Were you an exceptional child, but you were sent to a normal school with everyone else and eventually learned to hide your exceptional side and act normal and came to regret it as an adult, or at least wonder whether things would’ve turned out differently if you’d gone to a school for exceptional children, or at least been in some program?
Or were you fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to have actually attended some special school? Was it a good idea?
Alpha and I have been thinking about this lately. We were both smart kids, etc etc. And now the question has come up whether we would be doing Beta a favor by sending her to a special school for exceptional children. We will have to look at the school, and Beta will have to agree, but we are both sort of leaning towards sending her. What do you think?
If I hadn’t attended the school of the arts (http://www.dasota.org/) I wouldn’t be the person I am today. It exposed me to so many things I’d never have experienced at a regular school… I don’t know what I’d be doing in life if things had been different, but I know my horizons would have been narrower. I’d have known a lot less about theater, art, music, and dance. Three out of the four are very important to me now (I’m not much of a dancer).
I like the idea of taking Beta to the school and seeing what she thinks. Does it excite her? Is she more interested in what’s going on there than at her regular school? I think as her dad you’ll be able to tell if it’s a good fit.
I went to a private high school, but it was just a high school. I did take a bunch of advanced classes. I wasn’t smart enough to be bored.
Sometimes I think I’d be better at dealing with people if I’d gone to a public highschool. But then, I know more, uh, stuff. Like, you know, math and all that crap.
I guess it just depends on the sort of stuff you deem more important.
Boy, this was a helpful comment.
Me, too. I think I was a regular kid- who attended a private school for twelve years thanks to my mom being a teacher there. I found it both challenging and boring.. :) I agree with Pat that it might have helped me in the social area if I’d attended public schools, but after I graduated and discovered that it was indeed okay to make your life’s work from artistic endeavors, it was useful to know so many lawyers personally.
I ended up going to private, college prep school as well, because my mom worked there. I was in gifted classes at public school before that. I think going to a private school where it was, if not cool, at least not the kiss of death, to be smart pretty much saved me. I think I would have been a complete social misfit (as opposed to only a partial social misfit) if I’d stayed in public schools. So I’d endorse the gifted school. But she’s not my kid, so what do I know?
I think you should send her – if she wants to go. I went to all three types – private, public, and parochial – at some point in my 13 years of primary and seceondary schooling, and the parochial one with the honours/AP track was by far the best.
I was lucky in that the public school I went to was one of the best in that State but I was still bored out of my gourd most of the time. And I’d say it hindered rather than improved my social integration. Having experience all three, I’d say one can learn more just by osmosis in a special program than is possible at a regular school that can only go at the pace of the slowest child in the class. If you send her, I doubt you’ll regret it.
I got shifted between gifted and talented schools when I was awake and the slow learner classes in public school when I could care less. The question is do you want her to be seen as one of many or one of a kind. She will be happier in a gifted school. But she may miss all of those public school happenings. Even though it would have been a joke, I’m sad I never got to go to the prom. Being able to go to a gifted school is great because she will never doubt her intellectual capacity. But she may get better social skills in public school. Since you asked.
Thanks to everyone for your remarks. She will ultimately make the decision whether or not she goes, of course. The school we are considering is a public school in Vienna aimed at gifted children… The school she attends now already is quite challenging and teaches what I would have considered quite advanced stuff – physics and latin at 12, etc. I think the difference that I find appealing is that the gifted school also puts alot of emphasis on the social and human side of learning, rather than so much cramming and rote learning… which I guess it can afford to do because of the gifted kids. I also used to think that you learned social skills in a high school (which you do) while in a school full of Poindexters you would not, but I now think it really depends on the school. I attended public schools in the United States and my social skills are not anything to write home about…
Any kid would benefit from the good/special school. I’m sure I did.
I was put into normal public school in 8th grade, and by the third month of high school had dropped out to do it indepent study style rather than waste away. OK, the story is actually a lot more complicated, but still. Catholic school is worth it for the small classes, motivated/paid teachers (if they’re lay teachers. nuns, not so much), the discipline… I appreciated everything about it, while in it, except having to do stations of the cross every Tuesday in Lent and the solemn novena ever Lenten lunch hour.
School…Is it the only option.
Let her learn the most natural way in the world and keep that brilliance you have so easily identified.
Teach her yourselves at home. Take reponsibility!
School is not the only option, of course. Many parents successfully homeschool their kids for good reasons and succeed. I know that I would not, however. I could not give her the social skills at home, nor the basic education she’s getting now. While her current school does erode creativity and perhaps brilliance, I would rather leave her where she is and work to undermine the latter negative effects than take her home and try to surpass what the school does well. We live in Austria, the school system here – at least in the type of school she attends, a college- track junior-high and high school, is superior to the junior highs and high schools I know from my youth.
Homeschooling is an intriguing and fascinating topic about which I would like to learn more, but I do not consider it an option for me, for the general reasons stated above and for the simple fact that both my wife and I are working more or less full-time to pay the bills and would not have the time. We do both, especially my wife, and my father-in-law, participate heavily at home with homework etc and I am involved in the music school my kid attends, so to that extent, the extent that we are able, we do take responsibility and are involved and do support her brilliance, creativity and learning in general.
What Joeri said.
Also, bringing them up bilingual is the best gift you can give them. Let it a puzzle, maybe, for Gamma? Or whatever she wants it to be… My grandfather saw to most of my pre-gradeschool education, teaching me to read and write pretty early but mostly exposing me to Gaelic (and historiography, man he was a good grandpa) as part of that process. So being 4 and learning his familiy’s language while learning to read and write English made me ravenous for picking up Spanish and Norwegian when I visited my other grandfolks; I’d get to take a week here and there, away from school, if I’d return with English/Norwegian and English/Mexican Spanish dictionaries, little girl style.
just so you know, i’m slightly in love with that last post
heh
I was tested, and supposed to attend “gifted” school, but was never sent (my parents were playing divorce politics at the time). I’ve always, always regretted not going.
Thanks, Bill, and everyone. I was wondering how many people were in that situation – regretting not going, and how many went and regretted it. I used to wonder how my life would’ve turned out differently if I’d gone… not that it’s bad now. But you wonder sometimes, nevertheless, and that’s my main motivation in wanting to give my kid the choice. That and the general wanting the best for your kid thing. One thing I do not want is to force her onto some elite track just because I regret missing out on that, however. It will be her decision, and will depend on how she likes the school when she looks at it…