Ask a teacher on Summer Break

[Cecelia]

  50 a night?! yikes! Maths classes every day? O.o
But not high school level.... so... "easy" and quick problems, huh?

Sometimes.  At the high school level (at least here) you only take classes every other day.  Some kids have complained about how much HW they're given.  My three eldest are going to be in 7th grade this year. So the math isn't too bad--but sometimes it just seems like busy work.

In a school district in neighboring Nebraska when I was a kid there was a student 2 grade school teachers had 'tested' for developmental disabilities (a less polite term was used at the time).  In the fullness of time, that student graduated from Caltech with honors (a full scholarship too) and went on to found his own software engineering and consulting firm in Silicon Valley.

Are you aware of any other similar 'fails' amongst your peers for mistaking an incipient genius for a kid that needs placement in a 'special' program ??

I'd like to think there is a greater awareness now of how many ways significant academic achievement might manifest itself these days, but maybe there are still a kid or 2 not recognized these days for being 'smart' ??

No, but I think that identifying students with disabilities has improved significantly.  They have names for things now that they didn't before.  I remember one girl who was struggling with reading.  She wasn't a dumb girl--she was reasonably bright.  But I started to think she might have dyslexia.  I told her parents, and unfortunately they never got her tested for it.  I mean I might have been wrong--but if she had been, and they had her tested, she could have been accommodated to help her by giving her more time on tests.