Public School and Other Options | Part 2
This will probably become a series…and I will lose all my readers and be alone once more. Ha! If you left then you would have to draw with lipstick and mascara on your own walls to get the pics you get here!
The comments really had me thinking – and I’m a sucker for any hot archive action from Whiskey In My Sippy Cup – but then…then I saw this from Cynthia…
…get outta yer head and into yer gut. That is where you will find your answer. Step out on faith, the net will appear.
First of all, I’ve had a crisis of faith in anything for the past three weeks and just this morning I finally felt better about what next year would bring.
Cynthia’s comment made me look up at my at my bulletin board and read the quote I have tacked up there:
Very often when you just can’t decide between two or more options, it’s because the answer that would most give you peace is actually, “None of the above.”
There is an option C out there. I just have to find it.
A couple of important bits of information I didn’t put in the last post because I forgot:
- I’ve dealt with my A+ Top-Notch school district before in a case where a child qualified for an IEP under the Children with Disabilities Act, but getting them to help her (and not expel her which they were about to do) took me fighting everyone and threatening to go to the school board and the newspaper to get some help from the school. So I’m biased against putting kids that are not the norm into a classroom environment.
- I think my girls are gifted.
There, I said it. Now it’s out in the open and you can tell me every parent thinks their child is special and gifted and mine are normal and I’m just imagining them being advanced. Trust me, I’ve been telling myself that for a year. You can tell me too, it won’t hurt my feelings. Plus, if you have a special needs child or a child on the spectrum feel free to tell me I have no right to complain because it’s a blessing to have gifted children, if they even are.
The voices in my head are pretty merciless, right? I think so too.
I prayed while I was pregnant that I would have average girls. I admit it, I did.
Like the quote from my favorite book, The Great Gatsby, I felt like Daisy when she said about the birth of her daughter:
“Alright, I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool”
Not because I don’t love my girls, but because I do. Fools feel no pain, don’t recognize insults, ignore barbs and taunts. But that’s just me throwing a huge pity party (which will continue for two more paragraphs.)
My experience as a “highly gifted” student was, to be as understated as possible, hell on earth. Never fitting in, always bored, a year younger than everyone from skipping kindergarten…I had teachers make fun of me and one try to get me institutionalized in high school because she just plain didn’t like me and thought I was (to quote her) “psycho.”
To know that no matter what I do, I should be doing more – because my potential is vast and … uh … really big and I should have cured cancer by now if you ask my family. To give my children my “nothing is ever good enough” legacy…is a crushing thought.
Testing for gifted children is supposed to be relatively inaccurate for three year olds, and I don’t know how I feel about getting her tested so soon. But she wants to go to school – how do I know this? I asked her, and she said,
“I want to go to school, because there are kids there and we can work at our desks and then have recess and play on the playground and I think there is even a snack time!” I asked her if she would miss me while she was gone and she said, “I would miss you a little bit (she held up her fingers and made the little bit gesture with her thumb and index finger) but I would have so much fun with the other kids and then you would come get me and I would come home and we would be together again.” Guess I won’t be dealing with her crying on the first day of school, huh?
Can’t really say no when she knows what’s involved and is making what seems to be an informed choice. She turns 4 in January. I’m not saying her reasoning skills or language skills are above average…I don’t know if they are.
But I do know there are options other than private, public, and virtual schooling (I’m saying that instead of homeschooling so everyone understands I would not be doing it myself but as an online private school option that is mastery based.)
Mastery based learning (the possibility of being in 4th grade reading and 2nd grade math or some other combination) is really important to me. If a child does excel … it’s not normally in everything, so skipping grades in a public school (which is rarely done now anyway) would be awful both socially and academically for either or both girls.
Do you know of any “Option C” alternatives? There are a bunch of magnet schools in Chicago, maybe I should look there. The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools look amazing, but are only open to the children of faculty.
I’ll keep looking. Choosing “none of the above” feels like a weight is off of my shoulders and I know I have some research to do.
Thanks for the input, it really helped!
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2 Responses to “Public School and Other Options | Part 2”
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Yep – I’m a Joiner!
None of the above is a GOOD choice, but dude…three year old testing is CRAP. I promise you, it’s all untrue. Don’t bother with it. If you really think you’re kids are gifted (I do too, I don’t care what that says about me) put them in Montessori or magnet schools until they’re in K. THEN test them. It’s still not accurate, but better than 3.
You go, girl! State your truth! Live from your gut! You haven’t lived the “highly gifted” nightmare in vain; you will lead your daughter into better options because of your own childhood experiences.
Maybe people of “average” or even lower-abled special needs children (and I make that distinction because gifted kids have special needs too) don’t want to hear it. But those of us who are in your shoes do. My name is Lisa Lauffer, and I’m the Chief Sanity Officer for Moms of Gifted Children. I empower women like you in their mothering and in their living. And I’m building a community of moms of gifted children who are facing the same issues you’re facing. If you’re interested in connecting with women in your shoes, please contact me!