Any parents of gifted children here ?

[breguet]

mamachris:

For example, now I have an extremely smart BROWN UNIVERSITY intern working for me for the last 1 month and I cant wait for her to complete her internship and go. And I am not the only one...luckily... infact, she was 'thrown' to my care cos the rest of the managers cannot 'tahan' her for her extreme approach- very open and talks so much as if she is the best! Yes, she is intellectually smarter than anyone in the team but she cannot produce good quality & completed work compared to my other direct reports who is only a poly grad... Very high EGO and low EQ, she just came into my office and left the paper on my desk and walked off!! And she does this to the managers... can you imagine how far this person can go? For me, I will definitely not hire her in my team! Not at all! Even she is the TOP TOP gifted student from Brown University
... just my thoughts.

Sorry, this is completely outside of the thread. Poor you! A lot of the interns will do well to remember they're not hired yet. Guess it won't happen now!

[wellness]

Hi All,

It’s interesting to following the different opinions each of us have regarding the education system in Singapore. My son was ‘recommended’ to take a test at the GEP dept in June this year. I took up the offer as he is always quite reluctant to go to school and he finds Math ‘very boring in class’. So I thought of taking the opportunity to see what GEP can recommend. In the end, it wants his class teacher to give him special worksheets to challenge him and then wait till he ‘gets into the gep programme’ as he is already quite accelerated (he’s a mensa member).

I am not as keen on the gep as much as I would like him to be learning and feeling happy at school for the next 4 years. He’s in a neighbourhood school and the challenge is so-so. I could do some comparisons as I was an ex-primary teacher. My question to gep dept was what if he does not get into the programme - does that mean that he will only be challenged ‘separately’ from his classmates? I am in the process of considering a transfer but being born in the year of the dragon, there are practically no vacancies everywhere, even another better neighbourhood school.

I am really in a loss as to what best to do so that he could be challenged appropriately together as a group with his friends. I quite agree with the newspaper article regarding identifying some bright kids earlier so that they can be put together to ‘enjoy their own pace of learning’.

cheers

[heutistmeintag]

I believe that there is still some form of grooming besides the GEP though I am not sure if this is a common practice. In my kids' (neighbourhood) school, the children are grouped into batches of 60-80. It means that the 1st 2 classes contain the top ~20% of that level (I guess quite like an unofficial EM1 class). These 2 classes are given tougher challenges and in most internal competitions, I see these students performing at a different level from the rest. Also, while other classes are having \"remedial\" lessons, the 1st 2 classes were having \"supplementary\" lessons. :roll:


Do any parents here experience this in other schools?

[tamarind]

EN:

Tamarind wrote: [quote]May be they already had tuition at home, and already knew everything in the subject very well.

If only tuition & enrichment helps, then there will be countless of gifted students in Singapore; given that society today depends highly on enrichment centres & tuition teacher.[/quote]I don't mean that the tuition teacher can turn a normal kid into a gifted kid. The role of the tuition teacher for gifted kids, is to teach them things which are more far advanced than what they learn in school. That is what I mean that the child already knew everything in the subject.

Even a highly gifted kid needs to be taught. Are there any gifted kids here who can read on his/her own, without being taught at all ? Even without enrichment classes, the mommy would have been teaching the child to read. How many gifted kids can understand fractions and algebra entirely on their own ? They also must be taught by tuition teachers or by their parents.

A gifted kid does not mean that he/she knows things from birth. They also must go through the learning process, but it is just that they learn very fast compared to other kids. For example, the 7 year old boy who passed O-levels Chemistry. Does he remember things from his past life ? Of course not. I don't believe he did it without any guidance, despite what his mommy said. He probably has photographic memory. But his mommy would have at least taught him how to read, and also explained things to him.

However, I believe many parents hire tuition teachers to drill their normal kids to try to get into the GEP. I am not surprised if some of them succeeded. The GEP selection process is not that fool proof.

[tamarind]

heutistmeintag:

I believe that there is still some form of grooming besides the GEP though I am not sure if this is a common practice. In my kids' (neighbourhood) school, the children are grouped into batches of 60-80. It means that the 1st 2 classes contain the top ~20% of that level (I guess quite like an unofficial EM1 class). These 2 classes are given tougher challenges and in most internal competitions, I see these students performing at a different level from the rest. Also, while other classes are having \"remedial\" lessons, the 1st 2 classes were having \"supplementary\" lessons. :roll:


Do any parents here experience this in other schools?

Yes this is happening in West Grove primary school. I prefer this model, because it is unobtrusive.

[mamachris]

breguet:

Sorry, this is completely outside of the thread. Poor you! A lot of the interns will do well to remember they're not hired yet. Guess it won't happen now!

Breguet,
Thanks for your understanding...

Sorry, I am aware what I wrote was a side-track. My point across to all parents is that no matter whether a person is gifted or not (at tender age), it does not secure his/her path in the future. Thus, it is important to focus on the right perspectives of learning- moral values, character building, EQ and AQ- which is harder to teach.

[wwcookie]

EN:

Hi wwcookie


In some top schools, since there are so many bright students in comparison to the weaker ones, opportunities to help the weaker students are lesser. Is that the situation that is happening in your son school?

Hi EN,

You are right - his class is full of bright students so there's really no opportunities to help the weaker students. Although the school does not rank the children, I can see from the statistics given out in their SA1 results that there are others who scored better than him..

[wwcookie]

wellness:

My son was 'recommended' to take a test at the GEP dept in June this year. I took up the offer as he is always quite reluctant to go to school and he finds Math 'very boring in class'. So I thought of taking the opportunity to see what GEP can recommend. In the end, it wants his class teacher to give him special worksheets to challenge him and then wait till he 'gets into the gep programme' as he is already quite accelerated (he's a mensa member).

I am really in a loss as to what best to do so that he could be challenged appropriately together as a group with his friends. I quite agree with the newspaper article regarding identifying some bright kids earlier so that they can be put together to 'enjoy their own pace of learning'.

cheers

Hi wellness,
How did your son get 'recommended' to take the test at the GEP Dept? I also find it important that they be put together earlier to learn at their own pace.

[en107rn.01056yahoo.01056com.01056sg]

Hi Wellness


Year of the dragon babies will mean that your child in currently in P2. Giftedness are tested only in P3. Same question as wwcookie. How did your son get to be tested a year earlier?

Hi Tamarind

The security guard who has a child in the gifted program comes from a non-academic family. He is the sole bread winner in the family as wife is not working looking after 4 kids. Tuition is a luxury which they cannot afford.

The other family that I know is my cousin. There was no tuition. Parents too busy. All 3 kids do very well in school & only 1 is gifted. Just like you quoted before about your brother, he does well on his own without any help right?

Hi heutistmeintag

A friend of mine, whose daughter is in Canberra is placed in the top 3 classes. Yes, they have supplementary classes to attend.

[wellness]

Hi wwcookie & EN,

Well he was crying about attending Math in class - sitting there, cannot move etc (he is in the top class of his level) - so the principal arranged for the school counsellor to talk to him. My son told the counsellor that he ranks school, especially Math, 4 out of 10. That’s when we decided to seek gep’s opinion and maybe recommend him for accelerated math (ie. let him attend P3 math class).

But the result was that he was ‘bright & should be given challenging work differentiated from his classmates. It will not help even if accelerated’ and therefore, no need for acceleration but just wait till P3’s gep test.

So sad. Don’t see any new learning for him in Math.