There are words that I’ve learned should never pass my lips when discussing my children’s needs with teachers or administrators at their school:
Gifted. There are too many ways to define what is gifted and it’s a loaded word and bring with it baggage. Just don’t go there. It’s not necessary. Unless your child is identified gifted according to your school’s criteria and it’s a term your school uses and the person you’re talking to uses it first, don’t say the word. Say, “highly capable,” “bright,” “learns quickly,” “intense,” “mini philosopher,” “introspective,” or “loves reading/math,” but don’t utter the word gifted.
As an example of this confusion, consider the rules in my state set a series of criteria for gifted identification. Under these rules, nearly half the students in my children’s district are gifted. However, state law also leaves the criteria for gifted services up to each district. In this district, only about 5% receive services. The teachers and administrators in this district only acknowledge those served as gifted. Are those kids ID’d by the state but not served by the district gifted? According to the state they are. But those parents will come across as ill informed (or cocky or suffering from special snowflake syndrome) if they call their kid gifted because of the local terminology. Just don’t go there. There are more accurate ways to discuss your child’s needs anyways. It’s best to be specific anyways.
Bored. Never. Say. Bored. Many parents hear their bright child is bored and immediately jump to “the school isn’t challenging my child.” That may be the case. But take a moment to think about when you’re bored in your personal or professional life. I’m often bored in faculty meetings because I don’t find the material interesting, even though I need to know the content of the discussion. I also get bored when the content of my day doesn’t engage me intellectually, or because the work is mundane and routine (grading). I also get bored when the content is too hard. At a recent conference, I had two talks I wanted to attend in a session, with one talk on a different topic between the two. Instead of walking out for the 15 minutes of the intervening talk, I stayed. I had no idea what the talk was about, totally lacking all the background knowledge to follow the talk. The result was that I was bored stiff. As with gifted, there are better terms to use to describe the situation. My favorite term is “engagement.” For example, “I sense from my son that he’s not engaging with the reading lessons.”
My child reads at a X grade level. I never, ever state to a teacher or administrator that my child is at a particular grade level. Parents tend to look at it as, “my kid read this book and it’s a X a grade level, therefore my kid reads at that level.” Seems reasonable and logical. The problem is that there are so many ways to measure reading level. No two assessment schemes do it the same way. Teachers will likely look at more than whether or not your child could read the words or if your child understood it, but they measure things like how fast your child read it, how many errors in accuracy were made, whether or now your child had a good “voice” to the reading, or could answer detailed questions on the passage, including making inferences. By stating that your child reads at a particular level, and that level is different from what the teacher has assessed, then you lose credibility. The teacher goes away thinking, “wow, that parent has an overblown sense of their kid.” Instead, try “My son read Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMN this weekend. On the way to school, he brought up a discussion about how it made him think about how technology is both a positive and negative in society.” This communicates something significantly more concrete: the child read a book in a short time period and was able to discuss some of the implications of the story.
My child can do X grade math. This is the same issue as reading levels. Teachers are looking at more than whether or not your child can add 3 digit numbers. They look at mathematical thinking and reasoning, and particularly in math, teachers tend to be very scared of gaps in your child’s knowledge. Instead, try, “My daughter noticed that things like trees have patterns that repeat at a smaller and smaller level. We watched a video on fractals, and she’s started drawing these illustrations.”
Better or Harder Work: Some of my reasoning here harkens back to the issues of perceptions of the place of gifted education in public schools. To come across as advocating for the special snowflake, by all means say you need your child to have better work. To come across as the parent that will drive your child into a nervous breakdown, by all means say your child needs harder work. Go for “more appropriate” as an alternate. This puts the focus on your child’s needs, and also uses a term the teacher should be familiar with from meeting the needs of children receiving special education services.
Gifted. There are too many ways to define what is gifted and it’s a loaded word and bring with it baggage. Just don’t go there. It’s not necessary. Unless your child is identified gifted according to your school’s criteria and it’s a term your school uses and the person you’re talking to uses it first, don’t say the word. Say, “highly capable,” “bright,” “learns quickly,” “intense,” “mini philosopher,” “introspective,” or “loves reading/math,” but don’t utter the word gifted.
As an example of this confusion, consider the rules in my state set a series of criteria for gifted identification. Under these rules, nearly half the students in my children’s district are gifted. However, state law also leaves the criteria for gifted services up to each district. In this district, only about 5% receive services. The teachers and administrators in this district only acknowledge those served as gifted. Are those kids ID’d by the state but not served by the district gifted? According to the state they are. But those parents will come across as ill informed (or cocky or suffering from special snowflake syndrome) if they call their kid gifted because of the local terminology. Just don’t go there. There are more accurate ways to discuss your child’s needs anyways. It’s best to be specific anyways.
Bored. Never. Say. Bored. Many parents hear their bright child is bored and immediately jump to “the school isn’t challenging my child.” That may be the case. But take a moment to think about when you’re bored in your personal or professional life. I’m often bored in faculty meetings because I don’t find the material interesting, even though I need to know the content of the discussion. I also get bored when the content of my day doesn’t engage me intellectually, or because the work is mundane and routine (grading). I also get bored when the content is too hard. At a recent conference, I had two talks I wanted to attend in a session, with one talk on a different topic between the two. Instead of walking out for the 15 minutes of the intervening talk, I stayed. I had no idea what the talk was about, totally lacking all the background knowledge to follow the talk. The result was that I was bored stiff. As with gifted, there are better terms to use to describe the situation. My favorite term is “engagement.” For example, “I sense from my son that he’s not engaging with the reading lessons.”
My child reads at a X grade level. I never, ever state to a teacher or administrator that my child is at a particular grade level. Parents tend to look at it as, “my kid read this book and it’s a X a grade level, therefore my kid reads at that level.” Seems reasonable and logical. The problem is that there are so many ways to measure reading level. No two assessment schemes do it the same way. Teachers will likely look at more than whether or not your child could read the words or if your child understood it, but they measure things like how fast your child read it, how many errors in accuracy were made, whether or now your child had a good “voice” to the reading, or could answer detailed questions on the passage, including making inferences. By stating that your child reads at a particular level, and that level is different from what the teacher has assessed, then you lose credibility. The teacher goes away thinking, “wow, that parent has an overblown sense of their kid.” Instead, try “My son read Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMN this weekend. On the way to school, he brought up a discussion about how it made him think about how technology is both a positive and negative in society.” This communicates something significantly more concrete: the child read a book in a short time period and was able to discuss some of the implications of the story.
My child can do X grade math. This is the same issue as reading levels. Teachers are looking at more than whether or not your child can add 3 digit numbers. They look at mathematical thinking and reasoning, and particularly in math, teachers tend to be very scared of gaps in your child’s knowledge. Instead, try, “My daughter noticed that things like trees have patterns that repeat at a smaller and smaller level. We watched a video on fractals, and she’s started drawing these illustrations.”
Better or Harder Work: Some of my reasoning here harkens back to the issues of perceptions of the place of gifted education in public schools. To come across as advocating for the special snowflake, by all means say you need your child to have better work. To come across as the parent that will drive your child into a nervous breakdown, by all means say your child needs harder work. Go for “more appropriate” as an alternate. This puts the focus on your child’s needs, and also uses a term the teacher should be familiar with from meeting the needs of children receiving special education services.