Long hrs in preschool/daycare harmful
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Long hrs in preschool/daycare harmful
| Sun, 03-19-2006 - 3:09pm |
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20051101/news_1n1earlyed.html
Very interesting. Particularly the difference in the middle to upper income kids vs low income.
"I personally feel children need the nurture of their parents and the home," she said. "Those early years, that's when they are bonding to their family. That nurturing, only the family can give that."
I tend to agree.
MM, WOHM to B&E, 7.24.03

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What more would you have our great educators do? We have remedial services and gifted services. There is an inability to come to a consensus about the idea of the gifted- child, let alone the gifted child with an LD. Further, the gifts of the child with an LD apparently cannot be objectively tested. The experts in the twice exc. gifted child write books with inflammatory titles such as A Nation Deceived (The Templeton Report,) Losing Our Minds, and Genius Denied.
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If there were something objective to present to the taxpayer, I'm sure there would be some school districts somewhere willing to respond. You've taken my opposition personally, but honestly I'm looking at it as an insider and I see nothing objective and convincing. The parents would have to prove their case if they wanted tax dollars for this kind of thing.
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So then you are saying that there's no solution anyway. If the gifted child with an LD is indeed receiving remedial services while at the same time participating in a gifted program, yet still ~ as you say ~ does not benefit, what more do you want?
I'm sure you are far more savvy than to think it is a good idea to extrapolate the way I post to you on this message board to how I handle interpersonal communication with educators in my school district. Why would you assume that I am anything other than respectful, patient, supportive, compassionate, and gracious to my children's educators? Because I am frustrated with the status of gifted education and the related policies across the country does not mean I am tearing a new one for every teacher who gets one of my children in class. It is one of the first things to learn when advocating for children, that parents are not likely to accomplish much on behalf of their children if their efforts are deemed pushy, obnoxious, and dismissive of the entire educational community.
I am a mother of four children and it wouldn't be all that smart of me to treat educators disrespectfully. So I don't.
Are you really paying attention? I can't tell. You said you have done your research into giftedness but you keep tossing out common myths and misconceptions--which is disturbing. Do you really think all the things I write are simply my modest homespun opinions and are completely unfounded? Do you doubt that I've been collecting information on this topic for years? Are you so entrenched in opposing everything I post that it doesn't matter the content anymore? If I say my living room walls are taupe, will you post that they most certainly are lavendar because you can't tolerate what you perceive to be my know-it-all attitude? I suppose this sounds silly based on our board relationship but it seems a real shame that I have a lot of information to share and you aren't interested in any of it. I don't really understand why you would reject everything I post automatically. Why wouldn't you want to learn and expand your horizons?
The resources I mentioned (A Nation Deceived, Losing Our Minds, and Genius Denied) do have strong titles but the authors all have a strong message. They want to shake things up because they have found out that the current educational system isn't working for a certain group of students. (The fact that the certain group of students are the brightest and most capable of making the contributions that will improve our lives in the future isn't insignificant.) But you are mistaken to think that the authors of those works are experts in 2E. They aren't. They barely touch the matter in their work. A Nation Deceived is an academic report about acceleration at school, shattering the myths about how "damaging" skipping a grade is. Losing Our Minds is a study of widely differing gifted students and the recommendations of accomodations that have worked for them. Genius Denied is a call for attention to the fact that so many gifted students in America are not getting an appropriate education and how that can be remedied with a different approach to education.
It don't think it is necessarily true that the gifts of the 2E cannot be objectively tested. But I don't know enough about that to go much further and I believe the work in that area tends to be pretty new and scant. Sometimes the LD masks the giftedness. Sometimes the giftedness masks the LD. Sometimes the giftedness and the LDs mask each other and the child appears to be average. The worst part is when LDs are missed and the students don't get the intervention needed until their education is complete or almost complete. That's a bummer.
What more do I want? Well, for starters, I'd like people to understand giftedness a little better. I wish people would stop saying incorrect stuff like "gifted students thrive whether they get intervention or not." (I'm paraphrasing because I'm in a hurry, my kids are out running in the rain having a water fight and I predict a huge mess in my laundry room and rampant nakedness about the house in about twelve minutes.) I wish people would stop saying that being bored throughout the school day is good for and character building for the gifted student. I wish people would stop assuming that parents of gifted children are all pushy and have as their utmost goal to achieve glory through their children's intellectual potential and prowess. I wish people would understand that an "excellent" gifted program provided at the high school level may be too little, too late for a lot of gifted students who are going to lose their natural curiosity and drive to learn well before they get out of middle school. I wish people could understand that gifted and high achieving are two different things.
All I wanted to do in this particular thread was to point out that learning disabilities occur in gifted children. You didn't seem to know that when you first posted. I know I should really leave well enough alone and I'm an idiot to get sucked in time and time again when the results are fairly predictable. But I feel pretty passionately about the topic and I can't seem to help but want to set the record straight. I guess I need to work on not giving a damn.
Here come the amazing little water warriors.
Yes, that's why my children are not in public school because the public school could not meet their needs.
PumpkinAngel
I'm sure this is just a simple misunderstanding. Didn't you notice that the unit on transsexual sex reassignment surgery (male to female) doesn't show up on the homeschooling curriculum until July? So try the joke again later in the summer and I'm sure you'll have better results.
I wonder what would work better, frogs or squirrels.
"It's bedtime. I know the sun is up. Because I'm the Mommy, that's why. Night, sweetie, sleep tight."
Karen
"I think I've figured out why mooching beach bums, by the way: nobody's going to hire you when you look like you just got here from the opening scenes of an instructional video called Don't Touch That!: A Cautious Employer's Guide To Preventing Sexual Harassment."
Miss Alli @ TelevisionWithoutPity, The Amazing Race
Karen
"Veronica: "I hate fake deer too. Every time I see their stupid fake-deer faces I want to grab a shotgun and go all Cheney on 'em." Sure, but since fake deer don't talk, they won't
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It's a good point, PA. Hard to believe, I know, what with the cost and legal structure around special ed. But by and large, even though it costs a fortune, special ed involves a challenge for each student to somehow stay in the mainstream and a limited number of choices for doing so.
When the family of a special needs student is offered an IEP, it typically involves very little in the way of real choice, since the support staffing is usually quite limited. Access to more restrictive settings such as special classes, day programs, or residential placements also comes down to take it or leave it. While IME kids with more ability have more options.
Even if a school or district lacks targeted programs, GT kids can get a lot more out of all the other experiences that parents and/or communities can provide,like "homeschooling" (lol), afterschool and summer programs, private schools that accept kids by exams, parochial schools, and more. While SPED kids are more often left hanging out there with very few adults around who have any idea how to work with them.
"Sometimes the LD masks the giftedness. Sometimes the giftedness masks the LD. Sometimes the giftedness and the LDs mask each other and the child appears to be average."
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My 26 years working with special needs students tell me all these things are quite true.
Where I live there are simply no choices or resources for gifted students within the educational system, period. Some schools might let some children go at a slightly faster pace but generally (and culturally) speaking children are expected to "stay with the group" academically, regardless. Otoh, each and ever school has a ft special ed teacher to get those struggling caught up with the majority. Communities are required to provide extra financial support for any student deemed to be struggling for whatever reason, even if that means assigning a personal ft aide for 1 student (happened in ds's class with one student).
Honestly, I don't worry too much about highly or exceptionally gifted kids who have highly educated parents and plenty of money that can be spent on enrichment activities outside of school. I do, however, think that exceptionally gifted students without any of these resources can easily end up mentally burned out by a regular school system.
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