gifted v. regular

I sent my now-35 year old daughter to public school when she started first grade. I had never gone to a public school. We lived, then, in Minneapolis which was almost completely white but the public schools in that city were almost entirely black, latino and immigrants. Mpls had some great, on paper, magnet schools and we scored a spot in one of the city's 'best' schools. My daughter's school was designated an ESL (English as Second Language) site and there were 67 different first languages in that school. I was thrilled to be giving my child such a diversity and, I hoped, rich community/school. I eschewed private school with this reasoning: I had witnessed white flight to suburban schools in my home town of Chicago and in Minneapolis/St. Paul. I decided that if all whites segregated their kids to poor, inner city white schools and communities, the future looked bleak. I decided my white child would not tap into that racist trend

In her first year in that 'best' public school, my daughter scored in the high nineties on her annual standardized testing. Both of her parents are lawyers and, living with me, she had always had an enriched cultural life. That and I sent her to superb day care facilities that were comparable to great preschools.

In her second year in the best public school in our city, her test scores were down in the 80's.

In the third grade, her test schools slid further, suggesting to me that my child, who had been diagnosed as severely gifted before she was two years old by her pediatrician, was atrophying. Oh, she had fun at school but she was not learning anything, Or learning much.

Also in the third grade, a poor black kid named Tony, who actually looked like the shabbiest boy in the whole school, with not just ratted nappy hair but sometimes little bits of stuff in his hair. Tony never had warm clothes on for cold days. Even now, almost 30 years later, I see that stressed out little boy and feel my heart pinch.

Tony may have had a crush on my daughter because she shone like the sun and, and she never could explain this to me, she always played with black kids. Later, in h.s., she told me to expect to have a black son-in-law because she found black people more attractive than white ones. [she is with a white man these days but she's done it all: multicolored men and women, settling in with the, probably no coincidentally, the very rich white guy she is with today].

Tony began to enlist his cousin to help him chase my daughter at recess, so the cousin could hold her down while Tony dry humped her. This greatly upset my daughter, of course. And there were, allegedly, paid union teachers on the playground supervising the children. Yet when I suggested to the principal when we met that perhaps the teachers doing playground supervision could stop Tony from dry humping my daughter, I was told I could not expect those paid playground teachers to see everything. I said "What's not to see? A seven year old girl is screaming with a boy on top of her? How the heck does any responsible adult miss that?" To which the principal responded to me that she had scheduled multiple home visits with Tony's parents because poor little Tony was a problem in all kinds of ways. But, she went on, no one ever answered the door when she showed up. Then the principal, a black woman as it happened, shrugged, waived her hands and said to me "What else can I do?" To which I responded, turning into lawyer warrior mom, "You can do your job and make sure that my daughter is no assaulted almost daily at recess.  She is entitled to be safe at school, including recess, and I bet I could sue the school district for this negligence. You are on notice of her abuse by Tony. You are on notice that your teachers are not doing their job at recess. And you are allowing my child to suffer abuse."  I decided in that meeting that I had to find another school for my kid.

And I did. I had almost enrolled her in Waldorf at the beginning of her educational journey but it was so white, so Western-European-centric. Waldorf turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to her or to me (well, I don't know what great things have happened to her since she was a teenager, for she has not talked to me since she was a teenager.  . . )

I had already decided to get her out of that public school when her test scores plummeted. When she was less than two, her pediatrician really did tell me I had a severely gifted child and with that giftedness, he said, came higher responsibilites as the parent. I had to find a gifted school for her. I had to provide her with greater enrichment.  Blah blah blah. I knew being raised by very smart me was plenty of enrichment. And, I swear, as that pediatrician talked, and he even said "I am not kidding here, you don't seem to be taking me seriously. I don't tell parents their children are very gifted very often. I never do." I had said polite things like "Thanks, we're proud of her" and "Thank you doctor, we think she is smart too." I was being polite. What did he think I should have said?  I was being modest, being polite. I knew my kid was a genius. I knew I was and that everyone in my blkood line was. People told me all the time how smart my kid seemed and I had developed a polite neutral answer "Thank you, we are proud of her." and "Thank you, we think she is smart too".

But when that doc said I had to get her in a gifted school, I swear, I intuitively sensed Waldorf. Right in that exam room, I felt that there was a school in the world that would give my daughter what she needed without going gifted. Waldorf, an educational pedagogy that every human would benefit from. I didn't know about Waldorf but I felt Waldorf energy as I instantly rejected the idea of a gifted kid program.

Years later, I met a colleague who had adopted a Vietnamese boy that she often remarked was gifted, exceptionally intelligent. She had him in a special gifted school. We were not friends, just collegial acquaintances, so I didn't tell her that I thought she was unwise to send her kid to a gifted program.

I knew my daughter needed to have her heart and emotions addressed in her education and I knew that most gifted programs teach to a gifted kid's left brain. My kid, I knew, was a right brain, full heart, little girl.

I made the right decision with that wrong turn into my liberal doooder attempt to change white flight.