Carrollton-Farmer's Branch people...

[Kimmypie]

Hhmmm my school got the crappiest scores in our district, but we don't teach to the test. We do Project Based Learning which teaches them how to think. Well, the ones we can drag screaming & kicking along. I'm over the "Cant you just GIVE us the info, miss? I don't want to do this myself." Aarrrggg

It really does start at home. Every time I have an extremely apathetic student, I schedule a meeting with parents. Guess what? It shows 8 times out of 10 the level of parenting is the problem.

[bcoop]

I won't disagree with this, because it's partially correct, but it still starts at home.

Absolutely it does. I did not mean to imply otherwise. I'm just fed up with the standardized bullshit, and the No Child Left Behind. It's the anti learning policy, IMO.

I wouldn't discredit the value of GT programs, either. Even in a bad district (I grew up for a good while in Irving ISD, and while the schools were so/so, the GT programs were above and beyond any other district's), a good GT program can go a long way. People like to shit on them as glorified advanced classes blowing smoke up kids' asses, but they come far closer to teaching the proper principles of thinking than pretty much everything else. More importantly, they teach kids how to organize their thoughts, how to argue, and how to crack jokes that are over the heads of the adults they encounter.

I'll agree with this as well. My son hasn't experienced any of this, yet. He will be in all Pre-AP classes when he hits Jr. High next year though. I want to have him tested for GT, just haven't had a chance to go through with it yet. I just need to stop by the Admin building to pick the paperwork up. I think he can handle it. Way back when, I was in a program called Eureka at the elementary level. Which then graduated to Honors classes in middle school, etc. It seems now they have 3 levels. Regular classes, Pre-AP, then GT. As already stated, I haven't experienced it with him yet, and I'll give it an honest shot before I sell my house and move back to an apartment, just to afford tuition at a private school.

[Ted]

lolz! I would have wound up at Irving High if my parents had stayed in Irving. Almost everyone I was friends with in 4th or 5th grade when I left remained friends all of the way through high school, mostly because they were the only white kids left.

I graduated from Nimitz in 98. It started getting rough when they left the kids from West Dallas choose Nimitz or Pinkston.

[idrivea4banger]

Damn Irving High kids

[Slowhand]

Absolutely it does. I did not mean to imply otherwise. I'm just fed up with the standardized bullshit, and the No Child Left Behind. It's the anti learning policy, IMO.


I'll agree with this as well. My son hasn't experienced any of this, yet. He will be in all Pre-AP classes when he hits Jr. High next year though. I want to have him tested for GT, just haven't had a chance to go through with it yet. I just need to stop by the Admin building to pick the paperwork up. I think he can handle it. Way back when, I was in a program called Eureka at the elementary level. Which then graduated to Honors classes in middle school, etc. It seems now they have 3 levels. Regular classes, Pre-AP, then GT. As already stated, I haven't experienced it with him yet, and I'll give it an honest shot before I sell my house and move back to an apartment, just to afford tuition at a private school.

Heard you on that. They're certainly not giving schools a chance to correct themselves.

They still had Eureka when I was in school in Irving, which we did for 1st and 2nd grade alongside normal classes. Irving's big advantage was that 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade was full-time GT, and I've yet to see anywhere else that did it that way. It really is incredible how good Irving's GT program was (is?) in the face of the rest of the school system there. It certainly bested Coppell's GT system.

Give him a shot on the GT stuff. A lot of people will criticize it as a bunch of bullshit for "creative" kids to have an excuse to goof off, and that's kind of part of it, but a good GT program will offer a lot in teaching a kid to properly think, despite that it looks like a mildly organized zoo from the outside looking in. For the purposes of English/LA classes, I think it offers way more than a similar AP class does. Sounds like you have it covered, though.