Teachers.Net GATE Chatboard

Today was the first day of checking out the chatboard at Teachers.Net - http://teachers.net/mentors/GATE/

As I was browsing through some of the postings, I found a posting that was producing some interesting diologue. The 1/11/09 posting from "confused" titled "Have Any of You Run Into This?" brought up some interesting topics. The first thing I noticed was the all to familiar confusion of a new teacher who is being told what she has to do without guidance of how to implement it. Being a new teacher, I am often overwhelmed with the never ending list of tasks that thrown my way during the school year. This specific posting was about a teacher who taught gifted junior high students who were pulled out of their core reading class to attend a gifted class. In fear of the students not performing well on state tests, the administration told the teacher she must add reading, comprehension, and vocabulary into her lessons, in order to prepare her students for state tests. The teacher seemed very confused and frustrated, and from what I read, had no materials given to her to help her with this task.

Bringing this topic into a regular classroom, I have witnessed and experienced the lack of materials and resources for gifted children in a school. This posting reall brought to light the fact that gifted students are not always viewed as "special education students" and teachers and administrators often do not worry about their "education plan" because they test well. Classroom lessons and school programs (at least in my district) are focused on students with learning disabilities, reading difficulties, and other things of that nature. There are many staff members, special programs, special classes, and accomodations done in the classroom to ensure this population's "success". For gifted students, however, there is a once-a-week, 40 minute class, and no support for teachers differentating instruction (or attempting to) for these students in the regular classroom.