Skipping a Grade

In the attempts to help a gifted child, I am taking an online graduate course from Learner's Edge, called "Tapping the Talent". Part of the course requirements include the posting of our opinions in a public forum. Today, I wrote this post:

As a teacher, I support acceleration. If a child has the mind to advance, then why should we inhibit that desire for learning and mind expansion? Don't we want our smart children to be smarter? Right now, schools are not providing for the educational needs of a gifted child and are, in essence, only giving them a babysitting service. Is that what we want?

Susan Winebrenner's book "Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom" gives teachers an excellent resource to help children LEARN more within the confines of a flawed educational system. Why do teachers resist?

In almost every post I read in the Learner's Edge Teacher's Forum, teachers keep talking (ad nauseaum) about social interaction, or the social problems a child will encounter if they do skip a grade. After twenty years of teaching, I find this a ridiculous argument because children will always be learning about social interaction and they will always have social issues. Acceleration only presents them with a different set of them.

Every single day, we interact with our colleagues. Are we the same age? Are we interested in the same things? Of course not. Teachers come in all shapes and sizes .... so ... Why are we trying to make children the 'same'? Why are we trying to make learning uniform when scientists provide us with overwhelming evidence that our minds and bodies sequence differently. Why can't we honor the learning of a child? It makes us look stupid to think we can make everybody learn at the same rate.

Yes, we can have a child achieve a standard, but PLEASE ... can't we get smarter about teaching children who have the capacity to go beyond the average? If we impose age restrictions on our children, and the grade levels in which they learn, then we should do the same thing for ourselves as teachers. It's only fair.

And isn't the real bone of contention "diversity "...? We keep preaching that we need to embrace diversity and break down the walls that divide us. Well, here's a good example and yet we keep sending a mixed message to our gifted children by not recognizing their needs, or embracing their gifts.

Our job is to teach children. And, if we teach a gifted child to the "standard" we lower the standard of the gifted child. We make them average ... and what is so great about being average?