Unschooling a G & T Child

[Again]

Just wondering if any of you have 'unschooled' your children. I'm not sure of my feelings about the actual term 'unschooling' by the way - I suppose I'm talking about child-led home-learning.

I have a 4 year old who has been going to montessori, but has now decided not to go. We are also thinking of keeping him out of school altogether for a couple of years.

He hasn't been assessed by the way.

Any advice? Books that may help me?

I wasn't offering an assessment OP. I was merely commenting that your ds sounds perfectly normal for his age. Most people would be happy with that comment.

I was having a discussion today actually about how there is no need whatsoever to think about the label G & T if he stays at home, because education would be happening at his pace, outofbodyexperience. And in fact the whole concept does seem to be connected with a society that has schooling.

Not that you are interested in my opinion but I think your latest comment is spot on. A G&T label that applies to the top 10% of the school population is completely and utterly meaningless. I was always top or occasionally second in my year throughout school. If I were at school today I would be labelled G&T. I'm not, I'm just academically able. G&T imho would apply to true child prodigies like Mozart. Being able to read well at a young age or do better at maths etc than your peers is intelligent but seriously short of being gifted.

As far as I can tell, all of Nursery and 90% of Reception is play. Admittedly not baking. But lots of play, yes. And lots of different types - so construction or tents or physical games/ balance things or kitchens or messy things or water or sand. There's so much more choice than I could replicate at home.

Of course I'm interested in your opinion on educational matters, just not looking for an assessment of my child who you don't know. Basically your comparison wasn't relevant because in that case it was just like a child remembering a well loved book.

I fear that the label is relevant in a school situation in order for a child to have their needs met.

it's all about measurement. (if you school)

i tend to ignore the 'top 10%' stuff or whatever it is and defer to kids who have been tested, but that in itself is problematic in terms of using a peer group comparison to make decisions about an individual (if you are that way inclined...). fascinating.

gifted kids (rather than top 10% of any school, which means nowt, i'm talking about kids that have been tested and their schooling is differentiated as a result) are in some way even more enshrined in the system and being measured than their peers (and deviations from the expected norm can be judged in very different ways). to unschool would be a huge step, and i would probably suggest making a decision about where your beliefs lie prior to testing... once you are in the system (with an acknowledged 'gifted' child) then it becomes even more pervasive. particularly if you happen upon a school that has an established programme for differentiation and some really great results! (in a standard unit of measure).

if you are going to unschool, don't assess. that way lies madness and you are just taunting yourself, really. embrace his individuality and go from there. units of measure are for conformists. (i'm playing a little devil's advocate, but you know that. are you really a free spirit? or in the back of your mind do you really really want to know if he's higher than the 99.9th centile across the board???? )

what would the outcome of assessment be? say the psych says he's above average, but not gifted, what then? say the psych says, yep, he falls into the vs range across the board - how will it influence your decision with regard to schooling?

do you think kids who are gifted would be better served by school, or making their way themselves?

do you think that if you test and he is in the vs range, that you would then become embroiled in a never ending search for the perfect setting? one that is guaranteed to help him meet his potential? (using a very clearly defined measure of success, of course - like moving him ahead year groups)

let me know if you come across anything interesting. and i'd love to hear what you decide in the end. the jury is still out here.

my criteria for education was 'is my child happy'. Seemed to do the trick. ds1 hated school (he has aspergers) so in the end I took all 3 out and did 'unschooling'. To the outsider it looked like lots of reading and computer games. Sometimes we went to museums and stuff.
But like I said 2 are now at university, one is at 6th form doing A levels (his choice) and the most valuable lesson they learned was being self motivated and knowing how to learn (and yes, I went through anxious moments when other HE kids seemed to be building rockets while mine were playing Runescape!).
They are great young poeple with a tendency to question everything

One of the articles idzie links to is very interesting - essentially looking at how 'success' at unschooling (or even HE) is measured. Currently success is still being measured by the child (then young person) successfully transitioning back into traditional further education at a later point (usually uni). And asking why.... (just found it interesting that you mentioned happiness, kal, (which the op started with) but ended up with a more socially accepted measure of success... Getting them back into structured education... )

Soooo, an interesting thing to ponder.

Fwiw, I do see all of mine going to university, whether we end up keeping them all in school or HEing/ unschooling ds or any others. (they have all been identified as more able/gifted academically at different points and for different reasons) and I'm acculturated enough to still realise that this is the minimum measure of success that will mark them as 'educated' in the west. So I'm not being critical of anyone's choices... Just that I find the whole thing endlessly fascinating.

I have school-educated kids who question everything .
Bloody pain in the proverbial, I half-wish they were passive sheep sometimes!!

I think you need to ask on a more HE-oriented site, OP. mothering.com has a thriving unschooling community.

I've eventually got back to this. I have given this a lot of thought after reading what you have said outofbody.

As regards assessment, it would be disrespectful to assess him for our own gratification. In the end of the day it is his mind.

Here are the options:

1. We decide to keep him home. And yes we do need to decide before assessment. The assessment wouldn't be a deciding factor.
2. We send him to school without an assessment. I have spoken to one particular parent with a bright child who said that they don't take you seriously in the school where our DS has been accepted without an assessment and they basically keep rereading the same book over and over. I'm worried that he will feel unseen and have to hold back who he is when he is doing 'C-A-T' and so on and that this will effect his self-esteem. He may feel he can't be himself.
3. We send him to school with an assessment. I can see that this is problematic from what you are saying outofbody, in that he will be judged and it leads him to being measured and judged for his entire schooling. What happens when he is not the brightest person? Will he wonder who he is and what makes him unique?
4. We find a nice school where they look to fulfill his needs without an assessment. We have yet to hear whether he has got a place in another couple of schools, but they are more traditional-type schools.

No I don't feel that he will do better academically in school, but I am concerned that he will be affected when people ask him what school he goes to and he says he doesn't go to school. Other children may ostracise him. Will definitely go to a HE meet-up to meet more families.

The conference that I am going to next week is held by the Centre for Gifted Youth. They run classes monthly I think for gifted children. You have to be assessed to get onto it. His cousin was accepted, but turned it down because she had plenty of other things that interested her. But he may be interested. So I'm going to suss that out next week also. Maybe assessment in that context wouldn't be damaging.

I think Winchester were also running some interesting workshops for parents of young gifted kids at one point. Might be worth looking into ( may have been part funded by nagc, can't remember) additionally, there are some fantastic HE conferences as well, and if you fancy an overseas holiday, some truly awesome unschooling conferences in the states.

Are you sure about the setting? Most yr r intakes have a good few kids who are already fluent readers, and few kids are assessed at that point. It certainly would be unusual to have an intake with no readers from my experience... the kids just usually access the free reading shelves or those from other year groups instead of the reading schemes. It does sometimes take a month or so whilst every kid gets sorted out as to starting point, but we've had no particular bother with kids reading when they start school (with the one exception of guided reading, which drives me bats).

(tis outofbody btw, I finally got my username back )

Do let me know what you decide, I'd love to hear!

(I should probably add that none of mine pay any attention to their assessment at all... They each do different things in school -or out of it, dd1 is currently one of two kids from the school on a local mentor's programme) but they don't even particularly realise they have records on file labelling them as gifted. This came up at breakfast this morning, actually. Something in the paper referred to a school for academically gifted children, and I asked dh if he knew there was actually a state school for gifted kids in the city an hour away from us where he works. Ds said in a slightly curious voice 'I'm gifted at maths aren't I?' and the girls just looked baffled by the whole thing ( school are currently retesting ds to see where to put him for maths, so he added the facts together).

It just isn't something that gets discussed - they each get differentiated opportunities, but hadn't realised it was because they had a formal recognition of 'giftedness'. So it doesn't need to be something that effects his esteem at all, really. None of mine knew that the assessments would tell us they were gifted or not (the psych that did ds's just described it to him as a way of working out what sort of learner he was) and it isn't something that comes up in conversation (except apparently today, lol). This is partly deliberate, as I don't actually want any of them to get into a comparisons of iq discussion and really we only discuss the results with the schools confidentially.

(there is an exception... Dd2 has cerebral palsy - actually the reason we assessed in the first place as we needed to prove she didn't have any learning disabilities- and it is occasionally satisfying to point out to anyone that patronises her as a result that it really isn't necessary. ). So, we aren't keeping the results secret as such, but they just aren't really public knowledge. Or even personal knowledge for the kids, it seems...

I have spoken to one particular parent with a bright child who said that they don't take you seriously in the school where our DS has been accepted without an assessment and they basically keep rereading the same book over and over.

Make sure you speak to a range of parents; don't go with one person's experience. You could even ask the school directly, "What happens to children like mine with XYZ features?" Give them a chance to address your concerns, anyway.

I am concerned that he will be affected when people ask him what school he goes to and he says he doesn't go to school. Other children may ostracise him.

Some adults will think you're weird for home-edding (or possibly negligent). Some will find it an interesting conversation point (I do).

Other children won't ostracise because he doesn't go to school. But friendships between children tend to take lots and lots of small interactions, occasional interaction rarely leads to any depth. Between them, only one of my 4 DC has one dear friend she met on a leisure swim in the pool (not thru school), a friendship reinforced by mutual sports club membership. I suppose for kids in school they get so much social interaction then, that they don't need to make much effort out of school and if they think they've met someone sporadically & not hit it off already, they don't keep trying to make more effort.

Agree with those who've said post on HE board (sorry if you've already done so and I missed it)

Home ed and unschooling are perfectly valid options regardless of giftedness - hope you find some good info :)