Mark Erlandson, the parent of a gifted student who presently attends a boarding school out East, is a former lawyer and public high school English teacher from Wisconsin starting a new business as a legal writing consultant.

Sad as it may be for some (including teachers), the summer is over, and a new school year looms. To make sure you start off the year right, here is some advice for students from a veteran teacher, although parents would do well to follow most of it too.

1. Reserve judgement.

Reserve judgment – about the teacher, about the class, about the curriculum. Things rarely turn out to be as bad as they seem at the beginning. For example, generations of teachers have been taught to start the year off being strict and then loosen up over time. It鈥檚 a lot easier to keep control doing it that way.

2. Give me a chance.

Wait a couple weeks before approaching me about changing my curriculum or policies. First of all, there is so much work for me to do to start the year – from filling out forms to making seating charts to decorating my room to learning names of students – that I am overwhelmed and stressed out. Let me settle in. (Also see #1 above.)

3. Do your homework.

No, I don鈥檛 mean the daily or weekly assignments that you are already doing. You know that. What I mean is that if you want me to let you out of an assignment or give you an opportunity to complete an alternative assignment, know the following before you approach me:

• Is it practice or evidence? Practice means you are doing it to prepare to master a subject or skill; evidence means I am using it to assess whether you have mastered it (and then putting a grade in the gradebook). I have much more leeway with practice than I do with evidence;
• What is the goal or objective of that part of my curriculum? Nowadays, that usually is tied in some way to a . Often it is explained as a 鈥渓earning intention鈥� or 鈥渓earning target鈥� at the beginning of a unit or a daily lesson. Ironically, the standardization of the curriculum through the CCSS actually allows me more freedom to personalize assignments as long as the standard鈥檚 content or skill is covered;
• What you would suggest as the lesson鈥檚 alternative? Don鈥檛 leave it up to me to brainstorm another way of meeting the standard. I already did, and what I came up with is what you are trying to get away from doing. I may know some alternative suggestions to give you, but you are much more likely to get what you want if you already have a plan when you approach me;
• What would you suggest as a rubric? Most assignments/assessments require that I use a scoring guide to grade. Can we use the same one that is being used for the original assignment/assessment? Tweak it somehow? Think about this ahead of time and be prepared to offer a new one if necessary.

4. Try to look at it from my side.

Unfortunately, this world is not ideal. I have a boss (actually bosses), and whether the assistant principal, the principal, the school superintendent or the school board, they all make various demands of me that limit what I can do for you. Also I have limited time and resources. I have a life. In a perfect world, I would be able to meet all of your demands and expectations. Unfortunately we live in this one. Try not to take it personally.

5. Don鈥檛 hate me.

It is very possible that we may not get along together. Sometimes personalities clash. It doesn鈥檛 mean I don鈥檛 like you or will grade you harder than someone else. Before you try to get out of my class or give up trying in class because you don鈥檛 like me, realize that life, or the real world, will require you to work with peers, bosses, clients, or customers who you may not like but have to deal with anyway. Start working on those skills. Try some of the following:

• Talk to your classmates about your feelings and ask them for tips on how they get along with the teacher;
• Meet with the teacher and voice your feelings, e.g., 鈥淚 feel like you are annoyed when I ask extra questions. Is there another way you want me to do that?鈥�;
• Meet with a guidance counselor. He/she may be able to offer advice and tips on how to get along with that particular teacher or how to get along with teachers in general;
• Focus on the subject, not the teacher. We can learn a lot about a subject from a knowledgeable teacher we dislike. Pay attention to the message and not the messenger.
• Finally, if all else fails, and you still think your learning is being negatively affected by your relationship with the teacher, then let your parents take the next step and contact the teacher.

6. Be a person, not just a student.

By that, I mean say 鈥淗i鈥� to me, make eye contact with me whether in the classroom or in the hallway when we pass, maybe ask me about my weekend some time before class or how I am doing today. I am a person too, and sometimes it鈥檚 lonely being a teacher.

Have any of these tips been particularly helpful? What other tips do you have to help students start the school year off right? Please share in the comment section below.

Like this post? to receive more information and resources about gifted youth straight to your inbox.

Mark Erlandson, the parent of a gifted student who presently attends a boarding school out East, is a former lawyer and public high school English teacher from Wisconsin starting a new business as a legal writing consultant.

For a variety of reasons, considerable angst has been created among educators, academicians, politicians, and parents by the adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) by 46 states. (Some states are even in the formal process of revisiting that decision.) For now, the standards only apply to English/Language Arts and Mathematics. The impact the adoption of the CCSS will have on the education of gifted students is open to debate.

The CCSS were developed by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers to provide a clear standard of what students should know and be able to do at each grade level from kindergarten through 12th grade. The standards are aligned with college and career expectations and attempt to establish uniform goals across the US based on best practices.

For those looking at the glass as half full, the standards raise the bar for all students through their emphasis on more rigorous content and higher-order thinking skills. , 鈥淭oo many advanced students languish in today鈥檚 classrooms with little rigor and much repetition. With careful planning, the new standards offer the prospect of improving the classroom experience for high-ability students in significant ways鈥� (2010). For example, reading levels for the various grades based on have been increased, and leveled text examples in the standards documents are significantly more complex than most states鈥� previous curriculum. Those advanced students in the regular classroom setting who have previously not been differentiated for should be significantly more challenged. Also, the establishment of clear grade-level standards should allow for the compacting of curriculum for advanced students.

For those looking at the glass as half empty, ammunition comes from both the words of the developers and the language of the materials written by the developers themselves that accompany the standards. According to the article , Mark Bauerlein, a professor of English at Emory University and a member of a Common Core K-12 Standards Development Team, claimed, 鈥淭he Common Core is about raising the bottom half.鈥� Other relevant comments in the are the following:

• “While the Standards focus on what is most essential, they do not describe all that can or should be taught.”
• “The Standards set grade-specific standards but do not define the intervention methods or materials necessary to support students who are well below or well above grade-level expectations.”
• “The Standards do not define the nature of advanced work for students who meet the Standards prior to the end of high school.”

Obviously, then, the CCSS do not directly address the specific needs and circumstances of the gifted and talented student. Furthermore, many advocates for the gifted community fear that the increased rigor of the standards will lead educators to conclude that no further differentiation is necessary for gifted learners. Others fear that some school districts will use the advent of the tougher standards to reduce or even eliminate the accommodations presently made for gifted children.

One question that remains to be answered is the impact of new grade-level assessments that are currently being designed in most states to align with the standards. As has happened in the past, assessments may still set the bar too low and not permit a proper measure of just how well the gifted learner can perform.

As a high school English teacher myself, I can tell you that the biggest problem in the next few years will be teachers鈥� ability to find the time to differentiate the curriculum for advanced learners when they are still learning the standards themselves, designing curriculum for the regular classroom to implement those standards, and then designing assessments that align with the standards (as well as all the other tasks we teachers currently complete like grading papers and contacting parents).

So what should parents advocating on behalf of their gifted children do? Come prepared when you meet with your child鈥檚 teachers. First, familiarize yourself with the new standards. They can be found at . The National Association for Gifted Children has published three teacher鈥檚 guides to differentiating curriculum: Using the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts with Gifted and Advanced Learners, Using the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics with Gifted and Advanced Learners, and Rigor for Gifted Learners: Modifying Curriculum with Intellectual Integrity. Review the suggested activities, etc. in these books and then meet with your child鈥檚 teachers. These guides, in general, stress the importance of pre-assessments, tasks with greater complexity and creativity, interdisciplinary assignments that allow gifted students to meet several standards at once, and more open-ended assessments. Such assessments would allow for more than one correct answer and have real-world application, e.g., choosing which character in a novel would make the best friend and then explaining why.

While the CCSS does provide more rigor and aligns the new curriculum more closely with gifted education pedagogy, applied too rigidly, the standards could have the ironic result of reducing rigor and limiting learning. Working with your child鈥檚 teachers to differentiate will help to ensure the standards help rather than hinder. Parents will still need to advocate on behalf of their gifted child to ensure that he or she is sufficiently challenged.

Want more information about gifted education? Sign up for our e-newsletter to get articles and resources pertaining to gifted youth in your inbox.