Rock and a Hard Place

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-12-2003
Rock and a Hard Place
1524
Thu, 11-20-2003 - 10:45am

There's something on this board that has been bothering me, and I hope I can articulate it.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Fri, 11-28-2003 - 5:50pm
If your dd stays at this school, the odds are very high that she will intentionally get B's and C's in order to fit in when she's older. Your comment that she ALREADY dumbs herself down to fit in points to that. One needn't be gifted in order to be "freakishly" literate if other children don't get expsoure to books at home. (Children getting read to in daycare is good, but it's not the same as having parents model it as entertainment at home.) What other parents do in their home VERY MUCH affects your dd. Especially if she likes to fit in, to not stand out. If other parents don't value books, she may want to hide her own "freakish" home where books ARE valued. And she may want to STOP being at the top of the class because that's the lonely perch of nerds, geeks and teacher's pets.
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Fri, 11-28-2003 - 5:56pm
Oh I so agree.

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Fri, 11-28-2003 - 6:04pm

Did you really need to see a chart of the class to know she was more advanced than the rest or did you know?


What example is the teacher setting by giving your daughter more work and expecting less of the rest of the class?

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Fri, 11-28-2003 - 6:06pm
Somebody claimed her son read Harry Potter on his own when he was 4? HA! I wouldn't believe it unless I saw him do it myself (out loud, not just holding the book). Such an outrageous lie.

I do believe there are kids of such amazing giftedness that they could really do something like that. But they are so rare that they get magazine articles written about them.

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Fri, 11-28-2003 - 6:12pm

You are right!

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-23-2003
Fri, 11-28-2003 - 6:14pm
What's unprofessional about giving out information that helps parent better help their kids? Nope, nothing unprofessional about her. She's very good at what she does. She was simply answering my question as to why there was such a disparity with regard to the groups abilities.
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Fri, 11-28-2003 - 6:20pm

But why do you need to compare to other kindergartners to know that she is doing well or not?

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Fri, 11-28-2003 - 6:27pm
What is unproffessional about that is "it's not the daycare kids who are doing poorly". That is just pure gossip. It's a chance for her to slam SAHMs. Even if it helps you to see that your child is in a classroom where reading at home is not the norm, why did you need to know that "it's not the dc kids who are doing poorly"? You DON'T need to know that. So it was just flat, out gossip. You say she didn't name names, but then she went and told you that "it's not the dc kids", so that you could figure out names on your own by finding out who is SAHM and who is WOHM.

And BTW, doesn't it alarm you that daycare is where these kids are getting exposed to books? Since you have been told point blank that the kids of SAHMs aren't familiar with books and the dc kids are, you have jumped to the conclusion that the SAHMs aren't reading to their kids. Fair enough. But are you then jumping to the conclusion that the WOHMs are reading at home??? How do you know that dc isn't the only place where they encounter a book? Do you live in some peculiar neighborhood where all the WOHMs value reading but none of the SAHMs do? Or do you live in a (less demographically bizarre) neighborhood where FEW people value reading at all, but at least the dc kids encounter books in dc? If the latter, the advantage the dc kids will disappear once they leave daycare and get older. They will still be in homes where books are something encountered only in an institutional setting (first dc, then school) and their exposure to books will be exactly the same as the kids of SAHMs. They'll read what they are assigned and nothing more.

Meanwhile your book-loving (right??) dd will have to choose between the class nerd/lonely literate person and fitting in. You've already said that she's prone to choosing fitting in. So leave. Now. Before she realizes that being at the top of that chart is so lonely that she voluntarily climbs down off the perch to be with friends.

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Fri, 11-28-2003 - 6:28pm

But's its not accurate.

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Fri, 11-28-2003 - 6:31pm
How does hearing "it's not the kids in dc who are doing poorly" help you or your daughter. That little tidbit is pure gossip. She could have theorized that the kids doing poorly aren't getting read to at home without telling you the mom's work status. How is that NOT gossip? You need only to find out who is WOHM vs. SAHM to put names to those unnamed class statistics.

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