Testimonials from some of the families with children at Dunham Academy, focused on sharing their experiences
before and after attending the school, are shown below.
Cameron
First Grade
Cameron is a happy five-year-old boy. He started to talk when he was 14 months old and used complete sentences
and a good set of words. He asked a lot of questions! He was very social and enjoyed chatting with grown ups.
He had a great sense of humor and great memory. As parents we enjoyed him but it never occurred to us that he
might be a gifted child. In the beginning he had fun at pre-school, but little by little he complained that he
was bored and was not enjoying it anymore. His behavior began to be difficult at home and he stopped getting
along with his two older sisters. We did not know why this had happened, and attributed it to his age.
At his pre-k check up with our pediatrician, the doctor noticed that Cameron was ahead of the milestones for
his age, and urged us to pay more attention to this. We began to research the needs of gifted children. We
searched the Internet and learned that gifted children need a lot of academic attention. Otherwise, such
children may suffer frustration and become troubled and under-achievers. Through our research, we came up with
the name of Dunham Academy. We contacted the school, they gave Cameron an evaluation test, and based on the
results, he was accepted into the school.
Cameron has been attending the school for about seven months now. We feel that having him at Dunham
Academy has been one of the best decisions we have made. He is extremely happy and motivated. He has started
to read and is currently working on multiplication tables. It is a pleasure to see him so excited in the mornings
when he can't wait to go to school. At Dunham Academy he feels challenged and loved.
Cameron's Mom
Luke
Middle School
“I came to Dunham Academy because I wanted a school that was as much like my summer academic camps as possible.
I've been going to Johns Hopkins' Center for Talented Youth, Summer Institute for the Gifted and other academic
and music camps since I was in second grade. I always make great friends, have lots of fun and learn so much more
at the camps than I ever did during the regular school year. When I got older, I realized it shouldn't be that
way. Why couldn't school also be interesting - full of smart, motivated kids and keep my attention from wandering?
I asked my parents if we could look for a school where kids could move at a faster pace, where there was no
busy work or constant review of things we'd already learned, and where maybe my teachers wouldn't think I was a
bad kid for staring out the window out of boredom half the day. It also got to me that even though I usually got
100% on tests at my old school, I didn't get great grades because I was marked down for bad "behavior" like talking
to my classmates, doodling, and generally not paying attention. My teachers asked my parents to have me tested for
ADHD. The tester said that I was "highly gifted" and thought particularly well when I was moving my body, but that
I didn't have ADHD. She explained to my parents that at that level of intelligence, about 2/3 of the typical elementary
school day was "wasted" with unnecessary review and working at a slower pace than my mind wanted to go at.
I have been really happy at Dunham Academy. I get to move faster in every subject I'm good at. In math, they
give you pretests at the beginning of each unit so you only have to do it if you don't get a 95%. If you score
below 95% but do o.k. on the pretest, they go through the unit and customize it so you just do the problems you
need to learn. This is so cool!
In science, I wanted to study Chemistry and so did some of the other kids so the school found a high school
level program for us to do and they're teaching it to us.
I wasn't as good at writing and reading, but Dunham has been making me better. We spend 20 minutes a day doing
keyboarding and learning speed reading. We each have to write a short fiction book. I had to do an essay on the book
"Guns, Germs and Steel" for history. And we have a poetry teacher that comes in and works with us - I'm actually
beginning to like writing fiction! Finally, my teachers don't think I have ADHD or mark me down for looking out
the window, probably because I don't look out the window anymore! I'm getting straight A's!"
Joshua
Middle School
I have been fortunate enough to attend Dunham Academy for the last five years. Although my parents had been amazed
at my academic skills, e.g. reading at the age of four, my academic capabilities were not fully realized until
taking the IQ test provided by Dunham Academy.
Since then, I have been privileged to go to a school that I enjoy, where I know that when I walk out of their
door, I will have learned something new each day. Dunham Academy is a place where gifted students are understood
and recognized for who they are, then taught according to their personal strengths and weaknesses.
Before I went to Dunham, I was being taught simple addition and subtraction in math, and phonics in public
school; when at home I had already begun addition and subtraction of fractions, and was able to read 200+ page
chapter books.
Now, at Dunham, I am challenged, having finished Algebra 2 in the Saxon Math Series late last year. In Language
Arts we do writing analysis and a diverse range of poetry and prose.
We are also privileged to be able to take high school science courses, such as Chemistry, Physics, and Biology.
We are encouraged to figure out things for ourselves rather than having it told to us; therefore we each have access
to the Internet, where we research things for ourselves so that we can more fully explore them. On our school network,
we can edit each other’s work to help improve our writing. I am thoroughly enjoying our Fencing class where we have
an exciting, alternate style of P.E.
At last I don’t feel like an outsider, I am finally in a place with people like me who understand me, like the same
things, and provide a caring environment where I can feel comfortable. The students are all willing to help me when I need
help in Physics, or don’t understand something in Math. Through this environment I am able to go at my own pace, and
therefore learn at the maximum possible efficiency. If I already know something in Math, the teacher does not bother
to teach me it again, but allows me go on to things I don’t know. Through this environment, this curriculum, I feel I
can learn to the best of my ability.
Adam
Middle School
Probably, the most important aspect of Dunham Academy that has helped my son Adam has been the opportunity to meet and
befriend other children who are like him. His interests in aviation, bird watching and reading did not help him to make
friends at his old school. Adam was not interested in sports. He is sensitive, poetic and musical. On our first visit
to the school I was awed that six boys near my son’s age (7) were engrossed in books. When introductions were made, my
son cracked a joke. The boys’ eyes met and warmhearted laughter was shared by all. Later, when play dates were made, I
listen to the children converse about the wonders of the Egyptian Necropolis, the best strategies for a successful trip
on The Oregon Trail and fascinating facts on birds and their habitats. I breathe a deep sigh of relief that we had
found a place where he could find friends who would respect and listen to him. It was also a great relief to find teachers
who understood Adam. They did not become overwhelmed or frustrated about his intensity, sensitivity or perfectionism.
These are traits that are common in gifted children; the teachers are knowledgeable and skilled when working with these
amazing yet challenging children. They were very patient with him, knowing that he came from a school where he had been
misunderstood and isolated. Our son discovered that he was understood and accepted at Dunham Academy.
Adam’s Parents
Severin
Middle School
It is common parlance, especially in Marin County, for private schools to proclaim their facility at being able to
address the needs of "gifted" students, to respond empathetically to children with "learning differences", or to attend
to the individual "learning styles of the child." Despite the simultaneous seductive paeans to Mel Levine, Carl Rogers,
and Mr. Rogers, there are very few schools that actually walk their proverbial talk.
Our son came to Dunham as a mid-year transfer when it became clear that, despite the prodigious efforts of all concerned,
his enthusiasm for learning in a classroom setting was increasingly ebbing. Upon hearing from a friend of the reawakening
of enthusiasm for attending school once again, we scheduled a day for our son to be a student for a day there on a trial
basis. When I picked him up, he fairly bounded out the door saying that this was the most fun he had had in school in a
very long time….and when could he start going there?
Two weeks later, he enrolled as a “mid-year transfer.” Both Jennifer and Dan Dunham provided a balance between providing
the requisite structure and letting Severin be Severin -- somehow letting the process of meandering between experimentation,
cultivating an increasing peace with the necessity of step wise thinking take shape in the interest of academic development.
The commitment to academic problem solving is such that frustrations are temporary delays from which one is supposed to
learn something, rather than ditches in which to be stuck. It is not only the smaller classes that have permitted a more
in-depth understanding of our son’s “gifts” and “areas needing improvement” but the commitment to “giftedness” itself: in
the end, there is no child that is not “gifted” and the Dunham orientation is cultivation of skill not mere issuance of demands.
The results have been gratifying and, in the end, nothing short of the re-establishing the school environment as
laboratory rather than a pedagogic swamp through which one must trudge. He still comes home with his mind bounding.
Severin’s Parents
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