Intellect or Age Peer?
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chamonix:
If there is joy in it. I think maybe dun hold them back. As long as you're watching emotional and social aspects carefully, it should be ok. DS had social issues I needed to watch out for but holding him back denied him the sense of pride that would have helped the social issues somewhat. For them it's just like play and if they like to play in the intellectual arena, why not?Hi Chen,
Thanks for your sharing your regret openly. Truly, I agree very much with what you shared on HS. Kids can move much faster with HS. I held back my son on Maths. Even he proved himself capable of higher level stuff at 4 years old. I stopped at P1 and merely encouraged him to explore and read on his own. We remain status quo until we moved overseas. Progress took off again.
Actually, after reading 2ppaamm and your posts here, I am starting to wonder if it is a mistake to hold my kids back. My P1 daughter has been begging to do P3 maths last year but I have been putting her off. Perhaps it's a wrong decision to do so. But then again, I also see the benefits of holding back. If I have drilled my kids on multiplication and division, they wouldn't have been learnt to be creative and discovered solutions themselves.
Hmm, looks like I have some thinking to do.
My kids and I have always had fun learning together... I thought it was good to just have fun so I wouldn't have to work at it. I just needed to do that bit more to tie to syllabus.
I think must go case by case. And you need to weigh the various aspects of development and see how they interact to slow another aspect... or to enhance another aspect's development. It's a Mom's decision. No one can read your situation better than you.
Do you drill in homeschool? I never did. We didn't even REVISE. I drill now for PSLE, and it's no fun. -
Chenonceau:
We did two weeks last year for the sake of doing something structured and discipline. It literally killed joy in both parties. This year, I did it again for our impending return to Sg. We waved the white flag after one week. No, my kids are both very cooperative. But we feel we are not learning. The assessment books don't seem to allow them to learn as much as from just reading books. Science used to be his favorite and it has now become a drudgery when we tried to follow the syllabus. He has more fun talking about centrifugal force than trying to answer Science exam papers. Maths, he fascinated with fractals, factorial numbers etc. Recently, he even drew a figure and amused himself with factorial numbers.
If there is joy in it. I think maybe dun hold them back. As long as you're watching emotional and social aspects carefully, it should be ok. DS had social issues I needed to watch out for but holding him back denied him the sense of pride that would have helped the social issues somewhat. For them it's just like play and if they like to play in the intellectual arena, why not?chamonix:
Hi Chen,
Thanks for your sharing your regret openly. Truly, I agree very much with what you shared on HS. Kids can move much faster with HS. I held back my son on Maths. Even he proved himself capable of higher level stuff at 4 years old. I stopped at P1 and merely encouraged him to explore and read on his own. We remain status quo until we moved overseas. Progress took off again.
Actually, after reading 2ppaamm and your posts here, I am starting to wonder if it is a mistake to hold my kids back. My P1 daughter has been begging to do P3 maths last year but I have been putting her off. Perhaps it's a wrong decision to do so. But then again, I also see the benefits of holding back. If I have drilled my kids on multiplication and division, they wouldn't have been learnt to be creative and discovered solutions themselves.
Hmm, looks like I have some thinking to do.
I think must go case by case. And you need to weigh the various aspects of development and see how they interact to slow another aspect... or to enhance another aspect's development. It's a Mom's decision. No one can read your situation better than you.
Do you drill in homeschool? I never did. We didn't even REVISE. I drill now for PSLE, and it's no fun.
So, drilling doesn't work for us. -
chamonix:
We did two weeks last year for the sake of doing something structured and discipline. It literally killed joy in both parties. This year, I did it again for our impending return to Sg. We waved the white flag after one week. No, my kids are both very cooperative. But we feel we are not learning. The assessment books don't seem to allow the to learn as much as just reading books. Science used to be his favorite and it has now become a drudgery when we tried to follow the syllabus. He has more fun talking about centrifugal force than trying to answer Science exam papers. Maths, he fascinated with fractals, factorial numbers etc. Recently, he even drew a figure and amused himself with factorial numbers.
If there is joy in it. I think maybe dun hold them back. As long as you're watching emotional and social aspects carefully, it should be ok. DS had social issues I needed to watch out for but holding him back denied him the sense of pride that would have helped the social issues somewhat. For them it's just like play and if they like to play in the intellectual arena, why not?Chenonceau:
[quote=\"chamonix\"]Hi Chen,
Thanks for your sharing your regret openly. Truly, I agree very much with what you shared on HS. Kids can move much faster with HS. I held back my son on Maths. Even he proved himself capable of higher level stuff at 4 years old. I stopped at P1 and merely encouraged him to explore and read on his own. We remain status quo until we moved overseas. Progress took off again.
Actually, after reading 2ppaamm and your posts here, I am starting to wonder if it is a mistake to hold my kids back. My P1 daughter has been begging to do P3 maths last year but I have been putting her off. Perhaps it's a wrong decision to do so. But then again, I also see the benefits of holding back. If I have drilled my kids on multiplication and division, they wouldn't have been learnt to be creative and discovered solutions themselves.
Hmm, looks like I have some thinking to do.
I think must go case by case. And you need to weigh the various aspects of development and see how they interact to slow another aspect... or to enhance another aspect's development. It's a Mom's decision. No one can read your situation better than you.
Do you drill in homeschool? I never did. We didn't even REVISE. I drill now for PSLE, and it's no fun.
So, drilling doesn't work for us.[/quote]When I talked about acceleration... it didn't include drilling. My DS knows his stuff in Science. We spend entirely too much time critiquing how he can make his answer clearer... and how he must use key words... and how if he has 3 possible solutions, he should go for the simplest one in case his teacher doesn't get the more complex assumptions.
Same with compo... he can write. He wrote a Science Fiction story about organic robots. See below...
It is year 3012, the year of despair for all the unemployed. At the turn of the century, an inventor by the name of Robert Taylor had invented what the press dubbed “mankind's greatest innnovation thus far”. Strangely enough, it was created with the single purpose of enslaving men. The robotifier was a small circular plate with a few buttons, a USB port and minimal cost. However, with suitable machinery, one could insert it into the head of any human. This would strip him or her of all emotion, will, opinion and thought whilst causing the wretched victim to be entirely devoted to any chosen master at the press of a button. In short, he or she would be reduced to an it, an opinionless slave, an emotionless machine ––– an organic robot.
So the race was on, as companies and nations dashed to haul outlaws, pickpockets and murderers alike from their dark and dank cells for the operation. Shrieks of terror and spurts of blood escaped from the operation room as the convicts leapt from the frying pan into the fire. These robots of flesh and blood were soon found nearly everywhere, from dark-as-dungeon coal mines and smoggy factories to rich households and posh restaurants. Nevertheless, there was a limit to the number of crooks they could find. Demand soon outgrew supply. The prisons were soon barren, the click of the guard's footsteps ringing loud through the deserted corridors. The moans of the depressed old men, mingled with the hoarse shrieks of distressed young lads were replaced with eerie pin drop silence. Within a decade nearly all felons and jailbirds had been robotified.... cont'd
He can write. I know he can. But I need to now drill him for the specific rubrics of English Compo in PSLE. Like you said - a killjoy. -
Chenonceau:
I can totally understand this part, which is why I have been thinking about sending them for writing classes. You see, I can't and don't know how to teach nor drill them on the rubrics of compo writing required by school. Maybe, overtime they will learn to. But I too want to save them from unnecessary pains.
He can write. I know he can. But I need to now drill him for the specific rubrics of English Compo in PSLE.
Oops, shouldn't this be in the thread on \"parents, not enrichment centers, is the key\"?
Can the moderators please move the discussions unrelated to giftedness to the relevant threads? Thanks! -
2ppaamm:
It's the part on parents enriching kids that I am confused. For parents who can't or don't know how to enrich their kids, wouldn't it mean turning to external sources like enrichment centers to advance or enrich the kids?
O no, did I sound like I am encouraging children to go for enrichment? Not at all! Explain later... daughter needs help...
(Btw, i'm not against advancing kids. I must confess that I do advance my kids intentionally by providing them with materials such as books and DVDs).
I'm currently a little dense up in the snow mountain with a flu. So, bear with me if you find my questions less than intellectual.
From your various posts, i have the impression that you disapprove of local enrichment classes and education system. Did I get that right? If seen from another perspective, wouldn't online classes be another form of enrichment classes that parents can enroll their kids for academic advancement, albeit for different academic subjects? And by trying to accumulate credit points within a short period in order to gain entrance to university, how does such a system differ from our current system of grade chasing to the \"best schools\"?
I bear no malice, just wondering aloud.
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chamonix:
I think that if you bring your child to a high competence in writing overall (and do maintenance work through the years), you can wait till P6 to train to the rubrics. However, if the child is not of good competence in writing, no amount of rubrics training will help. For example, if the child has no vocabulary, no sense of the dramatic, it's no use telling the child in P6 that his compos are too imaginative - won't help his marks. One of the rubrics in P6 is Content Realism. Come on... how fun is it to write a story that is completely realistic when you're a little kid? So... when Little Boy was small, I never required realism. Instead, I celebrated every evidence of the imaginative. Then in P6, it's no effort bringing in Content Realism. One shouldn't be spending years training a kid to lack imagination.
I can totally understand this part, which is why I have been thinking about sending them for writing classes. You see, I can't and don't know how to teach nor drill them on the rubrics of compo writing required by school. Maybe, overtime they will learn to. But I too want to save them from unnecessary pains.
Oops, shouldn't this be in the thread on \"parents, not enrichment centers, is the key\"?
Can the moderators please move the discussions unrelated to giftedness to the relevant threads? Thanks!
I enjoy writing and I know how to write. My kids and I had great fun writing together. They read my writing and I read theirs, without marking. Just read and laughed. I also like Science and trivia, so there were plenty of such related materials in the house. In PSLE year, both these subjects are low stress subjects. Hardly need to spend time because it isn't too difficult in P6 to layer on the rubrics once your competence is already there.
The subjects that trip us up (fail) are those we never bothered to have fun with - Chinese and Math. I don't like Math and so we never played with that. I had very few materials in Math at home. So Math materials were all meant for school, no extras beyond because I found it not fun. Now I know better, I consciously go about getting Math materials because even if I dun find it fun, I realise he does (and that all this fun adds up to school results). Also he is older now and can actually ask me to buy stuff he likes. -
Whenever I tell people that my children are radically accelerated, they automatically think that I hot house the kids. I just wonder why people think that way. Is the only way to learn the hard way? Screaming at unmotivated kids, covering boring syllabus and keeping away from the outdoors… such strange beliefs. Perhaps they have read too many stories about how some parents would torture their kids into achieving beyond what they are able?
I had a totally different experience with my children. I think my kids enjoyed their education far more than any average Singaporean child. Three did the PSLE, but there was no tuition, no supplement, no scolding from me, no assessment, no nothing. The results were not top of Singapore, but they got to the secondary schools they wanted. These same three kids also finished their Grade 8 by P5, and these same three kids became national athletes. And they enjoyed their education, which include sports, arts and academic. The key is the motivation and looking after their self-esteem and passion.
So, if we were to let our kids learn with their intellectual peers, they will be motivated. Because they will be in the right environment, with people they can relate to, talking about things they all love. If I had kept my son in JC2 this year, I’m not sure if he would end up like his best friend who ended up asking for a diagnosis from a psychologist so that he could go to an international school. He simply hated his elitist secondary school. My son loves his education and loves his course in the uni and has started his masters course in a topic he loves.
If I were to let my daughter stay in her sec 4 class, she might still come home everyday complaining about her Geography teacher who scolds the class (a top class, btw) for a whole 30 minutes and got those few students who did not do their homework to stay outside the classroom, and gave instructions to the rest not to share notes with this group. She told me she thought the teacher was immature and did not understand what she was trying to achieve. I couldn’t say a thing, because my daughter was right, but I have to ask her to respect authorities. In addition, she would have burnt her Dec hols, and probably her June 2012 hols studying for ‘O’ levels. Instead, she is enjoying her course in the uni doing research on a topic of her passion, making clay models to sell on her blog, and earn some pocket money doing sports coaching.
If I were to let my younger daughter stay in the Sec 3 this year, she would have missed out her chance to explore photography, music, arts and even statistics. Topics she has started to love. She would have spent half of last year mugging and learning how to be exam smart so that she too could get into a top class in Sec 3. Instead, I let her explore what she wanted, and she managed to travel, and joined a national team from another country to train in a sport she loves and shared their joy when the team qualified for London 2012, made new friends, and understood a totally different culture through sports and arts. If she had stayed with her age peers, she would not have won a scholarship to start her undergrad studies end this month.
If I had let myself believe that teachers are right, and that my son is ONLY gifted in Maths, we would not have explored expo writing at undergrad levels, he would still be stuck doing cliche compo for P6, and would not have learnt how to write programs and make websites - something he is now so passionate about. He would not have made animations and developed interesting cartoons to sell. He would still be in depression, trying to understand what is wrong with him. He would not have explored going into competitive sports, or learning how to horse ride. He would not have believed he is just normal.
Allowing my kids to learn beyond what the schools tell me what they are able. Allowing them to explore beyond what the public education system believes is norm, and allowing them to learn with their intellect peers has allowed my kids to see things beyond what others can even imagine. And the nice little perk is that their self-esteems get little boosts.
I will always be grateful for the resources I found. But they are by no means by accident. I spent sleepless nights, weekends after weekends, thousands after thousands looking for solutions, solutions I was told don’t exist. I dare not say I have found all the solutions, but I am glad I have devised a system that works, that gives my children an education that I believe best suits them. For them, it is definitely to work with intellectual peers, and we work hard to help them keep friends that are age peers.
What about you? What do you want your kid to remember about their education, about their childhood? Enrichment centers and straight As? I do not have a simple Singapore dream for my kids. Mine was much, much bigger. Perhaps I am greedy and straight A’s are not good enough. -
2ppaamm:
son in JC2 this year, I'm not sure if he would end up like his best friend who ended up asking for a diagnosis from a psychologist so that he could go to an international school. He simply hated his elitist secondary school.
From secondary school onwards, as long as parents can afford, going to international school is one option for many students who cannot fit the MOE system. Why does his best friend need a diagnosis report to go international school? :? -
ksi:
No, I don't think every child can opt to go to an international school. A Singaporean can only go to either ACS(I) or SJI(I) or CNIS? These are local international schools. For the rest of the international schools, I was told you'll have to get permission from MOE to enroll in them. I am not able to find any website stating this, but when I visited the schools, that's what they told me. Anyway, my son's friend who is perfectly fine, went to get a psychologist to state that he is asperger's and then got permission to enroll in an international-international school (not one of these local ones).2ppaamm:
son in JC2 this year, I'm not sure if he would end up like his best friend who ended up asking for a diagnosis from a psychologist so that he could go to an international school. He simply hated his elitist secondary school.
From secondary school onwards, as long as parents can afford, going to international school is one option for many students who cannot fit the MOE system. Why does his best friend need a diagnosis report to go international school? :? -
O, got a link that talks about this. Those 3 international arms of local schools are not considered 'international' schools. http://www.asiaone.com/News/Education/Story/A1Story20071122-37914.html
Found the quote from MOE so like MOE, \"But the MOE stressed that the Government prefers Singaporeans to attend local schools for the purpose of building a national identity.
'Singaporean children should be educated in an environment that embraces the history and culture of Singapore, in particular, the multi-racial and multi-religious characteristics of Singapore'
International schools are less multi-racial and multi-religious??? It is by now a common knowledge why Singapore government makes it so difficult for locals, especially gifted boys to enroll in international schools. They want to 'create that national identity' (brain wash?). So even when the kid has problems, it is very difficult to get approved for international school. Easier for girls.
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