Idealogian

Gifted

Schools, Facing Tight Budgets, Leave Gifted Programs Behind

[I]n September, Mountain Grove, a remote rural community in the Ozarks where nearly three in four students live in poverty, eliminated all of its programs for the district's 50 or so gifted children like Audrey, who is 8 now. Struggling with shrinking revenues and new federal mandates that focus on improving the test scores of the lowest-achieving pupils, Mountain Grove and many other school districts across the country have turned to cutting programs for their most promising students.

"Rural districts like us, we've been literally bleeding to death," said Gary Tyrrell, assistant superintendent of the Mountain Grove School District, which has 1,550 students.

Mr. Tyrrell desperately needs either a dictionary or a paramedic. I would assume it's the former, though as he's the assistant superintendent of a school district, I would hope it isn't.

Also of note:

Before her second birthday, Audrey Walker recognized sequences of five colors. When she was 6, her father, Michael, overheard her telling a little boy: "No, no, no, Hunter, you don't understand. What you were seeing was a flashback."

This is very interesting from a perspective of self-awareness and -consciousness. It shows she was not only cognizant of the concept of flashbacks and able to differentiate between reality and perception, but also that she was able to make that distinction with regard to others' perceptions. What's even more interesting about that story, however, is the way I can use it to seamlessly segue into a story about my niece, who is also 6 years old and incredibly bright (and also has reddish, curly hair).

She and two friends, one boy (whom we'll call "David") and one girl (whom we'll call "Sarah"), were sitting at the same table, coloring with crayons. Sarah was looking for the red crayon and realized David had it. She asked him if she could have it, and he responded that he was still using it. She accused him of hogging it, and he insisted that he wasn't done with it yet (even though, by that time, he really was and just didn't want to give it to her). This went back and forth for a bit until my niece calmly asked, "David, can I have the red after you?"; he responded by giving it to her. She quietly handed it over to Sarah and asked, "Sarah, can I have the red after you?" And, of course, Sarah gave it to her as soon as she was done.