scraped through school and has a learning disability (we didn't know about those things then!) returned to college a few years ago and took science and medical classes to get a Respiratory Therapist degree.  So I think "gifted" is a combination of ability and motivation.  

  by revsue on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 09:09:56 PM PDT

  •  this seems like the right way to go

    not the part about not knowing where to place you(!), but this part: "...We weren't segregated, though...we had core classes in English, Math, etc. that we tended to take together, but other classes were with our friends in the general population...."

    That's the point I think Jesse was making...

    by Terri on Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 06:57:46 AM PDT

    •  Agreed!

      The classes and extra activities I adored had to do with drama and with my art major.  I was definitely in the bottom quarter of art...better than those who had no talent at all but in awe of the MANY who had true talent.  And drama and the speech team was a blast.

      I'll always say that the way to take any self-importance off the title of "gifted" is to hang out with actors and artists.  Gives a glimpse of how many ways there are to be gifted, and deep respect for the abilities of others.  Sadly, today they've cut those classes as "frills".  How many gifted non-traditional children are being wasted???

      by revsue on Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 02:47:20 PM PDT

•  Why is it that when the few gifted youngsters

  in public schools actually seek each other out are degraded by society and their fellow "average" kids"?  These groups, "nerd patrol" or what have you, are simply making the best of the situation that is forced upon them and are encouraging free flow of ideas.  it is ironic that these exceptional students are later looked upon to solve the worlds problems, unless that world is one that rewards average thinkers who carry enormous egoes and have no clue about how the world works with postions of power.  Can you imagine

  by pyro1040 on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 09:11:03 PM PDT

  •   well, and therein lies the horrified fascination

    the 'crabs in a barrel' reaction (pulling down anyone who stuck out for estimable reasons) was parallel to the 'the smarter the better' reaction, when I was growing up...people kind of chose which path was the most comfortable...

    by Terri on Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 07:00:06 AM PDT

  •  Fascinating

    I hear about this and I certainly see it on TV, but in my schools it just wasn't the done thing.  The "nerds" were popular.  The cheerleaders were all GATE/honors students (you did have to maintain a 3.0 GPA to participate in any extracurricular activity).  During pep rallies, there were awards handed out to the 4 science geeks who took it upon themselves to do an experiment for something not school related.  I got an award once for reading the most books from our library in one semester.  We had special award ceremonies for kids who got straight As on all their tests or had perfect attendance.  Hell, my school gave letterman jackets for academic achievements.  If you went to my high school, you'd think there was a ton of jocks on campus.  I had one friend who got a jacket for starting up an Amnesty International club on-campus.

    by fabooj on Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 09:33:14 AM PDT