My experience in the program / meeting the facilitator
I was in the GATE program from kindergarten until grade 4.
As a child I was placed into a government run public kindergarten and one of the teachers told my mom that I shouldnt be there because I was too advanced to have meaningful fun.
My mom tried to enroll me in grade 1 but I was too young so I got to stay with my grandmother most of the time instead.
The next year I start grade one, and after about a week the school tells my mom that they think I should be placed into grade 2 because I can already read and do math.
But we were planning on moving soon so they asked us to give them my new schools information so they could speak with them before I was enrolled.
My mom never heard anything else so she enrolled me in grade 1 at the new school and again after a few days the teacher started asking my mom questions about why I was in grade 1. I remember the conversation and the teacher telling my mom that she doesnt have any grade 1 material that would even challenge me and she felt it wouldnt be fair to have me sit there. My mom told her about the conversations with my old school and we went home.
Next day I went to school and my grade 1 teacher took me to the grade 2 classroom and introduced me to the students, new teacher, and snapping turtles. The grade 2 teacher told me that I wouldnt be a regular classmate and that I was allowed to take care of the turtles if they needed anything during class.
I was only expected to attend gym with my classmates but I was allowed to take the tests in class if I wanted to and do the reading assignments. I remember my report cards were just 100% accross the board except gym id get like an 80% lmao I remember me and my brother trying to explain to my mom that my report cards arent real but she didnt understand why.
The program I was in was called GATE but it used curriculum and programs from SAGE, ACE, PACE, ACT, REACT, REACH, and some others.
I lived close to the school so me and my mom walked there and I remember before we got in the school she met the facilitator of the program.
Something ive always found very strange was that this person was someone my mother knew. She went to school with him. He was not a teacher, thats why I call him a facilitator. He would be compared to something like a guidance councillor in most schools. I dont believe he worked for the school board directly but rather the company he worked for had contracts to provide services for the school, like the GATE program.
I can confidently say the facilitator was wholly unaware of what the intentions of the program were and he very likely had the best intentions for providing it. In his eyes it was an accelerated learning program.
So I would go to school then wait for the facilitator to come scoop me from class or the library and he would take me to a belvedere on top the school which felt like a large office in a lighthouse. Not one other person that I know of who attended that school even knew there was an office up there and nowadays its closed off.
The office seemed to be arranged specifically for the program because there was a regular office then through a door there was another space that was used for the listening and viewing tapes with a sound room and a dark room. I remember having to take the headphones into the sound room with the coily wire and plugging it into the tan coloured boxes then I would have to flick a red switch that turned on a light above the door outside the room to let him know I was ready.
They needed a dark room because the tapes were played from a projector.
I remember one of the tapes I was asked to close my eyes and describe what I saw while I listened. Then they played wierd tones that I could 'feel' like if a sound could have a texture lol some were like jagged and some were like lines it was weird.
I remember having two buttons and having to click left or right on what seemed like random patterns.
I remember having to watch a scene and then being asked to describe the background and the objects and colours of things.
I remember having to read a bunch of weird like case studies of people and how they reacted to certain events and how they couldve done things differently.
I remember the whole school having to wait in the hallways and line up for the pink drinks and booster shots but I didnt have to take either and I had a different color vaccination slip then my friends, theres was green and mine was blue.
I was allowed to attend field trips with my classmates and I still have friends from there which is what prompted this post.
They reminded me about how weird it was and started asking me questions about it. Then they showed me the subreddit and ive been reading these experiences and I hope that I can shed some light on a couple things since I have a pretty clear memory of it all and im still in contact with alot of people who were around during the whole experience, including the facilitator.
One thing that I find odd is that the facilitator told me his job was just to present and collect information then send in the results. He had no idea what it was all about and he said half the stuff we talked about went right over his head.
The program itself was not under the jurisdiction or supervision of the school board because it operated across various school boards but it was endorsed by the government at the time. The results of the program were also not shared with the school or my teachers and they were asked not to probe. To this day I have not been able to access information about it other than my own experience.
Edit: I left the program because at the end of grade 4 we moved and my mom just kinda forgot that I was ever in there. She never told the new school board but they asked why I was so young to be in the grade I was in and she told them I skipped grade 1 lol
Hope this helps with anyone elses experience.