Failing Our Geniuses

saintlupus writes "Time has an interesting article about the failure of the US educational system to properly deal with gifted students. For example, up to ten times as much money is spent nationwide on educating 'developmentally disabled' students as gifted ones. Does No Child Left Behind mean that nobody can get ahead, either?"

Comments

of course

[networkBoy]

Does No Child Left Behind mean that nobody can get ahead, either? Yes.

Re:of course

[robgig1088]

Yeah that about sums it up. In our school district, they're pushing more regular students into our magnet schools (this is a Louisiana magnet school, mind you). Basically they're trying to level the playing field. Unfortunately, this means the AP students don't have as many higher-level classes to take because they have to cater to the regular-class students. If you ask me, High Schools should be like colleges, where they get to choose whether or not you're smart enough to attend. This sort of thing just annoys me to no end.

Re:of course

[mooingyak]

I thought about this the other day, anyone know if they've ever tried splitting the smarter/average/dumb kids up into their own classes permanently from 5th or so through 12th

At my school, they did this from 7th to 12th (and for math in 6th). The split was per subject, so the strong math students were not necessarily the strong English students, though there was a large amount of overlap. I don't know if there's a critical mass of students required before this becomes practical - I was in a graduating class of approx 550. I was under the impression that it was reasonably common though.

Re:of course

[Saxophonist]

I thought about this the other day, anyone know if they've ever tried splitting the smarter/average/dumb kids up into their own classes permanently from 5th or so through 12th, as in they hardly ever see the other groups anymore except between classes and at lunch? I would be curious if the social structures in each group would clash, or if the system would work.

That is known as tracking. Tracking, that is, grouping students by ability through all classes rather than judging ability by subject, was usually referred to as illegal in education courses I took or in schools in which I taught, but I cannot find a citation to back that up. The closest I found was here, which alludes to the potential for civil rights violations.

Re:of course

[Marxist Hacker 42]

This is new? Yes, of course no child left behind means nobody can get ahead- but it didn't start with no child left behind. EVERY person I know who tested with an IQ greater than 105 had this problem in high school, and to a lesser extent in grade school (but only because I went to a rural grade school with extremely small class sizes).

Re:of course

[ShieldW0lf]

They do this in high school here in Canada. Only the advanced classes count towards university qualifications though, so you generally find strong students take all advanced classes, and weak students take general classes.

I was in a pilot fast-track program when I was a child... completed grades 1, 2 and 3 in 2 years while mingled in amongst the grade 1s the first year and the grade 3's the next. I have to say, it's a hard thing to put a kid through when it comes to socializing... I lost a lot of blood on that schoolyard. They didn't continue the program.

Re:of course

[Surt]

This was done at my high school. The result was that the good teachers fought to teach the classes with the good students, because the classes with the bad students were rowdy. The low and mid level students got left further and further behind. This is pretty much what no-child-left-behind was designed to defeat.

Re:of course

[Captain Redundant]

As a self-diagnosed genius, I think this is quite right. The education system really failed me.

I console myself by wearing a t-shirt that says "Genius At Work". Man, I love that t-shirt.

Re:of course

[Javagator]

Where I live (Fairfax County, Virginia), they do split the kids up. There is a "gifted and talented" program, where, starting in the 3rd grade, the more advanced kids are put in their own classes and have their own curricula. According to some kids I talked to, there is some friction between the groups, but not anything too serious. There is also a public high school, Thomas Jefferson School of Science and Technology, that the cream of the crop attend.

However, the spending per pupil is about the same for all students. Smart kids don't really need extra money to learn. They just need to be turned loose.

Re:of course

[netruner]

The problems happen in a couple of ways:
1.) "My kid should be in the smart class" (whether they belong there or not)
2.) Claims of discrimination / creation of a caste system being unacceptable.

Remember, school board officials are elected and must bow to political pressure.

One of my mentors used to always tell me: "Culture is the hardest thing to change". Parents want they perceive to be the best for their kids whether it really is or not. They also (typically - no matter how many sob stories you hear) have a greater stake in them than the teachers that only see them for a few hours a day.

Would you trust someone at the local public school to put your kid on a path that will determine what opportunities will be available to them? As one of my college professors said: too many Einsteins are passed over because the teacher was looking for that one Gauss.

Re:of course

[UserChrisCanter4]

Your response is correct, but the Time article doesn't appear to address the reason. Most people are familiar with the phrase "No Child Left Behind," but don't actually understand how it works.

AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) is a factor in the ranking of school systems. Specifically, it was designed to expose the fact that many school had masked the few poor performers with the majority of successful students.

What it effectively means is that all "sub-populations" (broken by ethnic groups, ESL/Limited English Proficiency, "at-risk," and low-income, among others) must demonstrate "adequate yearly progress." It's designed to even be a bit forgiving - the low-income group doesn't necessarily have to pass, they just have to have improved a reasonable amount from the year before. A subpopulation counts if it is 1% of the school population or 30 kids (IIRC).

If a school fails to meet AYP for two years in a row, they become a "school of choice." Parents may now choose to pull their students from that school and send them to another one, and the failing school will pay for transportation. I'm not sure how it works out in small, rural districts where a given high school is the only one in the district.

Once a school fails in AYP, kids start getting pulled. The kids who get pulled are the ones who have parents who care about education; that usually translates to the kids who do well in a school being pulled from it. You can see how much this would impact a school.

If a school fails to meet AYP for five years in a row, a radical restructuring is due; this generally means that large amounts of the staff need to be fired, or the school should be converted to a charter school or something similar. In practice, though, the actual actions at this stage usually aren't as substantial.

With the background out of the way, it's fairly easy to see why geniuses don't matter: they'll pass the test. Five or ten ESL students (or low-income, or at-risk, or whatever) can make or break a school of 3000. With the way the NCLB program has structured AYP, it should be obvious where a principal/district would focus resources.

I'm not arguing that schools don't need monitoring; they do, no doubt. But if this system sounds ridiculous to you, please do all of us a favor and let your elected officials know.

Re:of course

[Mr. Slippery]

anyone know if they've ever tried splitting the smarter/average/dumb kids up into their own classes permanently from 5th or so through 12th

When I was in middle school and high school (early to mid 1980s, Baltimore County, Maryland), certainly things were done this way. There were gifted & talented, honors, standard, and remedial level classes in most core subjects. (Not all schools had G&T classes.) And you could be in different levels in different subjects. Classes like art, music, gym, and "industrial arts" (shop), were mixed.

Even in elementary school, I recall there being different reading groups in the same classroom. I was fortunate that in fourth through sixth grades we also had special G&T programs in math and creative writing.

I would be curious if the social structures in each group would clash, or if the system would work.

I'd say that splitting classes worked fairly well. It certainly was easier for me in high school than in elementary school - I was skipped up a grade, some of the bullies were held back a grade, and that made for a combination that had me getting beat up a lot.

In high school, most of the G&T kids weren't as socially retarded as I was, and got along fine. Many played on the sports teams and made friends at all academic levels through that. Even I was fairly well adjusted by my junior year - getting involved in one of the school plays helped.

Re:of course

[gad_zuki!]

This really doesnt have much to do with no child left behind. Funny how short people's memories are. There were more than a few high profile articles in the 90s about young kids attempting college only to come out well academically but very poor socially. Parents driving to the school every day and picking up their kids. Feeding them, drying their tears, putting them on anti-depressants, etc. Moms quitting their jobs to make the commute. Kids getting teased. And when all is said and done they come out of these schools with no social skills. Unable to make small-talk, unable sell themselves in an interview, unable to make friends their own age, professors not wanting the added burden of teaching someone with the emotional intelligence of a 10 year old, etc.

Its absolutely no wonder universities dont want these kids anymore. Theyd rather have them mature up in high school some before making the leap to college and the "real world." I know intellectuals often decry the socialization process of maturing, making friends, becoming independent,becoming assertive, being a smart consumer, etc etc but if you expect these kids to live up to their potential they need some real people skills. They certainly are not going to get them by feeling like a freak in a class surrounded by people 5 years their senior.

Funny how all of this is now a criticism of the no child left behind act. This kind of thing was going on well before bush and congress began polishing that turd. Must be a slow news day and online ads need to get sold, eh?

Re:of course

[Xonstantine]

Once a school fails in AYP, kids start getting pulled. The kids who get pulled are the ones who have parents who care about education; that usually translates to the kids who do well in a school being pulled from it. You can see how much this would impact a school. The solution of course, is to prevent the bright kids from being pulled. You have to sacrifice a few eggs to make an omelet, and it's far more important to prop up a schools performance rating than to actually let bright kids fulfill their full potential by going to a competent institution.

Re:of course

[pravuil]

I was under the impression that it was reasonably common though.

Same here. They started splitting up the kids at about the 5th grade. Actually I do believe they started in the fourth but it's been a while and the skill level was limited only to a handful.

The ones that excelled outperformed students from other cities within the state. The ones that didn't perform as well often stated their boredom and focused on varied interests that kept their attention. People had an idea of where they wanted to be except for a very small handful.

Re:of course

[Usquebaugh]

Sounds like a fair system. To the best students go the best teachers. You want the best teachers for your child make sure the child understands the score. No way should a good teacher be forced to teach students who do not want to study.

Re:of course

[SatanicPuppy]

Actually I was in a tracked school...I graduated in the early 90's, so that should give you a data point. I moved into the system in 9th grade, and was immediately shunted into the "standard" classes, where an "A" average was a 4.0 (As opposed to the Remedial classes where it was 3.0 and the Accelerated classes where it was 5.0). I stayed there until my junior year, when the first round of standardized tests swept through and I outscored almost the entire school. Got put into the accelerated track my senior year and my GPA literally doubled.

On the one hand, as someone who experienced both sides, I really appreciated being in the advanced classes. It was night and day; better people, better work, better pace. On the other hand, it sucked hard being stuck in the standard track (there was no provision for smart kids there, because if you were smart, you wouldn't be there), and no real effort was ever made to reevaluate students once they ended up in a track.

I think tracking is in many ways too rigid, but I don't know of a better way to do it. Lumping all kids together is awful.

Re:of course

[blahplusplus]

"Yes."

What a bunch of crap, education is not this simple well understood thing. The whole "no child left behind bit" was not going to change a lot since the education system is complex to begin with. If you're gifted you can teach yourself, the internet is a tremendous resource, most truly 'gifted' people teach themselves. Look at John carmack of Doom and Quake fame, that is a REALLY gifted person, someone who doesn't wait on others to teach them, they just pursue their interest, they are active learners. John understands the value of work, many gifted people want easy streat or to fuck around or spread themselves to thin by having too many interests, they become jack of all trades master of none (very common among gifted people who go nowhere).

Seriuosly, if you're a genius there's the library and the internet, tonnes of resources available. Not to mention scholarships if you are truly so 'gifted', I'd say the real problem with teaching gifted students (and teachers in general) is psychometric based placement in classes and schools. But even that is no gaurantee that just because you're smart that you're a good person or have good character. Lots of smart people are total assholes and pricks with an enormous sense of entitlement or how they like to whine and whinge they're not as 'successful as they could be if money had been spent on them'. It's a bunch of bullshit, really gifted people are self starters. And in the age of libraries and the internet why should anyone cry over gifted students?

The real issue is guidance toward the right resources at the right time, the next issue is the persons motivation. Where's people's sense of responsibility for their own learning? In university the try not to hold your hand unless you have serious problems, anyone who is gifted should well come out ahead if as long as they have a backbone and don't care what other people think.

I spent my life struggling with socializtion but that doesn't mean the onus isn't on ME to fit in and learn how to socialize instead of giving in to prejudice and snobbery, being able to suck it up and persist and gain feedback on how others percive you, etc. Sure kids are mean and assholes, but lots of the time the 'gifted' are oblivious to their own shortcomings.

Re:of course

[MurphyZero]

Having been one of those freaks you talk about as well as an introvert, going to classes with students 4-5 years older than me HELPED my social skills. It is very easy to socialize with people like you, it takes social skills to socialize with people NOT like you. I didn't take geometry class with 11 year old eggheads like myself, I took them with average and above average 15 and 16 year olds. That way builds social skills. If they can't deal with being a freak, how are they going to manage when they first get a job and their boss is extremely average, or their President is well below average?

Likewise, being able to impress someone your own age is NOT going to get you a job when starting out; your boss is probably going to be at least 10-20 years older than you. The high school cliques do NOT teach you social skills. Only someone who is willing to go outside their clique, even their age group, are the ones who will truly develop social skills, at least for those those for whom it does not come naturally. And if those skills are not inborn, then trying to advance yourself is one way of getting some practice.

Re:of course

[MyLongNickName]

To the best students go the best teachers

"Bright" does not correspond to best. There are some students who work hard, but are not going to be tops academically.We need a system that takes the kids who do not want to learn and keep them from interrupting the education of those who do, regardless of their ability.

Re:of course

[CompleatGentleman]

But pulling them out doesn't even necessarily mean they're going to get a better education. Just because a certain sub-section of the school population doesn't continually improve year after year doesn't mean the school isn't doing it's job. You stick that poorly performing sub-section of kids in any school and they'd likely do just as well.

Re:of course

[anagama]

In reference to your "hold 'em back" recommendation based on a couple sensational news stories, I suggest this segment from TFA:

At the University of New South Wales, Gross conducted a longitudinal study of 60 Australians who scored at least 160 on IQ tests beginning in the late '80s. Today most of the 33 students who were not allowed to skip grades have jaded views of education, and at least three are dropouts. "These young people find it very difficult to sustain friendships because, having been to a large extent socially isolated at school, they have had much less practice ... in developing and maintaining social relationships," Gross has written. "A number have had counseling. Two have been treated for severe depression." By contrast, the 17 kids who were able to skip at least three grades have mostly received Ph.D.s, and all have good friends.

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

sarcasm?

Re:of course

[Usquebaugh]

Why waste a good teacher on middling students or on disruptive jerks? No give the best students the best teacher. By best I mean the most intelligent who want to be in class.

Re:of course

[Loconut1389]

The best teachers should be able to make a kid -want- to study by making it interesting and teaching it in a way that they personally understand and grasp the relevance/importance. Kids think they know everything- not necessarily the material- but are -sure- they would never need what they're being taught- I was one of them. I still studied, but it was so hard for me, I never gave it my absolute best- the return was just too low. I wish I'd worked harder at math. I was given the choice of a more advanced class because of my performance, but I opted for the easy route. I ended up not being challenged enough and my math interest and skills went outh the window and I'm paying for it big time in my adult life. I spent high school programming and running my business (an ISP)- it was just more rewarding. Anyway- long story short- kids don't know anything and they need good teachers to show them it can be interesting and how important it really is. Parents have lost control of their children and we've gotten too PC- it's abuse if you yell at you kid for being a know it all slacker who hates authority. We all hated authority, but kids no longer respect it and it often gets abused by idiot administrators who impose their own idealism and crackpot beliefs on students. I don't think kids can or should be spanked, caned, or any of that crap, but you had better believe I think kids should be able to get yelled at (after diplomacy has failed) for some of the offenses I saw as a student without the teachers fearing for their jobs and a lawsuit. We need good teachers for everyone more than ever because what we lack in control must be made up for in interest/excitement/incentive.

Re:of course

[Broken scope]

If the current system of punishment is anything like it was 5 years ago.. if the "smarter" group is a very small minority at a school they stand to take alot of shit over being in the "smarter" classes. With the current zero tolerance crap something tells me you will have children trying to get themselves put back into the "normal" classes just to end the crap that they get for being segregated from the other students.

Re:of course

[couchslug]

This is why we need school choice, and vouchers so parents can more easily rescue their kids from public schools and the people in them.
Smart people are more valuable than 'tards, who get special help mostly to make their folks feel good, and more valuable than the mass of average drones.

Re:of course

[Cyberax]

1) That's easy: if your kid passes tests - he's in the 'smart' class.
2) No discrimination.

Re:of course

[maxume]

I managed to do pretty well at a highly selective public university(no, I really did!). My high school, at the time I graduated, offered 1 AP class, and helped with funding for a couple of tests in which they offered 2 years on the subject(biology and chemistry). That's it.

My personal motivation has been a much bigger problem for me than the limited number of AP classes that were available to me. It just isn't that big a deal. It's nice that those students get a jump on gaining college credit and save some scut class time when they go off to university, but denying the 'opportunity' to take advanced classes isn't some life altering event.

The biggest problem with our public schools is that the product has become classroom time, rather than education. The best students are the most poorly served by the current model, in which they sit around in classes that they already have a handle on, because that's the only way they are able to demonstrate achievement. It's ludicrous, and moron administrators keep making it worse, because when they look at the numbers, students with more classroom time(which is probably a sign they are motivated) do better, and they are unfamiliar with the tenuous relationship between correlation and causation(as such, they mistake the time for the cause, when it is almost certainly the motivation).

Acknowledge that people are pretty much only going to learn when they are interested, and structure that acknowledgment into the school system(making X required before students are allowed a driver's license would generate a phenomenal amount of interest, for example), and dollar for dollar and hour for hour, results will be better.

Re:of course

[Solra Bizna]

I heartily endorse this comment or reply.

-:sigma.SB

Re:of course

[NMerriam]

On the one hand, as someone who experienced both sides, I really appreciated being in the advanced classes. It was night and day; better people, better work, better pace. On the other hand, it sucked hard being stuck in the standard track (there was no provision for smart kids there, because if you were smart, you wouldn't be there), and no real effort was ever made to reevaluate students once they ended up in a track.

I think tracking is in many ways too rigid, but I don't know of a better way to do it. Lumping all kids together is awful.

I would definitely agree that such rigid tracking is a bad idea. Doing it per subject and based on both grades and teacher evaluations is how most of the school districts I attended divvied up the kids into gifted/talented programs and the regular classes.

I experienced both sides of the program myself due to a move -- I had been in the g/t classes since 4th or 5th grade, but moved to a district that had a slightly different schedule. I wound up being almost a half-year behind in math, so they put me in the regular classes. I struggled for about a week trying to catch up to the class, then spent a month or two driving the teacher crazy because I had learned everything she was going to be teaching for the whole year and was bored and acting up -- fortunately she recognized that was the case and didn't just think I was a little asshole :)

She had to go to the principal and beg him to get me out of her class because I was causing problems, and they stuck em in the g/t class. Another couple weeks of catching up and I never had trouble again. But there definitely has to be mobility in both directions every year.

Re:of course

[blahplusplus]

"too many Einsteins are passed over because the teacher was looking for that one Gauss."

I'd like to say that many accomplished people were never particularly good at school, so what happens if these kinds of people get put in the dumb class, that what I want to know? For instance a lot of smart people might be slow learners and take longer to do things but does this make their work any less valuable? i.e. take a person who can do advanced classes but can't handle the pacing, but is not stupid or incompetent.

Sometimes it's society in the socio-economic system really holding human development back since learning must generate some kind of income in the end, and that's where a lot of problems come from that most people don't want to question in my opinion.

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

As one of my college professors said: too many Einsteins are passed over because the teacher was looking for that one Gauss I don't get it.

Re:of course

[NMerriam]

The result was that the good teachers fought to teach the classes with the good students, because the classes with the bad students were rowdy. The low and mid level students got left further and further behind. This is pretty much what no-child-left-behind was designed to defeat.

But the practical reality is that the best teachers don't have to put up with being told who to teach. When more and more crap like NCLB started coming down the pike, many of the best teachers I enjoyed from my education moved on to private schools because they wouldn't have to put up with that kind of idiocy anymore.

Making a brilliant teacher work with a room full of kids who don't give a shit is no more productive than making a brilliant pupil go through school in classes designed entirely for remedial students.

Re:of course

[theguyfromsaturn]

What province was this in? We had something like that back when I was in high school (Ontario) but I think more than just the advanced classes got a shot at university. Of course, that was a long time ago. Beginning of those programs.

Re:of course

[Usquebaugh]

A teachers job is not sell the value of an education, that is a parents job. Too bad if the parent weren't up to it.

If a child does not want to learn it's not the teachers job to convince him otherwise. Instead the teacher should cut him loose and accept another student who wishes to learn.

A teacher is there to impart knowledge of the subject. He's not some motivational speaker but rather an aid to study.

School should be focused on turning out students who can pass the prescribed exams not used as some form of entertainment or punishment.

Make no mistake what I want is radical, it's flushing the idea of equality away and letting merit stand on it's own. To the winners the spoils. It's a harsh system but not an unfair one.

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

We did this for two years in 6th and 7th grade. Our entire class had the same subjects togeather at the same times and it was a lot of fun.

102 - was the boaring underlings who took school too seriously and all had rich parents.

103 - Was my group, we were soo damn cool :)

104 .. 107 blah blah bal

108 - Shared by Mental Midgets, Stoners and kids who didn't take school seriously enough.

I always thought the cool experiments would be mixing some key players in the extremes. Put a 108 kid in 101 and see what happens or vis versa...although if I were the 101 kid I'd be sportin a flak jacket from then on.

At the very least the students in each group tend to find more things in common with each other... but at some level the class system is evil and the effects can be seen somewhat when people congregate for lunch..etc.

Re:of course

[UserChrisCanter4]

CompleatGentleman already said it better than I could: those kids don't necessarily get a better education. 5 or 10 ESL students failing to pass an English test doesn't mean that the school is sub-par in any way, shape, or form. The institution they're being bussed off to isn't necessarily any better, and as an added incentive, thousands of dollars that could be used for GT/AP/IB programs or helping those ESL students is instead spent on school buses to ship kids around a district. You can watch a relatively minor problem snowball into a huge one because of the way this is implemented, and it happens a lot more often that you'd think.

When a school is bad, it isn't a single sub-population dragging it down; you see it across the board and in areas other than AYP (graduation and overall test success rates, for example.) I'm not opposed to shipping kids out in that kind of a situation; it means a school really has slipped into unacceptable territory. For a fraction of a percent of the school to allow such actions to take place, though, is pretty ridiculous.

Re:of course

[Aladrin]

You fail to take a few things into account:

1) If the kid isn't gifted, they won't WANT to be in a harder class.
2) If the kid isn't gifted, they will do extremely poorly in a harder class.
3) If the kid isn't gifted, his friends will tease him unmercifully for being in the harder class. (Gifted kids don't have friends. Everyone teases them anyhow.)

I was in the 'GIFTED' program in elementary school. I learned a lot of things there that I would never have had a chance to learn at that age otherwise, but the class itself wasn't that much harder. What -was- harder was that I also had to do all my regular schoolwork as well. The other teachers singled me out for being in GIFTED, too. For instance, 1 year ahead of everyone else, I had to make sentences from my spelling words. I eventually got so bored with it, I started to make stories from them. And then so bored I used the words -in order- to make stories.

In middle school, they had another program that wasn't nearly as good, and a year after I left elem. school, they cancelled the GIFTED program, and the middle school one right after I went to high school. Those schools have nothing of the sort now until High School, where their are Advance Placement (AP) classes that are harder, but not really any more interesting, and dual-enrollment (colleges classes at the high school).

Without those classes, I would not have gotten into computers in 4th grade (Apple IIe!) and definitely wouldn't be who I am today. I have to wonder if I'd have the same sense of purpose without it. My sister doesn't have that sense... She only had 1 year of GIFTED and none of the one in middle school, I think. She got straight A's the entire way through school, with the exception of a band teacher who said 'nobody should get all A's' and gave her a B solely for that reason. She duel-enrolled in high school early and completed 4 years of highschool and 2 years of college in only 3 years. (Yes, she graduated both in the same year.) She burnt out on that, but that's another story. She's in college for Pharmacy now and getting straight A's as always.

Without those classes, I'd have been bored stiff. I'd definitely have a lot of time on my hands to get in trouble with.

Yes, we are failing our geniuses. (I am not genius level IQ. Any geniuses in the same situation would be very poorly handled indeed.)

Re:of course

[ZombieWomble]

While Gauss and Einstein were both very prominent in their fields in later life, it is an oft-repeated story that Einstein underperformed in school, while there are tales about the various mathematical insights Gauss demonstrated even as a very young boy. Hence the point is that just because someone is a slow learner at a young age doesn't mean it's appropriate to extrapolate this to judge their entire future potential.

It does somewhat dent the conclusion when one notes that the stories are certainly exaggerated, if not outright untrue - Einstein performed well in school, and there are questions about the veracity of some of Gauss' more impressive performances.

Re:of course

[Chase Husky]

I went to a school similar to the one you mentioned you would like to see, since it was located at a community college (http://www.owcollegiatehigh.org/). The school was open to sophomores-seniors in high school, provided those individuals came in with a good GPA and could handle the academic rigor of the various courses. In addition, the tuition for these courses, along with the books, and a laptop, were paid for by the school, which amounted to a huge savings for many students, and parents, once the individual graduated and moved on to a university setting.

Back when I went through the programme, I had the advantage of taking nearly, if not more than, 50 courses during those three years at the institution. At the time, I was considering medicine and engineering as possible professions, so I took the initiative and knocked out all of the mathematics courses up to Calc. III and all of the science-related courses, up to Uni. Physics II and Organic Chem. II. When I transferred to a university, the route to completing a B.Sc/M.Sc EE took all of around 3 years, and I was definitely thankful for the choice I had made in the years prior.

Re:of course

[thrawn_aj]

anyone know if they've ever tried splitting the smarter/average/dumb kids up into their own classes permanently from 5th or so through 12th, as in they hardly ever see the other groups anymore except between classes and at lunch?

Yes. I went to school (through high school) in India and I was lucky enough to be in such a system as you describe. That is one reason why the whole idea of "jocks" and "geeks" and "nerds" was so alien to me until I came to the US. In my day, the person we strived to compete with and get ahead of was the super-geek-jock :P - the guy/gal who did everything right. Kinda nice when you think about it. That gave me an edge that I have never regretted. My 3.5 years of college in the US (and I say this in a good way) were the most relaxing in my life, even with a physics major and I ended up learning a LOT of other stuff as well (I love liberal arts schools :D).

To give you an idea of what the system was:

Starting with the 3rd grade, the entire school (10 classes per grade level with about 50 students each = A CR**load of students :P), was put into the running. Classes were named from A through J and your initial class was determined by a criterion that no one seemed to know :P. However, after that, it was all merit-based. Your class (A - J) in the next grade was determined by how well you did in the current grade (exams, etc.) Upward mobility was the key and with it came the chance to be with the smart kids and learn from them. Oh it was farking beautiful :D. And it didn't really hurt anyone either - if you wanted to be a fuckup, you had full freedom to do so, without bothering the sincere kids and as a bonus you got to hang out with other fuckups like yourself :D. Win-win! Everyone's happy.

Of course, it couldn't last. The parents whose kids were in the loser classes saw this as a social stigma (albeit well-deserved). I heard that they discontinued this practice a few years ago so my hometown in India should be reaching full mediocrity right about now :P.

Re:of course

[dgatwood]

Only someone who is willing to go outside their clique, even their age group, are the ones who will truly develop social skills, at least for those those for whom it does not come naturally.

I would add to that that only people who are willing to go outside their clique and even their age group in an accepting, nurturing environment will truly develop social skills. Throwing an 11-year-old in with a bunch of 16-year-olds who act like jerks isn't going to be very helpful, so the teacher had better be paying close attention to the group dynamics and jerking a knot in people who act like bullies, etc. There's a big difference between helping someone mature and forcing him/her to mature rapidly; people forced to mature to survive at a young age are often irreversibly harmed psychologically by the experience.

I'll draw a parallel to dating. You're not going to let your teenage daughter date a guy who is significantly older than she unless you're damn sure he's going to treat her appropriately. If he's a good person, it will probably help her mature socially. By contrast, if he takes advantage of her, it may force her to mature in ways that are harmful to her emotional well-being.

As with all things, there is a delicate balance. You don't want to make a kid socialize exclusively with older people because it will hurt that person's ability to interact emotionally with people his/her own age and thus will reduce the chances of him/her leading a successful life romantically and socially. You don't want to limit a kid to socializing only with kids his/her own age if there are significant differences in intellect, though, or you risk stunting him/her mentally. The ideal environment is usually somewhere in between.

Re:of course

[Surt]

To clarify: I wasn't attempting to claim that NCLB was a good idea, or that it worked, just that there was a real problem people were hoping to address with the old system.

Re:of course

[Loconut1389]

We have broken parents. Good teachers accept that and do their best to out parent the parents. If we don't fix what the parents broke, they too will become bad parents and repeat the process. Parents send their kids to school for more than facts, even if they don't realize it. It is the teachers job to do more than parrot facts.

Re:of course

[mrbooze]

Pretend instead of students you are talking about bridges. Should the bridges in the worst need of repair be assigned the worst engineers? While the bridges with the most minor repair needs are assigned the best engineers?

Re:of course

[Loconut1389]

Note- in general I actually agree with most of that sentiment- but we've broken society and we need to start fixing it first, I think.

Re:of course

[Fatal67]

No, not really.

While there are advanced or honors classes for some of the basics, you are still in a class with above average students, but not really geared towards gifted.

In elementary and middle school, they were more likely to have you skip grades than anything else. At that point you just end up in a class with older 'dummies'.

Re:of course

[Usquebaugh]

We have always had broken parents, at all levels of society. It should not be up to the school to teach a student how to behave. If a student is not willing to conduct himself as the teacher requires then the student should be removed and another put in his place who does know how to behave.

Schools should be little more than a collection of class rooms where knowledge is imparted. The current idea of it being some sort of separate society is bullshit and costing the tax payer money that need not be spent.

A teacher should be 100% focused on getting his students to pass their exams as quickly as possible. Of course under my idea he is free to do as he chooses as long as people are willing to send their children to him. But the state will judge a student on his academic qualities alone.

Re:of course

[RobRyland]

I was in the Gifted & Talented program when i was in junior high and high school. All the GT's in the whole city (Baton Rouge, La.) went to one magnet school. There were non-GT's at the same school, but they didn't share any classes except P.E. and electives such as shop and music. The social structure was similar but with important differences. You still had cliques and such; the geekier ones and the cooler guys. The geekiest of the geeks would get picked on a little, but nothing too malicious. The most important difference was that being smart (not the same as geeky) got respect. If you set the curve on the calculus mid-term, the other kids were envious.
In all the years since, i have never run with a brighter crowd. I did my undergrad in physics, and the typical physics student was pretty bright; i got my PhD, and the average physics grad student was even brighter. But in the GT program, the dumb kids had an IQ over 130. There aren't too many places like that!
-Rob

Re:of course

[Loconut1389]

Sorry for the multiple replies- I don't think that the teacher should be hanging on every student saying "but this is important and fun!" - if the teacher -knows- the material and is not just reading it and knows how to really explain it, you're helping everyone. This apathy some teachers have- the "well, i'll teach it the way I want to teach it and if they don't understand, fine, I don't have time" is a problem. Someone who really knows the material and finds it interesting will naturally convey that and kids will pick up on it. I had plenty of PE teachers reading me material they didn't understand or care about. I had college grad students reading me material they knew but couldn't teach. Reading material and teaching material are different. Really smart kids can often learn just by reading/listening to dry presentation, but most of us need it filtered and need to hear that inflection that it is at least mildly interesting or our brains say why bother. What I'm saying here is not for teachers to do extra work, or try harder at pleasing kids, but to put teachers who know and love the subject and the kids as the ones teaching.

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

It's unlikely that even the best engineers can ever improve a bridge to the point of the bridge making a scientific or social contribution that improve all of bridge-kind.

Re:of course

[JackieBrown]

We have all heard the weed out the week who only take resources - from the earth and from other people. It not radical. It is callous.

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

AMEN Brother!
I fear for my male children being gifted. Will I have to sign them up for minority education classes? Will they have quota's?

Re:of course

[FLEB]

I think it would really depend on attitude and where they drew the line. If it were something with larger tracks, where a full, say, third of the school was in each section, I doubt there would be much haranguing. If it was one class of "exceptionals" that the faculty visibly fawned over, I could see there being retaliatory shit by others who felt slighted.

Re:of course

[tcgroat]

Diana Moon Glampers certainly thought so! (How could this thread go on so long without a reference to Harrison Bergeron?)

Re:of course

[Sigma 7]

Sounds like a fair system. To the best students go the best teachers. You want the best teachers for your child make sure the child understands the score. It is fair, if there is a fair method of determining one of the best students. In practice, at least one relativly important inventor/scientist was declared stupid/addled/rowdy because the teachers were trying to put a square peg into a round hole. There was also instances where some students were deficiant in one area and thus treated as a "bad student".

Because of this practicality, the result is that you need to train students at their levels, not train students by assigning them to teachers.

No way should a good teacher be forced to teach students who do not want to study. Thankfully, purly unwilling students can be removed from the equation - provided that the field of study isn't something silly (e.g. you are given one pre-fab science fair project marked on "creativity" and "effort" - mine in particular was creating a chocolate bar... wrapper.)

Re:of course

[confuted]

I actually went through just such a system, and graduated in 2004. It was a neat system, actually, and I feel that in the early years, it was a great benefit. Third grade teachers from all over the city were allowed to recommend one or two students for this program. We were then given a cognitive aptitude test to determine who actually belonged in the advanced program, and who did not. 20-25 students were admitted from the city, and we were all bussed to an elementary school in the middle of town. This necessitated catching a bus to the junior high or high school and then taking a shuttle to elementary school, and the same process in reverse on the way back. It led to a shorter school day, but we still went through material much faster than the 'normal' classes. In math and science, we were about two years ahead of the main stream. The separate classes for the "academically talented" kids continued through 9th grade, and we all got dumped into the high school where the program faded away. There were still a few 'advanced' classes in 10th grade, but it felt like they were trying to bring us down to closer to the average level before we surpassed the scope of a high school curriculum with a few years left to go. That was a real shame. In 11th and 12th grade, we were allowed to take AP and honors classes, but so were the regular students, so the classes didn't move at a particularly fast pace. They split AP Calculus BC (the equivalent of Calc. I and II) into two years, which was completely unnecessary, especially after a year of pre-calc where we covered many of the calc i concepts the year before. They succeeded in slowing us down to the point that we were only one college semester ahead of the motivated kids who had not been fast tracked by the time we graduated. So while I feel that the program wasn't as useful near the end of high school, it was a very valuable experience in the younger years, and I can say that such programs definitely work well if the teachers are willing to keep up. I'm sure it's much harder to teach a class of students who devour the material than one who needs the same lecture for three days in a row; perhaps that is the real reason it isn't more widespread.

Re:of course

[Loconut1389]

I don't believe in exams per se- you can memorize answers and for some people theyll stick around for longer than others, but I think for most of us, we need the why, the connectivity. Someone once told me that learning requires that we be able to say "oh, that's like _______________" and relate it to something we understand. There are a select few who can take a stack of facts and read between the lines- people are prepped for exams with practice questions that emphasize the memorization more than the connection. The problem isn't so much the exams as it is the preparation. Good teachers explain the material and connect it all and practice for exams by going through the connections and asking questions out loud and discussing. Handing out lists of questions and saying itll be a subset of these forces kids to study just long enough to memorize the answer rather than studying to understand the concept and be able to answer it from any perspective/phrasing. This problem existed for me in college too where TAs/professors focus on the q/a so much and then you get to a test and they come about it from a completely different perspective/position/method and everyone gets left in the dust. This all can be summed up in "teachers should know and love/believe in the material and be able to really teach it".

Re:of course

[3waygeek]

Back in the late 60s/early 70s when I was in grade school, they split the classes by ability. I was initially placed in the "dumb kids" 1st grade class because I didn't talk much. After about a week in that class, the teacher noticed that I was reading a book rated for 4th graders. The next day I was re-assigned to the smart kids class.

Re:of course

[OurCompliments]

It's like that in Alberta. Advances classes are the only ones that count towards university, whilst you can still attend Tech schools or some colleges with just the basic requirements to graduate. Though, the difference between a college and university in Alberta is null due to some legislation in I think 2004.

Re:of course

[JerkBoB]

How could this thread go on so long without a reference to Harrison Bergeron?

It's our sub-standard educational system. Can't have that subversive stuff rotting the minds of our children, you know. :P

(I was just about to make a Harrison Bergeron post, you insensitive clod!)

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, tests have been shown time and time again to be a very poor measure of intelligence. It's one of the reasons that IT certifications aren't typically worth the paper they are printed on. Anyone of average intelligence can "study the test" & pass.

The question posed isn't: Should we divide our classes into "average & above" and "learning challenged" classes...it is whether we are short-changing truly exceptional people.

Testing doesn't tell us that.

As well, how do you prove there is no discrimination? Are you going to have someone double-check all of the teachers testing? This can't be automated as multiple-choice tests are the absolute WORST way to try and gauge learning...

Re:of course

[Usquebaugh]

No more callous than holding back more gifted students so the lazy and incompetent do not feel bad!

But you are right it's callous, cold hard survival of the fittest. Those who do well will do better, those that need help will fall further behind unless that help can be provided, but it will not be provided at the expense of the gifted.

I'm proposing a fixed system that is harsh but has rewards for those who excel. It also gives a clear indication as to a persons academic ability. Also a person can opt out entirely, which is what I would have done.

If you want some system that makes everybody feel good about themselves then look elsewhere.

Re:of course

[Loconut1389]

To clarify too- by incentive, I don't mean "if you get an A, Ill give you a cookie/treat/class trip or if you get an F I'll be on your case"- I mean "You'll need to know this because ________________" where the reason is anything from "you can build a rocketship" to "the people of Exampleistan tried/forgot this and this is what happened to them". By incentive, I just mean a reason- even if slight- why something might be useful or interesting. For many topics this is implied, understood, known, etc- but if the teacher finds him/herself saying, "you know, I don't really know why this would be important/interesting" maybe a) the teacher doesn't love the field/topic and shouldn't be teaching it or b) maybe it really isn't worth learning. There's plenty of that to generate disinterest among students. I've been using 'love the topic' a bit liberally- but I don't mean it to be quite so literal- I just mean the teacher should find the subject either important (which implies a certain amount of interest) or interesting.

Re:of course

[magarity]

Got put into the accelerated track my senior year and my GPA literally doubled
 
A 4 -> 5 = 25%
B 3 -> 4 = 33%
C 2 -> 3 = 50%
D 1 -> 2 = 100%!
 
My GPA doubled thanks to accellerated high school classes too, but I don't brag about it.

Re:of course

[Usquebaugh]

You can believe in what you like, the rest of society will go on with exams at all levels.

I agree that exams are not the be all and end all, nor are they a perfect representation of ability. But they are what we have in education.

As for college, my feeling is at that level you should already be learning the subject on your own and the lectures are just there to confirm your own findings. In the US it seems, although I've only attended a few classes, college lectures are still trying to educate rather than review. It's almost like college is an extension of high school.

Re:of course

[Loconut1389]

We send our kids to school because we admit we do not know everything. It is hard for anyone to sell the value of an education in a given topic if it is outside their professional/daily life. We all specialize as we get older and discard a ton of material we no longer deem necessary to our current life. I do think it is the teachers job to say why a file is interesting or important because they're the ones who really understand why- and if they're not, they've got the wrong class or the wrong job.

Re:of course

[644bd346996]

Sadly, even schools with much better programs than yours still can't appropriately handle even moderately gifted students. (I went to several such schools in the span of a few years.) One of the universal idiocies I have noticed is the tendency to force gifted kids to do the mundane work too. I can't imagine a much more effective way of killing a kid's intellectual curiosity.

Also, (and you're probably already aware of this) you are quite mistaken on point 3: Gifted kids can have good friends at school. For me, the best thing about being in a system that was segregated based on academic performance was that I had a real peer group. Putting the gifted kids in a class of their own might isolate them form the rest of the student body, but it actually makes them less lonely. Especially for younger kids, that is really important. (You need to learn how to make friends before you can worry about having a diverse group of friends.)

Re:of course

[PSUspud]

Your comments are correct in essence, but mask a bit of the complexities. The actual definition of AYP varies from state to state, as does the state tests used to measure AYP, as do the "cut scores" separating "basic", "proficient", "advanced" and "minimal", as do the minimum number of students in a given category before that category makes the school "fail". (In Wisconsin, it is 40 students in a category -- I've seen a lot of schools with 39 special ed kids! In some states, it's as small as 5.) So, despite being a national program, the variation between states is incredibly large.

There was recently a study done by the Federal Department of Education, looking at comparing state set standardized tests to a national test (NAEP) that is given to a representative sample of students. Two facts emerged: 1) state standards vary all over the place, 2) the state standard doesn't have a damn thing to do with the educational attainments of the students. High state standards just make AYP hard, low state standards make it easy. (That's my reading of the graphs, not a real statistical statement -- but see for yourself at nces.ed.gov.)

As to your reading of the impact of failing AYP, I agree. It basically sets up schools for failure and opprobrium. Eventually, when the standard is 100% "proficient", I can guarantee that every public school will be labeled as failing. Then, whether the alternatives are better or not, public schools will be trashed. Oh well, I'm glad I went to public schools while they still existed.

Re:of course

[Loconut1389]

For what it is worth, I'm not fighting with you and I've very much enjoyed the opportunity to debate and discover/expand my feelings and try to better explain them. As they say in medicine, watch one, do one, teach one. I've never had to put these thoughts out on paper and they didn't begin forming until I really tried. Forgive the spits and sputters as I figure out my feelings and learn to explain them to you :) Thank you again for the great debate!

Re:of course

[ConceptJunkie]

Since our education system was designed by proto-socialists in the early 1900's to eliminate individuality, enforce conformity and churn out docile factory workers for the machinery of the Industrial Revolution, and the Teachers' Unions have determined it is in their best interests to keep it that way, our education system is failing everyone, not just the gifted kids.

Re:of course

[644bd346996]

I'd be fine with gifted kids being left alone to educate themselves. The problem comes from the fact that the regular, mundane classwork won't get out of the way. If you're going to require a kid to sit through a class, you owe it to him to make it worth his time.

Of course, we already know that most schools won't bother with that.

Re:of course

[Usquebaugh]

For most people :-

They send your children to school because they are unwilling or unable to educate them themselves. If they could they would hire the best teachers they could for their children's education. If they had the money they send them to the best fee paying school they can afford. Most children are educated at public schools at the tax payers expense. Ergo, most parents have defaulted on their child's education.

My system would force parents to make choices about their child's education and give them the tools to make a difference.

The state sets the finishing line, the teacher is responsible for guiding his students there as quickly as possible.

Re:of course

[zblach]

What our school district did was administer a series of tests (IQ, emotional intelligence, abstract reasoning...) to what would seem the brightest 3rd and 6th graders. The top 30 or so kids would be offered placement in the 'Gifted' program. The program was headquartered at an inner city public school. Same school also had a program for developmentally disabled children.

There was some tension between the 'gifties' and the 'normies', but it never went above name calling. We shared music and gym classes, but we were otherwise segregated.

It didn't work well. It is in it's final year of being phased out. From my 8th grade graduating class, ~95% went on to university (business, computer science, engineering...). Everyone else went off to arts or technical colleges.

But for a long while we felt almost like outsiders. I wonder how common that was in similar programs.

-Z

Re:of course

[Aladrin]

Yeah, I realize it's possible for smart kids to make friends. It didn't happen to me (or any of the smart kids I knew) until highschool.

I disagree about the mundane work, though. I think it's important for them to realize that not everything will be exciting, and that hard work is a necessary part of being in society, even when it seems rather stupid. Make them do everything the other students do and reward them with extra if they want it.

In fact, with the right program in place, you could do exactly that. All students have the minimum to do, but if they are bored or WANT to learn more, have the extra material available to them. The smart ones will think of it as play-time, the dumb ones will avoid it like the plague, and the average will think of it as a challenge. It would be tricky to implement, as there's no point in just giving them next year's work early, but rather to build on what they are learning that year and give them extra.

Using the spelling words in sentences a year early certainly did me no harm, and the logic puzzles we learned to do in elementary school are still fun to this day. We also did side projects like making a 'film strip' (with markers and blank strip) along with a recorded voiceover for the slides. And I see no reason that everyone couldn't have joined in the projects like the egg drop contest. (Well, except for my entry which got Jello banned from the contest ever after. It apparently stains concrete. The egg survived!)

In short: The answer isn't to offer the smart kids extra, but to offer it to EVERYONE and let them decide whether or not they want to do it. The extras receive no grades and no bonus points... They are merely there to challenge kids who are done with the rest of the stuff for class and want the extra. No parent could possibly argue with that, and you're not treating any child unfairly.

Re:of course

[roaddemon]

smarter/average/dumb. You mean like the real world? I (and probably you too since you're on slashdot) haven't hung out or socialized with an "average" subset of the population since high school. I was in the science dept. of a decent university, got a job in software engineering. Live in Cambridge MA where it seems like everyone is doing a phd in something remarkable. My friends are brilliant and I've got a great social life. I don't miss the forced integration one bit.

Frank

Re:of course

[Usquebaugh]

Student != Bridges
Engineer != Teacher

Not in any way shape or form can I see how a bridge be used as representation of a student or how an engineer represents a teacher.

Re:of course

[Slugster]

The problems happen in a couple of ways: 1.) "My kid should be in the smart class" (whether they belong there or not) 2.) Claims of discrimination / creation of a caste system being unacceptable.

Yea I remember this...
It's funny how the most disruptive kids' parents always come in bitching because ther kid got put in a remedial class.

Also we note: in the US, the teachers union would never allow some teachers to get gravy classes while others are stuck with borderline retards.
It's only charter schools that allow that, and the teachers union tries to undermine them at every step.

One more reason the US teachers union needs to be crushed.
At least the school board does respond to public pressure. The teachers union lives in its own little world, where teachers are the most critical part of the educational machine, yet beyond scrutiny by any common means except the union itself.
~

Re:of course

[Xonstantine]

sarcasm? Absolutely.

Re:of course

[annenk38]

There IS a test for intelligence. It's called IQ test (actually not a single test, but rather a battery of very different tests). The results of an IQ test are not score-based as your typical test would be. They are also normalized over a very wide large populations. IQ tests are also immutable -- they do not change over time, and you cannot study for an IQ test and get a better score, no matter how hard you try.

Re:of course

[DeadChobi]

I think the point is that children are not wheat. You do not beat them out of the system like so much chaff, leaving only the good kernels behind to be milled into fine flour. Those so-called "middling students" are still capable of making something of their lives, and with a series of good teachers they may yet be able to. NCLB was designed around preventing the education system from ignoring the average students because they're average.

NCLB was also supposed to ensure the all teachers are good teachers by establishing guidelines for basic qualifications and knowledge. If all teachers are good teachers, it's senseless to give only the gifted kids good teachers.

Re:of course

[Xonstantine]

But pulling them out doesn't even necessarily mean they're going to get a better education. This is a non sequitur. Having choices almost always improves ones life, especially when we're talking something fundamental like education. Right now, the only people offered any sort of choice in how or where their kids are educated are those rich enough to afford private school. The rest of American children get the geographic lottery. Some get great public schools, while others get really shitty public schools. I think giving smart kids the option to actually go to schools that stretch their talents rather than crush their talents is a good thing.

Re:of course

[hxnwix]

My jHS and HS provided three tracks: one for the unmotivated, one for those either naturally attentive & quick or studious and one for everybody else.

It worked well when teachers made sensible placement recommendations; keeping students with similar motivations and interests together serves the same function as university selectivity. In those cases where teachers irrationally recommended toward lower tiers, slighted students who wished to migrate (back) to a higher tier in a subject enrolled in summer school. Occasionally, some teachers recommended that a student take a remedial summer class, automatically preventing advancement.

In my case, for example, a certain teacher recommended that I take remedial algebra the summer before entering highschool. The school sent an enrollment form to my parents' house, which I intercepted and destroyed, enabling me to request another enrollment form - this one blank. I submitted it, enrolling myself in summer honors geometry, placing myself one year ahead of the curve, one tier up :-) I'm immensely glad that I did - it meant that I had already taken calculus BC when it came time to take AP physics, and it also enabled me to take calc IV off campus.

Neither my early education in manipulating bureaucracy nor my immersion in physics-as-Newton-intended-it would have been possible in the standard egalitarian gulag. I don't foresee sending my children to a public school; the opportunities and the quality of education are simply gone. Fortunately, they were strong enough in my day that I can afford to send my offspring to private school. TBQH, that's probably the goal of NCLB: to privatize quality elementary education, thereby further stratifying society and protecting the ignorance of the conservative voting block, who will, in bigotry and fear, will continue to vote consistently against their own interests.

Re:of course

[Usquebaugh]

I'm not talking about throwing away peoples lives. Education is not the be all and end all of success. In fact I want everybody at every station in life to have the chance for their academic ability to be measured. What I don't want is what we have now and what you propose to deprive gifted students of the chance for quick advancement and recognition.

To the best students should go the best teachers. It's a harsh idea in that 90% of the student body will never be taught by the best 10% of teachers. In fact I go a lot further in another post to this article, basically turning HS education 100% towards passing state set exams. Students can completely opt out etc etc. Radical idea that would open up the HS education system.

A middling student should have the opportunity to advance but not at the expense of an exceptional student. Good teachers for good students.

Re:of course

[XopherMV]

I'd like to say that many accomplished people were never particularly good at school, so what happens if these kinds of people get put in the dumb class, that what I want to know?

Then they stay in the remedial classes until they catch up. Once they can pass the entrance test for the standard or gifted classes, then they can join those groups. However, if they can't pass the test, then they likely need that remedial education.

...For instance a lot of smart people might be slow learners and take longer to do things but does this make their work any less valuable? i.e. take a person who can do advanced classes but can't handle the pacing, but is not stupid or incompetent.

The standard and remedial classes cover the same topics as the advanced classes, but at a slower pace. That is the place for that person.

Re:of course

[ibbie]

From my own experience, I've found that excelling anywhere that others do not often brings retaliation.

Again, just from my own experience, this pattern of behavior doesn't end at school, of course - even (and sometimes especially) if one is good natured about the aforementioned success.

I think part of it might be that people are often so focused on themselves, they feel obligated to strike out at anyone who's doing better than they might be, perhaps to make themselves appear to be doing better, if only according to their own perception.

Or maybe I simply think too damn much.

Re:of course

[Bluesman]

Or he had a 2.5 average due to boredom and frustration, and moving him to the advanced class gave him the motivation to get the A.

This isn't unheard of. In 1st grade I was considered "slow" and was at the bottom of my class. The teacher assumed I was stupid. I was bored and daydreamed constantly instead of doing the color, cut and paste dittos, which were assinine.

After maxing out a standardized IQ test (a fact that the school tried to hide from my parents) my parents thankfully realized what the problem was and sent me to a private school, where I excelled.

I'm so thankful that I went to grade school twenty years ago, instead of today. Today I would have been diagnosed with ADHD, put on drugs, and gone through life labelled a dunce.

Public schools really get my dander up, because this sort of thing is so common. There is so much blame to go around, and all of it is well-deserved. Bad teachers who don't give a crap, teachers unions, stupid politics, PTO moms who bulldoze the schoolboard into making ridiculously bad decisions...I could go on and on. There is hardly a punishment great enough for people responsible for ruining promising childrens' lives.

Home schooling used to seem like such a wacky idea, but my wife and I are seriously considering it instead of dealing with all this crap. That my tax money still goes to supporting a hopelessly broken system that does almost more harm than good pisses me off to no end.

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

If the group is identifiable as making any common exam "harder" say a state or province-unified test, it will be considered as slighting people...
Face it, someone gifted will ask "what's so hard about so and so test" and the others will feel slighted for it...

The resentment is part of the "gifted" label, someone gifted will NOT consider passing the exam an effort. All the others will... The lack of requirement for effort will create the resentment... (notice the grade doesn't even enter in the equation... However, if someone is making an effort NOT to get a good grade, and masks it as making an effort to pass, no resentment will occur...)

Re:of course

[gallwapa]

Eh, Grades 1, 2, and 3 in 2 years? Amazing, you managed finger painting, 2+2 and learned to write your name in giant letters between two lines with a dotted one in the middle. :-)

(Don't mean to sound harsh but it just sounds so funny)

Re:of course

[nahpets77]

I was surprised to find my high school on Wikipedia. It has an advanced talented and gifted program (TAG) which took the brightest kids and put them together in their own classes.

Re:of course

[ghoul]

Making a person want to learn is what teaching is. Why do you think parents send their kids to school? If their kids wanted to learn by themselves they could just put them in front of a computer with a facts regurgigation program and we wouldnt need schools. Since when did it become a profession to read something out of a book and compare some pieces of paper to a guidebook to check if the answers match (i am sick and tired of teachers whining about grading. Grading should be as automatic as checking email or going to the loo for real teachers) We hire teachers and pay them good money to motivate our kids to learn. We can use a tape recorder to repeat facts.

Re:of course

[aneeshm]

There's a name for it when it'd done at such an early age, when intelligence has not had time to really manifest itself.

The caste system.

Re:of course

[RyoShin]

If everyone stands at the same point, no one can be left behind.

Re:of course

[stfvon007]

My school district had a system like this in place for English/reading comprehension in elementary school (1-5th grades), but not middle school (6-8th grades). Because of this, I actually ended up going over some of the exact same material in 6th grade, that I had already done in 4th grade. I even had the exact same book both times.

Re:of course

[ShieldW0lf]

It was all serious business at the time. There were 8 of us in the program. Spelling, writing, studying shapes, multiplication and division, place value and fractions, yadda yadda yadda. It was considered a pretty big deal at the time.

The other 7 kids worked really hard, they were really serious and dedicated and smart kids whose parents pushed them hard, but I broke the mould, made them and the other older students look dumb because everything was all just easy and obvious stuff the moment I saw it, and it wasn't for them.

I used to intuitively see the nature of things before I was taught them a lot... it made it very hard to respect the education system, but I always believed it was necessary to prove something to people.

Now I just feel like I threw years of my life away.

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

I was also in a tracked school system. The problem with our tracks is they were based solely on IQ test scores - not grades, standardized tests, or any other performance metrics. From the point I entered that school system in the middle of 3rd grade, until my freshman year of high school, I consistently scored three grades ahead of my peers, but my IQ scores were 1-3 points below the threshold, so I was stuck in the average classes. My parents fought and fought, but the 'rules are the rules'. I have a lot of reason to believe that the rules were so firmly enforced, in part because I'm female.

While my GRE scores qualify me for Mensa, so clearly I haven't been complete destroyed because of such a fowled up system, I also have no doubt that I would have followed a very different (and a much more financially and intellectually beneficial) career route if I had been exposed to challenging and stimulating math and science classes.

I agree, there needs to be a way to ensure that students are in the appropriate track, and that a student may jump from one track to another. Personally, I'd like to see more individualized instruction for all students. With today's technologies, it should be possible to provide a lot of stimulating, interactive, and entertaining instruction via computers. This doesn't remove teachers from the picture, but does allow for instruction that helps each student reach their own potential, whatever potential that is.

Re:of course

[Umuri]

They've done this, it's called ap classes. Outside of electives like band, students who take all ap-accelerated coursework will rarely mesh with the "average/dumb" kids who chose not to, as most students who take ap take it every year they can, in any classes.

However, i will say that smart kids are a benefit to the entire class, and the class to them.
Most try to help their friends or other students with work, just to keep busy, when they've done their own work. This gives the smarter students valuable experience in learning how to explain concepts to people who don't understand it, or don't see the same way they do, which translated into better work dealing w/ managers or underlings. Add to that the lesser students usually learn better when they have a smarter friend or helper in the class who can help translate it to a way they understand, as well as having others who can help besides the teacher means better use of class time.

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there a name for this sort of argument (besides totally absurd)? When someone makes an analogy with things that aren't even remotely related?

I'm just curious because, even though I see it and I recognize it as total vacuity, it is still strangely alluring to me.

Re:of course

[null.account]

"Sounds like a fair system. To the best students go the best teachers. You want the best teachers for your child make sure the child understands the score. No way should a good teacher be forced to teach students who do not want to study."

I recently returned to grad school to finish my doctorate. It is precisely because of the obstinant, bitchy stupidity of the turds I would have had to teach that I work part-time doing whatever-the-hell instead of teaching. Really, it's a win-win for me and the so-called "students" (aka "tuition sources").

I pity the highly capable PS teachers, because of the retarded little bastards they have no choice but to tolerate.

...Oh, sorry. I meant "not leave behind".

Re:of course

[Tsiangkun]

might as well be called 'no child left a mind'.

First they lower the standards. Then they design
a standardized test. Finally they claim "improvement
in students test scores" as though that means an
improvement in education, while ignoring that
the scores are only improved because the test is
easier.

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

While my GRE scores qualify me for Mensa, so clearly I haven't been complete destroyed because of such a fowled up system, I also have no doubt that I would have followed a very different (and a much more financially and intellectually beneficial) career route if I had been exposed to challenging and stimulating math and science classes.

What about English classes?

Re:of course

[vonFinkelstien]

There are teachers who are great at teaching motivated, knowledge-hungry children. There are teacher who are great at teaching unmotivated, couldn't-care-less children. The principal should know who belongs with which class.

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

... stuff ..

In the late 60's, going into 8th grade, "they" slipped me into an "advanced science curriculum". I wasn't consulted. The class was okay. It was taught by a famous Playboy mag Playmate. She was smoking hot!

Time went on. Previously, I read what I liked to read, and didn't expend a lot of effort reading class material, and got A or B level grades. I had a lot of slack time for things that interested me.

After being "blessed" it was stuff I normally wouldn't have selected for reading. I had to work many times harder than before to get a passing grade. I was doing homework overnight to get a passing grade while the homies fucked off. Where was the benefit for anyone here? I learned quick, and dumbed things down considerably. Of course 2 years later I was draft material. Fuck! I over-dumbed!

The system fucks you coming and going. And that was before the Bush administration, which fucks you coming and going in the 5th through 11th dimensions.

Re:of course

[iammaxus]

It is an oft-repeated story that Einstein was bad at math as a child. This is completely false as any serious biography of Einstein has noted. If he was at all lacking in math as a child or young adult, it simply was because he was never a great mathematician. He struggled with math throughout his career in physics. I can't find a great reference right now, but here is one (http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/moments/s1115185 .htm). Take out any recent biography on Einstein if you are really interested.

Re:of course

[Mouse42]

I thought about this the other day, anyone know if they've ever tried splitting the smarter/average/dumb kids up into their own classes permanently from 5th or so through 12th, as in they hardly ever see the other groups anymore except between classes and at lunch? I would be curious if the social structures in each group would clash, or if the system would work. That is known as tracking. Tracking, that is, grouping students by ability through all classes rather than judging ability by subject, was usually referred to as illegal in education courses I took or in schools in which I taught, but I cannot find a citation to back that up. The closest I found was here, which alludes to the potential for civil rights violations.

Illegal? I've never heard of that before, but damn, I'd be thrilled if it were.

I switched from private school to public school for middle school. The private school had accelerated math, but didn't teach us French. The public school, on the other hand, had average math and had already been teaching French for two years. I simply could not catch up to two years of French, so after failing it miserably, they switched me out of the class.

But in order to accommodate me switching out of the class, I also had to switch out of every other class due to scheduling constraints. At first I had no idea that the other classes were different levels, but I quickly realized that I was just put into all the idiot classes.

I was flabbergasted. I mean, yes, I did feel better about myself because I wasn't in a class where I was failing miserably anymore, but now I had become massively bored because I was completing all the work in a fraction of the speed all my new classmates could. I was getting A's without a smidgen of effort. I was doing now the same work for the third time (first in private school, then in the accelerated classes, and now once again in the slow classes).

I was miserable and angry. My teachers attempted to mitigate my anger by making me the official class tutor. Once I figured out that scheduling constraints made it impossible to be in different levels for each subject, I confronted my math teacher. I asked her point blank if I was in this class only because I couldn't take French. Her eyes widened with this pained look on her face, "No, thats not true," she gingerly told me. "Then why is it that even though I was getting A's in the previous math class, I was placed in this one? I am tutoring half the people in this class! Shouldn't I be put in the higher level?" Her face just drained of color and she didn't say a word.

Subsequently, I was behind in high school and had to catch up. All because I didn't know French.

Re:of course

[Repossessed]

I've seen other issues with tracked schools as well. I got cut out of advanced math/science classes because I lacked the skills at Art and Writing at one high school. The one I transfered to to had a more flexible attitude, and i was able to get the things I wanted/was able to do and avoid the others. Of course, the year after I left the principle declared that they were only going to have advanced classes every other year, never mind that they already were short on seats, most of these classes necessitated being a senior... so that school would basically be a nonoption now.

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

thought about this the other day, anyone know if they've ever tried splitting the smarter/average/dumb kids up into their own classes permanently from 5th or so through 12th, as in they hardly ever see the other groups anymore except between classes and at lunch?

My High school was set up in this way. Although considered a seperate high school for the top students in the district, it shared a campus with a public high school.

I would be curious if the social structures in each group would clash, or if the system would work.

In my experience there was no clashing between the different schools, in fact, there was wide cooperation in extracurricular activities (sports, clubs, etc).
Other than extracurricular activities there generally was disinterest between the students of the different high schools. Each had it's own social circles, and limited interaction so there really was no clashing.

Re:of course

[p0tat03]

As an Asian, I came from a heavily "tracked" system of education. Let me tell you the results of years of tracking. Where I come from, students go through grades 1 through 3 in a non-tracked system based on your area of residence. At grade 4 you are placed into a strong (enriched) or weak track based upon your existing performance - this is strictly informal and largely based on the whim of the school. At grade 7 official examinations occur and you are tracked into a LARGE number of schools, representing a wide range of student capabilities. At grade 10 you are further examined (standardized across the nation) and tracked into another high school via the same system. After graduation in grade 12 you are tested again for university entrance.

Here's what the system has created: an extreme amount of competition between anybody who wants their child to get the best education possible. This competition is so fierce that anyone who does not invest significant time and money outside of class receiving supplementary education ("cram schools"), will fall behind and, even if perfectly intelligent and capable, get tracked into a mediocre or poor school. It's created a system where students study from 7am onwards till 10pm, many not even having the time to eat a proper meal (nutrition is poor in that country amongst children despite the fact that most are well off financially). The poor are immediately screwed, as they have no money to send the kids to cram school, and thus no matter how smart the kids are, they will never score quite as high as the kind-of smart kids who've been put through the gauntlet of after-school classes.

Not only that, the system has created schools that have no resources. Obviously our brightest have to be educated properly, so a disproportionate amount of resources and teaching talent is shifted towards the top-tier schools, leaving kids who scored poorly (on a single exam!) in the dust, with schools that range from mediocre to terrible, where they are nothing but glorified day-care centers.

The worst part is that for uneducated parents, the cycle perpetuates. They are the most likely to be working menial hard labor jobs, and are the least likely to afford all of this extra "optional" education. They also have less time to devote to their children's educations, since they are likely to be dual working parents. The system has no place for these people - there is nobody to ensure that the bright kids with absentee parents succeeds, and there is certainly no system in place to fund bright kids through these "optional" cram schools.

Let me also tell you not only the experience, but also the results. Extreme competition has whittled the curriculum down to the most basics: math, sciences, languages. Every one of the top-tier kids can do calculus by grade 10, and sciences and the written arts is certainly within their repertoire. But with an aggressive schedule of 7 to 10, there is no room for anything else. You create millions of drones, mindless people who have facts in their mind but no art, no aesthetic, no creativity. You become a dead people, made up of millions of engineers (which, despite the Slashdot groupthink, really sucks) and scientists.

It's really quite jarring. When I go back, the most culturally rich areas are the less educated rural areas. The cities are bland, lifeless. People work, consume, and worry about putting their kids successfully through the same system that created them. The system has successfully stripped the word "fun" and "enjoyment" out of that entire society. There are art museums, but hardly anyone goes, since the appreciation has not been bred into them. The local cinema industry produces crappy, tasteless films made entirely of Family Guy-esque fart jokes, since the population doesn't have appreciation for any sort of humor or expression that doesn't slap 'em across the face.

The education system is what is destroying Asian culture above all else. It is also one of the major reasons my family got me out there while I was stil

Re:of course

[Daengbo]

There are whole schools of teaching philosophy that advocate a child's natural interest in learning. This is impossible to accomodate in a classroom setting because its just too big. Students have different learning styles. Students become interested in different topics at different times. If each child had an educated generalist waiting to explain and drill the items of interest as they came up and in a way which motivated the student, he would finish primary school with his full potential realized. Secondary school would then be about liberal education, not rote memorization. We gave up the ancient method of educating only the wealthy and began mandatory schooling until age \\fill in your country's requirement here\\. That decision created large classes with little flexibility.

Re:of course

[powerlinekid]

My school district in NY did that.

Starting in 4th grade english class was broken into 6 classes. Class 1 was the highest students going all the way down to class 6.

In 6th grade they broke science and math down like this.

In 7th grade they continued the previous ones then took the top 30 or so students and placed them in a special "Social Studies" class.

In 8th grade the top math class started learning high school math and were being prepared for calculus (AP) in high school.

In high school students would routinely be broken into AP and reagents classes. The best of the best took the AP class which encompassed the normal curriculum and then the extra college material. This happened with Chemistry, Math, English and Social Studies.

While not as many AP classes were offered at this school the path was set in elementary school. They would do it based on the standardized test and teach recommendation. In 4th we had the LEAP program which was something around an hour a week for "gifted" students to play puzzle games. In 7th we had certain students selected to take a John Hopkins study which basically was comprised of giving 7th graders the real SATs.

Sometimes they made mistakes... I had my english class changed 3 times in a year. I started in class 4... within a month was put in class 2 and when the next school year started was in class 1.

It may of been unfair... but its better than no child left behind.

Re:of course

[ziggit]

Just because one is an advanced student doesn't mean they will get the best teacher. An example of this my freashmen year I had a first time english teacher for my ADVANCED English... to say the least, the only people who thought she was a good teacher were the cheerleaders.

Re:of course

[Saxophonist]

Public schools really get my dander up, because this sort of thing is so common. There is so much blame to go around, and all of it is well-deserved. Bad teachers who don't give a crap, teachers unions, stupid politics, PTO moms who bulldoze the schoolboard into making ridiculously bad decisions...I could go on and on. There is hardly a punishment great enough for people responsible for ruining promising childrens' lives.

I was in K-12 education (that is, teaching) for three years before I decided to go back to school. Let me run through your list of blame and suggest an alternative or two:

• Bad, apathetic teachers: Honestly, there are good and bad teachers in the schools, just as there are good and bad employees many other places. My experience has been that most teachers do actually want to do well so that the students do well. There are a number of reasons for teachers to become disenfranchised, however, and often, they have far less control over their situations than they should. The actual problems that teachers encounter vary somewhat from place to place, or perhaps by urban versus suburban versus rural setting, etc. Most teachers will agree that NCLB is horrific, not because teachers do not wish to do their jobs, but because complying with NCLB takes significant time and resources away from actual education. However, I think there is a bigger problem that I will get to momentarily.
• Teachers' unions: I'm pretty pro-union in general, and I have taught in both a Catholic school (non-unionized) and a public school (unionized, but it was a right-to-work state). Honestly, teachers' unions seem to be failing for the most part, and it's really too bad, because we need them now more than ever. Pay has not kept pace with industry, particularly given the lack of attention paid to the amount of "unofficial" time that teachers spend working. The amount of money that teachers have to spend to take tests themselves, keep licensure, and meet bureaucratic requirements has skyrocketed in the last decade. The bad reputation that unions get is usually for protecting teachers that someone thinks should not be protected. The trouble with cherry-picking which teachers should or should not be forced out of the profession (besides that it was illegal for a union not to represent someone in a district that the union represents, member or not, in the state where I taught) will be discussed momentarily.
• Stupid politics: Yep. Next point.
• Parental influence: This is a tough one. The absolute best thing that could happen to education would be for more parents to take the right kind of interest in their children's education. Notice I said right kind of interest. Too many parents do not value education, often because they did not do well in school themselves and therefore do not see the relevance. After all, if they got by without really trying in school, why should it be any different for their kids? On the other hand, there are too many parents with delusions that their children can do no wrong and do not back up reasonable discipline so that the school can actually function. These parents tend to be the "PTO moms" you referenced. It's really frustrating, in both circumstances, to sit across the conference table from the problem with the kid being discussed. Whether the kid will admit it or not, parents have a huge influence on how their children perceive school and how much they make of their education.

The problem I was mentioning in the first two points that you did not address is school administration. There are a lot of truly incompetent administrators (think PHB-types) that would not know quality education from a hole in the wall. That's why the unions are so important -- do you think these administrators give truly objective evaluations?

Home schooling used to seem like such a wacky idea, but my wife and I are

Re:of course

[geobeck]

...anyone know if they've ever tried splitting the smarter/average/dumb kids up into their own classes...?

They used to do that in Canada from Grade 1 all the way up, and it worked very well. "Dumb" kids could always be moved up if they met the requirements for a higher level class, and "smart" kids could be moved down if they fell behind. I was a "smart" kid who got demoted because I stopped paying attention in Grade 2 because the work was too easy. I made a deal with my parents and the principal to work harder in Grade 4, and got promoted again.

That system was eliminated in the early '80s because some touchy-feely types felt that the "dumb" kids' feelings were being hurt by their position. As a result, classes were homogenized, and teachers started teaching to the middle. The "dumb" students were actually left behind for the first time, and the "smart" students were more bored than ever, but at least the touchy-feelies in the department of education were satisfied that the "dumb" kids' feelings weren't being hurt anymore. Too bad about their education though.

And those "dumb" students weren't so dumb when they had a good teacher. The remedial class in my school in Grade 6 nearly beat my "smart" class in a spelling bee after their teacher convinced them that they could be just as smart as anyone if they applied themselves. They had five kids left, and had us down to two. But that's where their juggernaut hit our brick wall. The two of us eliminated their five, then faced off against each other. After fifteen more minutes, the teachers ran out of words, and couldn't think of any more to make up.

We beat them, but we never made fun of those "dumb remedials" after that.

Re:of course

[geobeck]

...such a fowled up system...

What about English classes?

I think he means the school was overrun by chickens.

Re:of course

[Inoshiro]

"She duel-enrolled"

Suddenly your claims of spelling are more dubious when you fail to distinguish between dual and duel. One of them involves combat!

Re:of course

[geobeck]

f a school fails to meet AYP for five years in a row, a radical restructuring is due; this generally means that large amounts of the staff need to be fired...

Sounds like a situation the teachers' union would try to block. Or do teachers' unions not have as much power in the USA as they do in Canada?

Re:of course

[The One and Only]

Classes were named from A through J and your initial class was determined by a criterion that no one seemed to know :P. However, after that, it was all merit-based. Your class (A - J) in the next grade was determined by how well you did in the current grade (exams, etc.) Upward mobility was the key...

If what I learned in school was accurate, I think your country modeled its education system after its idea of reincarnation. Which means that in my country, after each year the best students would be given cake and the worst students would be held in detention for the whole summer.

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

"Absolutely, ask any teacher. 95% will say yes."

Who cares what teachers say, they are a lot of the problem. There is a lot of talk about our broken educational system and what needs to be done to fix it, and trust me, NO ONE (I repeat, NO ONE) has been burned as badly as me by it. I practically fucking reinvented calculus as I was totally unaware of the subject except for the name.

There is a huge natural force causing a lot of the problem that most people fail to recognize. In a country where the economy is good and there are plenty of jobs for smart people, the smart people follow the money. Even if they wanted to be a teacher, they follow the money to industry. In a country where the economy is bad, and there are not enough jobs for all the smart people, the majority of smart people become the nation's teachers. Sure Indian and Chinese students dominate our students on math exams. However, if math TEACHERS had to take exams, the discrepancy between Indian and Chinese teachers and ours would be even bigger. This is a problem that has no solution. Paying teachers more might sound like a solution, but it's not for a lot of reasons. And actually they have tried that and teachers make quite a fucking lot now, but it doesn't help. There is no solution. There are a gazillion other problems, but this is the big one and it has no solution. If China (all of it) becomes a super power, or India, it doesn't matter, the same thing will happen regardless of how much money they throw at education. At my university, the most incompetent students are the education majors. There are some that are smart and serious, but they are overwhelmingly outnumbered by the trash that is going to teach the next generation, and my university is not the exception, it is the rule.

Re:of course

[xXBondsXx]

I totally understand your situation and how hard it must have been for you*...

...but the FAR more common problem is that some parents now ASSUME that when their kid is slow or has low grades, they are actually just geniuses "not being challenged" and that it's not their fault. I have an uncle who is completely convinced that his kid is doing poorly in school because he is too smart for it. When he scores low on the exams to get into private school, my uncle assumes that the test was administered wrong. When he does poorly at every level they step him up to, they step him up another assuming he's not challenged.

It will turn out to be a real disappointment for both the parent and the child when they realize the actual situation. On the other hand, if one assumes the kid is retarded, the kid can only impress/improve.

I see your point, but if I was personally a government agent, I would like to set the kid up for achievement, not disappointment

*I understand because I had developmental apraxia of speech (where you basically can't talk) as a child. People thought I was retarded until I impressed them without words (or with sign language). Then the situation was made clear and I ended up just fine
http://www.tayloredmktg.com/dyspraxia/das.shtml#wh at

Re:of course

[bobstatesman]

I think your post could have used a few more smilies :P.

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the article mentions skipping specifically, I've always wondered about the holes in people's educations that this causes - elementary and middle seemed to have a rotation of state, national, world for social studies/history curricula. I've always thought that the key was to somehow collect a sufficient number and offer an accelerated curriculum, the pacing when you skip a grade wouldn't alleviate boredom with the pace since the pace only marginally changes each grade. Something where 3 years are taught in 2 or 4 in 3 is more appropriate. I did this to an extent in math with a couple of veteran teachers who passed along knowledge of where I was in the text and I studied math on a schedule that did not line up with the academic year. For those who skip an actual year, there will be gaps in the foundation that may never get patched or are more roughly patched than they should be.

Re:of course

[lukas84]

IT certifications aren't worth much because of

a) braindumpers
b) the fucking easy tests

I did my 7 MS exams for the MCSE in a very short timeframe, without attending classes, and without using braindumps. They're just asking stuff any halfway decent admin would know without having to think much.

Re:of course

[KDR_11k]

It's a common story but unforunately it has given some parents a false hope to cling on, some try to pass their genuinely dumb children off as gifted, push them into more difficult courses which the child really cannot handle and after a few years breaks down. Parents are starting to think that any behaviour anomaly (e.g. still peeing in your pants when you're 6 years old) is evidence that the kid is a genius.

Re:of course

[MorePower]

As for college, my feeling is at that level you should already be learning the subject on your own and the lectures are just there to confirm your own findings.

You were able to figure out on your own things like Fluid Mechanics or Closed Loop Control Theory before the lecture? My hats off to you then. My feeling is that college was about material that you would never have been able to figure out on your own.

Re:of course

[Aladrin]

Dangit. Sometimes I type faster than I think. Yes, I knew it was dual. When I'm typing fast, I tend towards duel and have to fix it each time. You'll notice the other time I used it, it was correct.

Re:of course

[hankwang]

it is an oft-repeated story that Einstein underperformed in school,

From Wikipedia:

he was a top student in elementary school (Rosenkranz 2005, p. 29). ...
...introduced the ten-year-old Albert to key science and philosophy texts, including Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and Euclid's Elements (Einstein called it the "holy little geometry book").[7] From Euclid, Albert began to understand deductive reasoning (integral to theoretical physics), and by the age of twelve, he learned Euclidean geometry from a school booklet. Soon thereafter he began to investigate calculus.
... when Einstein was fifteen [...] Albert wrote his first scientific work, "The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields".[8]

But then you say:

It does somewhat dent the conclusion when one notes that the stories are certainly exaggerated, if not outright untrue

I don't see how this conclusion is at all possible based on Einstein's youth.

Re:of course

[rtb61]

That is rather a short sighted policy. Think of Albert Einstein, those gifted students tend to be able to look after themselves and still make exceptional contributions to society. Now think of say George Bush, now if those 'er' 'special needs' kids got that bit of extra attention perhaps they might prove to be such a destructive element in later life.

So while you might get slightly better performance out of the smart kids by providing them with the best teachers, those same teachers can achieve a quantum improvement in the 'er' 'special needs' future George Bushs of the world.

No matter what any one says it takes a whole of lot Albert Einsteins to repair the damage of one 'special needs' George Bush.

Re:of course

[thejam]

Make no mistake what I want is radical, it's flushing the idea of equality away and letting merit stand on it's own. To the winners the spoils. So those already born with blessings deserve more? Sounds a lot like how the aristocracy enjoyed extra benefits due to their birth. Were there no revolutions to purge such unfairness?

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

To the best students go the best teachers. Some teachers are the best at helping smart, motivated kids. Other teachers are the best at motivating kids. Others are the best helping kids who come from an abusive household. Yet other teachers are the best at helping kids be socially responsible.

You're trying to take a fairly complex environment and reducing it into a single hyper-simplistic principle. Maybe you should take an introductory course on secondary school education and learn something before you speak.

Oh, and don't work on my IT stuff. Your type also thinks that MS-Access is the best solution for everything.

Re:of course

[drsquare]

you cannot study for an IQ test and get a better score, no matter how hard you try.

You're joking, right?

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

If a child is reading by 3 years old, is it too young for intelligence to manifest itself?

Re:of course

[drsquare]

Then they stay in the remedial classes until they catch up.

They don't catch up, they're learning easier material, being taught by worse teachers, and are in a disruptive class full of trouble-making brats.

Re:of course

[shalla]

New York State used to have what was called tracking, but it wasn't exactly the way you described it. You could take several different levels of a class: remedial, non-Regents, Regents, and Regents Honors. You could take whatever level you needed in whatever class. If you took the right combination, it would give you a Regents Honors diploma. (So, if you made sure you took those classes, you were Regents Honors track.) Meeting slightly lower requirements gave you a Regents diploma, and so on. A few years after I graduated (early 90s), they wiped it away and made everyone get a Regents diploma (where you have to pass the Regents test in certain subjects certain years to graduate), then dumbed down the Regents tests when kids failed them right and left. Yeah, good plan. Don't let people get the diploma level they want, just let them flunk the hell out of school because they suck at Global Studies, even though they kick ass in math and science, then gut the tests so they're meaningless anyways. And of course, all the tracking went away with this too, so the truly gifted kids were bored, bored, bored if they were in small schools that didn't offer AP classes.

I think the legality/illegality of any tracking would depend on how it was implemented. Certainly there's a danger in labeling children. On the other hand, trying to force everyone into the same mold has never worked, either.

You can probably tell from my first paragraph that I don't think the new system is an improvement. Then again, I wasn't one of the hard workers in the lower tracks who was getting screwed by some of my fellow students being, for lack of a better term, complete asshats... But now, every class can be distracted and ruined by them! Share the love!

Re:of course

[stdarg]

Pretend students are the raw materials out of which bridges are built.

Should the best materials be used in the least important bridges by the best engineers?

Should the worst materials be used in the most critical bridges by the worst engineers?

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

"If they can't deal with being a freak, how are they going to manage when they first get a job and their boss is extremely average, or their President is well below average?"

You make some fine points but on this matter (at least to me), staying with kids of their own age sounds much more likely to give them the skills to necessary to socialise with folks of lesser intelligence. Sounds like it would be torturously boring, though.

Re:of course

[UserChrisCanter4]

I'm sure they do occasionally block the restructures, which is why the solutions to failing schools don't always stretch as far as they should.

Teachers' unions get brought up a lot in educational arguments, but most people ignore the fact that in many parts of the country the unions are powerless.

Teachers' unions are powerful in states where unions in general still have power: The northwest and the heavy manufacturing states. In other states, though, they're really nothing more than professional organizations. I belong to a union, ATPE (The Association of Texas Professional Educators). I don't really agree with a lot of what they do, but they are the cheapest way to get professional liability insurance. For $130 a year I get $4 million of protection and $20,000 of legal fees paid. Beyond that, ATPE is nothing more than a PAC at the state level. The hallowed "tenure" that gets brought up so often in discussion just consists of a slightly different type of contact. During the first two to four years at a school, a principal can elect not to renew your contract for any reason at all. After that time, you're placed on a more stable contract where the principal has to show a decent reason to not renew (usually, poor appraisals two years in a row, with immediate suspension or dismissal for serious crimes).

I won't deny that the unions are much, much more powerful in, say, New York or Detroit, though. I can tell you that an elementary school in Galveston, TX went through a radical restructure either last year or the year before for failing to meet a bunch of standards (not just AYP). 90% of the staff was fired, and only the teachers who had demonstrated progress in their classes stuck around. A couple of schools in Houston ISD have been restructured as charter schools, and I can name probably 10 high schools in the Houston area that are "schools of choice." I don't know how well teachers' unions do in other states, but they're not blocking the federal measures in Texas.

Re:of course

[vertinox]

If we don't fix what the parents broke, they too will become bad parents and repeat the process.

Its nothing a vasectomy couldn't solve.

Re:of course

[fwr]

Can someone explain to me why it is desirable to be able to socialize with folks of lesser intelligence? I don't want to socialize with people of lower intelligence. I interact with them when I have to, but not "socialize."

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Your parent phrased it imprecisely, but the gist of what he meant is not entirely incorrect.

Barring the special case where you are given the opportunity to study basically the exact test and questions beforehand, you cannot study for an IQ test[1] and subsequently inflate your score without actually having become smarter.

I remember being tested for about 2 1/2 hours straight in an individual exam (1 on 1 with proctor) as a kid, and I cannot remember a single question being asked that relied upon facts memorized beforehand. As soon as it became obvious that I had grasped (or failed to grasp) a certain series of 'questions', the proctor moved to a new line of inquiry. Any major aberrations in performance, e.g., a sudden spike/dip in level of comprehension or response time of a given class of spatial visualization problems, was noted and, at some later point in the test, probed by following up with a related series to try to correct for possible familiarity or coaching.

The types of problems asked are also markedly different than those in tests like the GRE, SAT, etc., which do rely heavily on cultural and educational experience. E.g., sometimes they simply show you a diagram or moderately long string of numbers and ask an open-ended question like 'what do you notice about this', with the object presented being an example of several entirely different classes of patterns. I (think I) remember one, for instance, where I noticed that every number was larger than the sum of all preceding numbers (I now know this is called a superincreasing series), there was a pattern in number parity (EOEOOEOE IIRC), the difference between any two adjacent digits was at most 3, the digit '9' never occurred, that the last number's digits were a mirror reflection of those of the first 4 numbers if you concatenated them together, and there were 8 numbers and '8' was the first and last digit of the series. I think I remembered that one correctly, because I remember a very strong nagging feeling that I was missing a crapload of other stuff. Alternatively, the stuff I noticed might just have been artifacts of other more specific patterns.

Anyway, from what I remember, the format and content of the test was designed in such a way that a brute force hack (i.e., study/memorization) of the entire domain would require an even more incredible genius than one who could 'only' solve the problems with, e.g., deductive reasoning and pattern recognition.

[1]A formal IQ test where the test is adapted to your performance as you progress.

Re:of course

[hondo77]

Also we note: in the US, the teachers union would never allow some teachers to get gravy classes while others are stuck with borderline retards.

Huh? My daughter is in the "gravy classes" at a public school, not a charter school. The teachers' union "allows" her teachers to do this without a grumble from anybody. I don't know where you are getting your information from but it's not from around here.

Re:of course

[Rich0]

Honestly, the more I've had to deal with schools the more I'm convinced that privatization and competition are the answer. I got a decent eduction in the public school system, but there are all kinds of issues with this:

1. Public school quality varies significantly and you're basically stuck with what you get.
2. Teacher quality varies significantly, and I have personannally suffered and know others who have suffered under particular teachers.
3. Students who do well have to interact with students who have nothing better to do than be discipline problems. Never in my life after school have I had to deal with the kinds of abuse I'd gotten in school (and I'm far from antisocial). In real life people choose not to associate with these kinds of people - children shouldn't be treated any differently.

I do believe that most teachers genuinely want to see their students do well. However, some do not succeed in this and I'm not a big believer in rewarding effort in the absence of results. In most industries people mean well but don't achieve results end up homeless - or working far-less-paying jobs than many teachers.

A competitive school system would benefit everyone. Teachers would have many more schools to choose to work at, which means higher salaries for those who can get offers anywhere. Parents could choose whatever criteria they prefer for picking a school - if they don't believe in standardized tests they can pick a school that doesn't bother with them - if they do then they can look who has the highest scores. Practices common in colleges like course evaluations would probably become common in secondary education (obviously the opinion of children will be taken with a grain of salt, but they're still worth listening to - and parental opinions will matter greatly to those interested in staying in business).

Schools will have incentive to keep the students happy and not run their institutions like prisons. Unions would probably disappear almost instantly - there is a reason that private schools don't hire unionized teachers. Some teachers might or might not like this, but few industries are structured in accordance with the wishes of the people who actually work in them - they're structured to provide maximum benefit to the owners (and the customers who ultimately reward the owners with business). Teachers would still have the same labor protections available in all industries, and good teachers would be very well treated as schools would recognize the competitive advantage they confer.

This would also reign in administration. Sure, bad administrators exist in EVERY industry. However, the profit motive tends to keep them under control. Schools would be fairly small businesses so you wouldn't see the kinds of excess you see in major corporations.

I just don't see what the problems would be with a privatized school system. About the only organization that stands to lose significantly would be the teacher's union. That and mediocre teachers. Neither would be a huge loss to the parents/students/taxpayers of the nation.

Re:of course

[sheepweevil]

Would you call graduating with 5 passed AP tests and a Calculus II credit from the local community college getting ahead? I graduated from high school just last year with such a head start at college that I was designated a sophomore after my first semester.
My high school is, in my opinion, one of the better ones, but I know that almost all students going off to college from my high school had at least one AP credit.

Re:of course

[chris.evans]

I don't think they should have the division (segregation) between gifted and non-gifted students. I from personal experience believe a gifted status of a student is directly related to how involved the parents are in that childs life and education.

Re:of course

[Lemmy Caution]

In retrospect, it isn't excelling that brings retaliation.

It's attitude.

When I was young, I was so eager to show of my accomplishments, I was obnoxious. And I wasn't interested in the success of others around me. You cannot simultaneously expect to derive pleasure from proving your superiority to others and still receive their well-wishes. If they see your success as theirs in some way (the way, for example, we feel when a child of ours succeeds) then that retaliation is unlikely.

I wouldn't say I deserved the bullying I got, but I see very much how I helped generate it. And I would now be annoyed to hang out with someone who was like I was at that age. In turns out that socio-economic class issues were also at work, but that's a whole other bag of beans. (Funny how geeks seldom speak of having summered in Europe....)

Re:of course

[Brickwall]

My experience with skipping was they crammed two years (grade 3 and 4) into one. This was in no way a hardship, and it didn't leave any holes in my education. I have no doubts that I could have learned the entire Grade 3 curriculum in six weeks, and maybe 8 weeks for the Grade 4 stuff. I was still way bored most of the time, and in fact, perfected the technique of reading a book in my lap while pretending to listen to the teacher.

Re:of course

[Txiasaeia]

I'd go so far as to say that it's not your attitude that brings retailiation, but the entire school system that encourages competition over cooperation. The school system that most of us endured is hopelessly outdated. The idea that competition in a classroom while listening to a teacher lecture allows students to learn better is patently false, as constructivists such as Piaget, Vygotsky, and Kohn have shown. The entire climate of testing in schools causes students to care more about grades than learning. This is where the US and Canada is failing where the rest of the world is excelling in our public schools.

Re:of course

[Txiasaeia]

"Think long and hard about this one. There are parents who can do a wonderful, or at least decent, job teaching their own kids full-time. Those parents are a minority (though you may be in that minority). The ones who can make it work typically are the ones who keep things structured well enough. The kids do have to get through basic subjects that may not be their favorite things to do, and the parents have to police that rather than let those subjects slide."

This is a common criticism of homeschooling, but what most people don't understand is that the core curriculum in elementary school literally takes about an hour or two every day to cover. Also, subjects don't need to be taught in isolation: making a cake with a third grader incorporates math, science, and home economics. You can take him/her to a park and let them use a digital camera to take pictures, after which you download the pictures onto your computer and let them write a story about one picture: language arts, computers, photography, and P.E.

Also, the nice thing about homeschooling is you can encourage your child to take up interests that they want. The above example includes photography, which is extremely rare in secondary schools, let alone elementary schools. Know any schools that offer Latin American hand percussion instruments? Or, what if you know a second language and want your children to study literature in English and your first language? Not an option in the public school system.

The only difficulty with homeschooling is a lack of a cooperative atmosphere with other children. This problem is rectified if you have more than one child, and even in a public school it's not guaranteed that a child will learn anything but competition with his/her peers. If you do have more than one child, having the older children tutor your younger children will benefit everybody: the older children will learn the material more thoroughly if they teach it and they'll be able to learn how to properly interact with younger students. Younger children typically learn material a lot faster if it's compounded with instruction from older peers, as they use language that's closer to theirs than an adult's.

I agree with the grandparent, in that there are a lot of problems with public schools, but rather than the problems resting with teachers, administrators, or parents, I think the problem is a systemic reliance on standardised testing, and an emphasis of competition over collaborative learning. The drive for grades precludes learning, as I mentioned in a previous post, so I won't say any more on the issue.

Re:of course

[debiansid]

You're assuming that intelligence == higher marks/grades. That's not always the case.

I've been to a school similar to yours -- 70 students in a classroom, divisions from A to J (in some lower classes you even had K and L). I never thought much about it then but looking at it now it feels as if the better performing students either get pressurized to perform and in some cases break apart (you're an Indian, so I assume you've read of the growing number of student suicides due to seemingly low grades), or they bask in the glory of being in a higher division and become full of themselves. Some even get scared of making mistakes/failing, hence making them overcautious (and hence, often underachieving) by nature.

Also, I knew many who were much smarter/intelligent than the top division and still were among lower divisions merely because they wouldn't/couldn't mug up answers for examinations.

Lastly, it doesn't really help the not-so-smart kids either because they find the company of fellow fuckups (as you described them) and it simply puts them one step away from any sort of reform.

Re:of course

[ralphdaugherty]

I thought about this the other day, anyone know if they've ever tried splitting the smarter/average/dumb kids up into their own classes permanently from 5th or so through 12th, as in they hardly ever see the other groups anymore except between classes and at lunch? I would be curious if the social structures in each group would clash, or if the system would work.

      That's the way my education was from 1958 to 1970 when I graduated. I can't imagine why anyone would do otherwise.

      There was next to no clashes between the merit based classes. If anything, kids don't particularly want to be smart at that point anyway. There's nothing popular about it.

      It's utterly ridiculous to have slow learners mixed in with fast learners.

  rd

Re:of course

[anaesthetica]

...which I intercepted and destroyed...

Where's that "+1 Awesome" moderation when you need it...

Re:of course

[EtoilePB]

A teachers job is not sell the value of an education, that is a parents job. Too bad if the parent weren't up to it. If a child does not want to learn it's not the teachers job to convince him otherwise. Instead the teacher should cut him loose and accept another student who wishes to learn. A teacher is there to impart knowledge of the subject. He's not some motivational speaker but rather an aid to study.

I could not disagree with you more strongly.

I was extremely fortunate, as a child. When I went to kindergarten reading and doing math, the school gave me an enrichment course three times a week. My parents are the ones to whom I owe my ability to read fluently at age three, my parents are the ones who put books in my hands, and my parents are the ones who gave me my genes and my values system. My dad is the one who taught me fractions and negative numbers on a napkin at a diner when I was four, because I'd expressed interested in the change he was paying the waitress with.

But in the end? So what if I'm naturally gifted? So what if I have innate aptitude? Does that mean I never once, in twenty years of formal education, needed a truly talented and devoted teacher? HELL NO. I owe some of my teachers more than I can ever repay. Mrs. Myers, who for three years of high school advanced and honors English wouldn't LET me be a lazy writer, and who knocked that intelligent oh-so-justified teenaged smarter-than-thou gifted arrogance out of me with my one and only F. Professor Broadbridge, in college, who made me think of history in a way I never could have done before. Teachers who taught me inquiry, scientific thought, and who made me expand beyond my own horizons.

The more arrogant and self-contained one is, the less one learns. Good teachers can draw in any student, regardless of that student's innate aptitude. Good teachers reach students, make students expand their own minds and abilities. Any idiot (or genius) can learn facts from a book. Math, history, whatever. Good teachers make the facts WORTH KNOWING.

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember in elementary school I was in a class called "AT" (academically talented). We were segregated from the rest of our classmates for 2 hours or so per day. This continued into middle school (6th/7th grade) where it became "AT" science. We were talking about the scientific method, watching films about philosophy, learning about the heart and internal organs, etc... This group of kids eventually moved on to high school AP (advanced placement) classes, and such.

But I don't think my IQ is near 145, like they are talking in the stories. ;-)

Re:of course

[Usquebaugh]

First of all I never attended regular college. I started work at 17. At about 21 I decided that I'd like to study for my Bachelors so I enrolled in the Open University. I never attended a single lecture but still graduated with honors after six years. I held a full time job as I studied. I learned everything from the books on my own. The course was traditional Compu. Sci. I do not think I was in any way an exceptional student and I feel any motivated student could do the same.

My advice would be to read the course books before the course starts. Learn how to read, no seriously it's not just a case of knowing the words but rather how to get the most out of a technical book. When you attend a lecture you should have a good idea what is going to be discussed, the lecturer should be giving a review to you not having to explain the smallest detail.

As for fluid mechanics, I'm currently reading some grad level books on the subject as I'm trying to understand why wind tunnels are still used. Where does the current simulations fail? Is it granularity or is there something we do not understand about fluid dynamics! I've had to go back and pick up some undergrad texts to understand the grad level. Now why is that interesting? Because I'm interested in computer driven design of vehicles and the big hole in the loop is accurate simulation. The computer can design something but it can't accurately test it.

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was young, I was so eager to show of my accomplishments, I was obnoxious.

And this is different from every other kid in the world how?

Re:of course

[Lemmy Caution]

What seems to create the most success is a mix of values that actually reflect those which operate in the world: a blend of competition and cooperation. That is what teamwork is: the celebration of the unique contributions an individual can bring to a group to help that group compete successfully against other groups. (Japan is an excellent example of this.)

Cooperation without a sense of struggle or conflict is ineffective as an educational principle, as well - it isn't consonant with the real-world experiences of children. The problem with educational theory in the US is that it is divided between individualist-competitors and social-cooperators who are each fighting on one or another side of a culture war, unable to see how their opposites have a vital component that they themselves are missing.

Re:of course

[GaryOlson]

I am impressed -- your actions and thoughts show a healthy and active amount of paranoia, initiative, and lack of respect for authority. hxnwix for President! Oh, that would never work, you are a realist.

Re:of course

[MorePower]

I think this must be one of those "different learning styles" things. I get what your saying when you say "learn to read" (and thus don't take offense), but I never was able to "get the most out of a technical book" as you put it.

I could read the words, but static words on a page were never able to convey the real relationships between things to me. However, I could easily grok the meaning of the material if either:
(a) I was in a lab type situation (or using a computer simulation or something like that) were I could vary the parameters and watch the effects on the whole system or
(b) I was in a lecture situation where the professor was working each step and I could ask them the stop and explain why they did that last step or ask what would have happened if we stuck a negative number in two steps ago, etc.

Once I was able to "get it" the book was useful as a reference to look up the particulars I had forgotten or jog my memory as to what approach you needed to use, but I could never really learn anything for the first time from a book unless it was fairly easy material (i.e. High School level).

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Einstein was likely a high functioning autistic since he experienced major delays in learning to speak. For this reason he may have struggled in his early elementary years.

Re:of course

[JfishSoM]

lol I used to get in trouble for reading books all the time. One of the few teachers that was cool with it even let me play games in his class as long as I wasn't disrupting anything. Some of the students complained to him, to which he said "When you start getting high 90's on all of your tests, you can play games too." XP They wouldn't allow grade skipping at all in my school, and I have to say, like the article points says, I often felt out of place and didn't have any really close friends. Then, when a class I actually liked came around, like programming, I ended up getting the highest grade possible in the class. XD I even ended up going in and out of the gifted program, since it was based on grades. *sigh* Maybe one day they'll fix all of this, but right now it's completely atrocious.

Re:of course

[thrawn_aj]

You're assuming that intelligence == higher marks/grades. That's not always the case.

Wrong. I am not making that assumption. I simply stated our school's policy. It is the effects of that policy that I was VERY happy with because a lot (not all) the people who ended up as my classmates were EXTREMELY intelligent. Furthermore, they possessed a maturity that was not exhibited by students in the lowest classes. Make of that what you will.

better performing students either get pressurized to perform and in some cases break apart (you're an Indian, so I assume you've read of the growing number of student suicides due to seemingly low grades),

The suicides you refer to continue to rise in spite of the apparently enlightened changes made in the system. Surely, you haven't forgotten so much of your childhood as to assume that this sort of meritocracy was the only pressure a student had upon him/her? And it was hardly the most significant either. The suicides continue even in junior college (grades 11-12 for the Americans reading this) where no such system exists. That is simply the pressure inherent in competing in an overpopulated society where jobs are at a premium and grades are the only sensible measure people have found to work at that scale.

or they bask in the glory of being in a higher division and become full of themselves. Some even get scared of making mistakes/failing, hence making them overcautious (and hence, often underachieving) by nature.

Oh give me a break! What is it with this double standard? Jocks are allowed to bask in their physical abilities and triumphs but nerds can't feel good about being smart? As for the latter part of the quote above: that's a typical appeal to the self-esteem arguments that a country like India just can't afford. As such, please look at this objectively and try to avoid ascribing all the ills of academia to the single idea of a meritocracy.

Also, I knew many who were much smarter/intelligent than the top division and still were among lower divisions merely because they wouldn't/couldn't mug up answers for examinations.

Yes, I know the type and I sympathize with them. However, if they really were intelligent, they would have shown at least a semblance of pragmatism in deciding when to make their stand. I'm sure shooting themselves in the foot seemed very brave at the time but it was merely foolish and dramatic and a feel-good option. Futile rebellion. I learned to work within the system, beat it and eventually go beyond it. So did a lot of my classmates. Further, it was quite fashionable to puke the argument that you have above as an excuse for bad grades. I recall it being QUITE difficult to separate the true believers from the merely lazy. If you refuse to play the game, don't be surprised if you don't win.

Lastly, it doesn't really help the not-so-smart kids either because they find the company of fellow fuckups (as you described them) and it simply puts them one step away from any sort of reform.

Excellent point. Of course, that's a little strange coming from you because the higher division folks are arrogant bastards anyway and the lower division folks are basically decent (and I should be chastised for calling them fuckups. OH NOES :P). So, I fail to see the problem here. The not-so-smart kids are spending time with good decent kids who are NOT arrogant. Surely, you, with your equality mandate are not going to suggest that the people I call "fuckups" are in any way bad company for the not-so-smart kids eh? Plus, so what if they're not as smart? That's not really important according to you so why should it matter who they spend their time with? It seems to me that you're arguing against my definitions and yet agree with them on a subconscious level.

But, to address the issue you raised anyway, I simply had/have no d

Re:of course

[debiansid]

The suicides you refer to continue to rise in spite of the apparently enlightened changes made in the system

What changes have been made in the system? How have they been instrumental in reducing pressure on the kids? Has child/parent counseling been made compulsory in schools? I'm not talking about career counselors, I'm talking about psychologists.

Surely, you haven't forgotten so much of your childhood as to assume that this sort of meritocracy was the only pressure a student had upon him/her?

You're extremely lucky that meritocracy was the only pressure you had in your student life. Many had other problems to cope.

Oh give me a break! What is it with this double standard? Jocks are allowed to bask in their physical abilities and triumphs but nerds can't feel good about being smart? As for the latter part of the quote above: that's a typical appeal to the self-esteem arguments that a country like India just can't afford. As such, please look at this objectively and try to avoid ascribing all the ills of academia to the single idea of a meritocracy.

I don't know what it's like in the US but here in India we never had jocks/nerds. In fact, you seem to have forgotten that the nerds are actually the popular ones here.

Of course, that's a little strange coming from you because the higher division folks are arrogant bastards anyway and the lower division folks are basically decent

Well if you keep raising them on a pedestal they will turn out to be arrogant bastards. Read this:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=273143&cid=202 69129

An approach like this is better than hardcore segregation. Segregation works like the caste system, which results in the snootiness.

But, to address the issue you raised anyway, I simply had/have no desire to wallow in a communal mediocrity just to help these poor sods. Yes, it sounds callous. It is.

Your statement kinda proves my point above.

You can say that the system did not work hard enough to ensure the success of the lowest category of students and that it instead dumped them together in a division leaving them to fend for themselves.

No, I'm not saying that. All I am saying is that while hardcore segregation may lead to better academic results, it leads to fucked up social education. A more balanced approach is required where you make sure that various groups learn to live with each other AND perform to their best abilities at the same time. Again, read the linked post above, it really does provide a more interesting solution.

Re:of course

[armb]

The UK used (and in some local authorities still does) split kids into grammar schools and comprehensives. The downside is that one test result aged 11 doesn't necessarily accurately reflect which type of school you should be in for all subjects for the next seven years.

Re:of course

[ShieldW0lf]

The problem is that the education system exists.

There is no achievement to be had on a playground, and there is no achievement to be had in a prison. Nothing that anyone does there means anything when you walk out the doors, so no one cares about it except inasmuch as it indirectly influences the outside world.

The problem is that the education system exists. Teaching the young while participating in daily affairs of life should be the duty and obligation of all citizens.

Re:of course

[thrawn_aj]

The suicides you refer to continue to rise in spite of the apparently enlightened changes made in the system

What changes have been made in the system? How have they been instrumental in reducing pressure on the kids? Has child/parent counseling been made compulsory in schools? I'm not talking about career counselors, I'm talking about psychologists.

Where the hell did that come from? We were discussing ONE issue and one issue only: the meritocratic system (henceforth I'll call this MS) that you seem to hate so much. As such, if you'd read my original post with a bit of concentration, you would have seen my gripe that they dismantled the MS a few years ago. And yet, the suicides and the problems continue to rise. At the very least, this means that the MS was negligible in terms of causing and perpetuating these problems.

PLEASE don't make the pathetic mistake of automatically assuming that I support any other thing in the system. The discussion was about the MS, and it was MS that I was supporting (and still support).

Surely, you haven't forgotten so much of your childhood as to assume that this sort of meritocracy was the only pressure a student had upon him/her?

You're extremely lucky that meritocracy was the only pressure you had in your student life. Many had other problems to cope.

Is there an echo in here? :P Isn't that precisely what I said in the line that you responded to? My point was (and still is) that the MS was the least significant factor in pressuring a student. In fact, one might argue that the not-so-smart students got to compete at a less stressful level and actually stand out in the lower divisions. The MS, way I see it, was simply chopping up the Bell curve into sections so that each section could compete on its own level. Yes, I was perhaps a bit flippant about the "fuckups" in my original post but this logic does make sense to me.

Your later comments like this one:

An approach like this is better than hardcore segregation. Segregation works like the caste system, which results in the snootiness.

and this:

All I am saying is that while hardcore segregation may lead to better academic results, it leads to fucked up social education.

make it clear that you really don't give a fuck about the lower division students. All you're really interested in is cutting the alleged arrogance of the upper divisions down to size. Bad childhood experience?

Again, read the linked post above, it really does provide a more interesting solution.

I did read the post and it did make sense to me. I would think that an MS would be quite useful in such cases. Devote a "disproportionate amount of resources to the people who need it"? Fine. Go for it. Isn't it better to have these needy people in one place so that this can be done more effectively? Or would you rather mix everyone up and then make a point of singling out these needy students in front of all the other better-endowed students so they can be better directed to these extra resources? Wouldn't that just fuck them up socially? I know I would be embarrassed if I was one of these kids and I was given special attention in every class IN FRONT OF the kids who didn't need it. How cruel is that? Once again, your arguments seem to support an MS. The smart kids need to be left alone, preferably in a group of their intellectual peers. After that, you don't really have to do much to them, they can take care of themselves, and you're free to focus on the deserving kids.

I don't know what it's like in the US but here in India we never had jocks/nerds. In fact, you seem to have forgotten that the nerds are actually the popular ones here.

Of course we had them. There just weren't many conflicts between them, precisely because each class knew its

Re:of course

[debiansid]

Is there an echo in here? :P

Sorry, I misread your statement :)

In fact, one might argue that the not-so-smart students got to compete at a less stressful level and actually stand out in the lower divisions.

I don't understand where you deduced this from.

All you're really interested in is cutting the alleged arrogance of the upper divisions down to size. Bad childhood experience?

Nope, never had that problem. I was always an A division student.

I notice that you didn't respond to my final comment about why getting rid of the MS wouldn't be beneficial:

I actually didn't reach there... your post was actually a bit too long to keep my attention. Sorry :)

Firstly, I never said that intelligent people are inherently arrogant bastards. Segregation gives them this feeling of eliteness, which can potentially turn them into arrogant bastards.

Secondly, I do agree that some kind of Merit based action is needed; I guess it didn't come out in my previous posts. It's just that I don't think simply separating them out is the solution. It is kinda like caste system, wherein children are exposed to classism at a very young age.

Few people are able to understand and handle such segregation as adults, so you certainly cannot expect children to take it well all the time. And it works both ways -- kids with lower IQ get depressed and churn out their depression in the form of rebellion, violence or introversion. Kids with higher IQ either lose all traces of modesty or become extremely pressured to perform at all times. Some stop performing to their maximum potential and set themselves an acceptable level of performance so that they don't fail. In short, the MS system isn't necessarily the best alternative for them either.

We Indians have always been taught to compete and we continue to pressure our kids to do the same. What we don't realize is that often children are not equipped to handle such pressures. They cope in many cases, but it leaves a mark in some way or the other.

Re:of course

[Usquebaugh]

Thinking about it, although I do grasp a lot from the text books. I need to use the knowledge I've gained to cement it. A lot of my personal computer time is spent running simulations to back up what I've read. In Compu Sci it was easy, I had the simulator cast into hardware :-) I also used various cpu sims including sims for cpus that were not built. So Compu Sci lends itself very well to self learning through experimentation.

The fluid dynamics is pretty much the same, there's plenty of sims around to learn from. I've never been in a wind tunnel and I'm pretty sure I don't need to for my investigation. But the sims really help me grasp ideas i.e. altering the angle of attack of a wing affects pressure how? Adding an end plate etc etc.

Thinking further, most science and engineering subjects have sims available. But the subjects I'm crap at languages, history, geology etc. do not lend themselves to simulation all that well. Music is an odd one as in the past I was rubbish at anything outside of rhythm i.e. I could play drums and xylophone. But with the feedback loop a computer can provide I'm becoming competent, nothing impressive but I can play and sing a little now which is a miracle compared to how I was.

With regards to university, I'm still firmly of the opinion lectures should be a review :-)

Re:of course

[Saxophonist]

You make a number of excellent points about the benefits of home schooling. One of the common themes I have heard from people who have experience in home schooling is that they can cover a day's worth of public school material in a morning rather easily, leaving time for the student to pursue other interests that could not be pursued in public school. I do think that a couple of the interests you mentioned actually do get some treatment in public schools; a parent's first language might be available for study depending what language it is, and there are general music curricula that do things with ethnic percussion in general (in fact, it's written into a number of states' music standards). Your point, however, does stand in that a given public school cannot offer absolutely every potential interest.

It is important to be careful about falling into what I call the "random curriculum." That is, activities that do have educational benefit in one or more areas, such as the photography and cake-baking activities you mention, are strung together without looking at the bigger picture to see whether the student is learning everything that he or she should be. A parent who home schools with only these activities is likely to be unsuccessful. Fortunately, resources for the parent who wishes to home school are plentiful and do address larger issues of curriculum. Also, there exist home-school cooperatives that allow students to interact with other home-schooled students to provide the cooperative atmosphere that could otherwise be missing. There are certain activities and classes, however, that do not work at all individually, such as music performance classes (band, choir, orchestra) and athletic teams. The typical solution I have seen has been for the student to go to the public school for just those activities -- the student still has the right to attend public school, after all, and one may as well make use of any quality resources that he or she is funding through taxes.

Re:of course

[Usquebaugh]

Teachers are not paid good money! I have a brother in education and to reach my level of pay he would have to run a school district i.e. leave teaching and become a snr. manager. Teachers are paid dreadfully, jnr. devs routinely make more than snr. teachers.

This whole idea of making a child learn is bullshit. Yes teachers can and do motivate children to learn. But should they have to?

Currently there is no choice for the teacher. But my system would allow for any number of teaching styles to be used. The only measurement is the state exams.

If as a parent you want a teacher who will spend time motivating children then you pay for such a teacher. However, another parent who has different ideas can use a different teacher or indeed home school or use tutors.

Re:of course

[Usquebaugh]

Basically yes,

        it is a ignorant mind that decides to hamper students because they have an advantage. The children of rich people should always do better than those of poor people, that's why people want money to improve their lot and therefore the lot of their children.

        Aristocracy, old money or blue blood is basically the same thing $$$$$$. Class has always been determined by money only within a class do other things count.

        Revolutions were very rarely fought for ideals. But rather money and power. Name one revolution that wasn't primarily about money and power?

Re:of course

[Saxophonist]

You mention a number of points about privatization of schools that I would like to address:

Students who do well have to interact with students who have nothing better to do than be discipline problems. Never in my life after school have I had to deal with the kinds of abuse I'd gotten in school (and I'm far from antisocial). In real life people choose not to associate with these kinds of people - children shouldn't be treated any differently.

So long as children are all required to attend some school and have opportunities to interact with each other, this is a potential issue. Privatization won't solve this problem. That doesn't mean that there is any excuse for a school, public or otherwise, to tolerate bullying, but there is nothing inherent about the public school system that makes this issue any more likely than in a private school setting. Yes, in a private school, it is possible to find a different school to attend, but that in some cases is a choice more extreme than dealing with the actual problem. When I taught private school, we did have to deal with this issue quite a bit -- in fact, at the high school level, I thought we had to deal with it more than I have seen at public high schools, in part because socioeconomic disparities were more apparent (despite mandatory uniforms).

I do believe that most teachers genuinely want to see their students do well. However, some do not succeed in this and I'm not a big believer in rewarding effort in the absence of results. In most industries people mean well but don't achieve results end up homeless - or working far-less-paying jobs than many teachers.

You seem to be making the assumption that the teachers are always at fault. Sometimes, they are. However, sometimes (I believe more often), it is a matter of lack of resources or support or onerous, irrelevant requirements (e.g., excessive standardized testing) that prevent teachers from actually doing their jobs. The fault in these cases either lies with the school somehow or with outside requirements and/or restrictions placed on the school. Generally, employees in industry expect their employers to provide them with the tools reasonably necessary to do their jobs, and the business is expected to handle obstacles in their way. If this problem would occur in industry, the business would end up shutting down if it could not adapt and continue to make money. A private school could encounter the same fate in the same situation. Public schools, on the other hand, keep on running anyway. You could argue that this is a benefit of privatization, but there is nothing saying that a private school would have any better management or any less onerous regulations than a public school.

A competitive school system would benefit everyone. Teachers would have many more schools to choose to work at, which means higher salaries for those who can get offers anywhere.

Actually, this already occurs in public schools so long as the teacher is willing to change districts (which may require relocation). I have yet to see a private school that had salaries comparable to a public school in the same area. They may be out there, but this was one of the reasons that many teachers would get out of private schools as soon as they could. I am not convinced that a more privatized system will fix this issue. In particular, barrier to entry to the profession becomes too high, as a new teacher either may get no offers (which occurs now anyway) or can only get a very low-paying offer. The state in which I taught has mandated a minimum salary for new teachers in public schools to prevent this problem.

Parents could choose whatever criteria they prefer for picking a school - if they don't believe in standardized tests they can pick a school that doesn't bother with them - if they do then they can look who has the highest scores.

If the sort of privatization y

Re:of course

[Usquebaugh]

What stands out is the time your parents took to educate you. Like myself, that is were most of your foundation was laid. Not at school, not by teachers.

The question is that by helping you did they sacrifice a more gifted student? I doubt it, you were probably top 10% of most of your classes. How did you feel about having to mark time while other students grasped the fundamentals?

I'm not sure what constitutes a good teacher, but I do know that the current school environment wastes good and bad alike.

Re:of course

[fractoid]

If you were like, well, most of us here - it's different because instead of getting 2% more than them in a test, or running a bit faster, you made their best academic efforts look pathetic.

Hell, I didn't realise until highschool that you were expected to lose marks on a test. The only thing I ever lost marks on was poor handwriting or teacher error.*

* no, seriously - they asked what one simple machine a hand drill was. I rightly answered that it was both a lever (the crank) and an inclined plane (the cutting edge of the bit). I was marked down for giving two answers, but the teacher would never explain how what I'd said was wrong, or what the right answer was.

Re:of course

[VShael]

Well I went through the Irish educuation system, and that's how it worked for us. From the age of 8 till 18, our classes were divided into anywhere from 3 to 5 streams. (Call them A1, A2, A3, B1, B2) All the smartest kids were in A1. They studied subjects like Latin, which were not available to kids in A3, B1, B2. Kids in A3 could do Music, for example, which was not available to B1, B2. And the kids in B1, B2 could do Art, but they wouldn't study artists, forms and artistic movements. They'd be trying to colour in without going outside the lines.

Re:of course

[aduzik]

"No Child Left Behind" does nothing *but* leave children behind. By withholding funding from the schools that need it the most, it creates a downward spiral that no school -- especially inner city, poor and rural schools -- can break free from.

It's even true in the suburbs. I used to live in Cedar Falls, Iowa. As you might know, Iowa has one of the best education systems in the US, and the Cedar Falls schools were also very good. They were threatened with losing a big chunk of their federal funding because they weren't making enough progress on the standardized tests. This is mostly because their test scores were pretty good already.

Now Waterloo, which runs right into Cedar Falls -- like a much less glamorous Minneapolis/St. Paul -- has always struggled with education. Waterloo is a more working-class city and they have a larger immigrant population, so it's not surprising that they have less of their own money for education and their test scores are lower. They've been threatened with losing their federal funding as well.

So schools with capable students lose federal funding, which would pay for teachers to maintain that level of achievement. And schools that need the money even more are losing their funding too. Basically, the not-to-hidden agenda of No Child Left Behind is to drastically cut federal education spending while giving a facade of "accountability".

Re:of course

[ghoul]

You get paid more as a developer as compensation for spending most of your time in front of a screen rather than interacting with humans. Its not healthy for humans who are social animals to not have human interaction for most of the day. You are getting paid hazard pay pretty much the same as someone working on an oil rig. Teachers on the other hand are spending time with kids - one of the activities humans find most enjoyable. Of course they get paid less than you but it is still good money compared to what they could make as secretaries, bike messengers or walmart checkout clerks which are jobs increasingly done by arts majors so teaching is not a bad deal. The only thing which sucks in American teaching is the lack of respect for teachers amongst American kids. Teachers have traditionally been people who like having their ego stroked by eager to learn kids and for such people the respect has been more important than the money and they did a very good job of teaching as it would hurt their ego to have their students perform poorly. The mistake has been to increase administration and coddle the kids. Bring back corporal punishment and convent school like discipline and you can halve the budget and double the performance.

Re:of course

[Rich0]

Thanks for your comments - I actually used to share some of your viewpoints regarding the importance of public eduction (while it was far from perfect the public schools I attended weren't that bad). However, I did want to comment on a few things you raised:

I agree with your comments about the numbers game and fraud when it comes to advertising. Colleges already have this problem. It is probably inevitable - the only reason we don't have it with primary schools today is that there isn't enough choice to drive it.

First off, most teachers would absolutely love to have the labor protections available in other industries. Overtime would be a particular benefit.

Uh, I'm not aware of just about anybody in the professional-salary range that many teachers make who is eligible for overtime. It is very rare in the fortune 500/etc. Under federal law overtime pay is not required for highly skilled laborers. I'm sure your mileage would vary at the state level. Most are expected to get the job done whatever it happens to take. You can get away with working less but you'll be passed over for promotions/raises (which aren't automatic in industry), and if there is a downturn you're of course the first on the block. Of course, results matter more than hours so if you can get the job done without as much face time more power to you... :)

Now, suppose schools are able to accept tuition. Now, there is a socioeconomic barrier for student to get into quality schools.

I advocate a fixed-credit-per-student system. Schools would be free to charge tuition. I'm not sure I'd allow refunds - we don't want to encourage glorified daycares. I'd want schools to be free to charge as much as they want - otherwise there is no motive to do anything other than cut costs. There might also be the possibility of scholarships for exceptional students (of course, I recognize the controversy there). The fixed credit should be set at a level that can give a good education - it is not in the interest of society to end up with lots of illiterate folks.

I agree that the rich would fare better under this system, but that is just the way of the world.

That's about it. I agree with many of the points you've raised and recognized a few of the issues that you've seen with private schools (low pay/etc). Ideally the better funding with tuition credits would help there (most private schools have a lower per-child budget than the public schools do), and increased competition might help. I've had varied feelings over the years, but the more I look at the system it seems like it is more in need of a large change. The other big potential change would be massive deregulation (set general education standards but get rid of most other rules that bind local districts - such as testing requirements, and any regulations specific to employee protections/salaries/requisites/etc). I think that privitazation would work better, but allowing local districts the ability to pay-for-performance, etc would probably help in a public setting. I don't mean to be offensive and I'm sure you're an exceptional teacher, but I'm not a big fan of the teacher's unions (which are often codified in state law). Very few successful industries survive under these kinds of rules (most industries with massive union presence almost exist in spite of the unions - paying people not to work while they open shopes in other countries, giving unions token work while they move real work elsewhere until they can close entire factories, etc). Where unions do work well it tends to be in areas where the union is willing to give and take - recognizing the symbiotic relationship they have. The problem is that where public eduction is concerned there is really no cap on benefits since there is no profit motive - taxes can always be raised and work rules can always be tightened even if they are detrimental to eduction. In my experience where unions have been successful they've almost been unnecessary (more of a partnership). And I am cognizant of the history that lead up to them, so again I realize this isn't a simple problem to solve...

Re:of course

[gorean]

Well youth is for throwing away. It almost does not matter how you do it. I got myself thrown out of the Seattle public school system, ran away from home and spent the few years playing music and taking drugs. Just when I was getting undeniably good, I injured my hand and could no longer play that well.
Wasted time? Maybe. Hey I forgot to mention in the fifth grade there was mention of sending me to college, then. Maybe I should also mention that most things are still transparent to me. I have found that being smart causes resentment in most of the population.

Re:of course

[gallwapa]

I didn't get any special courses or anything but I was the same way - worked through the 5th, 6th and 7th grade math books all in 5th grade. *shrug* I ended my senior year with over 360% in English and CWP, after deciding to not turn in final projects that were approx 30% of our grades to keep us "engaged" through the end of May/beginning of June.

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Three data points:
1) A generation ago, my cousin was selected for a 'gifted' program. The kids, starting in 7th grade were allowed to work at their own pace through the standard materials, with the idea that there might be advanced courses afterwards. The problem was that all the kids in this class finished the whole curriculum, through graduation, by the end of 8th grade. (That's also a comment on the standard High School curriculum, too.) We aren't talking super-genius, we are talking 30 kids in a town of 50,000 mainly blue collar people. Not knowing what to do with them, they were shunted back into standard high school class. About 20% dropped out before graduation. Less than a third graduated from college. Most are highly sucessful at what they do now, almost entirely in their own businesses where credentials dont matter.

2) My own daughter had a mediocre undergrad GPA in college, but when moving to a Master's program in an area she's interested in, she's running a straight 4.0. The difference is the interest. Bright kids tend to see injustice in terms of black and white, and when some of her undergrad instructors made frankly stupid statements (in a history class, one identified a picture as being from Gettysburg; my daugher presented a snapshot showing the same thing with the historical marker showing it was Bull Run, but the instructor didn't care. From that point on she didn't care about the course, either.)

3) My sister in law was a mediocre student in the 60's in education at a midwest college. After her husband passed away when she was 50, she started taking courses in the evening to pass the time, but got 4.0 in them. She's currently a PhD candidate. Maturity? Maybe. Interest? Definitely. Bored when she was younger? probably

Herein lies the danger of tracking too rigidly.

Re:of course

[jayzee133]

A definte yes. Puts a damper on US intellectual talent. This is why it is so hard to recuit a high skilled homegrown workforce, especially in technolgy.

Re:of course

[WarForge]

I left middle school after 6th grade to go to a private accelerated high school where >90% of the students had skipped at least 1 grade and >%70 skipped 2 or more. I do not think there were really any gaps in my (or anyone else's there) education as the reason most of us skipped was that we were far enough ahead in our middle school curriculum that we had already learned most of what would be taught in the skipped grades. If during admissions testing this was not the case then the student (usually coming from 5th or 6th grade) would be put into the "Prep" year program before starting their freshman year where the curriculum was the (mostly) combined courses from 6-8th grade. Even if a person went straight to their freshman year without some of this knowledge, the advanced courses (AP US History, AP European History, AP Literature, etc) we were 'forced' to take more than made up for the gaps left by skipping out on the courses in middle school.

No Child Left Behind

[jawtheshark]

Does No Child Left Behind mean that nobody can get ahead, either?

Yes, next question please...

Re:No Child Left Behind

[value_added]

Well, to be fair testing, testing and more testing may appear to be onerous and cause all sorts of unfortunate results for everyone involved, but there has to be a standard against which progress is measured. It's hardly unusual to find high school seniors in both poor and good schools that excel in their coursework, but can't read or write. That said, it is true that some of those unfortunate results are profound, widespread and serious.

My take on the matter is that society has made a decision to help those most in need. That means dealing with, to use a very unpolitically-correct phrase, the lame, infirm and the stupid, as well as those who simply can't speak English (of which the numbers are staggering). You can argue against it, fight it, or work around it, but it won't change any time soon. And if it makes you mad, try not to think about how much of the education budget is set aside for such efforts.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the meme is that it's not funded or underfunded but here's what factcheck.org said about this awhile back

http://www.factcheck.org/dnc_state_of_the_union_at tack.html
http://www.factcheck.org/distortions_galore_at_sec ond_presidential_debate.html

Yes.

[oskay]

>Does No Child Left Behind mean that nobody can get ahead, either? Of course it does. If *any* child gets ahead, *millions* of children are left behind that one. I have always referred to this program as "no child gets ahead"-- it's turned out to be remarkably accurate.

Re:Yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Frequent any imageboards by perchance?

Re:Yes.

[DragonTHC]

It's also a damnation to the duller crayons in the box.

I qualify as gifted with an IQ above 140. I graduated high school with a 1.7 GPA.

WHY? I was forced to work at the extra slow pace of my classmates and teachers. I was told I wasn't gifted because I wouldn't do my homework.

I was told I wasn't gifted because I had problems getting along with my classmates. And of course, I was told I wasn't gifted because I have learning disabilities.

I love learning. I hate the public school system. It's a babysitting establishment. Teachers are paid about 40% less than what they're worth. That's why the career attracts so many mediocre teachers. They are regulated to treat everyone equal. Their budget is stifled and stemmed. Teachers have to purchase most of their own classroom supplies.

We as a nation don't value education.

We have Billy Bob Redneck and his nine children sitting in their trailer in Hayseed, Arkansas saying "I never got my high school diploma, it didn't hurt me none!"

Most of America doesn't see the value of education. They didn't have any, their kids don't need it either.

America says "I turned out just fine without a college degree!"

That leaves those of us who are just smarter than the rest to dig our way out of a pit full of idiots. The idiots just keep falling on us and impeding our ascent.

Re:Yes.

[vonFinkelstien]

In Sweden the phrase used is "Lika för alla" (The same for everyone). My principal says that means: "Lika dålig för alla" (Just as bad for everyone). They are very anti-elitist here in Sweden (I blame it on years of being run by trade unions aka the Social Democrats).

No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[faloi]

The public education system has been failing gifted students since long before No Child Left Behind.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[jawtheshark]

Allow me to rephrase that:

The public education system has been failing students since long before No Child Left Behind.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[SatanicPuppy]

It's no surprise. Some cultures love their smart people. The Asian's love their smart people. They glorify them, they treat them with a lot of respect, and view them as a source of national pride.

We, on the other hand, do not. Culturally, Americans view intellectualism with suspicion. We love the captain of the football team; big, handsome, and dumb. You have only to look at the debates on science to understand that. There is societal pressure to not appear too smart, or you'll have a number of unflattering stereotypes applied to you. The last two losing presidential candidates both had their intelligence used against them in an unflattering way; they were know-it-alls, dorks, geeks, namby pamby sissy faggot intellectuals, whereas the guy everyone regards as the dumber candidate is trustworthy and strong.

A lot of it probably has its roots with Christianity. The Devil is smart, remember? When Dante was populating the Inferno, he dumped Odysseus in the 8th circle, 1 up from the bottom. Why? Because he's a smart, tricky bastard, just like the Devil is supposed to be. This country has a lot of radical Christian roots (Puritans, anyone?) so it's not all that surprising that our views on intellectualism are shaped around that.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[trolltalk.com]

"The public education system has been failing gifted students since long before No Child Left Behind."

The education system can best encourage gifted students by leaving them alone to pursue what they're interested in, instead of sitting in classes getting bored to death. Of course, that would mean taking less credit for their achievements, something that no self-respecting dickhead would agree to.

Smart kids learn despite the roadblocks thrown in their way.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[DragonWriter]

The public education system has been failing gifted students since long before No Child Left Behind.

That's true, but its not true that NCLB doesn't matter. NCLB certainly encourages school systems to fail gifted students even more than they already were. With increased focus on the worst performing segment (and with funding tied to that), that's a natural consequence.

The problem existed before NCLB, but that doesn't mean NCLB hasn't exacerbated it.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[MightyMartian]

I think you might overstate your point a bit, but I do think you have one never the less. The rise of intellectualism during the Enlightenment was also a period when it was permissive to view religion with suspicion, where the human mind was something to be glorified as much if not more than some fuzzy sky deity for which Europe had been battered bloody for a couple of hundred years before. Heck, men like Madison and Jefferson, who didn't bother to hide their own contempt for Christianity, were not only accepted in society, but became major politicians and statesmen, and were major architects of the United States itself. By Lincoln's time, we were already heading into the post-Enlightenment era, where politicians had to make all the right religious sounds.

Now we have powerful lobbies seeking to undermine science education in the United States, trying to find ways to sneak past that great product of the Enlightenment Age; the Bill of Rights, so that there superstitious worldview can be promulgated in public schools.

If the US wants to know why its surrendering the production of scientists to other parts of the world, they only need to look at all those small-minded, anti-intellectual twerps that manage to get on school boards and state Boards of Education, with their Bible in one hand and hatred of knowledge in the other.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[try_anything]

Just because isolating them from their slow peers is better than integrating them doesn't mean this is the best policy. Nobody learns well or does good work in complete isolation. Kids need stimulation and challenge from other bright, creative kids, and they need it from bright and educated adults. They need freedom as well, but freedom in isolation is stultifying.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[ushering05401]

Yeah, even before No Child Left Behind 'gifted' kids had to fend for themselves.

I had access to all sorts of advanced classes, but most of the other kids in those classes were hard workers, not natural talents. Significant aspects of being 'gifted' rather than just exceptionally hard working are the desire to learn in any context, to seek out new opportunities outside of predefined academic structures, and to pursue knowledge for the sake of knowing.

It is difficult to put into words the frustration of finding that the other gifted students in my classes were only curious in so far as curiosity served their goals of achieving the GPA required to get into a good college, and following that, to obtain the job they wanted. My advanced classes, special labs, and alternative working groups served me no better than time alone in a library would have.

My experience revealed that many gifted students are more like athletes than intellects.

Regards.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

The last two losing presidential candidates both had their intelligence used against them in an unflattering way; they were know-it-alls, dorks, geeks, namby pamby sissy faggot intellectuals, whereas the guy everyone regards as the dumber candidate is trustworthy and strong. There's a difference between being smart with some humility and getting in everyone's face telling them that you are smarter than them and that with only your help can humanity survive.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Aardpig]

Agreed, 100%. Moreover, I think the Anglo-Saxon cultural heritage of the USA has a lot to answer for here. Certainly, a similar vein of anti-intellectualism can be found in the UK, although not quite as testosterone-pumped as the USA. And this also somewhat ties into C. P. Snow's 'Two Cultures' theme -- while in intellectual circles there is value attached to art and literature, there remains a general disdain within these circles for science and scientists.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Flavio]

A lot of it probably has its roots with Christianity. The Devil is smart, remember? When Dante was populating the Inferno, he dumped Odysseus in the 8th circle, 1 up from the bottom. Why? Because he's a smart, tricky bastard, just like the Devil is supposed to be. This country has a lot of radical Christian roots (Puritans, anyone?) so it's not all that surprising that our views on intellectualism are shaped around that.

That's nonsense, and there are many counterexamples to this claim. Which is a pity, because I enjoyed the first part of your post. Christianity doesn't teach people to be stupid. Jesus himself said "I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and innocent as doves." (Matthew 10:16).

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[jeebee]

The public education system has been failing gifted students since long before No Child Left Behind.

Unfortunately, No Child Left Behind seems purposefully designed to cause spectacular failure. If you require every child in a school to meet certain standards, but provide little assistance to struggling schools (financial or otherwise), you'll quickly see resources directed away from the gifted students (they're passing already), good teachers leaving the system (they didn't get into the profession just to teach the minimum), and parents looking for a way out of the system entirely (assuming they can afford it).

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

This is 100% correct. When i was a youngling (i'm 30 now) and in 4th grade every non G&T program student's (gifted talented) parents were in a total uproar over it and eventually stopped the entire thing. Even stopped promoting people up grades.

Luckly i'd made it through the best years of the program 4-6th grade when they are teaching retards how to still read.

Know what my parents did? They paid for those things on there own and you get what you pay for.

If you really look at it though it probably saves money by putting a bunch of the smart kids in a box.

They don't get bored and the other people get more attention. Besides how hard is it to teach people who understand.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Bluesman]

"while in intellectual circles there is value attached to art and literature, there remains a general disdain within these circles for science and scientists."

I think this is true, but what do you think is the cause of this?

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[trolltalk.com]

So why not let the brightest teach the "special-needs"? Everyone benefits. After all, for a genius, the "average kid" is also a bit "slow".

The smarter kids learn to communicate with those who don't pick things up as quickly as they do, and the kids they'd be helping would probably learn quicker than being taught by a "normal adult." And since the population is about equal (both ends of the bell curve), it should be easy to match everyone up, freeing up resources.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[dreddnott]

While I applaud your willingness to stand up and quote an appropriate Bible verse to make an excellent point, the teachings of Jesus as preserved in the four Gospels rarely formed the foundation of the practice of Christianity during the time periods that SatanicPuppy was referencing. The United States of America really has its philosophical and ideological roots in the ongoing Age of Enlightenment. Hmm, looks like Wikipedia agrees with me for the moment. Guess I won't have to edit it.

In any case, I daresay that the Jesus of the Gospels is even more difficult to find nowadays.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[sydbarrett74]

A lot of it probably has its roots with Christianity. The Devil is smart, remember? When Dante was populating the Inferno, he dumped Odysseus in the 8th circle, 1 up from the bottom. Why? Because he's a smart, tricky bastard, just like the Devil is supposed to be. This country has a lot of radical Christian roots (Puritans, anyone?) so it's not all that surprising that our views on intellectualism are shaped around that. I'm getting sick of the constant anti-Christian rants here on /. I happen to be Catholic, and nobody who knows me would accuse me of being an intellectual lightweight -- i.e., Christian != stupid. There is a rich intellectual tradition amongst the mainline Christian denominations -- Calvin and Aquinas, anyone? Just because the faith has its share of backwoods Bible-beaters does not mean that we are all ignorant rubes....

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[wnissen]

Not to mention that the modern university system was invented in its entirety by the Catholic church to educate its seminarians. Not that Christianity's record is spotless here (Flying Spaghetti Monster) but neither does it discourage intelligence.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[natedubbya]

OMG?

I really don't know where to start with this post, except to say that it's really sad how people don't understand the history of education in the United States, let alone the world. Most of the major universities in the US were founded with Christianity as its base. Did you know that the USA had the largest literate population in the world during your hated Puritan period? I'm guessing you didn't know this, judging by your critical tone. The Puritans honored literacy, pushed literacy, and for the first time, most *women* could read in society. Why? To read the Bible and discover truth.

Take a tour around some of the oldest universities in the US and you will find inscriptions all over linking Christianity to science (of all things!!!), the discovery of truth in nature, etc. etc. It's only a recent (and sad) development that science and christians have become so separated. I believe there is plenty of blame on both sides for this, but surely, don't talk about "the roots of christianity" without actually looking at our history where the roots began.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Chimera512]

When Dante was populating the Inferno, he dumped Odysseus in the 8th circle, 1 up from the bottom. Why? Because he's a smart, tricky bastard, just like the Devil is supposed to be. no, Odysseus/Ulysses is in the 8th circle of hell for being "...fraudulent--those guilty of deliberate, knowing evil" via wikipedia on Inferno (I don't have my copy of the text around.) It's not that he's smart, it's that he uses his intelligence to help commit the genocide of [with the notable exception of Aeneas] the Trojan people by deceit, not by honorable strength of arms.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[tsotha]

What a load of crap. "Anti-intellectualism" isn't the same as anti-intelligence. The reason Americans are suspicious of "intellectuals" is we don't think there's much correlation between self-professed intellectualism and actual intelligence. Only supporters of those two leading losers thought they were more intelligent, by the way. Bush had better grades and better test scores than both Gore and Kerry. Neither of them have a Harvard MBA. If your complete definition of intelligence revolves around one's public speaking ability, well, that's pathetic. And it doesn't have anything to do with Christianity. The fact that the enlightenment (the Scottish one, not the French) began in Europe among Christians is no accident. No, the suspicion started with the great "isms" of the twentieth century - Fascism and Marxism. Both should be obvious failures as a way to organize society, but were foisted on the masses by "intellectuals".

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Sponge Bath]

...be wise as serpents and innocent as doves (Matthew 10:16)

"...that is also Christian; hatred of mind" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Not that I fully agree, but as long as we are slinging quotes around...

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[DragonWriter]

So why not let the brightest teach the "special-needs"?

Well, for one, because it takes skills that even most qualified "regular" teachers don't have (along with those needed to be a qualified teacher) to effectively teach those with learning disabilities ("gifted" students also are "special needs"), and because the particular talents of academically gifted students may or may not be in the right area, anyhow.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[E 99]

whereas the guy everyone regards as the dumber candidate is trustworthy and strong.

No, I think everyone voted for who they thought was the smarter candidate. The problem with Gore and Kerry was NOT that anybody thought they were too smart. The problem (among other things) was that they both gave the very strong impression that they believed themselves to be too smart. Especially Gore, who really killed himself his smirking and eye rolling during the debates.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

This country has a lot of radical Christian roots (Puritans, anyone?) so it's not all that surprising that our views on intellectualism are shaped around that.

You give those people more credit than they deserve.

In light of what passes under the banner of "intellectual" nowadays, it's a miracle that anti-intellectualism is not far more prevalent than it is.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

I happen to be Catholic, and nobody who knows me would accuse me of being an intellectual lightweight Then you just don't know many atheists. You may have a high intelligence or capability for logic, I don't know. However, your faith in the existence of something that has no proof, by definition cannot be proven, and goes against all observed evidence of the nature of the universe casts great doubts on your scientific integrity. The fact that you let something you were taught as fact and prohibited from questioning get in the way of logical thought and scientific process leads me to accuse you of being an intellectual lightweight.

I hate to sound like I'm insulting your religion, each to their own and all that. But I can't stand by and watch someone say things like

There is a rich intellectual tradition amongst the mainline Christian denominations when Christianity/Catholicism especially has repeatedly proven to be one of the biggest obstacles to the development of mankind's knowledge. You caused the Dark Ages for crying out loud!

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[j00r0m4nc3r]

I don't love the captain of the football team.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you!

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as quotations prove anything:

"Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but - more frequently than not - struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God" -- Martin Luther

"At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of
heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent,
and hast revealed them unto babes." --Matthew 11:25

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

We, on the other hand, do not. Culturally, Americans view intellectualism with suspicion.

I can back this up to the lowest level. My nephew is a very smart kid (as much as my sister and I disagree on some things, she's done something correct in raising him - I digress).

At a recent family gathering, we were discussing a PBS Nova episode (my nephew and the rest of the family) and he got upset when we showed how impressed we were with his "smarts". After digging deeper, he revealed that he was recently rejected from a group of children on the playground because he "is too smart".

The kid is 9 years old and his peers are already persecuting his intellect.

I never realized the difference in Japanese culture until you just pointed it out. I'm thinking of Goonies at this point (the Asian kid-inventor - "boody trap!").

Posting anonymously because I don't want my sister to find out that I ever said anything nice about her (maybe 'nother story altogether?).

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[mikeh9741]

For the record, I am a Christian and to make some kind of connection between anti-intellectualism with anti-satanism is absurd, but wisdom != intelligence, either (though there are many smart people who don't get this). Also, it is somewhat ironic that your quote says to be innocent because innocence can refer to a deficit in knowledge, although in this case I don't think that's what it means. Christianity has no position on whether intelligence is inherently good or bad.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[dpilot]

>In any case, I daresay that the Jesus of the Gospels is even more difficult to find nowadays.

You mean His core message wasn't about denying choice to women and rights to gays?

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[toadlife]

I noticed that too. Gore and Kerry both seemed to give the feeling that they were talking down to you when they spoke. Clinton and Bush both gave the feeling that they were talking to/with you when they spoke.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Descalzo]

He didn't say anything about isolating gifted students from their peers. Many gifted programs utilize integration, they just have the gifted students doing different activities in the classroom.

I hope I didn't misunderstand you (or the GP). I think you are correct. I think that a gifted program should have freedom in a mainstream classroom.

Note that even this is not the best for each and every student. I kinda think that gifted students should have like an IEP or something.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

When was the last time that the Catholic church impeded science?

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Cyberax]

Yep. And football captains should stop showing off their handsomeness and big muscles.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the suspicion started with the great "isms" of the twentieth century - Fascism and Marxism. Both should be obvious failures as a way to organize society, but were foisted on the masses by "intellectuals".

They were foisted on the masses by populist radicals using exactly the same talking points of a common enemy, the state before the individual and dissent = treason that is in use by a few governments of today.

The only time I hear intellectuals having anything good to say about Marxism or Fascism is when I hear them misquoted on wingnut talkshows.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[mattpalmer1086]

Errr... no. I'm not religious, but I do know my history. The Dark Ages were caused by the *fall* of the Roman Empire. Which was Christian.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[marcello_dl]

> A lot of it probably has its roots with Christianity.

John taylor Gatto says quite the opposite: the industrial society, son of illuminism and industrial revolution, transformed culture in schooling. He probably is not attacking ideologically the industrial revolution, anyway, so neither am I.

I see a problem when you capitalize Christianity. We might go to the source as well:

Matthew 10:16
I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.

Being shrewd implies intelligence. Sharp intelligence, according to the dictionary, even. And how does Jesus address people he doesn't like? "Bad"? hmmm, very often he says, "hypocrite", underlining the lack of applying principles to behavior, which is a matter not only of good heart but also intelligence.

(note: of course now you may be trying to recall where indeed reason is attacked. But those passages IMO don't criticize reason per se, but its use outside its scope, applying reason to the domain of a transcendent god. Stupid example: a transcendent god and the concept of "being one" are incompatible. Strictly speaking a possible aspect of a god that is transcendent can't be considered "one" "two" "many" because there is no whatsoever guarantee that the concept has any meaning outside our dimension.

So I have troubles making the consideration about Christianity applicable to schooling.

You might mean religious men were lethal obstacles for some knowledge to circulate, but it was a matter of defending a status quo which seems more political than religious to me. But I agree anyway since it happened.

But wait, it does not necessarily involve meddling with the student mental development. Intelligence doesn't matter, what is taught matters. See communist regimes which both kept students under control and made them better students than western ones at the same time.

Finally, I have way bigger troubles considering puritanism a radical christian movement. They are not if they are influenced by terror- the True Christian(tm) afraid of the death of the body? Hmmmm. We catholics are not radical either, as the Vatican permits killing in self defense. I'd say Francis of Assisi was radical.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Austerity Empowers]

Smart people don't need help at school, it's what they're good at. Beyond not saddling them in remedial and risk them getting killed by the gangstas...truly smart people will keep themselves entertained.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Aardpig]

To be honest, in recent times I think this disdain originates from jelousy. IMHO, the whole post-modernist movement is akin to a child's tantrum, brought on (quite ironically) by a monstrous case of penis envy. These people are tortured: on the one hand, they seek to discredit science as 'just another flawed humant endeavour'; and on the other, they fall over themselves in the scramble to gain the same quantitative chachet that hard sciences have. This is why, for instance, we had the whole Social Text business.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

thou shalt spend all thy time getting to know me and thyself leaves little time for other study.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[NMerriam]

they both gave the very strong impression that they believed themselves to be too smart.

Yes, thank God we wound up with Bush, who never smirks or talks down to his audience as if lecturing a bunch of retarded 6-year olds. "we're fighting terror, y'see -- what that means is that terror is out there, and we're fighting it. know you don't understand, but there's bad people, and they want to hurt us, in other words, hurting us is what they want to do."

Who needs actual facts, research, or open debate when you have gut feelings and a close relationship with God to guide all your decisions?

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[DaleGlass]

Religion discourages thinking.

If it didn't, we wouldn't have people talking about how the earth is 6000 years old because it says so in the Bible.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

"There is a rich intellectual tradition amongst the mainline Christian denominations -- Calvin and Aquinas, anyone?"

Aquinas I'll grant you, Calvin, well...Calvin's perverted version of Christianity (and speaking as an atheist, that is saying an awful lot) resembles a cross between a fundie's version of the Church of Satan and some Ferengi religion. You're poor? God hates you and we should mock your poverty. Sick a lot? We should shun you because God hates you--if he loved you, you wouldn't be sick so much! God also clearly hates non-whites because Christianity's more common in the west. A serial killer whose favorite method involves a) cactus b) wok c) surgical tubing d) soldering iron e) rubber chicken f) 15 jars of playdough g) herring, lots of herring, well God pre-ordained that they're going to heaven because he's God. Mother Teresa's burning on a spit and sodomized hourly by Satan's cloven wang because that wacky slap-happy Calvinistic God says so--after all humans are completely depraved so we know nothing of morality. Calvin might have been a smart guy (I doubt it since his horribly twisted reasoning is clear evidence to the contrary), but he was as amoral as they come.

If you want smart christians you'll have to look no further than your local Jesuits. You pretty much have to have an an advanced degree (or two) to get in. Ownership of a penis is inexplicably also required, but that's Catholicism for you.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[NMerriam]

So why not let the brightest teach the "special-needs"?

Because they're just kids supposed to be getting an education? Pulling a Jedi mind trick is not going to accomplish anything.

"No Timmy, I know you're interested in Algebra and want to discuss the implications of the Enlightenment era on modern politics, but what would REALLY be fun is for you to spend the next seven weeks trying to teach Billy how to do long division!"

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[clragon]

It's no surprise. Some cultures love their smart people. The Asian's love their smart people. They glorify them, they treat them with a lot of respect, and view them as a source of national pride.

I lived in China for the first 10 years of my life, so I know the Chinese culture well.

You said Asians love their smart people, it's true, but only under certain perimeters. The first problem is how do you define "smart"? Are smart kids the ones with the highest IQ test scores? Are they the ones that get the highest marks in class? Or are they the ones that can sell the most cookies to neighbors?

In China, IQ Scores are redundant and are not paid any attention to by the education system. Here however (In Canada), it is used to determine if a child is able to enter the gifted program in elementary school.

What the Chinese actually value is someone who can learn fast, think fast with flexibility and without making many mistakes. Although one might argue those people can be called "smart", but smart is too general a word in English and could be referring to a wide rage of characteristics. See, the Chinese does not value IQ or "gifted-ness" because it doesn't reflect what a person could accomplish. Instead, to get into the fast-track classes in China a child has to be placed in the top 40 in his or her grade (this is according to the middle school I was going to go to, there were 60 kids per class and 8 classes per grade.) So instead of getting the kids to take a IQ test of which they have no control over the results, getting into the fast-track classes becomes a competition between students so the winners are respected. In Canada, the gifted kids doesn't "beat" others to get into gifted classes, so there is much less of a reason for other kids to respect them.

One type of smart person the Chinese frown upon are people who stay home and study the textbooks all day, but can't carry the knowledge over and apply it to the real life. It wouldn't matter if the person has the highest mark in the class, if he or she can't solve simple social problems then they will receive little respect.

This is very similar to the definition of a Nerd in the western culture. However, one key difference is the clear line drawn between a "nerd" and a smart person in China, while here in Canada it is assumed anyone who has the highest mark in the class must be a nerd.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[teslatug]

Your comment reminded me of the scifi story Trends by Asimov. In it a scientist who wants to build and fly his own rocket ship is almost killed by the religious fanatics who think he's challenging God. Eventually he does it anyway in secret and he's treated as a hero. We haven't reached a perfect equilibrium and we probably won't for a long time (if ever). The pendulum is just in the religious court right now. I wish there were no religions at all, but then again I'm awaiting at the other end.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[dgatwood]

As long as we're slinging famous quotes around....

God is dead.
---Nietzsche

Nietzsche is dead.
---God

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[meringuoid]

There's a difference between being smart with some humility and getting in everyone's face telling them that you are smarter than them and that with only your help can humanity survive.

Running a country is a difficult job.

Would you prefer it done by:

(a) Someone smarter than you
(b) Someone stupider than you

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Krazymage]

Gosh you are all just so smart and gifted. Wow, I feel so grateful to be in the cyber-presence of you incredible smart people. Perhaps someone on this thread can address the issues at hand instead of bragging how they were in accelerated programs when they were kids. Please... grow up and spare us the transparent self-indulgence. I think it is perfectly reasonable to spend more time on struggling children than gifted children. Our society needs to ensure that the average kid meets a skill level that will prepare him or her for life as a productive member society. Gifted children, by definition, don't need that help. Frankly, if they are gifted then they can find their own, personal path to realize their own destiny. I know know why public schools should spend money on creating more braggadocio Slashdot posters.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[kklein]

The smart kids are reviled and bullied here in Japan just like in the US. The only difference from the US is that here, people here love the captain of the baseball team. It really is no different. I say this as someone who has taught in every level of the Japanese education system, from first grade to university.

There is a push to study for tests here that is mistaken as a push to be smart and/or learn, but this is due to viewing East Asian culture through a Western/American cultural lens. Being smart isn't important; racking up scores is important--scores on tests that are famous in the world of psychometrics for having things like Cronbach alphas of like 0.70 (That means that it's only 70% reliable--there's a 30% chance that if you took the test again, you'd get a different score, to put it simply. Tests like the SAT, GRE, TOEFL, etc. don't go live until they can hit at least 0.90--these are high-stakes tests; you can't afford to be wrong about these things!).

Much of this is based on the Chinese Confucian system of public examinations. From long, long ago, China (forgive the lack of dates; it's been a lot of years since my Asian Studies undergrad) had a system of examinations to determine who got into public office. This was considerably more fair than the system of nepotism that came before it. Of course, the tests had nothing to do with the position; they were tests on things like rote-memorized Chinese literature, etc. Ask any Chinese friend who went to a traditional Chinese school (even outside of China) for an account of this nonsense--older teachers still do it. Of course, since this required huge amounts of time to prepare for, the only people who could pass these things were usually the idle rich aristocracy, so nothing really changed, but if someone worked his ass off, even if he was from a poor family, he could get a sweet government job with all the concubines he could eat (I may be adding that detail, but it's a good detail, so in it stays). This has led to the development of a culture of poorly-constructed, almost impossibly hard, high-stakes exams that stretches across China, through Korea, and into Japan.

Everything is still decided by difficult, slapdash tests of general knowledge here in Japan. They decide what high school you go to; they decide what college you go to; they decide what company you're accepted to (you are "accepted" to companies here, like you are accepted to university--you are a member of a "class," and you start with no particular job--no "major"--and the company works that out later). So Japanese (and Chinese and Korean) kids cram like mad for these things. This is mistaken abroad as a culture of intelligentsia. It is not. It is a culture of passing multiple-choice tests, and we in the US are so blind and stupid that we have decided to emulate it. It was a stupid idea a thousand years ago; it's a stupid idea now.

So there you go; Asia really isn't that different. It just looks different. The jocks still get the chicks, no matter where you go. As animals we're programmed to favor strong men and young, fertile women. That's what leads to the species not dying out. Culture can skew this a little bit (the distrust of smart people doesn't seem to be as big a problem in adult society here as it is in the US), but at the heart of it, we're all just stupid monkeys looking to get laid.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

When was the last time that the Catholic church impeded science?

November 9th 2004:

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/nov/04111203.html

Ok, maybe they didn't _directly_ impede science (since fortunately the church has no real power anymore) but it certainly has a heavy influence on others impeding it.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Dolly_Llama]

I think this is true, but what do you think is the cause of this?

While we're generalizing, I think it has to do with the inverse correlation (or stereotype) of math and science with social skills. In my geekier, awkward-ier days, math and science were havens for me because there was a right answer, no persuasion necessary, it's either right or wrong.

Going back to disdain, I don't think there is a disdain necessarily for intellectuals, but some negative values associated with intellectualism: smugness, elitism, etc, etc.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

(c) someone who actually is smarter than me and just doesn't think he is

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[dgatwood]

We aren't talking about literal creationists here. We aren't talking about people who ignore reality in the face of beliefs. Most Christians don't act that way. The Catholic Church, for example, has accepted evolution for many decades. Most Christians do not ignore reality in blind adherence to something written in a way that would be understandable to people who lived more than two millennia ago. Those represent a small minority of Christians, contrary to what many trying to detract from organized religion have espoused (ironically, creating their own semi-organized, almost religious belief system).

Faith is belief in that which cannot be proven. Science is the study of that which can. But science is not without faith. As a scientist, unless you are trying to challenge an existing belief, you usually accept on faith the core laws of science despite the fact that you yourself have not taken any steps to prove their validity. You are not likely to try to prove the law of gravity as part of your analysis of an experiment on the effects of gravity on the human body. Yet you would expect Christians to prove God as part of their analysis of electron flow in a plasma?

The mere ability to question does not necessitate that all things must be universally questioned by all people at all times. It merely necessitates that the observer be willing to give due consideration to evidence contrary to those beliefs. For the most part, mistakes of the distant past notwithstanding, Christians have done just that. However, in the absence of that evidence, science tells us nothing, leaving philosophy and theology to provide possible answers to the questions that remain. The absence of proof does not imply proof of absence.

I see with my eyes, and believe there is a sun. I feel with my heart and believe there is a God. I pray for those who cannot feel, that one day they may see.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[SatanicPuppy]

The reverse is true as well...The science people think the arts people are concerned with trivial, easy stuff. The arts people think the science people are all boring social retards.

The truth of it is, they're both valuable, but both sides dish out snobbery at each other so often that they cultivate contempt as a defense mechanism. A lot of it is just the specialization of our times. Gone are the days of generalized education...Hell, they're trying to make you major in high school now, so don't worry about ever being forced to do something outside of your narrow speciality.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

We aren't talking about literal creationists here. We aren't talking about people who ignore reality in the face of beliefs. Most Christians don't act that way. The Catholic Church, for example, has accepted evolution for many decades. Most Christians do not ignore reality in blind adherence to something written in a way that would be understandable to people who lived more than two millennia ago. I can't begin to understand how Christians can claim to believe in God, yet freely pick and choose which parts of the Bible they believe in. After all, the Bible advocates the keeping of slaves, stoning unbelievers, that women are inherently inferior than women, and that all animals and people alive are descended from a group that occupied a single wooden boat for over 200 days about 4400 years ago. You're right of course, most Christians don't believe all of that, but why not?

However amusing it is to point out some of the absurdities of the Bible though, it wasn't my point. My point was that it is impossible for someone to be both a scientist and religious.

Faith is belief in that which cannot be proven. Science is the study of that which can. But science is not without faith. As a scientist, unless you are trying to challenge an existing belief, you usually accept on faith the core laws of science despite the fact that you yourself have not taken any steps to prove their validity. You are not likely to try to prove the law of gravity as part of your analysis of an experiment on the effects of gravity on the human body. Yet you would expect Christians to prove God as part of their analysis of electron flow in a plasma? I'd expect the scientist doing research to state his assumptions. In the case of gravity, he would need to state the conditions, gravitational forces, and would need to do an experimental check that the forces during the test match those that are expected from theory. This is basic scientific process.

In the case of the plasma scientist, does he expect God to form a meaningful interaction with the electron flow? If he does, he would need to state so in his assumptions, and in doing so would be would be derided by the scientific community. This would not be because of his beliefs, but for using an unfounded and untested assumption. If he does not, then he does not need to prove the existence of God

In this sense, the existence of God can be seen as irrelevant. By necessity, Gods must be left out of science as they are unknowable and untestable. But most scientists carry this approach over into their every day life...

I see with my eyes, and believe there is a sun. I feel with my heart and believe there is a God. I see the sun with my eyes. I know from countless scientific experiments that it exists as a large ball of mostly hydrogen and helium undergoing nuclear fusion reactions. I'm not an astrophysicist, and the tests have been repeated so there is no need for me to retread this work. But when I see the sun, and feel it's warmth, I know that it exists as can be expected and predicted. Does this make it any less beautiful? Of course not. Is God still irrelevant, given that I know the processes involved have no need for an invisible creator? In my opinion, and that of a large number of scientists, yes.

Thus, as God has no measurable effect on any aspect of the universe, I fail to understand how anyone who claims to be of reasonable intellect could conclude that $Deity exists.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Gryle]

When Dante was populating the Inferno, he dumped Odysseus in the 8th circle, 1 up from the bottom. Why? Because he's a smart, tricky bastard, just like the Devil is supposed to be.
Actually I think that was because Odysseus was the ruin of the Trojans, and the Italians, via the Romans, claimed descent from the survivors of Troy. The Bible has nothing against intelligence. Christ was fairly clever in dealing with both humans and the Devil, and told his disciples to be "as shrewd as serpents." (Matthew 10:16)

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Mattintosh]

I wish there were no religions at all

You may get your wish soon enough. You don't think the governments of the world are going to put up with these violent, racist, wingnut religious idiots forever, do you? Sooner or later, they'll abolish it all.

Congress shall make no law establishing a state religion. But congress may make a law abolishing religion. It's not out of the question. The sooner the better. From there it's just a hop, skip, and a jump until sanity returns to the earth.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Bluesman]

"The science people think the arts people are concerned with trivial, easy stuff."

I'm not so sure this is the case. A lot of mathematically oriented and engineering people I know are also very gifted artists, writers, and musicians. I'm a decent guitar player, and I'd never call what musicians do easy. Same for writers of literature, what have you.

Personally, I don't have much respect for the intellectual endeavors of the typical college English department because there doesn't seem to be much content to what they do. It's either argumentation based on opinion or unverifiable guesses as to other people's intentions...or criticism. They don't produce anything original, like say, historians, economists, artists, musicians, etc.

If they were all there striving to be the next Shakespeare, instead of the next expert on Shakespeare, I think I'd have more respect for what they do.

I'm sure part of the problem is one of funding, and the idea that you have to fund "research." To me, the idea of conducting research into literature (as opposed to producing literature) is ludicrous, but a whole academic industry has been built up to do just that.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[JesseMcDonald]

Congress shall make no law establishing a state religion. But congress may make a law abolishing religion.

Not without a new constitutional amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

Anyway, you can't simply eliminate irrationality by government edict, and if you tried you'd only end up creating a bunch of martyrs. The more fanatical elements would continue believing in secret, and you'd end up with all the myriad social repercussions normally associated with severe ideological repression. Religious persecution has failed to achieve its goals too many times throughout history to be taken at all seriously at this point.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Eli Gottlieb]

We, on the other hand, do not. Culturally, Americans view intellectualism with suspicion. We love the captain of the football team; big, handsome, and dumb. You have only to look at the debates on science to understand that. There is societal pressure to not appear too smart, or you'll have a number of unflattering stereotypes applied to you. The last two losing presidential candidates both had their intelligence used against them in an unflattering way; they were know-it-alls, dorks, geeks, namby pamby sissy faggot intellectuals, whereas the guy everyone regards as the dumber candidate is trustworthy and strong. I call bullshit, because you have oversimplified the reality. What we actually venerate most is the charismatic genius who can get along extremely well with both people and equations. However, you don't see too many of those, so people tend to venerate the simply charismatic, who don't necessarily have any non-social intelligence.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Eli Gottlieb]

What, no credit for the Jewish yeshivot (which survive to this day) or the Islamic schools of the Muslim Golden Age?

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[geminidomino]

Not to be contrary, but I have to say that 'originality' isn't exactly a quality I favor in a historian...

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[geminidomino]

What kind of definition of 'gifted' are you using? Gifted children need guidance in how to use thier gifts, just as much as average children need guidance in how to learn as well as what, and just as much as the semi-evolved troglodyte in the corner needs to be guided into the knowledge that 'paste' is not a food item.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

If the US wants to know why its surrendering the production of scientists to other parts of the world, they only need to look at all those small-minded, anti-intellectual twerps that manage to get on school boards and state Boards of Education, with their Bible in one hand and hatred of knowledge in the other.

Are you sure? Do you think that a couple of stupid schools in Alabama are, or have ever been, feeder schools for creating scientists in the US? Somehow I doubt that. Or at least, I don't think they're the sole people to blame for the decline of the school system. In the area where I live, we can pretty much blame the liberal left for the decline of our schools, they're the ones who happen to be in control, and their drive for an equality of outcome is what's driving everybody else down (at least in the area where I live).

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[sydbarrett74]

Care to step out from behind the cloak of anonymity and show your name? Casting these aspersions from the safe perch of anonymity leads me to believe that you are indeed a coward....

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[sydbarrett74]

You caused the Dark Ages for crying out loud! Oh, and one last thing -- the Christians did *not* cause the Dark Ages. It was Germanic tribes (non-Christian, I might add) who brought on the Dark Ages. Get your facts straight, you fucking imbecile!

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[sydbarrett74]

My point was that it is impossible for someone to be both a scientist and religious. Erm...no. Science is wonderful. It is, however, a severely limited tool. Any true scientist worth of the name both realises and admits this. Science limits itself to those phenomena which are directly observable, with the hypotheses attempting to explain said phenomena subject to falsifiability. For example, even when physics gets to the point where the origins of the universe can be explained in excruciating detail (the 'How'), science will *never* be able to explain precisely Why the universe was created. The question of Why (as opposed to How) is one left to philosophers and theologians, not scientists. Plus, your assertion that the scientific method is omnipotent and absolute -- that would imply a bit of something known as Faith, would it not? Science is ultimately based upon axioms, which by definition are unprovable. Example: something equals itself, e.g., 2 = 2. Is this statement provable in the scientific sense? No, it is not.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[sydbarrett74]

If you want smart christians you'll have to look no further than your local Jesuits. You pretty much have to have an an advanced degree (or two) to get in. Thank you for at least replying to me in a reasonable tone. As far as Calvin, I was alluding to him because of his intelligence -- that does not make all or even most of what he espoused correct, however. Even utterly brilliant people can be wrong. My point was simply to refute the fallacious assertion by many atheists that by being Christian, one is necessarily intellectually deficient, or else ignorant. For the record, I am most certainly not a Calvinist.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[drsquare]

A lot of it is just the specialization of our times. Gone are the days of generalized education...Hell, they're trying to make you major in high school now, so don't worry about ever being forced to do something outside of your narrow speciality.

You should see how it works in England, at 16 you drop all but three or four subjects.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. NCLB didnt take effect until i was a junior in high school. for me, the problems started alot earlier. I was evaluated in Kindergarden and was deemed "gifted". we had a "GATE" program (Gifted and Talented Education) meaning once or twice a week the other "gifted" kids from my grade got to skip a few classes and do cool projects and trips. (this also made alot of the other students and teachers jealous/angry) this program runs up until 8th grade. altogether useless stuff looking back. i was kept in the same classes as all my peers up until 6th grade when they separated everyone into advanced/standard/remedial classes. even then i had an incredibly easy time with the classes. because i was able to breeze through most of my classes, i never had to study, never had to spend much time doing homework. i simply was never challenged, and took school with a lighthearted attitude. This REALLY hurt me when i hit college, in a difficult major at a tough school. my first few years i have struggled to try to learn how to study and fully apply myself. the story is the same for many of the other "gifted" students i went to school with. the saddest part: the district prides itself on its program and thinks its really helping these kids to excel. just the opposite.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Bluesman]

I didn't mean originality in the sense you should be creative when you write history, but that there's a real opportunity for useful research and work to be done that hasn't yet. We have huge amounts of historical data that nobody looks at -- letters, newspapers, photographs, government documents -- all waiting to be compiled into something pertinent.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Tim C]

So instead of getting the kids to take a IQ test of which they have no control over the results

That's not entirely true. You can improve your scores in IQ tests with practice. I'm not sure how much by, and it may well not be enough for any given person, but you can control your results to a degree.

On the other hand I personally think that using IQ test scores for that purpose is wrong, and agree that it should be based on actual performance in the classroom.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Raideen]

On the other hand I personally think that using IQ test scores for that purpose is wrong, and agree that it should be based on actual performance in the classroom.

The problem seems to just repeat itself if a gifted student isn't put into the right environment. The best solution right now is entirely dependent upon the teachers to recognize the abilities of their students and to find out what's keeping them from performing to their potentials. The teachers also need the resources to do be able to help their students, whether it means getting help for a student that's being abused at home (some academic performance issues are emotional as opposed to intellectual), bullied in school (boxing classes!), bored in class (accelerated programs), or can't keep up in class (extra help centers). I really don't think that any scientific method of placement will ever surpass an acutely aware and caring teacher with the resources to help his students in whatever manner they need it.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[trolltalk.com]

"Well, for one, because it takes skills that even most qualified "regular" teachers don't have"

The problem with many teachers is that after a few years, its just a job. Give a kid something she's really enthusiastic about, and she'll get the message across to another kid. Kids know how to teach - but they call it "play".

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[trolltalk.com]

" > > So why not let the brightest teach the "special-needs"?

> Because they're just kids supposed to be getting an education? Pulling a Jedi mind trick is not going to accomplish anything.

> "No Timmy, I know you're interested in Algebra and want to discuss the implications of the Enlightenment era on modern politics, but what would REALLY be fun is for you to spend the next seven weeks trying to teach Billy how to do long division!"

These kids who are "just kids suppoed to be getting an education" get it after 5 minutes, and would probably have a lot more fun trying to teach another kid rather than getting bored out of their skulls. Don't sell them short.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[Shuh]

Then you just don't know many atheists. You may have a high intelligence or capability for logic, I don't know. However, your faith in the existence of something that has no proof, by definition cannot be proven, and goes against all observed evidence of the nature of the universe casts great doubts on your scientific integrity. The fact that you let something you were taught as fact and prohibited from questioning get in the way of logical thought and scientific process leads me to accuse you of being an intellectual lightweight.

I hate to be the one to break this to you, so I'll be gentle. Not everything that matters in human existence can be quantified, made into an equation, or stuffed into a test-tube. And please, don't get mad at me for questioning your faith.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[tholomyes]

Certainly. I remember being insulted by being called a "dictionary" in fourth grade. In fifth, a girl broke up with me for "being too smart". That'll learn me!

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[NMerriam]

These kids who are "just kids suppoed to be getting an education" get it after 5 minutes, and would probably have a lot more fun trying to teach another kid rather than getting bored out of their skulls. Don't sell them short.

Well we aren't talking about some hypothetical creature under observation here. Many slashdotters were "These kids" a few years/decades ago. I for one know that neither I nor my friends had any sort of patience with those we viewed as "stupid" (because they couldn't learn something totally "obvious" as quickly as we could) and that being expected to put up with them would have driven me into a near homicidal level of frustration. And I didn't know many students who were interested in being "showed up" by some smart kid.

It's one thing to seek out a peer tutor because you want some help in chemistry, it's another to be told by an adult in charge "Billy is a lot smarter than you are, Timmy, so even though you could kick his ass in 2 seconds flat, we want you to sit quietly while he explains to you over a period of weeks what a moron you are".

If some kids want to teach other students, more power to them, I think it would be fantastic. But my experience growing up does not in any way correlate with the notion that kids are "more receptive" to being taught involuntarily by a more successful peer, nor does my experience support the idea that academically successful students are in any way emotionally or socially capable of handling something as complicated as a special needs student -- or that they would be even remotely interested.

The idea that such a program in any non-voluntary participatory basis would be a success simply conflicts with everything I experienced in childhood, have discussed with others about their childhoods, or have read about. Most kids are kind of assholes, because they haven't fully developed empathy and they still have a lot of insecurities about their own identity, and it takes the patience and ability to set aside ego that adults (should) have to put up with that on a regular basis. Heck, putting up with asshole smartypants without punching someone in the face is the number one job requirement for most technical managers, and look at how much love there is for managers here on slashdot (aka the asshole smartypants blog) :)

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[trolltalk.com]

"I for one know that neither I nor my friends had any sort of patience with those we viewed as "stupid" (because they couldn't learn something totally "obvious" as quickly as we could) and that being expected to put up with them would have driven me into a near homicidal level of frustration. And I didn't know many students who were interested in being "showed up" by some smart kid."

Let me take a guess - only child or only a few sibs?

I think a lot of the smarter kids would like the idea of helping someone else rather than being bored to death. As for whether they have the ability to "teach" or not, give them a game that they like, and watch them take the time to explain the rules so that they'll have someone else to play with.

"neither I nor my friends had any sort of patience with those we viewed as "stupid"

To a genius, an "average" person is as relatively stupid as an average person to a "slow" one. Does that mean that a genius shouldn't learn patience?

Albert Einstein wasn't a slouch; one time he was asked why he spent so much time helping some 8-year-old girl with her homework. His answer "I help her with her math and she shares her jelly beans." I'm sure he didn't *really* do it for the jelly beans.

I have patience for people who want to learn - I'll find 10 different ways to try to get a concept across. For those who don't want to learn, I have a lot less patience. Oddly enough, those who don't want to learn are mostly of average intelligence. They're afraid to show they don't know something; the "slow" group ends up asking more intelligent questions.

So, what are you going to do if the barrier is language, or culture, instead of raw intelligence?

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[NMerriam]

Does that mean that a genius shouldn't learn patience?

None of the kids should be victims of a well-intentioned experiment. Yes, they need to learn patience (and will in time, as most kids do), but making some other kid have to put up with the first kids' learning curve because it's cheaper than getting a real teacher is, IMHO, obnoxious in the extreme. We require adult professional teachers to take extra training before they work with special needs kids because even the sympathetic patience of an adult (who loves teaching and CHOSE IT as their life goal!) can be sorely tried by someone who needs the same thing repeated 20 times in 10 different ways to "get it", and then will still sometimes not retain it unless it is reinforced again and again and again and again over long periods of time.

I actually had a large family, but that's completely irrelevant. I'm talking about pretty much every very bright kid I've ever known or read about -- they're not the most patient kids past a certain threshold. And kids as a whole are not patient to begin with. They're still kids, it takes time for the idea that the other people are real and the world is not all about their life to really sink in.

Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter

[trolltalk.com]

Well, for sure nobody's patient beyond a certain point. However, in times past, and even today, in rural settings, home schooling, or immigrant families with parents whose schooling is sub-par, children DO teach.

I think the best example of this is a Scientific American article that explored the home life of asian children wrt why they were doing better in school, despite the cultural and language barriers. They found that in may cases, the kids would go home and teach the parents. This reinforced what they learned at school, certainly better than "rote learning".

We make too many excuses nowadays for being a bunch of underachievers. Kids make great teachers. If you don't believe it, try taking a 3-year-old somewhere new, and watch how much you yourself can learn just by observing.

We're not patient because we don't *want* to be patient. 10-second sound bites. 22-minute sitcoms, a quick fix solution to everything ... it even shows in stuff that we KNOW we should take our time with, because rushing will ultimately take longer. A pertinent example, that many slashdotters can relate to - code.

Anyhow, if ordinary 8-year-old kids can teach their parents and older siblings, gifted 12, 14, or 16-year-olds can certainly teach the more challenged.

as a genius...

[bit trollent]

I feel like the education system totally failed me.

Err actually I went to a gifted & talented middle school (100 smartest kids in Houston). Then I went to a private Jesuit high school. Then I went to a relatively small public college in Dallas.

And now I make fat cash. I guess I really don't have anything to complain about.

Re:as a genius...

[Lehk228]

i got a job for the government, making decent bank, great bennies, and i would have to kill someone or bring drugs to work to get fired. then again given how well i'm liked by my supervisors they might be willing to overlook a little bit of homicide.

Re:as a genius...

[fermion]

This is my experience as well. As a GT student in high school my graduating class of less than 100 had everything we wanted, while other students got nothing. I know that this is still the case. We had the computers, the science labs, the books, and the freedom to move around as we needed.

What we didn't have and really didn't need was the constant scrutiny by teachers and administrators. There were times we did not have a teacher. We were left alone to do our own thing, to set our learning goals. We were not hindered by this idea that somehow people would cater to our need, create a customized situation just so we would be "motivated" to work. We were told what to learn, and then told we should find the discipline to learn the subject, or leave the school. An examples was computer and drafting classes in grade 9. The people who didn't work simply were removed from the program at the end of the year. This was invaluable, as, unlike most students, I did not go into the workplace as a worker in need of constant supervision, but as a person who could be counted on to independently create and implement solutions. Which, as the parent indicates,translates into cash.

Children with actual special needs are expensive to educate as there might effectively be one teacher for each student. Even regular students require extra tutoring, extra supervision, and likely extra basic supplies. But I ask this question to the advanced students out there. Would you rather have a teacher hovering over you all day, or be left alone with your toys to learn as you wish. In my education, the amount of money spent on me was never the issue. It was the freedom to learn, to explore, and to create, a freedom never granted to non-GT students. Also in my education, not all the costs were accounted for through public expenditure, as we received many private grants as industry needed our skills, and needed people who were not coddled beyond hope in school.

Answering the hypothetical question

[A beautiful mind]

Does No Child Left Behind mean that nobody can get ahead, either?

Yes. "Not leaving a child behind", in educational context means lowering the level of the education for the average and the smart students.

Anyone with half a brain would tune education for the average person, or very slightly above the average to encourage improvement and the stupid/disabled and smart kids would get special programs to help their development the best. Leaving no man behind is a stupid analogy to the problem, as the stupid kid who can't learn more drags down the kids who can.

Re:Answering the hypothetical question

[delong]

Yes. "Not leaving a child behind", in educational context means lowering the level of the education for the average and the smart students

Lowering? You mean demanding that children learn the most basic rudiments and test out? This is a perfect example of how broken the education system is. Teachers can't even freaking teach the fundamentals, and calling them on it is referred to as "lowering the level of education".

Anyone with half a brain would tune education for the average person

Anyone with half a brain should be able to teach fundamentals and more in a school year, but apparently that's too much to ask.

Leaving no man behind is a stupid analogy to the problem, as the stupid kid who can't learn more drags down the kids who can

It's the teachers that came up with the hairbrained theory that "gifted classes" that catered to the more intelligent was bad, and that mixing the smart and dumb kids was good because it supposedly, and counter-intuitively, was supposed to raise the dumb kids. It is also the teachers that insist on not being accountable for their own miserable failures, entrenching the problem.

Kids today

[kabz]

If you're that smart, you should be able to get ahead yourself.

Kids today. Sheesh.

Re:Kids today

[SatanicPuppy]

Doesn't make it any easier when the system is designed to hold you back. Yea, sure, you're in history class, and the teacher is lecturing out of the book, so you just start reading the book. You think when you finish the book they let you move up a class? Or do you think the teacher will start ragging on you for not paying attention because you've read the damn book two or three times, and you're bored out of your fricking mind?

And do you think when the teacher hears your assertion that you've read the book that that teacher will react with anything but scorn? And do you think that teacher will be surprised and pleased that you actually appear to have mastered the material, after he's stopped class to flip ahead and bombard you with study questions from the later chapters of the book?

Or do you think that he will be so enraged at your showing him up in front of the class that he will go out of his way to pick on you for the rest of the year? You'll end up with a reputation as a "discipline problem," and spend the rest of high school magically ending up in classes with other "discipline problems" which is the nail in the coffin as far as ever giving a damn about school.

And those grades are critical for getting you into the sort of college that you'll really need to be in to get the most out of it. Mediocre grades and phenomenal test scores will only take you so far.

Re:Kids today

[VicarofCletus]

Oh trust me, they try. You should have seen the look on my high school principal's face when I asked to take physics as a sophomore (after all, it was a senior course). Eventually they settled on the excuse that I hadn't taken algebra II, but it was agreed that they would let me in if I dual enrolled at the local community college and took an equivalent level math course. After getting the highest grade in the class (and teaching it one more than one occasion), I was told that I would have to take algebra II the next year. Their stance was that, while I had already covered all of the material, algebra II was a graduation requirement which could not be met outside of the high school. I would not be allowed to graduate without retaking the class. Thankfully I got out.

In my experience (mine and people I know), it's not that gifted kids don't try to get ahead, it's that they are often actively prevented from doing so.

Re:Kids today

[Penguinisto]

Yes and no... I've seen it from both sides of that question.

I was that kid who simply read ahead and blew through the tests, all without bothering w/ such niceties as homework and appearing to give a damn in class. Most teachers came down hard as a result, simply to 'keep discipline'. A few took the time to recognize that I'd studied ahead, and gave me more challenging aspects to study during class. For example, in my first High School US History class, most students got by with a small one-page summary on, say, all of World War Two. Meanwhile, I (and a couple of others in the class) found that the same assignment was a bit more detailed, and demanded an explanation of everything from the political roots and motives of each belligerent nation ("Versailles Treaty", "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere", etc) to the after-effects (e.g. Atomic Weaponry, the Cold War, etc). But then, those teachers were rare (and in my case, they were all referred to as "Sister" and wore habits).

As a former teacher myself, I found that challenging the brighter students beyond the curricula was pretty labor-intensive, but it paid off. I know of quite a few students who not only took the extra load on, but only became more and more curious about what they were studying (CompSci basic and intermediate courses). I remember finding out about Gentoo Linux - from a student who was spending his lab time installing it (and as anyone who has messed with the earliest Gentoo distros know, it takes more dedication than most mortals are willing to expend...) He's a junior *nix sysadmin for a local VoIP company now, barely three years after he left the school. Another of these owns his own company and runs the local 2600 group - he's done the latter for years (he was also the only student to successfully crack my classroom LAN - and Hell Yes I gave him a grade boost for pulling it off and then explaining how he did it). Another got a full-ride scholarship to a four-year degree, courtesy of Novell - I suspect that she'll do very well once she graduates. I'm still shocked and amazed that they and others like them would even credit me for any part of how they turned out.

Students like those are very rare IMHO, and I enjoyed spending time with them, telling them what I know, and even learning from them, far more than I did in listening to the 10^4th parent - storming in and demanding to know why Their Little Angel didn't get an "A" (or in a couple handfuls of cases, even a passing grade...)

That said, I know hordes of my former peers who did --and still do-- their level best to cruise towards retirement. Grade inflation was (is) rampant and pervasive in their books (hell, it made them look good to the folks that mattered to them, though very few others). They simply didn't give a damn, so long as you showed up to class every day, made it look like you were learning, and didn't break anything. At first I resented them for surviving the layoffs while I and a few others (as low folks on the seniority pole) got the slip. Then again, I'm making twice my old teaching salary now, while the surviving faculty are still there, still in their holding patterns, still counting years and absorbing oxygen. Then again still, there are likely lots of kids with the energy and passion for the subject of computers, and they'll find little to nourish their brains there.

Tangents aside, though - there is far too much variation on both sides of the desk to really create anything definitive and apply it to either students or teachers as a general rule. It's damned ugly. Then again, occasionally you find it damned beautiful.

Sorry if I rambled a bit.

/P

Re:Kids today

[SatanicPuppy]

The thing that bothers me is that they do apply a general rule, and woe betide you if one size does not indeed, fit all.

I did have a few good teachers who did their best for me, but it was the exception rather than the rule. Just seems like, with all the goddamn testing we do these days, that the goal should be to try and put people where they belong in terms of ability, and not just to force conformance to a standard mean.

Re:Kids today

[1arkhaine]

Thanks for the story. You seem like you were a good teacher.

Re:Kids today

[mevets]

Do 'gifted people' really need good schools? Shouldn't the time and attention be paid in proportion to the need?

Being 'gifted' enough to not have to bother reading the article, I'll venture that it is a typical tabloid trashing to help their readers feel sorry for themselves. Anybody been to a rainbow party recently?

Re:Kids today

[t0rkm3]

Conformity is the coinage of the Franco-Prussian instruction system that our schools grew out of. Originally, they were based on Scottish schools that grew out of the Socratic method. However, it was figured by several "Captains of Industry" that the schools of Scottish/Presbyterian origin used too much energy trying to create too many thinkers. Instead, instruction needed to be streamlined to produce people that were good at a very specific task requiring very little thought but a high degree of obedience. During this search, funded in good part by Carnegie... They found the Franco-Prussian model of education. You must be trained to assemble cars because, on average, that's all you are good for.

Sucks to be outside the norm. Sucks more to be normal.

Re:Kids today

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't make it any easier when the system is designed to hold you back. Yea, sure, you're in history class, and the teacher is lecturing out of the book, so you just start reading the book. You think when you finish the book they let you move up a class? Or do you think the teacher will start ragging on you for not paying attention because you've read the damn book two or three times, and you're bored out of your fricking mind?

And do you think when the teacher hears your assertion that you've read the book that that teacher will react with anything but scorn? And do you think that teacher will be surprised and pleased that you actually appear to have mastered the material, after he's stopped class to flip ahead and bombard you with study questions from the later chapters of the book?

Or do you think that he will be so enraged at your showing him up in front of the class that he will go out of his way to pick on you for the rest of the year? You'll end up with a reputation as a "discipline problem," and spend the rest of high school magically ending up in classes with other "discipline problems" which is the nail in the coffin as far as ever giving a damn about school. Exactly. 100% right. School was a prison i HAD to attend and do my time in. There was no easy way out or a shortcut to skip all the boring useless crap.

Mandatory schooling was nearly a complete waste of time and money. 99%

And now 25 years later i'm doing fine. But i could have gotten here alot sooner!

I wonder if i can sue them for wasting my youth and boring the crap out of me...

Re:Kids today

[Penguinisto]

Pigeonholing is even more pervasive than you thought...

Utah (at least Davis County - whose system I once taught in) had decided a couple of years ago that students need to pick out what career path they want in Junior High School. Hell, what I wanted to do for a living changed nearly every week when I was that age. (and to be honest, it changed a lot until about 12 years ago).

IMHO, a lot of what school boards are trying to do are a disservice to the kids, and seem designed to make their lives even easier than before. Given that the majority of parents and citizens are rather apathetic (how many of you folks go to vote, and simply just pick somebody for the school board, not knowing a damned thing about what each candidate stands for, or what their track records are? I admit that I used to be that way).

The only cure I know of is to throw the existing boards out - completely - every few election cycles. Term-Limit the SOB's. Then you find and elect folks who will go in and slash the hell out of the bureaucracy that exists.

Then, and most importantly - you do your best to get the federal gov't out of the school business. Too many schools have become slaves to federal funding and federal rules, when it's the states who should be doing all the work.

/P

Re:Kids today

[HiThere]

There *are* other approaches. If you make it easier for teachers to just ignore you, most of them will. Especially if you appear to be attempting to monopolize their attention. (Well, honestly it wasn't just appear...)

I used to do my German homework in Physics class...which might have caused problems, but I was seated as close to front and center as I could manage...and I kept trying to answer all the questions whenever one was asked. (And *rarely* made a mistake.)

OTOH, my math teacher wouldn't cut me any slack when I was sick right before a mid-term...and out for a week while he was covering material that I hadn't considered. I was in tears because I only got a C. (I did, however, recover my GPA before the end of the semester.)

Still...when I got to college I discovered that it would have been FAR better if I'd developed good study habits. I'd never learned how to handle a challenging environment.

To be fair...most of this is "Looking Backwards". At the time I was just muddling through.

Re:Kids today

[Samdroid]

That's a problem with individual teachers. I assure you not all teachers are like this. My science teachers encouraged me to look over all the work we would be doing.

Re:Kids today

[Anonymous Coward]

holy shit dude, similar story here, albeit I'm 16 so that throws a considerate amount of credibility out the window. I was in G.T. shit in the third grade because (trying not to sound like an ass but it's kind unavoidable) i was smarter than most kids. I encountered so many unnecessary problems, like for example, I was ADD before the whole ADD thing was common knowledge, so it simply being labeled as a learning disorder, my 4th grade teacher tried to kick me out of the GT system, and it really phased me and effectively killed any motivation i had and screwed me over until just recently. Recently, i decided that holy hell, i like math, and I'm damn good at it, so I did whatever i could to advance as quickly as possible, and they told me i couldn't.... which is B.S., because i honestly don't know how it would be a problem for them to just switch me into the next class and if i had problems, switch me out. anyway, the whole no child left behind system has pretty much fucked me over since about 4th grade and i'm pissed as hell that with W's new system, they try to kick me out of the system as hard as they try to get the other kids in, just because they dont like me.

Well, hang on.

[seebs]

Maybe the developmentally disabled kids need a lot more help to be functional (and if they don't get that help as kids, we end up feeding them their whole adult lives), and the genuises don't need as much help?

Honestly, I wish I'd gotten help for my actual limitations (mild autism, which has been moderately crippling at times), but frankly, for the genius stuff, it would have been sufficient for the schools to mostly get out of my way.

Re:Well, hang on.

[killmenow]

I agree 100% with your sentiments. I have both a gifted child and a developmentally delayed child in the public schools. The gifted kids do need the school system to give them resources and ample opportunities to explore their gifts, they mostly just need them to get out of the way.

Whereas, my delayed son really needs a 1:1 aide. But he won't get one. People shouldn't mistake "dollars allocated for special needs children" for "dollars spent on special needs children."

Re:Well, hang on.

[Viking Coder]

Feeding them?

The article was talking about people with IQ's around 55, not vegetables.

High intelligence can be just as debilitating as low intelligence. Watch the movies "Little Man Tate," and "Searching For Bobby Fischer."

Re:Well, hang on.

[Anonymous Coward]

for the genius stuff, it would have been sufficient for the schools to mostly get out of my way. I'm not a genius myself, but it's not much of an exaggeration to say that I learned almost nothing from school after 6th grade. School was a social nightmare, it was something I hated and wanted to escape. 7th-10th (at which point I dropped out and got my GED and finished up my basic education in a community college) were completely wasted and did nothing but fuel my hatred and contempt of authority of almost any sort.

I still wish to god that school would have been willing to get out of my way. Primary education is more about control and conformity than it is about actually teaching anything worth knowing. Some kids can sense that, and in rebelling against it they can really wind up hurting themselves.

Re:Well, hang on.

[Anonymous Coward]

frankly, for the genius stuff, it would have been sufficient for the schools to mostly get out of my way.

Yes and no. Complete abdication is not good, supplying the right material and letting you go at your own pace is good.

I went to a very small primary school in the UK until I was 11. A lot of the subjects were taught from work-books, which meant that the teacher supervised you to make sure you were getting things mostly right and not falling behind, but you could basically set your own pace. I flew ahead of everybody else and I was the first in my school's history to be accepted to a grammar school.

The first couple of years at grammar school were different. Everybody had to work at the same pace. There wasn't much variation between students, and I remained in the top 10% or so of the year but couldn't really get any further than that. Of course, compared with normal comprehensives, the pace was still a lot faster.

Then, for some subjects, we were separated into sets, and the better sets were taught at a faster pace and took exams earlier. Again, the top students quickly outpaced the rest, even though the rest were still way faster than average for the country.

Unfortunately, I fell ill with a long-term illness. I was missing a lot of school, so first I had to drop down to the lower sets that were being taught more slowly. Then I dropped out of school altogether for a year. By the time I had recovered enough to attend school again, I decided to attend a local comprehensive rather than my old grammar school (for various reasons, none of which are interesting or relevant).

Now bear in mind that I had missed over a year's worth of school at this point, and I was about 15 years old. I went to the comprehensive school, and had nothing to do. I'd already learnt what they'd be studying for at least the next year. So in about three years, the grammar school had taught me more than the comprehensive had taught the other students in five years. And I wasn't even being pushed significantly at the grammar school. Of course, I didn't learn much of anything at the comprehensive school, it was dawdling along so slowly that I just dropped out again and went to college.

My personal experience, which is fairly uniquely varied, is that if you separate kids by their ability and let them work at a pace that suits them, so long as you give them enough suitable material, you will see them work to the best of their ability and see the best ones learn at a tremendous pace. But stick them all together and force them all to learn at the same pace, and they'll only be able to go as fast as the slowest kid amongst them, and the rest will be bored and lose interest. Think back to when you were at school. Remember the dumb kids? Do you really want the whole country to learn as slowly as them?

Re:Well, hang on.

[treeves]

Keeping in mind, of course, that those are fictional movies, not documentaries.

Re:Well, hang on.

[seebs]

I know. People who, if they get good support and help, can get to a point where they can hold down some kind of job, and earn a living, and at least mostly take care of themselves. If they don't, someone else has to.

I suspect that the lifetime return on investment isn't bad at all for developmentally disabled people -- especially in the slightly higher range, say, IQ 70 or so, where it's quite possible to imagine functional independent life, but it'll take a bit of help getting started.

Re:Well, hang on.

[xenocide2]

This isn't entirely true. I had a high school calculus teacher. My roommate had a high school calculus computer education program with two other students. He's said he wished there were more people to ask about complicated subjects, but his teacher was there primarily to babysit all the advanced computer education students enrolled in different classes, rather than know about a specific subject. This might work for self checkout at the grocery store, but you can't pull this sort of efficiency trick in education without having a well rounded and intellectual teacher. You might not need 1:1 aides, but you'll still need to spend on smart teachers and additional educational tools, like that calculus software. The article in question suggests that the gifted receive one tenth the financial attention of the disabled, and that traditionally cheap means of accommodating the gifted (skipping grades) is intentionally kept off the table for reasons uncertain. I have no idea what the numbers are, and my guess is that the allocations for gifted come from the same budget as the disabled, making estimates difficult at best. Perhaps this is why you say allocated for is not the same as spent on. I also don't have a solution for the rural Kansas education system, and I begin to doubt one exists.

But I don't think that teachers should just leave the gifted to their own devices. I don't think students should be antagonized by teachers as some gifted feel they have been, but active involvement can improve education a great deal -- as long as the teacher knows what to teach and can prepare for it. For example, our gifted education system entered a market game. Combined with talk about investment rates and reading SEC filings, this could have been informative and productive. But with no emphasis on what was important, we were left drifting in the wind, so to speak, and I think we lost a lot of fake money on tech companies. The only thing I learned was that it's easy to lose money in the market, and not to buy companies I thought I liked (SGI). We never even heard about price to earnings or market capitalization. In these days the internet was just beginning to lift off the ground, and the only access we had was severely filtered school access, for maybe an hour after school.

A mock trial ran in a similarly unprepared method, whereby "creative" prosecuting student attorneys fabricated damning evidence and the teachers approved, and told me I should have come up with some of my own evidence. That's right, in a classroom mock trial designed to teach about court proceedings and concepts, and heavy emphasis on testimony (preceeding the trial were 8 rounds of role playing whereby each student assumes a suspected persona and reveals various facts to other people, trying to shift the blame off of them--this was clearly intended to be the primary evidence and highlighted the importance of reasonable doubt), I was encouraged to fabricate evidence, and given no tools to counter the fabrication of evidence. Because creativity counts. I'll leave it to the cynics whether I learned anything instructive that day.

Both of these things are informative about professional concepts, and require intensive preparation of both students and teachers. And I think run properly, they're both highly engaging and give students a context within to read and accumulate knowledge about societal functions like the court or the market. I have to wonder though, how much less jaded with education our students would be if we doubled the salaries of gifted education teachers and sought highly qualified people for the position. From my limited discussion with Secondary Education teachers specializing in Gifted Education, the reasons for entering seem to be "don't tell anyone, but it's easier --because they pretty much teach themselves anyways". It might seem true, but the motivation is wrong, and if true then there's no point in sending the gifted to school at all. As I've alluded to above, I don't believe that's the case.

Re:Well, hang on.

[nine-times]

Maybe the developmentally disabled kids need a lot more help to be functional (and if they don't get that help as kids, we end up feeding them their whole adult lives), and the genuises don't need as much help?

The idea that smart kids don't need help and guidance is total BS. Yeah, I get it, you want to think that you were so utterly smart as a kid that you didn't need any help. It's not true, though. Most likely you excelled at certain things because those were the things that you got the best kind of help for them.

Admittedly, sometimes "the best kind of help" isn't very restrictive and allows the child to explore on their own. However, it takes a lot of paying attention to kids to know when they should be allowed to explore and when you, as an adult, should intervene and help. Gifted children need that level attention as much as anyone, and not giving it to them will stunt their intellectual, emotional, and psychological development.

Re:Well, hang on.

[seebs]

No, really. It wasn't the things I got the best help for. School actively got in my way on many of the things I ended up best at, because I could learn on my own.

Do smart kids need help and guidance? Sure. Everyone does. However, in general, they can at least get by with less help and guidance than regular kids, let alone disabled kids. And, after all, the goal of the school is not to maximize the success of every kid, but to get everyone up to a baseline. If you want your kids to get more than that, it's up to you.

I am not at all convinced that gifted kids need that much attention. It might be nice, but I don't think it's as necessary. You know how much time and attention it took to get me reading? Basically none. Someone read to me for a while, until I figured it out. Done. That's a huge number of hours that didn't need to be spent teaching me something.

To put it in perspective, by third grade, I was correcting teachers fairly consistently. The problem here is not that I didn't get enough attention.

Nothing has really changed

[overshoot]

I was one of the "beneficiaries" of the 1950s-1960s "Sputnik" educational reforms.

Then, like today, it was much easier for schools to keep classes uniform by holding bright kids back so that more effort could be spent on the "slow" ones. Uniformity is the goal, and it's a lot easier to dumb down smart kids than the other way 'round.

Oh, and here's a clue: if you offer bonuses for teachers of math and science, the teachers with the most seniority (regardless of whether they can add) will teach those classes. My kids had a math PhD teaching music, but she couldn't get into the math program against the ed majors who ran the system.

Re:Nothing has really changed

[ralphdaugherty]

I was one of the "beneficiaries" of the 1950s-1960s "Sputnik" educational reforms.

Then, like today, it was much easier for schools to keep classes uniform by holding bright kids back so that more effort could be spent on the "slow" ones. Uniformity is the goal, and it's a lot easier to dumb down smart kids than the other way 'round.

      I was a 1950s-1960s student from grade school through high school. My experience resembles nothing like your faddish populist statement above.

      Grade school was uniform, but from 7th grade on students were assigned to classes based on merit. I was chosen for honors classes in high school as well, but went into vocationl electronics. (I'm a programmer now.)

      We had in junior high experimental programs of reading comprehension and the like. This was pre-PC days and the material and self-testing was in various paper forms.

      I don't know what you did back then, but the only thing that would have held you back was yourself.

  rd

What a surprise.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've known this to be the truth ever since I was in the 7th grade. I hated school, but I didn't fully understand why. The real reasons did not make sense to me until I read some stuff by John Taylor Gatto. He has a paper called the http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.htmlSix Lesson Schoolteacher that was really eye opening. He has a rather large book called The Underground History of American Education you should check out.

What I believe, now that I am not in school, is that first off we should have never had public school, secondly they should never have been tied into the government. Thats how propaganda gets spread around. I honestly believe that every child is a genius, and that our public schools do a great job of convincing them that their individual genius is worthless (eg. You're only a genius if you can add these two 50 digit numbers together in your head in less than 2 seconds). My Mom is a teacher, and she teaches special kids, savants and what not.

Anyways, go back to being told /what/ to think, instead of learning /how/ to think.

Re:What a surprise.

[dreddnott]

John Holt and John Taylor Gatto are two of my personal heroes. My mother met Mr. Gatto at some sort of homeschooling conference shortly after pulling me out of kindergarten and was influenced by his unschooling philosophy. I taught myself to read by age 5, and mom always joked that I was slow - she learned by the age of three. Our IQs are otherwise similar (between 160-165) and dad's no slouch either (never tested).

I was simply given the tools to become autodidactic and learned at a fantastic rate, easily handling college-level material by the time I was 10 or so, and learning Bible-era Greek by 13 (Spanish at 14, started Japanese at 18, not done yet!). Later that year I got a high school diploma from a charter school and enrolled in a local community college, where I aced all of their computer courses.

For better or worse, it seems that most of my particular genius-level abilities have been made obsolete by the advent of certain tools on the Internet. My photographic memory and the resulting encyclopedic knowledge has been replaced by the popular usage of Google and Wikipedia as cyber-implant brain proxies, and nobody cares how well-spoken or dextrous with languages I am over the Internet. The only thing I have left is musical talent but nobody listens to opera or any kind of classical music anymore. I get the distinct impression that the only geniuses the school system ever cared for were math and science savants, and it seems like they're the only ones who ever mattered in the first place. Oh, well...

Re:What a surprise.

[MightyMartian]

The entire purpose behind public education in the Western World was to create a literate working class, which, after the Industrial Revolution, was essential. Leaving education in purely private hands would have meant a lot of kids never got one. Public education isn't perfect, but it wasn't really designed to create rocket scientists. Gifted students have long presented a significant challenge to education, and solutions like bumping them up a grade have often lead to very unpleasant emotional issues.

But I don't buy into this garbage argument that we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. All this nonsense about vouchers, home schooling and the superiority of public schools is little more than a pack of provincial, parochial types trying, intentionally or not, to destroy education. Countries like Japan have public school systems that do a generally better job at encouraging gifted children, so clearly this ludicrous, over-the-top idea that public education is a propaganda machine or that it's harmful are false.

This is what No Child Left Behind, voucher programs and all the rest are, attempts by arch-conservatives to roll back the clock, because they despise the idea of a society that actually uses the organs of state to create a literate populace. The NCLB crowd are nothing more than a bunch of dyed-in-the-wool Social Darwinists.

Re:What a surprise.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am the parent and don't have a /. account or I'd log in (I had one years ago, and some moderator decided to have fun with my karma. Long story.)

But I don't buy into this garbage argument that we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. All this nonsense about vouchers, home schooling and the superiority of public schools is little more than a pack of provincial, parochial types trying, intentionally or not, to destroy education.

I see where you are coming from but let me explain my stance.
I am not saying that we should abolish public schools.
What I am saying is that we should never have had public schools to start with, at least, not maintained as they are today. The government is supposed to do two things, punish criminals and protect us from outside invasion. They never had any business getting involved with education and although you may not have seen it in your personal life, I can assure you I have seen the wheels turning on what is the biggest propaganda machine in the united states. All but enforced, 180+ days a year, 5 days a week, 8 hours a day you are told *what* to believe in, sure, you are free to ask questions-- but don't question our point of view that we as a culture and society believe-- you can if you want, just get ready to endure your teachers ridicule as well as your fellow students ostracizm. I'd say the biggest shared vision force fed by schools and believed by almost every adult is the neoconservative viewpoint. "America is the only source for Good in this world, and if we ever stop having /faith/ in America, and the government, then evil will spread throughout the world and overtake all that is good."

Of course, things like operation keelhaul are never taught in History. What's more is that very few people know what some of the most popularly known names really stood for. (Harrison, Taylor, Buchanan, Jackson, Jefferson, Abe Lincoln, hell, even JFK had a very common enemy most of the people have no clue about. The international bankers. And those few brave men stood up to them, and each had attempts on their life. Many of them lost their lives over it. And for all of you that have never studied this topic on your own that are ready to toss tinfoil hats at me, be aware that Jackson's tombstone says "I Killed the Bank", and he noted that was his biggest accomplishment in life before he died. He did kill it, but about 80 years later they were back to where they started. Every time you spend a dollar you put money in their pockets. Yeah, keep talking about balancing the budget, that won't even slightly change anything. Anyways I digress.)

I am not saying we should abolish private schools, I am saying we should never have had them to begin with. But, as it is with many things, once it's started it's all but impossible to stop.

I am very thankful that I was an insanely rebellious child and that I got booted from school. It forced me to start learning on my own. I loved Science and Math but hated History. Now it's different, I only read history.

Re:What a surprise.

[MightyMartian]

The thing I dislike about libertarians like yourself is you say things like this:

What I am saying is that we should never have had public schools to start with, at least, not maintained as they are today. The government is supposed to do two things, punish criminals and protect us from outside invasion

when in fact no state in history has ever existed that reflects this minimalistic view of government. Such states would fail completely come the first natural disaster or famine. People create governments not to sit in ivory towers and run a judiciary and an army. Give up your fantasy. Libertarianism has never existed as anything other than a rarified and incredibly silly political theory. It's closest relative is anarchism, and both deserve the same public ridicule.

Jefferson's ideal state barely existed when he came up with the idea (the Northern colonies were already beginning the process of industrialization), and didn't meaningfully survive a century after its formation. You'd best face the fact that the vast majority of humanity has never agreed with what you believe is the ideal state. It has never existed, will never exist, and if it did, the first famine or Hurricane Katrina would see its leaders removed (very likely by force and bloodshed). Libertarians are nothing more than political escapists.

Re:What a surprise.

[OrangeTide]

Libertarianism is attractive because some people have decided government should be a bank, multiple charity organizations, a school, among other things.

I'm labeled as libertarian, but I readily accept that many public resources need to be managed by a central authority that represents the people. National and State parks for example are a long term public resource, we will need to have them taken care of for centuries to come. Plenty of private parks and forests and camp grounds out there, but they have no promise of existing in a usable state over the long term. I can come up with plenty of other examples of things that belong to the public at large (like air).

Government seems necessary for things that don't need to be competitive (like schools) and may need some teeth behind it to make it a reality (like enforcement for clean air and water).

Right now in the US the government is the largest employer, all some of us libertarians want is to scale things back a bit. I'm not one of those crazy socialist libertarians who think we should eliminate the police force and have essentially no government at all. I just want government to get its priorities straight and do a few things well instead of many things badly.

Some things that may no longer need to be managed directly by the government, and that's not to say that the government can't represent the people and contribute something to these programs, I just think that maybe they don't need to play the lead role anymore: space program, management of education (they still might need to pay for it), .. well I could go on for a while here. but you get the idea.

Intelligence reaps mockery in the US.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, in a society that regularly ridicules people because they are smart, what do yo expect?

Re:Intelligence reaps mockery in the US.

[Anonymous Coward]

I see where you are coming from but I don't think you see how deep it goes.

I don't know if media (like MTV or just about every movie made in the past 10 years) was what started it, but it's definitely one of the major players in this.

Children are being brought up to believe that doing what is right is uncool.
They are being brought up to cherish the quick self satisfaction and to immediately fulfill any base desire or appetite they have without even questioning their thought process.

Yes, it's true. At least in the schools I went to, it was very uncool to do what was right and to have limits and keep yourself in check. The 'cool' kids are those that have no restrictions, the kids that won't warn you not to do something that will potentially cause you more problems than enjoyment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayyid_Qutb saw it coming

Re:Intelligence reaps mockery in the US.

[weak*]

Amen. Being smart? That sounds French to me...

Re:Intelligence reaps mockery in the US.

[xornor]

whats with the fag talk?

Re:Intelligence reaps mockery in the US.

[autophile]

Well, in a society that regularly ridicules people because they are smart, what do yo expect?

I don't know, yo.

(kidding!)

--Rob

Re:Intelligence reaps mockery in the US.

[Anonymous Coward]

As the original poster I must sit back and laugh. I had just started my first cup of coffee before typing that. Thanks for noticing the mistake and having a little fun with it. :)

It doesn't take a genius to figure it out !!!

[trolltalk.com]

"For example, up to ten times as much money is spent nationwide on educating 'developmentally disabled' students as gifted ones."

Duh! Smart kids learn faster than 'tards. Whodathunkit? Was this article written by Captain Obvious? So you've got a choice - either invest more in educating those who are slower learners, or pay to support them. Which is cheaper in the long run (hint - you don't have to be a genius to figure that one out either).

Re:It doesn't take a genius to figure it out !!!

[geekoid]

I think he was touching on the kids that will never, ever, be able to think about an 8 year old level getting an education. Usuaklly an education that takes 2-4 people at any given time.

These 'extreme' cases cause us a lot of money, and we will end up paying for them anyways.
Yes, it is sad. Perhaps those kids should not be in a public school?

Disclaimer : My child is getting some special classes do to his speech issue. In that case, he is not learning or physically disabled.

Re:It doesn't take a genius to figure it out !!!

[Anonymous Coward]

>>"For example, up to ten times as much money is spent nationwide on educating 'developmentally disabled' students as gifted ones."

Duh! Smart kids learn faster than 'tards. Whodathunkit? Was this article written by Captain Obvious? So you've got a choice - either invest more in educating those who are slower learners, or pay to support them. Which is cheaper in the long run (hint - you don't have to be a genius to figure that one out either).

If you think it is cheaper to educate a smart kid to his full potential than it is to teach a dumb kid to his full potential, then you clearly belong in the latter group.

Re:It doesn't take a genius to figure it out !!!

[Anonymous Coward]

>Duh! Smart kids learn faster than 'tards. Whodathunkit? Was this article written by Captain Obvious? So you've got a choice -
>either invest more in educating those who are slower learners, or pay to support them. Which is cheaper in the long run (hint - >you don't have to be a genius to figure that one out either).

I don't think its quite as obvious as that. If we give a slow learner the resources to reach his full potential, what does he accomplish? He make a good life for himself. That's noble and good. But if we do the same for a genius? He might start a business or make an invention that spurs the entire economy and employs tens or hundreds of thousands. Of course best is doing both, but the current system, be it because of resources, bureaucracy, culture, will or some combination thereof, thats not happening right now.

Re:It doesn't take a genius to figure it out !!!

[Bo'Bob'O]

Not only that, but remember, there isn't an IQ test at the ballot.

Maybe we can't get all the best preforming at the best, but we can at least TRY to get the rest educated enough to not think that Ted Stevens is a computer genius before they fill out their ballot. Having an informed and educated populous is important part of democracy, and just saying "Well some people just are destined to only be ditch diggers, so why bother?" does a great disservice to all of us.

Re:It doesn't take a genius to figure it out !!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha, maybe there should be an IQ test at the ballot, and we wouldn't be in this shit mess we are.

Re:It doesn't take a genius to figure it out !!!

[The One and Only]

If you invest enough resources into cultivating a genius, you'll have someone who contributes 100 times as much to society. If you invest those same resources into trying to fix a retard, you'll have someone who costs 50% less to support. What's the best aggregate benefit in the long run? Don't pull that "which is cheaper in the long run" on this argument.

Re:It doesn't take a genius to figure it out !!!

[The One and Only]

We tried literacy tests, but we found out it's politically impossible to fairly administer one without (for one historical example) screwing over all the blacks.

Re:It doesn't take a genius to figure it out !!!

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

my experience has been that smart kids learn to teach themselves. My brother taught himself calculus in 8th grade and got a westinghouse scholarship to caltech. Was there a better path for him?

Re:It doesn't take a genius to figure it out !!!

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

My son has autism and receives special classes and tutoring that must be very expensive. I am glad that they are helping to 'fix a retard'. Let me ask you this, how many PHD level people burn out/tune out and contribute nothing to society? I would guess many more than you think.

Re:It doesn't take a genius to figure it out !!!

[The One and Only]

I'm glad they are too. I just don't think that's the optimal use of resources if you're looking at it from a utilitarian perspective. The intention of my post was to call bullshit on the post I was replying to, and not so much to say special education isn't worthwhile.

Re:It doesn't take a genius to figure it out !!!

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

If family history plays out he will most likely be 6'6" and over 200 pounds, and although school gives him quite a bit of trouble he is pretty sharp in his own way. What is the real cost to society if he 'slips through the cracks'? If you counted all the people in prison our unemployment rate is 15%.

Re:It doesn't take a genius to figure it out !!!

[The One and Only]

I still maintain that cultivating geniuses will have a better net effect on society--if the genius does 100 times as much for society as he would if uncultivated, or even 10 times as much, even considering the cost of imprisoning someone who "slips through the cracks", the net contribution is still nine times greater. Of course, I think it's inhuman to use utilitarian analyses to determine who's more worthy of an education--everyone deserves the opportunity to make the most they can out of their lives, and if that means vast resources should be spent on autistic children even if they'd be better for society spent elsewhere, it's still the right thing to do. Vast resources should be spent on gifted children as well, and for the same reasons. Making decisions based upon the "real cost" (and "real benefit") to society is a self-defeating game in this situation, but either way it's still a game I don't play.

Re:It doesn't take a genius to figure it out !!!

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

The hardest problem with the really bright kids as outlined in the article is providing them with peers. There is simply not enough children in a given area (except maybe NYC). They should have boarding/magnet schools at the state level; this would probably be the most cost effective solution as well.

Re:It doesn't take a genius to figure it out !!!

[trolltalk.com]

"If you think it is cheaper to educate a smart kid to his full potential than it is to teach a dumb kid to his full potential, then you clearly belong in the latter group."

Smart kids can, by and large teach themselves ... in many cases the classroom environment and the teacher are the handicaps.

Re:It doesn't take a genius to figure it out !!!

[trolltalk.com]

"I don't think its quite as obvious as that. If we give a slow learner the resources to reach his full potential, what does he accomplish? He make a good life for himself. That's noble and good. But if we do the same for a genius? He might start a business or make an invention that spurs the entire economy and employs tens or hundreds of thousands."

They did an experiment where they gave the teachers the students IQ scores before the term started. Sure enough, the students achieved in line with their IQ scores. The only problem was, it wasn't really IQ scores, but the kids' locker numbers, that the teacher was given.

Success is heavily dependent upon expectations.

Besides, geniuses have interests that are pretty much the same as everyone else. That's why you'll find them in all walks of life - they don't all belong in think-tanks or labs.

Re:It doesn't take a genius to figure it out !!!

[trolltalk.com]

"If you invest enough resources into cultivating a genius, you'll have someone who contributes 100 times as much to society. If you invest those same resources into trying to fix a retard, you'll have someone who costs 50% less to support. What's the best aggregate benefit in the long run? Don't pull that "which is cheaper in the long run" on this argument."

Not true. There is no evidence that "geniuses contribute 100 times as much to society." The "geniuses" who come up with stuff would be totally worthless without everyone else in the "pyramid" also doing their jobs. Remember - 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration.

Just look at the cliches - "Evil Genius". Best example - Hitler. He redefined evil.

You can't pull the "best aggregate benefit in the long run" without being able to dependably predict what the outcome will be in individual cases. We're not at that point yet.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Fail!

[uberjoe]

Failing our Geniuses?

Well my school sure failed me!

Re:Fail!

[PCM2]

Well my school sure failed me!

Haha! Well, nice going, genius.

Re:Fail!

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia ...

Re:Fail!

[gaderael]

*counts on fingers*

Twice!

Hold up, Dude!

[overshoot]

frankly, for the genius stuff, it would have been sufficient for the schools to mostly get out of my way.

That can't be allowed -- it would mean leaving the others behind.

More to the point, it would mean treating students as individuals and that would totally screw up the system.

Re:Hold up, Dude!

[seebs]

"behind" is not defined in relative terms, but in absolute terms; it's about keeping students up to the minimum for their grade. You can go past it.

Re:Hold up, Dude!

[Anonymous Coward]

yes yes yes, that's how it's spoken of, so there is that.

then there's reality.

Re:Hold up, Dude!

[try_anything]

More to the point, it would mean treating students as individuals and that would totally screw up the system.

I think you mean it wouldn't be possible to do cost-effectively. Kids aren't all self-starters, and most of the ones who fancy themselves as independent learners just digest textbooks and burrow their way into artistic dead ends. Smart kids need criticism and stimulation from other smart people, and you simply can't get that in an ordinary public school. Isolating kids from dumb people is the next-to-worst thing you can do. (Current policy happens to be the worst thing.) Smart kids should be allowed to interact with other kids and teachers of their ability level (and higher) so they can develop intellectually and learn social skills in a less distorted environment. That could mean sending the top 5% to state schools and the top 1% to regional schools for part of the year, or it could mean distance learning.

Students shouldn't be crippled socially and intellectually by sending them into isolation. They should get a balance between open-ended intellectual exploration, critical give-and-take with other students at their level, cooperative tasks, and regular studying. They should do this with other gifted students and specialist teachers. They should also have periods of regular contact with average students, because that's important, too. Contact with other talented kids actually improves social skills for dealing with regular people, so that won't be as burdensome as it might seem.

Re:Hold up, Dude!

[DragonWriter]

"behind" is not defined in relative terms, but in absolute terms; it's about keeping students up to the minimum for their grade. You can go past it.

When there are high-stakes funding consequences to failure on the bottom end, and no corresponding reward for performance above that, there is little incentive for school systems to expend any resources in promoting/enabling acheivement beyond the minimum.

When you impose funding consequences, you both encourage the things the funding consequences are tied to, and discourage everything else.

Re:Hold up, Dude!

[Anonymous Coward]

It can be done. I taught high school math and the last year that I was there I had a bunch of extremely bright students who were clearly bored in 2 of my classes. The range in each class was from special ed to these brilliant kids. I let the super smart kids sit together, work ahead and take exams that were harder and on a different time schedule than the other students (basically whenever they were ready). If they couldn't solve something collectively they had me there to ask. The problem was that there was really no way to give them more credit than the rest of the class unless they finished the class early and wanted to start the next one - which was ok with the administration. BTW, this did happen. A student finished 2 years of work in 1 year. We were a charter high school with no AP classes and I felt like I was doing the kids a great disservice by not challenging every one of them. I'm sure I could have improved on the way I did things, but I'm just saying that it is possible.

patti

It's still the parent's responsibility.

[geekd]

I was in grade school in the early 80's. I went to a good public school. My parents were both teachers and chose to live in that neighborhood because of the school district. Even then, the gifted program was just OK. My parents had me in several after-school classes and activities to bolster the schools shortcomings.

It still comes down to parents doing actual parenting. If you've got a gifted child, you have to know they are only going to get so much from their school.

I was lucky. My parents knew what they were doing. They let me explore my interests without pushing. They had me in a creative writing class. They got me into science competitions. The best thing they did was buy a computer for the house. This was a TRS-80 in 1982. It was a stretch for the household budget, but messing with that taught me more than anything else.

geekd

Re:It's still the parent's responsibility.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure man, but only in America. Here nothing but the myth of 'me, myself and i' matters while elsewhere, in countries that are actually civilized, one recognizes that this is simply not so.

no matter how fortunate you were to find support for vibrant intelligence, not everyone is like you and by not properly caring for 'the seedlings' you're advertently creating all sorts of not-so-obvious drains on the country and everyone in it.

elsewhere, where decent healthcare and education for citizens is actually seen as a driver for 'true wealth', you might find that your intelligence and achievements are much closer to the norm. that's because the cowboy ethos we have here imposes quite a huge perceptual bias.

that's a nice way of saying that in the majority of g8 countries, the popular sentiment is that americans, by and large, are a very dumb people.

education is simply one of the ingredients required for citizenship elsewhere. in civilized countries your humanity is important as well and the self-reliant, oh look at me, what a genius i am, i passed the grade in a zoo of imbeciles, is not really considered something of value. its basic narcissism gone wild here;

just look at the numbers; you're actually cheering something that is causing an insane amount of issues elsewhere by make-belief that your parents matter.

if you had been an orphan, would you still be a genius?
probably not effectively (in the usa).

if you'd spend $1 on furthering another's genius, you'd save at least $10 on the costs of dealing with the anger and despair that your 'oh, i love what my parents did for me' attitude.

if your prejudices actually allow for thinking things through from points opposite the shrill wisdom we get here, you'd see that people need other people to be smart, well fed and taken care of in order to for you to have a life that allows you to deploy your full intelligence.

the system we have lets only a few reach sentience, thus you should feel fortunate alright, but you musn't let the abnormality of the situation here tweak your head.

just something worth pondering from someone who borrowed a commodore 2001 back in '82 and learned to built 6809 hardware in 83.

the meta point here is that clean streets, working bridges, decent water and electricity supplies, humane laws, protection from next-quarter thinking, decent health, nutrition, sound money and something less shrill passing as politics.. improves the effectiveness of everything.

i don't know why you think you need a government if you're not outsourcing those basic life-support functions to it by way of the 'will of the people'.

parents here failed to take care of their children and now those that managed to pass on something are a minority compared to those parents competing with their offspring. but it always looks like a downward spiral gives off energy. good thing is that that's almost over here.

so, what if you'd been an orphan?

Re:It's still the parent's responsibility.

[Tablizer]

If you've got a gifted child, you have to know they are only going to get so much from their school. I was lucky. My parents knew what they were doing. They let me explore...The best thing they did was buy [me] ... a TRS-80 in 1982.

TRS-80? Oy, us half-gifted only got TimexSinclar 1000 doorstops :-)

Re:It's still the parent's responsibility.

[Tablizer]

us half-gifted only got TimexSinclar 1000 doorstops

Here's the link I really wanted to give:

http://oldcomputers.net/pics/ZX81-doorstop.jpg

Re:It's still the parent's responsibility.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The best thing they did was buy a computer for the house. This was a TRS-80 in 1982. It was a stretch for the household budget, but messing with that taught me more than anything else."

As a product of one of the better public gifted programs in the nation, this bit sums up best what I feel is wrong with education. The "gifted" program should be about independence and exploration and remedial classes should focus on discipline and individual attention. Being a student in the gifted track that was supposed to foster the former, instead it was small classes where the teacher controlled every aspect. What were the average/remedial classes like? Thirty students where only half had books left to their own devices due to the teacher being overwhelmed. I would have valued being in a class of 30 of my peers all working independently and figuring things out on my own or in a small group more than the teacher hovering over my shoulder, ensuring that I am getting my gifted education.

APologies for the typographical and grammatical errors but I was drinking away my "gifted" education tonight.

First Hand Experience

[Token_Internet_Girl]

I am 25 years old. I spent 1st grade through 8th grade in the ALPHA program in Florida, which required an IQ testing of 135 or above to attend. I would say that on the whole, I felt like I was constantly dealing with uninteresting and repetitive work. I know being gifted isnt "a handicap" but there was always an air of "ok well, you're smart enough, there are plenty of other people who actually need our attention." The only time I was being truly challenged was in my 2 hours of ALPHA a day, in which times we would do brain teasers, read Shakespeare, do simple physics projects, etc. Looking back I know our budget for that class sucked royal asshole. Our class was in the most broken down portable room on campus. The teacher often brough her own materials and made up stuff for us to do on hand-written photocopies. So yeah, I can see how this article would have some weight in truth.

Re:First Hand Experience

[Token_Internet_Girl]

Edit: "I felt like I was constantly dealing with uninteresting and repetitive work." This refers to normal class time. After re-reading the passage I realized it sounded confusing.

Re:First Hand Experience

[trolltalk.com]

"I know being gifted isnt "a handicap"

Its only not a handicap

1. if you can run faster than the bullies
2. if you don't mind being typecast as a nerd or geek or freak
3. if you don't get bored easily
4. if you don't want a social life
5. if you don't want people expecting you to always know the answer (its okay for others to be wrong, but ...)

It's a handicap. In geniuses, it creates an uneven development of social skills, a handicap which often follows them though their later life.

Re:First Hand Experience

[QuantumRiff]

Sounds kinda like my high school experience.. We begged the school for a couple of computers, and ended up putting several together from donated old ones.. thats really how I started with computers.. Meanwhile, the "developmentally disabled/handicapped" program (with an average of 1 teacher for every 4 kids, and 1 assistant for every 2 kids) got 6 brand spanking new computers so that the kids could use "MS-PAINT" that was in windows 95. (cause the kids liked to draw all day, and this way they could learn computers!)

Re:First Hand Experience

[Token_Internet_Girl]

I can see your point. I'm a (mostly) capable young woman now but as a kid, I was not any of those things you listed, and I was bullied constantly. As an adult, I've had to deal with poor social development and social anxiety, and probably will for the rest of my life.

Re:First Hand Experience

[TempeNerd]

Some states have managed to provide gifted students with an environment conducive to free-form thinking and learning.
They have had to back off of the "tradition" of mainstreaming all students together though.

If done correctly, specialized education can be done for the same costs and generalized programs.
For one of the best (IMHO) - http://www.ncssm.edu/
Plus, who wouldn't want to go to "the School of S & M"

Re:First Hand Experience

[sqrt(2)]

I imagine it is, like many things in life, a give and take situation. Intelligence very likely comes at the expense of normal social interaction and skills. Now a lot of this can be learned academically, rather than intuitively as most people do, and I'm sure a lot of people manage to emulate it nearly perfectly. It's a handicap for those who either can't do this, or just don't see the value in it--if they even believe there exists any at all. And it's not that these people don't get something back, there's a reason why we call such children gifted. The question you should be asking is, is it worth it? And for some it is. I can only speak for myself, and I offer that it is a worthwhile trade off. I think the tragedy here is not that we're all required to make such sacrifices, but that often we aren't given a choice what is given to us, or taken away.

Re:First Hand Experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. The emotional savagery and propensity for violence in children is disturbing if you look at it without accepting it as normal first. It is amplified some by the lack of mobility within the public school system and the weak enforcement of order. You cannot really avoid the jerks and bullies, and since schools can rarely dump them, they are rarely dealt with.

So you get stuck with the emotional baggage garnered from the thirteen years of torment you've been subjected to. Yay.

Re:First Hand Experience

[Anonymous Coward]

If your most engaging class was the one with the least money, why would you think that lack of money for gifted students was the problem here? Gifted students don't need a lot of money to learn. This is because they're gifted. And if you thought mindless repetitive work was boring, imagine what it would be like if the work was hard on top of that. The problem with our schools has nothing to do with lack of money. American schools have plenty of money. They're just run by unimaginative people in a way that's destined to bore.

Re:First Hand Experience

[Agripa]

The bullies at my school must have had a well enough developed sense of self preservation not to fool with the geek who was carrying around a Signetics data book and reading things like The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives.

Re:First Hand Experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds almost like my school experience.

When I was in Kindergarten through second grade I was in a blue ribbon school and actually enjoyed going to school. I was actually pushed to think and enjoyed it. Life events happened and I was put back into a normal public school. The curriculum bored me, I know the material, why do I need to do extra homework? I don't need to practice I know what I'm doing. Why do I have to do warm-ups? I got the lesson down last week why are we still reviewing this? This led to my grades declining horribly from 3rd grade on down the line. The thing that baffled the administrators and my teachers is, when test time came, I would pass without even blinking an eye, when the state standardized tests would roll out at the end of the years, top 90th percentile. "Steven you're the dumbest smart person I've met" comes to mind.

I went like this until about my sophomore year in high school when I said, forget it. I dropped out and got my GED at 16. Lets just say my family and friends weren't too approving of the idea, but I knew two more years of the school system and I'd probably be expelled for just not caring. The administration hated me because I would slack off, and do nothing in class and still pass the courses, albeit with a C, but I wasn't the model student that I should be. I proved that the school system sucked and that an ape can pass the classes. I was a bad influence on my peers, etc etc. Teacher despised me because I would do my own research, I would look into things that interest me and I would school THEM in front of the class. I would correct my English teacher's grammar and pronunciation. I would come up with better ways of solving mathematical problems. Just a laundry list of complaints from the whole school board.

I dropped out in 2004, I was apart of the No Child Left Behind act....and it is complete and utter bullshit. But the school system has been failing the intellectually gifted way before then.

Re:First Hand Experience

[drsquare]

Surely if you were a genius you'd be able to make up better excuses for your lame social skills rather than 'waaaaah no-one appreciates me because I'm so fucking clever'.

Re:First Hand Experience

[trolltalk.com]

Be careful - once a genius decides that its important to have "social skills", they will start studying their fellow human beings (co-workers, etc) and they will learn how to "play the game," to the point where they can not only get away with shit nobody else can, but you'll be convinced its okay.

Its like that old joke - "Sincerity is the most important thing - once you can fake that, you've got it made!" - except that they don't need to "fake it" - just learn how to show it.

Obligitory "Incredibles" quote:

[SatanicPuppy]

"When everyone is special, then no one will be."

Re:Obligitory "Incredibles" quote:

[Anonymous Coward]

Ayn Rand FTW!

developmentally disabled

[QAChaos]

you mean the jocks right? Paying for all the sports equipment to feed their egos so that at least at one part of their life they can look back and say they were happy? - QAK

Ob. pants reference.

[trolltalk.com]

"Yes. "Not leaving a child behind", in educational context means lowering the level of the education for the average and the smart students."

As opposed to the priests' "Not leaving a childs' behind" which means lowering their pants.

Bored Kids ...

[Alien54]

are too easily misdiagnosed as having ADHD.

This means that being gifted is sometimes pigeon holed as being defective.

Never mind the nasty side effects of inappropriately prescribed drugs.

I wonder why so many bright kids are skeptical of school?

Re:Bored Kids ...

[jawtheshark]

I've been a teacher: don't tell me. I got so disgusted I quit.

Re:Bored Kids ...

[42Penguins]

I was one of those kids: my 1st grade teacher said I should be on Ritalin.

10 bored years later, I was saved by PSEOP. I'm not sure of the name in states other than Ohio, but it lets high school students apply to and take classes at colleges on the school's dime.

The Academy http://undergrad.osu.edu/academy/index.html at Ohio State was wonderful. So many choices, and it shaved off about a year from my engineering degree in math, science & electives. Of course it's no help before high school, but it is a nice option once you're there.

Re:Bored Kids ...

[Usquebaugh]

I wish more teachers would do the same.

Only when a broken system fails is it fixed. We need a revolution in education not a band aid. The longer the current system limps along the more damage it is doing.

I'd like all school to become voluntary. A student has to decide to go to class and the teacher has to decide to accept the student.

Also anyone of any age can take the high school graduation exams. Offered yearly by the state. One day a year becomes high school exam date. Grading is not fixed but floats on a percentage, top 10% get A, next 20% B etc. You can retake your HS exams but the latest scores are binding and published publicly.

Teachers not schools become the driving force. They rent classrooms etc from the school and decide who they teach for how much. Who they teach is recorded and published.

Not all my ideas are fully formed on this, but I'm trying to come up with a self auditing system that allows good teachers to earn a good salary. Remove as much administration as possible. Allow for students to graduate when ready. The system should pose a very low tax burden but a very high burden on the parents.

What I don't want is a hand holding nanny system. If you are poor you'll probably get a poor education. If you don't study, you'll probably not get invited to the best teachers. BUT it allows you to re-sit your HS if later on you wish to do so. You do not have to attend any classes and yet can still pass the exams. The HS exam becomes a state wide way to set the bar on acceptable education standard.

Re:Bored Kids ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I was always in the honors class. I had long hair and listened to heavy metal. I ate lunch with the R.O.T.C. guys because they were the most interesting to talk to. The teachers hated me because they thought I was a nuisance with my long hair and bad attitude. I aced every class and eventually told my vice principal in high school to go fuck himself. That went over well.

The day that the education system learns that children are individuals and start educating on that basis is the day that the US will have a better education system. I was always pissed off because they treated school like a factory and we were the workers. I guess I am just venting now........ sorry

Re:Bored Kids ...

[CorSci81]

I started writing a response about how your system would more or less guarantee any of Britney's crack-addled spawn automatically got a better education than a genius from a relatively undistinguished family. And then I realized it was also more or less the way the current system works anyway.

Re:Bored Kids ...

[Usquebaugh]

If her crack addled spawn can pass the tests then why complain?

What I want to do is to remove the notion of fairness but allow talent to be judged.

The current system tries to punish those who are more gifted or better tutored. My system will still maintain a base level of education, the 3 Rs, but allow for better students to progress and be recognized.

I also want to remove education from the tax burden, why should a childless couple have to pay for schools?

Re:Bored Kids ...

[robgig1088]

That's exactly what happened to me. I went to a regular private school and eventually started failing my classes. Not because I was slow, but because I just didn't care to actually complete assignments. Having an IQ of 135, I learned the information twice as fast as my classmates and I did well on all of my tests. I just never did the projects that were designed to prop up the grades of the less intelligent students. So my parents got me on the ADD medicine. I finally quit taking it when I hit highschool (and was actually challenged for once. Thankfully I was sent to a magnet school instead of being stuck in another mediocre private school).

Re:Bored Kids ...

[sinclair44]

Hey, cool... I just graduated HS and I did the same thing! A former teacher of mine who ended up in an administrative position (RIP -- thank you so much...) set up a plan as to where I could finish all the math classes at my school by the end of my Junior year, so I was set to take some college-level math classes via CROSU (Calculus Remote at Ohio State University -- another Academy program.) It was really awesome, kept me challenged and interested for the most part.

And, as par for the course, my high school totally fucked it up on their end. Never-ending technical problems (e.g. it took them a week to get around to installing Mathematica on one computer [and yes, they ALREADY had a license] and another week when they forgot to reinstall it after reimaging the computer). Horrible issues getting it on my HS transcript, which are still not completely resolved even though I graduated circa 3 months ago. And just general apathy from the lady who was supposed to be making sure everything was going okay.

So, I guess to sum it up... yeah, there are excellent options available. But high schools don't want to pay for it, don't want to support it, and generally don't want students doing anything outside the status quo.

Re:Bored Kids ...

[UncleTogie]

I wonder why so many bright kids are skeptical of school?

...maybe because some of us were thrown into alternative school for being different? For having a way of looking at life?

Example: School elections were coming up. A neo-punk and myself were musing over the morons running when it occurred to us: Why not form an "Anarchist Party", and encourage people to NOT vote? Posters went up {"I'm anarchist, he's anarchist, she's anarchist, we're anarchist, wouldn't ya like to be anarchist, too?" and were quickly torn down. Fights erupted {seriously...} until the government teacher came on the intercom:

"Attention, students. I understand that some students have formed the Anarchist Party. I can't say I approve of their message..."
{insert weak cheer here, mainly the friends of the candidates..}

"...HOWEVER, dissent IS part of the political process, and we're giving them the same right to put flyers up as those who are running."

...and after over half the school tore up their little "voter's registration cards", the school had to resort to bribing people to vote. A buck per vote. It's the only time I've found a school rewarding students for thinking outside the box...

The rest of the time you're thrown out for being disruptive. Eek.

Re:Bored Kids ...

[Neko-kun]

Take a look at the education system in Japan if it would help build/modify your thesis about what kind of change should be applied...

I'm aware of the main difference is that Japanese pupils are prepared for university/college and you propose the same to be done but for the HS system and there is only one thing I can say about it other that expressing my approval..

I just really hope that suicide rates do not go up.

Re:Bored Kids ...

[Usquebaugh]

I'm aware a little of the Japanese HS education system. I'm not sure I want to prepare all students for university but rather have a firm way of measuring students academic ability.

I believe the suicide rate in Japan is high at all ages. I would guess due to the crowded nature of the society and the need to control emotions.

Make no mistake for the top level of students the pressure will be very apparent under my idea. But there will be no bar to retaking the test or taking the test early. The idea being that improvement through education is available to all no matter what.

Home/Private school

[iamacat]

It's hopeless to make talented students go to schools where even the most violent and the most stupid can not be denied admission. Gifted students will be bullied (sometimes literally) to death because of their different personality, tendency not to hang around in peer groups that can not understand them and plain jealousy. Besides, how exactly can a teacher lecture in a single class where some students are having trouble with multiplication tables and others have questions about derivatives?

Ideally, we need a system of student competitions that identifies talent and sponsors the winners for tuition in private, more challenging schools - as much for their protection as for accelerated education. This is unlikely to happen though because of both lack of money and current attitude of political correctness that allows "special needs" students to beat up gifted ones at will. In the meantime parents should step up to the plate, do home schooling the best they can and organize study groups where students can help each other get more information from books and Internet.

Re:Home/Private school

[ogminlo]

This is how they do it in the UK (or so my college roommate from Manchester told me). Brits are tracked early and often and it routes them right up through college (again, so he told me). This puts intense pressue on young kids to track right or else march off to work in the mines. Our system does not challenge the cream of the crop enough, but at least it is egalitarian enough to afford equal opportunity at every step. My school district broke down my class into three groups; remedial, academic, and honors. Credits and grades were weighted based on difficulty. Still, I got the most benefit out of the things I drove myself to do, even in college.

Also, bullying and violence is absolutely not exclusive to the "slow" and pacifism is not exclusive to the "geniuses". The "protection" argument is stirctly bogus.

Re:Home/Private school

[E 99]

I agree. These generic solutions being proposed here will not work for everyone. Every "genius" is different. Some of them need a lot of help, others only a little, just like every non-genius. To give each kid the best education possible for him, you've got to first figure out what the best education is FOR HIM. And yes, that means the parents have to figure it out and then implement it! We're currently home schooling our three that are old enough for school. We re-analyze the needs of each of them every year. But it seems like the exception rather than the rule, for the best environment for any given child to be the extreme social setting of most public and private schools, especially large ones.

Re:Home/Private school

[iamacat]

Also, bullying and violence is absolutely not exclusive to the "slow" and pacifism is not exclusive to the "geniuses". The "protection" argument is stirctly bogus

This is a fine example of political correctness trumpeting obvious truths of life. If you are smart and get angry, you can think of many courses of action - a clever verbal retort, complaining to parents/teachers, a way to get the offender in trouble that doesn't involve hitting or simply congratulating yourself on being superior. You may even understand moral issues such as justice and peace and avoid or limit your retaliation altogether. On the other hand, the retarded can think of only one course of action and that involves using their fists.

Furthermore, smart children are likely to have different interests, dress style and language than the ones with average or low IQ. If you are the only one in the class that likes to tinker with computers and everyone else is only interested in drinking and smoking pot, you will naturally find yourself without friends who could defend you in a fight. Add a natural tendency of human being to harass someone different, and you get whipped even if aggression was not directly correlated to IQ or academic success.

Re:Home/Private school

[graymocker]

The whole "no one likes me because I'm smart" meme evinced in parent's post is one of the more moronic ideas that purportedly smart people cling to. There are plenty of people who are bright, well-adjusted, and popular; there were certainly plenty of these characters at my schools. You weren't getting ostracized/teased/beat up in high school because you were smart, you were getting ostracized/teased/beat up because you were socially inept (and, from the sound of it, something of a jerk too.) It just goes to show that even very bright people are susceptible to ego-preserving self-deception.

Re:Home/Private school

[TheRaven64]

This is how they do it in the UK (or so my college roommate from Manchester told me). Brits are tracked early and often and it routes them right up through college (again, so he told me).

I'm going to guess you are in your 40s. This is exactly how it used to be in the UK. At 11, you would take the 11+ examination. The result of this would determine whether you went to a grammar school, or a comprehensive school. If you went to a grammar school, you would be prepared for O-levels, and if you did well at these you would go on to A-levels. If you went to a comprehensive school you would take GCEs, and then go to an apprenticeship or similar. It was possible to move between comprehensive and grammar schools up to the age of about 14, but not easy.

Now, there is very little streaming. It's done on a per-school basis. At GCSE (the replacement for both GCE and O-level), a lot of subjects give the option of two exams, one where easy one where you can get grades B-G and one where you can get grades C-A* (or unclassified if you fail to get a C), so some form of choice is needed.

I went to a selective public[1] school, which had an entrance exam and then different sets for some subjects (maths in particular) based on ability, but this is by no means ubiquitous. I never experienced much hostility (certainly nothing I would term bullying), despite being near the top of my class in most subjects, in part because everyone in the school was in the top 20% or so.

[1] Note for Americans: A public school means almost the opposite in the UK to in the US. In the UK, government funded schools are known as state schools, those run as businesses are known as private schools, and the ones supported by educational trusts and run as non-profits are public schools.

Re:Home/Private school

[iamacat]

Were you "well-adjusted and popular" with Alcoholics? Drug addicts? Thieves? Gang members? If you were, congratulations - you have a knack for surviving in a violent society. Either that, or you don't mind compromising your morals and using others to gain popularity yourself. Did you grow up in a rich white neighborhood? You didn't experience a typical public school then. But don't expect everyone to live in harmony with a bunch or retarded lowlifes.

Re:Home/Private school

[PCM2]

It's hopeless to make talented students go to schools where even the most violent and the most stupid can not be denied admission.

It would be wrong to deny anyone admission to a public school. If you've got violent people, the surest way to wean them away from a life of violence would be to educate them. Can you think of anything else that might dissuade them, in the long run? If you've got stupid people, I only know of one way to even try to remove the stupidity. Public schools are -- and should forever remain -- for everybody.

The problem isn't admission. The problem is the fact that once you're in, you're in for life. In today's world there is practically nothing that will get you expelled from school. Repeat: practically nothing.

A friend of mine was a substitute teacher in the Oakland, CA school district (think rough neighborhood) and he would have students actually shoulder-check him as they entered the classroom. Then they would sit in their desk but never even take their backpacks off, let alone open a book. Then, at some point, they would start disrupting the class. My friend would send them to the principal's office. Fifteen minutes later, they would be back. And soon enough, they would start up again.

Why do they get away with it? Because here's what happens: A kid beats another kid so badly that he needs facial reconstructive surgery. The offender gets sent home, and after a meeting of the school board, he is expelled. One week later the parents appear in the principal's office. With them is a lawyer. The lawyer has paperwork with him, outlining his case against the school district. Apparently by denying his client's child an education, the school is not only causing undue suffering and distress to the family, not to mention specific monetary damages that will result from the child's inability to find future work, but the school is also violating the family's civil rights. The lawyer explains that it should be clear to anyone that the reason the school is doing all this is because the clients are African-Americans. The racist policies of the school, the lawyer explains, will be held accountable to the public on tomorrow night's evening news unless the school immediately agrees to a cash settlement AND to re-instate the client's child in school.

And the school complies. Because as financially strapped as most districts are, they simply cannot afford to allow a case like that to go to court.

The result is a completely toothless system that basically lets anarchy rule the day. My friend -- a substitute teacher -- got a lot of work because the teachers would regularly phone him up and ask him to come in, not because they were sick, but they "just couldn't take it anymore" and "they need a break."

The real tragedy, from my friend's point of view, was that in every class he taught there would always be at least 2-3 students -- usually girls -- who were obviously highly intelligent, capable, and were there to learn. They would come to school having completed their homework, they would bring their books, they would have all their papers organized neatly into folders, and the whole bit. But they couldn't learn. They weren't really getting anything out of the class because my friend was forced to teach at an extremely slow rate and could barely complete a lesson because of the constant disruptions. The five troublemakers in every class would ruin it for the other 30 kids.

Re:Home/Private school

[Eli Gottlieb]

Eh. Truly a lot of people who think they have so much more brains than everyone else really just need to take the chip off their shoulder, but in my experience some time in a more positive environment of smarter kids helps them do it.

Re:Home/Private school

[graymocker]

Frankly if you characterize the students of the presumably non-rich, non-white school you are familiar with as criminals and "a bunch of retarded lowlifes" then it should not be surprising that those same students didn't like you very much.

Re:Home/Private school

[iamacat]

I actually grew up in former Soviet Union. After school you had to work home and try to get past bullies who threatened you with a knife and forced you to give up your pocket money. People would cover someone's head with a coat and then have everyone kick them so that the victim couldn't identify the offenders. Three girls got jealous of another girl dating a popular guy, so they impaled her with ski poles during a physical training class. They hid her body in the snow and it was not found until spring. If you think that a beating is always victim's fault you are a fucking moron.

Re:Home/Private school

[drsquare]

This article is about American education. I'm sure there are plenty of third world countries where schoolkids are regularly killed by gangs, but it's not relevant here.

Re:Home/Private school

[ogminlo]

Dime-store psychology. Support your absolutist social claims regarding an inverse relationship between measured intelligence and physical violence with some kind of evidence! Otherwise you are building a hefty straw man which any reasonable examination will raze. This isn't a matter of political correctness; it is a matter of supporting an argument with facts instead of Hollywood stereotypes.

Re:Home/Private school

[ogminlo]

Actually I'm much younger, but maybe my roommate was inflating the stratification of his schooling to make his lot out to be tougher than mine. I'm the one paying student loans regardless!

Re:Home/Private school

[iamacat]

Apparently American education fails to inform students that Soviet Union was not considered a "third-world" country and that many actual third-world countries have lower rates of violence than US. In any case, I am sure 100K US students raped or severely beaten up in 2004 all just were not well adjusted and had it coming.

Re:Home/Private school

[iamacat]

Sometimes we don't need a PhD to know some obvious facts in life. All of us, including you, know that bullies in school are total retards. Here is one "some kind of evidence" link for you. Perhaps you care to refute it?

What they need

[Jecel Assumpcao Jr]

1) don't let school get in their way too much
2) hook them up with at least one really smart adult who works in an area they are interested in

This would probably cost even less than whatever is being done now and would get far better results.

Re:What they need

[DragonWriter]

It actually probably wouldn't. For one thing, there is a fairly limited supply of "really smart adults", and an even more limited supply of those in any given field in any given region. And they tend to have lots of high-paying alternatives open to them, so unless spending time with youngsters is what they happen to be interested in, would be very expensive to attract and retain for such a program.

Like developmentally disabled students, students that are gifted in one or multiple areas need resources (whether more or special lab gear, access to research tools, teaching staff with special talents, etc.) that don't produce as much return for the average student to reach their full potential. And, like developmentally disabled students, if they are instead treated like regular students, they don't perform as well as they could, and often become serious discipline problems and negatively impact everyone else.

The particular ratio in money is perhaps overplayed here; its one of those simple to measure but not necessarily all that relevant measures. But the issue is, nevertheless, a real and serious one.

Re:What they need

[Jecel Assumpcao Jr]

I was thinking of adults who have some high paying position but would be interested in helping out kids on, for example, two Saturdays a month. For free.

The supply of such people would be extremely limited, but it wouldn't be zero. And though a local person would be the ideal by far, we are in the Internet age so a remote expert might be an option for some. We were talking about "geniuses" rather than the average really smart slashdotter, in which case the demand would be a bit limited as well.

Re:What they need

[Anonymous Coward]

2) hook them up with at least one really smart adult who works in an area they are interested in

Don't do that if your kid is interested in Roman Catholic theology, unless you want your kid coming home with an ass full of priest jism.

No Child Left Behind

[ArchAngelQ]

Just to be clear, the 'No Child Left Behind' nonsense has no additional funding for schools, and just additional requirements. Specifically, testing, testing, and more testing. That's it. Really. It requires a great deal more testing of students than ever before, and a certain pass rate for a school to get existing federal funding.

The end result is that children who are just below the pass rate on the 'pre-tests' (really, just more tests, but the results only get examined by the teacher or the school faculty) get the most attention. Those above it, especially well above it and those well below it, are more or less shafted by the way it's designed.

Alternately, several school districts have simply changed the rules for what constitutes a pass, and what a failure, on their tests, so that they have a high enough pass rate to continue to get full federal funding.

Yes, but...

[YrWrstNtmr]

Gifted kids are not fully enabled, due to lack of time of the teachers. But also, a lot of gifted kids are able to fend for themselves, whatever the teacher does or does not do.
(yes, some of the more 'sensitive' gifted kids can't, and need more of a helping hand. But quite a lot simply go on with things and succeed.)

And the population in here is in no way representative of the pop as a whole. Among general online communities, there are probably more formerly 'gifted kids' here than anywhere else. Let's not use us as a benchmark.

Re:Yes, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Gifted kids are not fully enabled, due to lack of time of the teachers. But also, a lot of gifted kids are able to fend for themselves, whatever the teacher does or does not do

No kidding. Like many of the other responders to this article, I participated in a well-meant but ultimately pointless program for "gifted" students when I was in Elementary and Junior High school. Here's a big surprise: Despite the fact that all the students in the program had 130+ IQ scores, they all had wildly divergent interests and different needs/wants from their education. Pulling all of those kids into a "one size fits all" gifted student program resulted in the predictable chaos.

Not to mention that the folks running the program weren't any more "gifted" than the rest of the teachers, so they lacked a real understanding of what the kids actually needed. If, instead of having us work on "guided creative multimedia projects", they had taught classes in social interaction, conflict avoidance, and maybe self-defence, we all probably would have had a much easier time in future years.

Smart kids don't need to be "enabled" to learn acedemic subjects - being able (and willing) to learn on their own is what got them branded as "gifted" in the first place. What they need is instruction in how to get along in a society where almost everybody else is a lot dumber than they are. Some additional work on understanding why it's not okay to say things like "I have a 140 IQ, why should I listen to what you think?" would probably have been a good idea, too :-)

Yeah..

[Anonymous Coward]

I know a few gifted kids that ended up dropping out High school cause of how bad it sucked.

Article's f*cking right!

[farrellj]

And it's true in Canada as well! Gotta brain? Park it at the door if you are going to kindergarden through grade 12! Else you risk a *very* unhappy childhood!

What a crime!

ttyl
          Farrell ...still bitter about my treatment in the schools...

Re:Article's f*cking right!

[gen0c1de]

I had one of the worst childhoods of all the people i know just because of the fact that I was very smart. It wasn't until I was 16 did I finally walk away from the education system. My mom couldn't afford to send me to any other school so I ended up working and self studying for get my CCNA, I passed my cert at the age of 17.

Now 8 years later I have gone to college graduated from a networking course, at a job at a leading colo/manged service provider here in Canada. And I still don't have my high school education.

Re:Article's f*cking right!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, it's true on both sides of the 49th. I remember getting in trouble once for not reading Dick and Jane along with the class. I had a copy of The Hobbit hidden inside my desk (some third time through or something). The school administration outright refused to let me skip grades, even though I was reading three years beyond my level and helping my babysitter with her math homework. Barely made it through alive.

Stick with Ms.Crock...

[Anonymous Coward]

and you'll get a head.

kids education

[Anonymous Coward]

The study also revealed a startling statistic.

Almost 50% of the kids in America are below average!!!!!

As it happens...

[Otter]

For all the hysteria about the failure of the US educational system, going back at least to Sputnik and probably long before, it continues to generate the most creative, innovative people in the world. Just because it's obvious to the author that the only thing to do with very smart kids is to move them ahead multiple grades, or separate them from their families and isolate them with other very smart kids, doesn't mean that's really the best way to maximize their potential, let alone their happiness.

Achievement levels off once you start generating knowledge yourself. Learning logarithms when you're 10 instead of 14 isn't going to make you significantly more likely to "cure leukemia or stop global warming".

Look at those "geniuses" who get packed off to college in their early teens. Have any of them ever accomplished anything noteworthy?

Re:As it happens...

[DragonWriter]

For all the hysteria about the failure of the US educational system, going back at least to Sputnik and probably long before, it continues to generate the most creative, innovative people in the world.

I'd like to see the evidence that people educated in the US system are, per capita, more "creative" and "innovative" than those produced in every other educational system in the world. Really, this sounds to me more like nationalist mythology than anything resembling a fact, and contrasting it with "hysteria" is somewhat ironic.

Learning logarithms when you're 10 instead of 14 isn't going to make you significantly more likely to "cure leukemia or stop global warming".

I don't think the difference between "gifted" and "average" students is learning logarithms at 10 instead of 14. Its more like the difference between learning logarithms at 10 and having a vague idea as an adult that they are somehow connected to the Taco Bell chihuahua.

Look at those "geniuses" who get packed off to college in their early teens. Have any of them ever accomplished anything noteworthy?

Even assuming the answer is no, wouldn't that demonstrate that, indeed, the US educational system is, contrary to your argument, failing the gifted? I mean, if they weren't being failed, you'd expect them to acheive noteworthy things at the same proportion as the rest of the population.

Re:As it happens...

[Rakishi]

Achievement levels off once you start generating knowledge yourself. Learning logarithms when you're 10 instead of 14 isn't going to make you significantly more likely to "cure leukemia or stop global warming". No but the difference between learning them at 10 and being interested in learning more, and dropping out of school at 16 due to disgust and utter boredom will.

Re:As it happens...

[Anonymous Coward]

"
Achievement levels off once you start generating knowledge yourself. Learning logarithms when you're 10 instead of 14 isn't going to make you significantly more likely to "cure leukemia or stop global warming".
"

The article mentioned research that suggested otherwise. Those that were skipping grades had significantly more PhD's than those that didn't. I would consider new research in their field of choice a significant noteworthy achievement.

It's hardly conclusive, but suggests to me it might be worth a shot teaching them logarithms 3 years early.

Re:As it happens...

[Taxman415a]

Just because it's obvious to the author that the only thing to do with very smart kids is to move them ahead multiple grades, or separate them from their families and isolate them with other very smart kids, doesn't mean that's really the best way to maximize their potential

That's because just moving kids ahead faster does no good. I was years ahead in math in school because that happened to be the only subject our school would allow that for. We still had to fight the school board to allow it. But being ahead did little good because I still learned the material at the same superficial level as all the other students and was still bored to tears. And by the time I got to honors math at a relatively rigorous university, it made it feel like I'd never had more than junior high math in comparison to the material I was being presented.

What advanced students need is to learn the material at a deeper level so they can get to the real math (hint it's well past calculus) and be able to run with it. I still got my degree in math, but I had to do a lot of catching up even though in HS I had taken the most advanced classes available to me. But giving the more advanced material requires tailoring to the needs of the student (exactly what "special needs" students get). But there's no will right now to allocate those resources. And our country is hurting for it.

Re:As it happens...

[tsm_sf]

For all the hysteria about the failure of the US educational system, going back at least to Sputnik and probably long before, it continues to generate the most creative, innovative people in the world.

[Citation Needed]

Re:As it happens...

[blahplusplus]

"Just because it's obvious to the author that the only thing to do with very smart kids is to move them ahead multiple grades, or separate them from their families and isolate them with other very smart kids, doesn't mean that's really the best way to maximize their potential, let alone their happiness."

I couldn't agree more. I think it's more of an issue of letting kids to coursework above their grade level but being in the same class, if a kid is gifted, why can't he just do online college correspondance courses in class? MIT has many of their classes online for free now so anyone with the will to learn can. The article is really alarmist, and a big pity party IMHO.

Re:As it happens...

[evilviper]

For all the hysteria about the failure of the US educational system, going back at least to Sputnik and probably long before, it continues to generate the most creative, innovative people in the world.

Actually, the facts are that a large number of the senior scientists in the US space program were foreign born and educated, and either fled to the US to escape WWII, or were captured by the military and forced to immigrate.

Even today, a large number of scientists and other experts in the US are immigrants.

Re:As it happens...

[Otter]

I'd like to see the evidence that people educated in the US system are, per capita, more "creative" and "innovative" than those produced in every other educational system in the world.

You're posting this on an American website on an American Internet in (most likely) an American web browser?

I don't think the difference between "gifted" and "average" students is learning logarithms at 10 instead of 14. Its more like the difference between learning logarithms at 10 and having a vague idea as an adult that they are somehow connected to the Taco Bell chihuahua.

"Taco Bell chihuahua"?!?!?

Anyway, the question isn't whether some students would benefit from brain transplants from other students. The question is whether acceleration and isolation benefit gifted students in the long run. If they take 10th grade math in 9th grade instead of 7th grade, I'm not sure where this chihuahua comes in.

Even assuming the answer is no, wouldn't that demonstrate that, indeed, the US educational system is, contrary to your argument, failing the gifted?

No, because the norm in the US educational system is not (this being the entire freaking point of the original link) to accelerate students that way. In my anecdotal experience, and I'd welcome more thorough information, that sort of radical acceleration does nothing to foster long-term productivity.

Re:As it happens...

[drsquare]

You're posting this on an American website on an American Internet in (most likely) an American web browser?

By that browser you mean IE, made by a company that's desperate to bring in people from abroad because there aren't enough smart Americans? And the browser that's inferior to something written by hobbyists? And the website, on a British-designed web, and an Internet developed by people all over the world?

Of course Americans are clever, just look at their universities. Packed to the gills with foreigners.

Re:As it happens...

[Otter]

By that browser you mean IE...

No I don't, Firefox wasn't (for the most part) made by hobbyists, the Internet wasn't developed by people all over the world and none of this is especially relevant to my point.

The point is that this frenzy over the failure of the American educational system because it's paced differently than that of the Russian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese or whoever else was supposed to be crushing us has been going on since the 1950's, if not longer. And yet every generation, it's the US system that produces or attracts the people who change the world. So maybe there's more to developing talent than how quickly you can shove math into a little kid's head?

Of course Americans are clever, just look at their universities. Packed to the gills with foreigners.

Think that one over a little bit more...

Re:As it happens...

[drsquare]

Think that one over a little bit more...

OK, I've thought about it. You have to bring in foreigners to fill them up because you don't have enough local talent.

My experience with the "gifted" class

[grilled_ch33z]

... was not a good one. I was in junior high, and some genius decided to have the most hated teacher in the entire school handle the gifted students. I could've dealt with that if the subject matter had been at all engaging. We spent at least half the time doing crossword puzzles and watching old movies. We spent the other half reading or dissing the crappy movies. Yawn.

Not once did we do anything relating to math or science. Quite seriously, the only time I saw a number in that classroom was when I programmed my calculator to count down how many more seconds I'd have to spend in that classroom before the semester was over.

My point is that gifted students exist and are recognized in our current system, but unless our gifts are utilized or expanded by the class, what's the point? The only things I remember from my semester in that class are that it was the first time I'd ever gotten a C, and "The Poseidon Adventure" was surprisingly decent.

Private institutions may help

[gihan_ripper]

Any bureaucracy can fail those at the extremes. However, I don't think it's necessarily such a bad thing that we're spending more on developmentally challenged children than on geniuses. After all, shouldn't the geniuses have a better chance of being able to succeed even without extra assistance?

None the less, it is vital that we do as much as possible to encourage bright young children. One of the recent recipients of the Fields medal (the 'Nobel prize for math'), Terrence Tao was raised in Australia and quickly progressed to University there, gaining his degree aged 17. He then moved to Princeton for graduate study! It seems that private educational institutions, especially the better Universities, do recognise exceptional talent and take it very seriously, even when the vessel is physically immature. The real problem arises when the children come from underprivileged backgrounds, where there parents do not have the financial resources or contacts to further assist their child. I don't think we need special schools for gifted children, but it would be prudent to send bright children to the best schools, and indeed to let them skip grades. For this to happen, parents need information about scholarship opportunities, and to be able to communicate with the better schools.

Re:Private institutions may help

[geekoid]

"After all, shouldn't the geniuses have a better chance of being able to succeed even without extra assistance?"

No. Just ebcause they are smart doesn't mean they know everything, like how to work a system.

well

[d3l33t]

I failed multiple classes, later realising that i wasn't being challenged nearly as much as possible. I have never been more disappointed in the public education system than that of the US. IMO our society helps hinder kids from striving in school. It's that dam hipity hopity!

Failing the smart kids? YES

[Szeraax]

As one of those fairly smart people, not a genius but a smart one, I can tell you of when my Elementary school dropped its 6th grade pre-algebra class after 'no child left behind' came into effect. I ended being one of 3 students from my Elementary school to take Algebra in 7th grade that year. I was barely able to get in and even learned stuff about Algebra while taking that test! I would've _LOVED_ to be able to take a class that was more on my level as, I didn't learn a single thing in 6th grade math besides long division... just my $0.02

Risking Discussion

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know that I was 'gifted', but I was one of the bored smart kids who was put in special courses for both dumb & smart kids because my regular teachers just wanted to get me out of their classrooms.

Later in high school, I was able to do a little better academically by picking "hard" courses to reduce the number of thugs who were generally disruptive & used to beat the shit out of me personally. But that came at a deep price because the few teachers who were any good were given the problem classrooms -- I got incompetents and sadists. How bad? Our Calculus instructor was so bad that our class made up the entire night-class population at the local college.

End result is I simply survived public high school, and made my own way only thanks to a large civic library. I was nearly thirty before I realized that math was interesting, and that I was rather good at it.

What was your direct experience?

Mandatory Simpsons' reference

[AlexBirch]

Lisa: It's not my nature to complain, but so far today we've had
                    three movies, two filmstrips, and an hour and a half of
                    magazine time. I just don't feel challenged.
Skinner: Of course we could make things more challenging, Lisa, but
                    then the stupider students would be in here complaining,
                    furrowing their brows in a vain attempt to understand the
                    situation.

The way I see it...

[Anonymous Coward]

First time poster, long time reader...

Only reason i'm posting here is because this relates so much to my childhood.

I am 21 now, and loathed high school.

Homework was my bane.

The "smart" students were the ones who went through the daily grind and crunched the daily numbers to get the daily grade.

The "average" students like myself were the ones who never did ANY homework, got 90+% on every test without studying.

I slept through 7 hours of my 8 hour school day and passed every class with a C. It was downright boring and I don't see being given a task to do simple math on a day to day basis at home, when I could be tearing into an old computer during MY time, rewarding or challenging in any way shape or form.

High school was the biggest waste of time I have ever experienced. Now that I am going to a technical school working towards my MCSE I feel much more challenged.

Re:The way I see it...

[Anonymous Coward]

First time poster, long time reader... Have a crappy day. Enjoy your crummy job.

The system doesn't want anyone to get ahead

[Dracos]

The American education system isn't designed to educate anyone, it's designed to produce subservient, unthinking consumers.

Money is spent on developmentally disabled kids out of sympathy/pity.

Money isn't spent on gifted kids because the system fears that they might actually learn something, or learn to question things, and become disruptive (either in school, or later in society).

Walk into any high school and ask the history teachers why the War of 1812 was fought. I bet 99% of them will give some non-reasoning answer like "because the British attacked us," rather than the real answer: Britain was trying to keep American hemp out of France, in order to cripple the French navy.

If the kids were taught this, they may realize that hemp == marijuana and begin to question the War on Drugs, or the government in general. There are countless similar examples.

PS: I am not a pot smoker, I just have an interest in history.

Re:The system doesn't want anyone to get ahead

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Walk into any high school and ask the history teachers why the War of 1812 was fought. I bet 99% of them will give some non-reasoning answer like "because the British attacked us," rather than the real answer: Britain was trying to keep American hemp out of France, in order to cripple the French navy.

Interesting example. Did you know that after a state of war was officially entered into, the British offered to remove their embargo that was preventing US ships from selling hemp to the French?

What about the impressment of American sailors, or the occassional skirmishes with Canada (an English holding) as alternate causes?

Also, your last point doesn't make sense three ways. You can buy hemp rope now. Hemp != marijuana (trying smoking hemp, it's a lot like smoking cotton.) A better example to achieve you aim would be to state, without elaboration, that Washington and Jefferson used to grow cannibus.

Re:The system doesn't want anyone to get ahead

[pappy97]

"Walk into any high school and ask the history teachers why the War of 1812 was fought. I bet 99% of them will give some non-reasoning answer like "because the British attacked us," rather than the real answer: Britain was trying to keep American hemp out of France, in order to cripple the French navy."

Interesting you say this, when everyone knows the War of 1812 is all about the (failed) American Invasion of Canada (at that time, a full territory of the UK).

Re:The system doesn't want anyone to get ahead

[TheRaven64]

Walk into any high school and ask the history teachers why the War of 1812 was fought Interesting that you mention the war of 1812. If you ask a student in the UK about 'the war in 1812' they will tell you about the French invasion of Russia. The skirmish with America was a side-show of the war being fought against Napoleon by most of the rest of Europe. It had far less long-term impact than the defeat of Napoleon by the Russian winter.

A good school system is like a good OS

[Pfhorrest]

A good school system needs features much like a good operating system: it should make the resources you need to do what you want to do available to you and then get the hell out of the way, so that the more capable people aren't hindered by something that's supposed to be there to help; and it should offer clear instructions and guidance for those less capable people to figure out what they want to do and what they need to do it.

In an OS, this means having a clear intuitive interface that lets capable users see what's there and what can be done with it, that's not always bugging you and trying to second-guess what you want, or worse, telling you what you want; and then having well-written online help and guides/wizards/whatnot that ask the user what they want, and then tells them how to do it. (For anyone who remembers AppleGuide from pre-OSX Macs, that I think was the ideal system; each step told you what to do in text, and then circled the interface elements it was talking about on screen to walk you through actually doing the thing, rather than doing it for you).

In a school, this means that you have broad and deep educational materials available for capable and adventurous students to pursue at their leisure, and you don't bog them down with so much asinine crap that they don't have the time or energy to pursue those things; and it means that your *instructional* resources (i.e. teacher time) are devoted to helping the slower kids master the basics. The bright kids don't need extra instruction to excel; they'll get the standard instruction well enough and then look up more on their own if you make such resources available to them. The slow kids don't need a vast library of supplementary materials; they're having trouble enough with the basic stuff and don't need to be overloaded with more information. A well rounded school should have both: devote extra attention to the kids who need it more (the slow ones), and have extra material readily available for the fast kids to pursue while you're helping the slow ones.

I'm sure someone will complain that some slow kid will have his self-esteem hurt because the fast kids are allowed to move ahead of them, but then look at the flip side: the slow kid is getting the lion's share of the teacher's attention. Nobody's being unjust to him. If his self-esteem is hurt because someone else learns faster than him, he needs to grow up (I know, they're kids, but this is how they become adults) and realize that sometimes people have different levels of talents, and so long as special privileges aren't being afforded to the smart kids who need them least, then nobody has done anything against the slow kids.

Re:A good school system is like a good OS

[Anonymous Coward]

worst analogy .. ever.

Re:A good school system is like a good OS

[Pfhorrest]

I know you're probably trolling, but I'd even take this analogy even further. I've made this analogy between governments and operating systems before, I'd apply the same analogy to corporate management, etc etc. What makes an analogy valid is that the things analogized all are similar in particular relevant ways, and the thing that makes all of these thing similar is that they are all systems of power which ostensibly exist to facilitate the smooth operation of those over which they have power.

Schools ostensibly exist to facilitate learning, governments ostensibly exist to facilitate social interaction, corporate management ostensibly exists to facilitate workplace productivity, and operating systems ostensibly exist to facilitate the operation of a computer. And all of these systems do their ostensible job best when they give you unobstructed access to what you need to do what you want (i.e. they get out of the way of competent people), they provide assistance to those who need it (in a way that helps them become competent people), and an aspect I neglected to mention because in such systems it is often emphasized to the neglect of the former two: they keep you from doing things that would compromise the objective that the system is designed to facilitate.

Nothing new.

[linuxwrangler]

My K-12 days were in the 60s/70s. My mother was a teacher who quit after my sister and I were born. She used to be infuriated after parent/teacher meetings where she would ask a question and get the "don't worry, we're the professionals, you're an untrained parent" attitude when she had her education masters from Stanford.

Frustration with the schools led a group of parents to form an action group that discovered, among other things, that the district had claimed they had a MGM (Mentally Gifted Minors) program to get funds when they actually weren't doing anything for the gifted children but rather just grabbing money for the budget.

They did make a small dent - especially when my dad was elected and re-elected as head of the Board of Education. But I'm not sure that any of the good they did lasted much past his term of office.

The former Secretary of Education commented on NPR the other day that 40 years ago the best option for college-educated women was teaching and that's what about 50% of them did. That pool of (probably unfairly) cheap teaching labor dried up long ago. If you want good people as teachers you are going to have to pay them. Conversely, the teaching establishment needs to stop the same-pay-for-all nonsense. Teachers in difficult-to-fill specialties like science and math should be paid more. Top-flight teachers should be compensated better as well. Bad teachers should be fired. (There's no excuse for tenure in K-12.)

Re:Nothing new.

[the Dragonweaver]

My K-8 days were a decade later, and it's an interesting saga. To begin with, my mother was against skipping grades because of her own experience of always being the youngest in class, and how isolated that made her feel. So when she talked to the Catholic elementary that my siblings were going to, and they said that they could not do anything for me except skip grades, she promptly talked to the public school, which could.

In kindergarten and first grade, I'd being doing other things during the reading sections (learned to read a two and a half and haven't stopped since-- it's not speed-reading, just the natural result of almost three decades of practice.) Then, at a later time, I'd be in the special reading group for those whose comprehension was outside of class norms. (I still remember that the teacher's name was Ms. Redding. We loved her and that little yellow chair that was the universal prop.) Sometime in first grade I was tested but I can't tell you how I scored because as the test kept going I got squirmy and they broke it off. I was apparently reading at a seventh grade level, and even then I thought that said something sad about seventh graders.

As a result I got put into the district Rapid Learner program, a class made up entirely of gifted students at the standard size of thirty (give or take a few.) One teacher per class; the class moved as a unit. I have no "normal" education to compare mine to but I know that we got to do all sorts of things that the regular classes didn't. We got an hour-long dance lesson every Friday. We did a play every year (my elementary had at least five plays a year as a result, with the sixth grade class doing a musical.) In the later years we got to go to places like Yosemite and Marin Headlands. And this was back when the arts were still in schools so we had choir and band (I was in both) along with bi-weekly music lessons and Spanish lessons.

There's some schools these days that are cutting recess. I look on that and shudder.

My junior high had a sort of gifted track but I ended up taking geometry from a local high school. And when I got to high school... well, by my senior year, I had nothing left to take in several subjects, so I got an interesting talk with the administration and the end result that my "guided studies" ended up netting me more credits than a normal year would have.

My point is that I have never lacked for opportunity in educational terms in the public or the private venues. Because of this, I know what education can be like... and the triggers for if I will have to homeschool my children. I'm considering it more seriously as time goes on because my current job works closely with high schools and I don't like what I see. But if they still have RL (which is called GATE-- Gifted And TalEnted-- these days), I may not have to. We'll see.

It depends...

[weston]

... on whether or not the gifted student is smart enough to figure out how to use resources to direct their own learning.

I'm one of the first people to admit there are problems with many public schools. I went through an education to be a secondary math teacher. I stopped after student teaching because I realized I didn't want to deal with a lot of the issues.

But when I look back over my public education -- in Utah, where per pupil spending traditionally lags pretty far behind many other places -- I have to admit it was pretty damn good overall. When they realized I was breezing through all the reading primers in first grade, they made sure I knew how to use the school library and pointed me at a few particular topics. I got after school access to some of the first computers the schools had. My parents helped, taking me to the local library and enrolling me in community classes, but the staff was helpful. That was elementary school. My high school had a full quiver of AP classes and the teachers were, by and large, good. And they had a program where advanced students could also take courses from the public community college. All in a small-government, relatively low income and not large tax-base state.

I daresay I didn't get near as much out of my public education as I could have if I were more focused and ambitious. One guy took all of the computer science classes, took advantage of after school lab time to learn everything he could about the unix minicomputer we had and C, and got a job not long out of high school working as a sysadmin for a salary that a lot of college grads don't get. Couple of people I knew used some pretty advanced language skills to work as au pairs or English teachers in foreign countries. Me, I learned to play nethack in the lab after school. :)

The point? I think most of the smart kids -- especially if they have any kind of decent direction from parents, or a counselor, or some kind of mentor -- can take advantage of the existing system just fine, and learn to find resources outside of it to further their own goals.

The ones with developmental disabilities, by contrast, are often the one with issues that are actually keeping them from getting even a fraction out of the system. That's why a disproportionate amount of resources are directed there.

None of this is to say there shouldn't be some changes in how things are done. I'm just a tad skeptical of sweeping statements like "no one can get ahead." My observation is that's simply false.

Re:It depends...

[Rakishi]

... on whether or not the gifted student is smart enough to figure out how to use resources to direct their own learning.

The point? I think most of the smart kids -- especially if they have any kind of decent direction from parents, or a counselor, or some kind of mentor -- can take advantage of the existing system just fine, and learn to find resources outside of it to further their own goals. Kids are kids. Just because a kid is a genius doesn't make him anything other than a kid. You're expecting these kids to not only be smart but also extremely motivation and fully knowledgeable about what is possible.

You know what they'll figure out on their own? That it takes 10 minutes to get the password of every student in the school. Why? Because it's about the most interesting thing they can do during school hours.

How do you expect a kid to be motivated about anything when they're forced to sit for 6 hours a day in a chair and be subjected to repetitive babbling on things they learned the first time the teacher said it. Of course any attempt to claim they already know this will be returned with a "too bad, you need to stay in this class since we don't care how boring it is" response from the school. And no the school doesn't care how good the child is or how gifted they are but simply sends out the same form reply anytime someone even dares to ask to do something different.

Re:It depends...

[weston]

Kids are kids. Just because a kid is a genius doesn't make him anything other than a kid. You're expecting these kids to not only be smart but also extremely motivation and fully knowledgeable about what is possible.

Fully? Hardly. Just enough to find things that engage them. Though I definitely agree high quality mentoring (not only for bright students, but in general) that can help make students aware of possibilities is something we could use more of that would be generally valuable

You know what they'll figure out on their own? That it takes 10 minutes to get the password of every student in the school. Why? Because it's about the most interesting thing they can do during school hours.

I'd argue where that's true, it's real education at its finest for everyone involved. :)

Though this certainly wasn't the case in my high school. I spent a while looking for a way to brute force the password hashing scheme before I realized this was probably futile with the limited computing power. Now, the kids who went looking for privilege escalation bugs, *those* were the ones that really learned something. But not in 10 minutes, that's for sure.

Of course any attempt to claim they already know this will be returned with a "too bad, you need to stay in this class since we don't care how boring it is" response from the school.

My observation is that this is sometimes true, but not enough to work as a complete generalization. Often it's absolutely true that teachers or schools don't have anything else to do with these kids -- but it seems it's often true that teachers in this position were happy to let kids who'd demonstrated they knew the material work quietly on something else which interested them. And especially at a secondary level, many teachers absolutely will let kids who demonstrate precocious understanding move beyond the typical sequence.

And no the school doesn't care how good the child is or how gifted they are but simply sends out the same form reply anytime someone even dares to ask to do something different.

I agree there are some people who work like that, and I think you can beat the genuine desire to actually help people out of educators just like you can beat the desire to learn out of kids. But a genuine desire to help out is the reason a lot of educators are there in the first place.

Re:It depends...

[Rakishi]

Fully? Hardly. Just enough to find things that engage them. Though I definitely agree high quality mentoring (not only for bright students, but in general) that can help make students aware of possibilities is something we could use more of that would be generally valuable

but it seems it's often true that teachers in this position were happy to let kids who'd demonstrated they knew the material work quietly on something else which interested them. The whole damn point of the school system is that children and even adults DON'T learn better on their own. After all what's the point of having teachers at all if students can learn everything on their own? And yeah bright little Timmy may be able to pick up addition on his own but for calculus he may require some extra help.

I'd argue where that's true, it's real education at its finest for everyone involved. :) Not really. What is learned is often not of much use and too unconnected to help. Children need structured teaching and need to learn in an organized manner. The opposite is how we get programmers who still use gotos and the like. Unlearning bad habits is a lot more work than learning good ones to begin with.

My observation is that this is sometimes true, but not enough to work as a complete generalization. Often it's absolutely true that teachers or schools don't have anything else to do with these kids -- but it seems it's often true that teachers in this position were happy to let kids who'd demonstrated they knew the material work quietly on something else which interested them. There are tons of things you an do with such kids, the whole problem is that even if a teacher wants to they have no idea what to do. Furthermore the school doesn't allow them to do anything outside their own classroom.

And especially at a secondary level, many teachers absolutely will let kids who demonstrate precocious understanding move beyond the typical sequence.. Except that guidance is needed. A lot of subjects do have a proper way of being taught without which learning them is nearly impossible.

I agree there are some people who work like that, and I think you can beat the genuine desire to actually help people out of educators just like you can beat the desire to learn out of kids. But a genuine desire to help out is the reason a lot of educators are there in the first place. And when they no longer have a genuine desire to help students they become administrators and develop a god complex. Guess who I'm referring to as "the school" in my posts. I have gone to magnet schools and I have met exactly two administrators who actually gave a damn. One retired and the other went to work at a private school probably because he couldn't take the ego maniacal moron who replaced the other one anymore.

Exactly. "Developmentally Disabled" is bullshit.

[mrbrown1602]

Its not that these children are legitimately disabled, a lot of them just DON'T WANT TO LEARN. My mom was in the public education for several years, and there was something she always told me, "The politicians don't understand. They just want good test scores, and that means teaching to the lowest common denominator."

The only way to resolve the issue is to take those kids who do not want to learn through conventional education and put them into technical or art programs, so they will at least learn something they enjoy and will be able to use to support themselves.

New slashdot pole

[Anonymous Coward]

"No Child Left Behind" slogan alternates:

The Weakest Link
--I'm Wit' Stupid
Overlord Welcome Wagon
It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
Bong Hits 4Cowboy Neal

True, but it's kdawson

[ChePibe]

C'mon. You didn't expect kdawson to post an article without some sort of dig on Republicans, did you?

My experience with the gifted program was abortive... but pretty funny as well. About two-thirds into my test to enter the gifted program in elementary school I asked what I was being tested for. All I knew at the time was that I had been pulled away from my class which was doing something fun at the time. I was told not to worry about the test, it was just for fun, and to just relax about it - it wouldn't count, and it wouldn't hurt me if I did badly, and I could go as soon as I finished. Let's just say that my effort on the last bit of the test was less than stellar. It turns out I missed being in the gifted program by about 2 points... and I've never had the guts to tell my mother why that was the case since =)

I wonder how much of this I could pin on the "we must make all children feel equally special, so we can't hint that smarter kids are, indeed, smarter" attitude popular in education. Then again, if I had been told what the test was for, I might have become very, very nervous and done poorly as well. Still, I wish I had been told the truth. It would have hurt if I hadn't made the cut for some reason, but it still feels as if I were stuck in a championship football game and told it was simply a game of catch with no consequences.

Re:True, but it's kdawson

[XanC]

Why do people think that the best way to measure somebody's aptitude is by telling him that his performance on a test is meaningless?

I had the same experience with that test in third grade. The only thing I knew about it was that it didn't matter. Fortunately my mom realized why I hadn't made the cut, and was able to convince the powers that be to let me retake it, this time mentioning that it might be nice if I actually did well.

Teachers these days... Erm, I guess that's those days by now. But they're probably still doing this.

Even the term "gifted" is a crock

[SomeJoel]

We can't say the classes are for smart students, they have to be for gifted students. Why is that? Because if some kids were smart, then that would imply that others were stupid (which, as it turns out, is the case). However, calling them gifted mitigates this a bit, because it implies that everyone is inherently the same. Some people are just given "gifts" by some benevolent entity, apparently. It doesn't rule out that everyone else might get these gifts sometime in the future...

Re:Even the term "gifted" is a crock

[DragonWriter]

We can't say the classes are for smart students, they have to be for gifted students. Why is that? Because if some kids were smart, then that would imply that others were stupid (which, as it turns out, is the case).

Well, no.

Its because the classes are for kids that are academically talented compared to those of similar age, precisely like those for those with learning disabilities are for those that are comparatively disabled. Just like learning disabilities, that's not necessarily any kind of durable "smartness" compared to other kids -- sometimes it is, sometimes its a developmental differentiation that evens out or even reverses by the end of childhood (that's true on both ends, IIRC.)

Its probably most accurate to just label the whole bunch "special needs" and then distinguish far more particular special needs than "gifted" or "learning disabled" from there, "gifted" kids are not a homogenous group, and neither are those with learning disabilities.

However, calling them gifted mitigates this a bit, because it implies that everyone is inherently the same. Some people are just given "gifts" by some benevolent entity, apparently. It doesn't rule out that everyone else might get these gifts sometime in the future...

Which is fairly accurate (except for the unnecessary hypothesis of a gift-giving "entity"); people that have superior academic talents during some portion of their school age life don't always manifest them at the same time.

It seems that your main objection to the label is that it implies things which happen to be true.

Back in the days when the grass was greener...

[SamP2]

When I used to go to middle school (grades 6 and 7), our classes were split into three groups, A B and C, based on how well we were doing (A=best, C=worst). There were separate classes based on the group (group A studied together with other group A students and separate from students from the other groups).

There were more than just raw grades that determined what group you were in. Behavioral problems (you are dealing with young kids, remember) were a very big factor, and overall, how willing you were to learn took precedence over your natural talent. That's why you saw good and bad grades even in the A group (where I was in), because many kids who did try hard and therefore were in A group still didn't manage to do well, especially in courses like math.

It also meant that even some group C students got As, based on things like improvements, behavior, etc.

And back then, nobody had a problem with this system. Yes, the grades were mixed (getting an A in group C was nowhere near as hard as getting an A in group A) but the final grades don't really mean anything in middle school, it's more about what you actually learn. The shift and focus was very different. Group A (the students of which were more disciplined and hardworking) actually focused on the academic curriculum, while group C students were working more on social and behavioral issues (which to them, at that point, was more important to learn than just the academics).

And it's not like these were two different schools. Only some academic-based classes (math, English) were separate, while classes like gym or arts, as well as other activities (breaks, field trips) were together, so it did not create a "segregationalist" impression. Most importantly, it provided each group with the study THAT GROUP needed most, the problematic kids got the attention they needed and the rest had a chance to actually learn the subject without having the problematic kids interfere.

P.S. Just because I see this question coming: Yes, most students in group A TENDED to be white and in C there were more minorities, but we still had quite a few minority kids in A, and the race itself was not a factor. (The minorities in group C were there because not because they are the minority, but because they were poorly performing or problematic students who happened to be the minority). Yes, due to social factors and whatnot there tended to be more minority "problem" students compared to the general population, but you know what? Back then the schools were designed to provide an education and teach students a set of skills (whichever skills the students needed the most), instead of playing politics and trying to fix (or pretend to be fixing) social problems that have nothing to do with the school's purpose.

Nowadays, of course, any school board member who THINKS about trying to introduce such a system would be labeled a Nazi racist elitist snobbish evil person who eats children for breakfast...

Re:Back in the days when the grass was greener...

[try_anything]

In my school system, few kids were able to read when they entered kindergarten. Any class-conscious upper-middle-class white parents (my town was devoid of upper-class people) could get their precious babies into honors classes just by teaching their kids to read. Simply performing this basic parental responsibility gave their kids a head start that they coasted on all the way to high school. It wasn't until sophomore and junior year that tough teachers started chasing the stupid upper-middle-class white kids out of Honors classes.

Until that point the Honors classes included some real idiots. I'm talking about literally below average, double-digit-IQ students who were put on the gifted track and stayed there, dragging down the program, merely because they could read Green Eggs and Ham at age six.

Anyway, a three-track system is a tragic sham for kids in the top few percent. You might as well put them in a one-room schoolhouse. From where I was sitting, I couldn't tell the difference between the slower kids in AP Chemistry and the kids in Consumer Math. I thought they were all animals. It wasn't until I was able to spend time around other bright kids and develop social skills in a natural way (instead of struggling to relate to "animals") that I started to get along better with regular people and stopped being such an asshole.

Re:Back in the days when the grass was greener...

[ejito]

Alright, this is gonna fairly anti-climatic:

I've been two 2 different elementary schools in separate districts, and both had similar systems. Group selection was based on academics, not behavior (though they were highly corollary). I'm not that old, either, so I don't get why you think "nowadays" that such a system wouldn't be accepted. My schools were diverse Southern California schools (euro-ams were minorities). This system is also similar for math placements when moving on to junior high (do you end up in remedial math or pre-algebra?).

The real question is, "Do the groups actually work?" My answer? Hell no.

I started in the top groups, which are dependent on teacher recommendations and test scores. I always ended up in the bottom group by the end of the year. I was also placed in a special class for a year, which took half of the day. Special class in this case wasn't for advanced students, but the other kind of special. Yep, I was in a group for the underdeveloped, despite also being accepted into the gifted students program. How that works, I still have no idea.

And so did being in stupid class or the bottom group leave me behind? Yeah, it left me lacking in academic support (which I wouldn't have anyways), though they sure were a lot nicer there (I got rewarded in jelly beans, hell yeah!)

Did being in the A group boost me ahead? No way. (I get to read Lord of the Flies and do multiplication early, imma be a genius! Or not). "A" group all the way through elementary is always half a step ahead. This is a linear progression -- the same linear progression you'd have if you were in a hypothetical F group (always half a step behind). You're not moving any faster.

This has little to do with the TFA. The kids in the TFA are years ahead of their peers. Unless we we're doing calculus before our 10th birthday, I don't think this shit applies to us. So, now back to your regularly scheduled arguments.

No Child Left Standing

[mazanoid]

Is what the educators in North Carolina refer to it as. The whole no child left standing was modeled on north carolina's end of grade tests. At the time it was instituted, north carolina was #49/50 ranked in the nation for public education. After the no child left standing came into play, I think we're #48? or maybe I got them backwards. Anyways, No Child Left standing was based on a patently flawed model, just like NAFTA. Gee, Everytime we plant a bush we come a bit closer to hedging out the sun.

Back to the topic. Because of the intense (and by intense, I seriously mean INTENSE) pressure to produce scores, virtually any school system in any state with a NCLS/NCLB act in place (I think 39 states have adopted this now) forces the teachers to dedicate all of there energy getting the bottom 20% to pass. You don't have to worry substantially about the kid with 150 IQ failing a "If a well stores 10 gallons of water, and I draw out 7, how many gallons are left" (Okay, they're marginally harder than this) test built around the 9-12th grades.

Anyways, the really smart kids who got screwed by the vanishing Academically Gifted programs know to enroll their kids in magnet schools or homeschool.

Easy nuff.

There must be constant challenge

[MalleusEBHC]

Although I'm not close to the level of the kids in the article, I was always in the advanced classes throughout my K-12 days. For example, I was three years ahead in math. Even being so advanced, I always had a very easy time, and I got excellent grades. And this was all at very good schools in the Bay Area, where I had plenty of classmates who went to Cal, Stanford, Ivy Leagues, etc.

But then it all changed when I got to college.

I went off to college, and I got my ass kicked. Royally. This was a concept that was totally foreign to me. I wasn't prepared to learn stuff that didn't come to me instantly. I had no work ethic. I ended up flunking multiple classes my first semester freshman year. While I had the intelligence to succeed in college, years of skating through classes had lowered my expectations and made me overconfident. I ended up graduating just fine and I've got a nice job, but throughout my time in college I didn't come close to my potential because I had gotten so accustomed to taking the easy way out.

Looking back on it, there came a point when I was no longer challenged in middle school and high school. As soon as I hit the farthest that the school would advance me, I stagnated. The problem was that I was always judge against my age group peers. If you're three years ahead and still at the top of the class, most people think that it's a great job. But it's not. You can learn a hell of a lot, both academically and socially, by being pushed beyond your comfort zone. Without a constant challenge, there is much less incentive to keep pushing yourself. Regardless of intelligence level, be it special ed to gifted, our focus on education needs to be identifying and providing difficult but attainable goals for all students. Having one standard for everyone is inevitably going to fail people at one or both ends of the curve.

Re:There must be constant challenge

[Shados]

I hear that a lot. It actually happened to my girlfriend (yes, I have one!), even with me warning her about it (since I had finished college before she started, being a few years apart and all).

The thing is, how much you know, or how skilled you are, is completly insignificant in life. I use daily less than 1% of what I've learned between 7th grade and the end of college, even though I'm working in exactly the field I studied for. The world changes, things change.

The only thing that really matters, is how good one is at learning, at self control (thats a big deal that all of the kids that say they are bored in school and thus have behavior problems should realise), at dealing with things. In all my years after elementary I was a top of the class, didn't do anything, didn't need to study, nothing. But I quickly realised that that was never the point. I could see that what I was learning was meaningless. So I gave myself my own challenges. Didn't use the books and tried to figure out equations on my own, did tests without calculators even if they were designed to be, tried to figure out ways to apply what I was "learning" to my own problems.

By the time I hit college, I -knew- things wouldn't be different, and I had looked ahead at what it would be like, so from the get go I was ready. I actually ended up with -much- higher grades there (went from "usualy first or second of class" to "first of the program, consistantly"), simply because I had taught myself how to "learn", as opposed to teaching myself "what I needed to get good grades". Thats something that no teacher can teach you, and its a lesson that I was simply told by people who knew better, and that I kept at heart.

Patience, disciple and self control and organisational skills are quite a bit more useful than all the algebra in the world. I don't remember anything I learned in school (as can be seen by my sub par writing skill, though to be fair, english isn't my first language by a long shot), but if I ever got in a situation where I'd need any of those skills back, or new skills, I could take them back up in minutes. Even in schools when everything is too easy, you can still "learn" that if you try. Being pushed will just make you learn more stuff, but it might not necessarly give you those skills. In real life, if you've been prepared well academically and in various trainings, you WILL find yourself in "wavy" situations (where things look too easy, and quickly change), far more often than you'll simply be pushed to your limit...

At least thats how I see things, and its been working both in school, college, and in the real world for decades :)

Re:There must be constant challenge

[mako1138]

I also skated through high school and ended up skating through college. While I didn't fail any classes, I never developed the work ethic to get those 'A's. Now I want to go to grad school, but it looks difficult to get into a top-tier program with average grades.

Did you end up developing a good work ethic?

One of the things

[Bullfish]

That contributes to this is the growing demonization of the gifted, and in fact anyone who doesn't fit the mould that the educational system has decided is the "norm". Poor funding of public education has lead to a dumbing down of schools and weaker curricula by necessity. I have watched as my kids have brought home work sheets riddled with errors and passing grades given to those who plainly need more instruction. As for the common cry of who will pay for it? We all will, in about 20 years.

Ditto, the everyone is a winner train of thought.

If you accept the status quo, I would say quit bitchin' when an immigrant takes your job or seat at university. Don't even get me started on the media's portayal of smart people and the message it sends.

Harrison Bergeron

[justfred]

Someone should report this to the Handicapper General.

Re:Harrison Bergeron

[belg4mit]

I was wondering if someone would bring this up.

P.S. Fix the fucking pagination in nested view already!!!!

Re:Harrison Bergeron

[Anonymous Coward]

This may be beyond fair usage but all I can add Harrison Bergeron for those who never met him.

Yes, it does.

[os_evaluator]

I've come to the US in fourth grade from Hungary. Somehow something happened and I was extremely ahead of everyone else in the US schools. They were learning how to multiply in the first quarter, and how to do long devision in the second quarter. In Hungary we've learned basic skills like that in second grade. There was a group of kids that were considered "gifted and talented", and they all went to one teacher instead of their usual English/Math/Science teachers, where they learned everything one year ahead of everyone else. When I found out about such a class I begged to be in it, but wasn't allowed because I was still in ESL (English as a Second Language) classes. And they really think that kids that came from these third world countries are complete idiots so they didn't really care. Somehow at the end of fifth grade they transfered me to there GT classes. When the time for middle school came around I had to move to a different district, and was once again put into the regular classes. I also didn't know that there were "gifted courses" in this new school, because they called them TAG (Talented and Gifted). Finally in seventh grade I found out about this program and begged to be placed into it. My math teacher must've seen something in me and recommended me and another kid (from a "third world country" as well), and we took the test. I think the administrators thought that I cheated or something like that, because they had me retake is a couple of times. When 8th grade started and I received my schedual for the year I marched into my "TAG" classes with pride. Only to find out that in math we were learning Algebra 1 (which in Hungary I've already learned in 3rd grade), the Science class only differed from the regular one by requiring the "gifted" students to do a science fair, and the History class followed the exactly same ciricilum except we were given half hour lectures about leadership and current events. Bummer. So in the end I think the whole system should be changed, because right now the gifted students are the ones that actually want to learn and do something with their future and the kids in the regular classes are just their because they have to be. And then there are kids like I was, that because their English was bad at the time, they were categorized as complete morons. This is just my point of view, and a little history about what happened and still happens to kids like me right now all over the US.

Been there, done that

[spaceyhackerlady]

I was recognized as bright very early on, but in a small town in the 1970s, there was little they could do about it. I skipped a couple of grades, which helped, but also had me a couple of years younger than my classmates. At an age when a year or two makes a big difference.

About all they could offer was tutoring other students; if that's all that's on offer, I'd rather be dumb. I remained bored stiff until about 3rd year university. In my last couple of years of high school I had the run of the school library, labs and stuff, and the teachers did everything they could to cut me some slack on attendance if I was doing something interesting, more interesting than what they were going to teach.

I'm now Auntie Laura several times over, and, sadly, the education system is failing my two very bright nieces exactly the same way it failed me. I hope it doesn't damage them too badly before they can get to university and maybe do something a little more interesting.

...laura

Well there's other ways to look at it

[Sycraft-fu]

I mean we could decide that we only really care about people who are smart. Say ok if you are above the 50th percentile, we aren't wasting any money teaching you, get out of school and of the money we spend, half of it is going to go to students above 95th percentile. That would do a good job of spending money on the smartest (by standard testing reckoning at any rate) students. However it might be a bit unfair.

Another way to consider it is that smart people do a better job learning on their own. They'll get more out of what it taught and be more willing and able to do learning on their own. As such they don't need as much focused towards them, they'll do fine anyhow. However those that are as good, those that do have mental handicaps, need as much help as they can get. Thus you spend more money on things that can benefit everyone and things that directly benefit those with learning problems.

It's a nice thought that you throw tons of money at the really smart kids, but you have to appreciate that the money has to come from somewhere.

Re:Well there's other ways to look at it

[UncleFluffy]

It's a nice thought that you throw tons of money at the really smart kids, but you have to appreciate that the money has to come from somewhere.

From businesses started by the previous generation's smart kids, by any chance? There's a society-wide return-on-investment issue that also has to be considered. The more you invest in this generation's smart kids, the more money will be available for the next generation's education.

Yes

[Noishe]

It's been said lots of times already on here, it should be said many thousands more.

Yes

It's true and deliberate

[Anonymous Coward]

Democrats want public schools to be that way, in order to accomplish their goal of equality of result. That is, all pupils end up with the same level of education no matter what their intelligence or learning capability was going in. They certainly do not want the result to be adults who will cast a critical eye at their promises of a world in which everything is free if only the government could run it. They also benefit from the late teenagers and 20-somethings who flirt with radical leftism in the hope that it will establish an intellectual-elite autocracy.

Republicans want public schools to be that way, because pissed-off intellectual victims of the public school system, after the above-mentioned youthful flirtation with radical leftism, become die-hard neo-conservatives in spite of their dislike for the religious nutcases on the Right. Intellectuals are generally not allowed any actual power (the current neo-conservative domination of the Bush administration being a one-time exception that will never happen again), but they are occasionally useful to write speeches or commit dirty tricks.

Last but not least, intellectuals are feared and hated by everybody else. The sooner an intellectual child is rendered harmless, the better. It doesn't matter it it is being browbeaten into submission, retreat into drugs and/or alcohol, suicide, or rage-created mental illness -- whatever works to eliminate the threat. Both major US parties agree on this point.

The logic is the same with the poor/rich

[mi]

The poor get government help, the rich don't (or aren't supposed to).

"All men are created equal," — and if they aren't, we'll try to equalize them. This is not neccessarily bad — if all you do is helping the disadvantaged. But when you start hurting the successfull — such as by excessive taxation or, indeed, neglecting the gifted kids, there could, indeed, be a problem there.

You can't make everyone equally rich, but if you try — and (dare I risk a "flaimbait" raiting) KDawson's buddies at PeriodKos can be seen trying — you can make everyone equally poor.

Those same people never liked the "No Child Left Behind" — the only plausible reasons for the dislike are a) it was introduced by the nemesis-court-appointed-dictator (long before he also became the war-monger-torturer, BTW); b) it made teachers accountable. Funny how they now accuse it of the failings, that their own proposals in other areas of life usually involve.

But no, I don't think the fears are justified in the realms of education. Because although you can make someone poor by taxing them out of business, you can not make someone stupid by not spending enough money on them. Or can you? It is not like these (smart) kids are getting totally deprived of education, the competition for good colleges remains very high...

Self-esteem

[cdrguru]

The real issue that has come out is do we let the ego of lessor students be affected by publicly showing that there are other students better than they are?

If this is allowed to happen, these children of lessor capabilities will feel badly about themselves. This is bad, so it should not be allowed to happen.

This is then carried forward to the extent that no child should be made to feel less than any other child. Therefore if one student is given an award, they must all be given awards. If one child gets an A, all students must get an A so as not to single anyone out.

This is where we are today. Do you like it?

The public education system failed me

[v3xt0r]

Instead of challenging my brain, they left me bored, which led to me being 'disruptive' in class (like the class clown type), which led to me being labeled with 'behavioral problems', which led to me simply being suspended/expelled everyday (practically), rather than educated properly.

I eventually found an 'alternative education' program at my high school, which was almost like a 'continuation' school, but allowed kids to get an actual diploma. The teachers in that program worked individually with students, in classes of no more than 10 students, which allowed each student to receive the attention they required. Most of the curriculum was geared towards individual-level, rather than group-level, and that proved to be VERY affective, albeit required more effort on the part of the teacher *god forbid*.

There are so many problems with the public education system, it's almost beyond repair at this point. I'd rather educate my children myself, via online-learning, at this point. The anti-social aspect of it, is about the only downside that I can see, if any. Not that I have children, though, yet.

Re:The public education system failed me

[dapho]

Neh, same to me. I'm going off to college now, though. I'm damn glad I don't have to deal with high school anymore.

Re:The public education system failed me

[Russ Nelson]

Same for me, but they skipped me ahead. I was in 2nd grade and 3rd grade in the same year. I wasn't bored anymore, I was just smaller and smarter -- not a good combination.

/agree

[Anonymous Coward]

We have a case in our local school district here in California where we have a Special Ed student who by law (aka lawyer)we had to pay for his tuition to go to a school in Texas because his lawyer said we didn't have the facilities here to educate the student. Not only that but we have to foot the bill to fly his mother out once a month round trip to see her child. I have no idea where the logic is in that but by law we have to do it, its already bad enough that we don't get extra money from the state to make up for the extra money we have to put out for having a one on one aid for children in our own school. Its easy to see why school districts say they never have money to take the mold out rooms.

URLs

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're going to troll, you need to fix them URLs.

Nice in theory

[Etherwalk]

Bad in practice.

(Just a few cents here; I'm a little sleep-deprived, take with a grain of salt.)

The fairly intelligent kids may not need as much help, but the geniuses and even just the top 1 or 2% certainly do. Among the smartest kids I've known, the social IQs have certainly not always been up there. They tend to be overmedicated, not challenged enough, and excluded from certain social events. Almost everyone has ridiculous amounts of mind-numbingly boring work in primary and secondary school, but multiply that by ten or a hundred for these kids--the work isn't just easy for them, it's trivial. ADD kids aren't lazy--they're more often just gifted (or passibly intelligent) students stuck in a classroom that's taught at least three or four grade levels below what they're capable of learning.

"get out of my way" is a huge thing, I'll grant you--but you still want the smart kids to learn, and at a rate they can learn, and stuff that's useful to them.

We're all paying for the public schools. They should be able to have programs for all of our children. Sometimes the bright kids can just read in the back of the class for the two weeks it takes a class to get through a simple chemical equation... but I know a lot of bright kids who came out of their high schools much, much, much more socially immature than the average bear.

Though to be fair, I'd like to see a bunch of statistics before I designed policy one way or the other. Suicide rates, career in ten years, graduation rate, college graduation rate, personality type results... a lot of data. But without that, I want tiered classes. Though I also want someone to be able to take any level of class they want--an ungifted kid might go into the gifted class, but it would be his responsibility to keep on top of the work.

Oh, and while I'm here (since I prolly won't comment elsewhere in this thread,) I think No Child Left Behind gets a bad political rep. It hasn't worked the way everyone hoped it would work--we all know that. But we lose sight of the fact that we knew that we were failing, and we knew we needed to try something new. It was the right to try something, even though it turned out to be the wrong thing, and we shouldn't condemn the people who tried to do it because it didn't work out. We should fix it, or try something else.

Re:Nice in theory

[seebs]

Speaking as a mildly autistic genius... It was the disability, not the smarts, that I needed help with. If I could have read facial expressions as a kid, I'd probably have been fine.

Re:Nice in theory

[sqrt(2)]

I don't condemn them for trying the NCLB act and failing. Trial and error is a part of any complex process like this, I understand that. I condemn them for standing there, watching it fail and refusing to change course or even admit they could have been wrong. Our political culture has made it out that saying you were wrong is a sign of weakness, when in reality it's one of the genius traits that allows you to be nimble in your policies and adapt (like that theory they don't believe in) to the changing reality and find the best solution. Sticking with what obviously doesn't work is more harmful than trying repeatedly and failing. With the latter at least you're crossing off ways that don't work. The current method shows us NOTHING and gets us NOWHERE.

Re:Nice in theory

[Anonymous Coward]

So certain adults can go and make an entire generation guinnea pigs, because of a possibility that the new method may possibly be slightly better than the original method, ignoring the risk of damaging that generation and cause indirect damage to the generations directly after that. It's still not a good idea for anything comparable to the NCLB act to ever be made again. Scientists can do wonderful things now, but it's still a mystery how they end up at that high level of understanding.

Been through no child gets ahead

[cdn-programmer]

I went to a backwater country school in Saskatchewan. My high school math and science marks were good - never a mark much below 95. I was a victim of the "no child gets ahead" system.

You see - the teacher - the principal was "accredited" so he set his own exams. This meant he was able to spread the grad 11 chem over 2 years and ditto with the grade 11 physics. In fact he finished less than 1/2 of the grade 11 chem by the end of grade 12 and about 2/3 of the grade 11 physics. Even at this snail pace the courses were watered down. His justification was that a good student could easily catch up in high school.

After that bullshit and the additional bullshit that the math curriculum simply repeated grade 9 and 10 math in 11 and 12 - I had no study skills at all. My career ambitions were dashed. I wanted to do nuclear engineering physics. I was taught so little that having graduated with glorious marks and having won the Mathematics olympiad in the province - I didn't even know how to find the engineering faculty. So I took pure math instead.

One of the things that really pissed me off what that there wasn't even a set of encyclopedias suitable for high school students. The best they had was world book and that was targeted for junior high.

Being in that school was like being in prison. I was frequently attacked by other students. Thankfully the worst ended up out of the system in around grade 10. I had no real friends. It took me years to discover while in uni that many of the people there actually liked me as a person and weren't constantly attacking me. In fact when one chap said I reminded him of Orson Wells I thought he was insulting me. Months later I found out he was in honors drama and Orson Wells was his hero!

Academically? Uggghhh! It was horrible. It was like watching childrens' cartoons day in and day out.

I have to say I still carry scars from this even though its been several decades.

This article is like waving a red flag at a bull

[Infonaut]

Let's see what we have here:

1. An article that talks about how geniuses are getting screwed by the American school system
2. Thousands and thousands of Slashdotters who feel they (being geeks/geniuses/math club presidents) have been singled out for abuse by said system

Anyone want to guess what the gestalt reaction will be?

Personally I think the US education system has done a spectacular job of leaving everyone behind, not just the smartest. It's an equal opportunity failure. But who has the most opportunity to get by in life despite of a weak education system?

H-E-N-R-Y (Ford) the Eighth

[overshoot]

I think you mean it wouldn't be possible to do cost-effectively.

Cost-effectiveness doesn't enter into it. The process doesn't even get within ICBM range of cost-efficiency calculations, because the organizational DNA of public schools is based on production-line methods. Production lines work only by using uniform methods to process uniform uniform materials into uniform products, and "individual variation" is outside of the paradigm. Anything too far "out of spec" is defective, and at best is routed to a scrap recovery process ("special education.")

Someday we might get to the point of asking about cost-effective methods of education, but to even ask the question a huge number of other reforms will have to happen first.

Re:H-E-N-R-Y (Ford) the Eighth

[try_anything]

the organizational DNA of public schools is based on production-line methods. Production lines work only by using uniform methods to process uniform uniform materials into uniform products, and "individual variation" is outside of the paradigm.

You have a point, but attitudes are not the problem. Educators are very well indoctrinated into the philosophy you are promoting, which is on the whole a good thing, though it inspires its share of stupidity (as any philosophy does.) Individual variation is routinely rewarded in the form of honor rolls, academic recognition, contests, organized displays of student art and music, and so forth.

What is missing is that we don't know of other organizational structures that would provide better individual instruction at current staffing levels. Reform would be pointless unless it involves more spending, because we have little idea how to do better on current money. What we need is either more money or more research. Innovations need to be fostered on a small scale, verified on a larger scale, and then standardized nationally. Instead, we get faddishness and obsession with "hero" teachers who do great work but can't communicate anything to other teachers except inspirational slogans.

Less-simplistic metrics might help as well. Percentage-past-a-threshold metrics do tend to result in production-line thinking.

Re:H-E-N-R-Y (Ford) the Eighth

[try_anything]

To clarify, by "don't know of" I mean "haven't demonstrated repeatably in practice." The internet has obviously opened up a lot of possibilities that haven't been explored yet. Developments along these lines will be tentative and exploratory, with many outright failures. Since we don't systematically validate and disseminate new educational ideas, those developments will have to spread around the educational community through the standard mode of rumor, superstition, fads, and miracle cures, further slowing things down. If we set our hearts on "reform," the "reform" we would get in most instances would just be the institutionalization of whatever the fad du jour is, which is even worse than letting things limp along as they are.

I'm one of the many

[DTemp]

Not that I'm a genius, but I did have above average math skills. My 9th grade math teacher wanted to tutor me over the summer before 10th grade. She would even do it for free. But my school refused to let her, on the basis that she wasn't tutoring all of the other kids for free.

Something so nice and innocent, and potentially helpful, squashed by the school district. Remember, it wouldnt of cost them a thing.

This is nothing new, and is a sore spot for me...

[cplusplus]

It's not anything new (meaning that it's not just No Child Left Behind). In 4th grade I was all but held back from where I should have been placed. I was about two years ahead in most subjects by third grade, and ended up spending much of the next school year idle reading books of my choosing and doing trivial math. The school encouraged my 4th grade teacher to do this (I ran in to her years later after college and brought up the topic). 4th grade ended up being a very hard year for me as a kid because I was so frustrated and bored. I wish my parents had approached the school board or done something more proactive, but they never did. The didn't make the same mistake for my younger sister. I think I ended up in a nice position in life, though, all things considered.

it means we go nowhere

[josepha48]

.. no seriously.. somehow we can't seem to educate people these days, so we all get left behind, but since we are all behind, it doesn't look so bad. It should be called, all children left behind.

Hehehe

[JamesRose]

I reserve judgement untill I get my GCSE results next week....

then I'll mock the dumb kids....

or laugh at the nerdy loosers....

Special needs != Stupid

[netsavior]

Don't forget that historically many people who went on to be geniuses were considered retarded or in modern terms developmentally disabled... like Einstein, for example. Many extremly technically gifted people are categorized as being Autistic, which often comes with high intellegence, with low social skills... And autism is one of the biggest cost initiatives in the no child left behind campaign. Special needs != Stupid High performing student != gifted/genius No child left behind just makes it more painfully obvious that the school system is only a very expensive, very useless state mandated babysitting service. Real learning happens when people are left to persue subjects they are passionate about. I can't believe people still think that a genius will be somehow less valuable and less effective with less school resources. In fact, I would be willing to say that the less the "education" process gets in the way of learning, the better.

The Money

[eepok]

The statistic stating that "up to ten times as much money is spent nationwide on educating 'developmentally disabled' students as gifted ones" has no bearing on whether or not gifted students are getting their due and appropriate education. The simple fact of the matter is that special education requires MANY MANY more resources than a class specialized in advanced education. I work at university sponsored school for students with ADD, ADHD, and Asperger's kids and I can personally attest to the amount of money that needs to make sure these students grow up to become normal functioning members of our society. Psychologists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, specially trained teachers -- almost all of which have their PH.Ds. It's no surprise it costs more. As others are stating, the failing more frequently comes from poor school districts that aren't able to afford the advanced courses (or the better-skilled teachers to teach them). Or, more pervasive, the American love of idiocy and stupidity. I believe the best way to change it around and start helping our gifted students would be to publicly award smart people on TV instead of athletes and actresses.

Re:The Money

[xenocide2]

university sponsored school for students with ADD, ADHD, and Asperger's kids and I can personally attest to the amount of money that needs to make sure these students grow up to become normal functioning members of our society. And:

Psychologists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, specially trained teachers -- almost all of which have their PH.Ds. It's no surprise it costs more. Hint: these two are probably highly related...

Re:The Money

[DigiShaman]

I believe the best way to change it around and start helping our gifted students would be to publicly award smart people on TV instead of athletes and actresses.

Not going to happen.

Human beings are still animals tied very much to sexuality. We (humanity) gravitate towards athletes and slim-n-busty actresses because they represent sexual vigor, fertility, and good genetic makeup.

The only way Nerds/Geeks will get mass attention is if they too become physically active and show off a nice six-pack. But first, most of you need to drop the DingDongs and Mt Dew!

Re:The Money

[Eli Gottlieb]

I work at university sponsored school for students with ADD, ADHD, and Asperger's kids and I can personally attest to the amount of money that needs to make sure these students grow up to become normal functioning members of our society. Thank you for identifying the three most likely groups of kids to be "special needs" and gifted at the same time.

Re:The Money

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the best way to change it around and start helping our gifted students would be to publicly award smart people on TV instead of athletes and actresses.

Absolutely. The day drugged and drunken rich-kids are replaced by educated and intelligent celebrities, you'll see a dramatic change in society (don't hold your breath). However I have to say, I disagree w/ your assesment. Why isn't as much money being spent on training the gifted, as is spent on training the not-so-gifted (and to be fair, lets break it down to per-capita/per-head). Lets take that 10-1 ratio being thrown around....

So Johnny-not-too-bright gets 100-dollars on school supplies spent towards their education. That's a box of crayons, bunch of coloring books, craft materials, textbooks, maybe even a field trip to a factory or something (lets face it, Johnny would be wise to join a trade union upon graduation, so you might as well introduce him to it early).

By that 10-1 ratio, Jimmy gets 10-bucks. The box of crayons and the coloring book?

Just how in the hell is a hyper-functioning brain supposed to feed itself on one tenth what the not-so-good brain gets? I don't disagree that 'slow' kids grow up w/ more skills and in a better position when this level of 'support' is afforded them (which I think was your point?). What I'm frustrated by, is how much better could the gifted student be, had they an equal level of support? Why is it he resources of the masses are being dispropritionately directed to those below the curve, while those above it, don't get their fair share? Does it take XX-dollars to properly educate a slow-student? YES! So why don't we spend an equal amount educating our bright one's? Why do they get one tenth what the retards do? Why should they suffer?

I'm not saying we shouldn't spend gobs of money making the below-the-curve kids functional members of society. Things would be much worse off if we just let them go by the way-side, I do not disagree with that at all. What I'm frustrated by, is the fact that we as a society over-extend ourselves to afford every opportunity possible to "disadvantaged groups", at the expense of EVERYONE else! If you're 30-points below the IQ curve, you get mountains of funding. 30-Points above the curve? Here's a pin. "Maybe you'll be Valedictorian?"

WTF is up w/ that?

If the criteria for increased student funding is 2 SD's below the curve, why isn't the same funding supplied to those at 2 SD's above? Aren't they 'equally disadvantaged' when compared to 'average'? How improved could some poor geek's social skills be, if they got to talk to a shrink an hour a week as part of their school ciriculum? Christ, maybe the kid could get laid before Prom.... No, lets take the one who's parents abused drugs during pregnancy, and make them a better factory worker. That's EXACTLY what this country needs to compete in the next century.

Levels

[SniperClops]

I don't know about the US educational system, but here in Ontario Canada we have 4 levels in highschool which are basic, general, advanced, and enriched. Gifted students take advanced and enriched courses, while "slower" students take basic and general courses. It aims to ensure everyone is where they should be. It works pretty well.

of course not

[mrcharliebrown]

Does No Child Left Behind mean that nobody can get ahead, either? No.

You were fine until you were quick to assign blame

[Anonymous Coward]

> A lot of it probably has its roots with Christianity. The Devil is smart, remember?

Yet God's first creation was supposed to be wisdom if you read the Proverbs (insert obligatory snarky c.f. Genesis 1:1 comment here).

Anyhow, even the atheist side shares blame here: how many are treated as if you cannot be both smart and religious at the same time? "No need to develop my intelligence, they'll treat me like I just fell off the turnip truck, anyhow."

Class averaging

[AgentPaper]

I was tagged "gifted" as a child because my mother taught me how to read long, long before I hit the school doors. On the kindergarten entry exams, I scored a Grade 12+ reading comprehension level. My mother wanted me in private education right off the bat, but my father talked her out of it because the area in which we lived had a very reputable public school district. Turns out the district only did a good job on the jocks and the C students. Their response to students like me was to - wait for it - put us in the special education program. I don't know if they thought intelligence was contagious or if they figured they'd just average us out, but suffice to say that they wound up with ten very bored smart kids, thirty perpetually tormented handicapped kids and two classrooms full of trouble.

It also didn't help matters that my Grade 1 teacher used the two or three gifteds she had in her classroom as teacher's aides while she snuck off to make phone calls or gossip with the other staff. The day my mother found out about that (in a parent-teacher conference, no less - the teacher was bragging about the fact that she could leave me in charge of twenty first-graders baying for smart-kid blood), she pulled my ass out of the classroom and sent me to a Catholic school. I never looked back.

Now at age 25, I can say that if I'd remained in the public system, I either would have turned into a stoner or pulled an expulsion-worthy prank by age 16. It's tough enough being a geek and fighting against everyone your own age without having to fight ignorant adults as well.

The needs of the many...

[dapho]

Outweigh the needs of the few. Or, at least, that's how they see it. Unfortunately nobody seems to have the ability to see what the few could have done for the many if they had been treated properly in the beginning.

Follow the wisdom of Mark Twain

[JoeCommodore]

If you really want to exceed follow this bit of wisdom from Mark Twain:

"I never let schooling get in the way of my education."

Schools are NOT the beginning and end of our education unless we choose to believe it (unfortunately many of us do nowadays.) Fortunately if you have a gifted person and just give them the opportunity to learn and explore and show them where resources are and how to use them (Library, searching Google, etc.) they will go running with their education themselves.

For many of us those opportunities were the home computers of the 80s and bunch of programming books and type-in game articles.

Re:Follow the wisdom of Mark Twain

[evilviper]

Schools are NOT the beginning and end of our education unless we choose to believe it (unfortunately many of us do nowadays.) Fortunately if you have a gifted person and just give them the opportunity to learn and explore and show them where resources are and how to use them (Library, searching Google, etc.) they will go running with their education themselves.

Very true, but you've completely missed the important part...

School is MANDATORY, no matter how smart or stupid you are. For those who learn (far) more on their own, 6+ hours of school per day for 12+ years is a huge waste of their life, that could be better spent. Not to mention the astronomical waste of money when it's not accomplishing much.

Re:Follow the wisdom of Mark Twain

[JoeCommodore]

To me I see and I saw school as an opportunity. Part of school is to get you ready to function in society, to learn the history, culture, language, and laws of where you live. Also that there are things you must do in our society: follow traffic laws, pay your bills, earn a living, speak correctly, use grammar, build social skills, etc.

School directly and indirectly expose you to many different things that your family or friends may not know or understand, for me that was Computers, for others, may be art, literacy, metal working, carpentry, biology, calculus, etc. Many of us don't really know what we 'want to be when we grow up' or know what things our brains and our bodies are good at until we experience them.

For all the bad press school gets (sometimes rightly so) there are more things school helps us with to make the rest of our lives more worthwhile.

Re:Follow the wisdom of Mark Twain

[dapho]

True. eBooks > school :)

There's a reason for that

[vell0cet]

"For example, up to ten times as much money is spent nationwide on educating 'developmentally disabled' students as gifted ones." "Developmentally disabled" students outnumber "gifted" ones ten to 1... maybe more.

Re:There's a reason for that

[geminidomino]

Isn't 'developmentally disabled' defined as being below a certain IQ range?

And IQs are normalized into a gaussian distribution...

Something isn't tracking here...

To flesh that out some

[homey of my owney]

What the educational system at large now represents, is a dumbing down to the least common denominator so that nobody feels bad.

No child should be left behind, and certainly school can be challenging for some. But by instituting a tenet that "There are no losers" so let's give everyone an award - we're raising a generation that thinks mediocrity is ok. It's not ok, and the failure to nurture gifted children is ensuring our future demise.

What ever happened to respecting and cherishing differences? ... like "This child is bright, this one... not so much"

Re:To flesh that out some

[brian.gunderson]

Are you more concerned with ./ metadata than the content itself? He made a good point.

Re:To flesh that out some

[smittyoneeach]

No, the proper quote here is from Caddyshack:
Judge Smails: Well, the world needs ditch diggers, too.

Re:To flesh that out some

[yurnotsoeviltwin]

I absolutely agree. I went to a math and science charter school aimed at gifted students (our average SAT was by far the best in the state, and we were up in the top ten nationally in a lot of academic competitions), and the school district that we were affiliated with absolutely HATED giving us money. In fact, the governor even hated us until she realized she could make herself look better by including Charter schools as public schools in statistics, giving the state's average SAT a ten point boost (from a school of less than 1000 students). The claims made against us were that we were "stealing" all the good students from the public schools, meaning, apparently, that students are not in school to learn, but they are in school to make their schools look better. If the public schools could have given us as good an education, Charter wouldn't exist.

Re:To flesh that out some

[netsavior]

Aparently last time we raised a generation that mistakenly thinks school is important.
School is only important to the mediocre.

The truely notable, exceptional people will be bored no matter what you put in front of them. School is a waste of time for everyone but those who would be left behind without this program. Nothing worthwile (acedemically) happens before college anyway, and even then real learning doesn't really start untill you break free of "those who can't do" and start getting some real world experience. And by then those that would be left behind are long gone.

Re:To flesh that out some

[Maniac-X]

Agreed. After grade school I attended private school as well, because the quality of education at public schools became suddenly a lot more obviously about making the school look adequate, rather than educating the students. Curriculum in the public school was specifically designed to make passing the state's standardized test the number one priority. Fortunately, that particular test was optional for private schools.

Re:To flesh that out some

[iamhassi]

"dumbing down to the least common denominator so that nobody feels bad."

What are you talking about?!? I've spent $16,000 and countless hours (~20 hrs a week, it's hurting my social life!) in the past year trying to teach my pet rock how to beg and shake hands. That's money well spent! Already it's learned how to roll-over with a little nudge.

Re:To flesh that out some

[DeadChobi]

You've got it wrong. The truly notable will make the best out of any situation they're in. Even school. The mediocre will be bored by every situation they're in. Why not take the time to find out why your teachers got into teaching in the first place? Do it. Ask them. Don't just brush this off by saying that they couldn't do anything else, because you would be wrong about most of them.

Re:To flesh that out some

[iamhassi]

"exceptional people will be bored no matter what you put in front of them."

Not to boast any but I was in grade school in the 80s and I would finish classroom assignments much faster than all of my peers. After helping all the students immediately around me understand and complete their assignments I would get out of my seat and help other students.

Teachers labeled me hyperactive and moved my seat into the corner and used tape to create a box around my seat, telling me I'd be punished if I left the box. Later I was put on Ritalin, which was brand new in the 80s. That helped, but I wish instead of medicating me I would have been allowed see how far I could have gone.

Re:To flesh that out some

[Mattintosh]

No, the smart ones are always bored with school. They make their own education. Unfortunately, the schools aren't allowing that, much less encouraging it.

Mediocre people lap up the "education" they get from school without concern for their own welfare. They learn what the book or teacher tells them to learn. They don't teach themselves to think. They do so at their own peril.

The real world will place you into a special hell called "middle management" if you're mediocre. The smart ones just burn in slavery or, if they're really smart, reach escape velocity and start their own business.

Re:To flesh that out some

[kencurry]

gee, you're right.

That's why I was so highly regarded in public school, and I breezed right through college.

Sincerely,

Albert Einstein

Re:To flesh that out some

[adamruck]

What most people don't understand is that all of the following are true:

a) Crappy brain + gifted drive = mediocre career
b) Mediocre brain + mediocre drive = mediocre career
c) Gifted brain + crappy drive = mediocre career

Being "gifted" doesn't mean shit without a lot of other good attributes. Even if you have a gifted brains AND drive, if you have really crappy anger management, your still screwed. Schooling is only 1 part of a much much much larger equation.

I would suggest visiting this page to see what some famous people have said about the subject.

http://creatingminds.org/quotes/effort.htm

Re:To flesh that out some

[netsavior]

I am long out of school. I got great grades, I learned how to manipulate teachers who only want to feel like they are making a difference in the world, no matter how untrue it is, if you make them believe it you will succeed in school. Please do not dismiss my dislike for all things acedemic for some sort of bitterness because of failure. I was highly successful at manipulating that marvelous machine. I can tell you that AP classes in high school and advanced courses in college are significantly easier than lower level ones. Now that I have had a few years to detox from being forced to "learn" I can finally understand what it is to actually learn and to like doing it.

I understand that they have grand dreams of discovering/moulding the next shakespeare or Einstein, but the truth is useful genius is not acedemic. Shakespeare didn't write plays because his teacher asked/told him to. Einstein didn't study physics because he needed the credit hours. They did those important things because they NEEDED to. No lack of school funding, or increased funding or even a zealous or uncaring teacher would have changed their lives in any way.

You can't MAKE anyone do anything, and that is why the fundamental concept of "education" is flawed. A system designed to 'teach' will always be less effective than one that allows people to learn. Learning is acquiring knowledge and the ability to apply it, sure if there is always some "teach" on tap then you will occasionally take some in and do some learning. But teaching is a side-effect of learning, not the other way around.

If you are trying to drink out of a bucket of water with a straw, and somebody takes the bucket and dumps it on your head, sure you will probably get some water in your mouth, but allowing the student to drink at their own pace would me much more effective, no matter how thirsty the person was or how big their straw is.

Untill you are at a point in your life where you are free to learn, without being actively taught; you aren't learning to your fullest ability, you are at best learning to the fullest ability of your teacher, or they are a distraction to your actual learning.

Re:To flesh that out some

[DeadChobi]

Umm... yeah, right up until he mentioned that school is basically worthless and that the exceptional will be bored by everything. That's a pretty snobbish thing to say.

Re:To flesh that out some

[Anonymous Coward]

What the educational system at large now represents, is a dumbing down to the least common denominator so that nobody feels bad.

This sounds exactly like the plot to Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron. The man truly was a genius.

Re:To flesh that out some

[Wiener]

But by instituting a tenet that "There are no losers" so let's give everyone an award

We keep finding new ways to celebrate mediocrity!
- Mr. Incredible

Re:To flesh that out some

[tachyonflow]

That's interesting. I went to a similar school, and when we took the ACT/SAT, they asked us to use the school code for our previous school in an attempt to avoid the other schools getting upset for losing their high-scoring students. I think they were still upset, though.

Re:To flesh that out some

[MrNaz]

"That's a pretty snobbish thing to say." I believe you just proved his point.

Re:To flesh that out some

[ShieldW0lf]

Snobbish, but true.

Exceptional people don't need to be spoon fed, they find repetition boring, and they find the necessity to waste their days proving to their intellectual inferiors that they can complete rudimentary tasks.

Hell, I knew how to read, print, add and subtract when I was 4 years old. You think there was a day of my life that I found school challenging? I used to finish all my classwork and all my homework homework and two paperback novels a day before school finished for the day, and I was still spending lots of time staring vacantly out the window.

I have no regard for the education system. All it ever did, throughout my life, was hold me back, slow me down, and force me to be surrounded by violent stupid monkeys.

Re:To flesh that out some

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha, I fooled them all. I got my head bashed open in a mugging and my life is Charlie from Flowers for Algernon. Only I didn't start off as a retarded janitor. I'm just one now.

All in all, I'm not sure which is better. It's nice being smart and quick witted, but it's also nice being one of the Great Unwashed. I guess meeting all my friends when I was smart combined with them being bored with me now that I'm average ranks high on suckiness. There's still the air of smart arrogance around me so it makes it hard to hang with the normal people, even though I'm no longer any smarter.

What sort of normal people cruise slashdot? The ones that used to write stories that were posted on slashdot. Too dumb witted now to do that anymore.

Argh.

Re:To flesh that out some

[Lemmy Caution]

While there's some truth to what you say, a lot of people with mediocre achievements use excuses like the boredom of school as an excuse for their untapped potential, and geeks are among the worst of the lot. Success isn't about intelligence: it's also about discipline, energy, drive, and attitude. A surplus of the last four can even mitigate against weaknesses in brain power. Of course, if all you have is brain power (and a general absence of proportionate accomplishments) then you're like to elevate that above all other criteria.

If you are smart but otherwise ungifted, you'll probably find yourself surrounded by people you feel smarter than. If you're smart and living up to your potential, you should probably stop feeling smart, because you should be surrounded by people at least as smart as you are.

Re:To flesh that out some

[zacronos]

From "The Dispossessed", by Ursula LeGuin:

They were superbly trained these students. Their minds were fine, keen, ready. When they weren't working, they rested. They were not blunted and distracted by a dozen other obligations. They never fell asleep in class because they were tired from having worked on rotational duty the day before. Their society maintained them in complete freedom from want, distractions, and cares.

What they were free to do, however, was another question. It appeared to Shevek that their freedom from obligation was in exact proportion to their lack of freedom of initiative.

He was appalled by the examination system, when it was explained to him; he could not imagine a greater deterrent to the natural wish to learn than this pattern of cramming in information and disgorging it at demand. At first he refused to give any tests or grades, but this upset the University administrators so badly that, not wishing to be discourteous to his hosts, he gave in. He asked his students to write a paper on any problem in physics that interested them, and told them that he would give them all the highest mark, so that the bureaucrats would have something to write on their forms and lists. To his surprise a good many students came to him to complain. They wanted him to set the problems, to ask the right questions; they did not want to think about questions but to write down the answers they had learned. And some of them objected strongly to his giving everyone the same mark. How could the diligent students be distinguished from the dull ones? What was the good in working hard? If no competitive distinctions were to be made, one might as well do nothing.

"Well, of course," Shevek said, troubled. "If you do not want to do the work, you should not do it."

It's a very interesting fiction book which explores several "what if we did things *that* way instead?" ideas with regard to society; education is one of those touched on. I highly recommend it. From your comments, you in particular may find some ideas that resonate with you.

Re:To flesh that out some

[mini me]

I tend to agree. The truly gifted will be always learning beyond the confines of the traditional classroom anyway. They don't need school in the same way a "mediocre" student does.

Re:To flesh that out some

[ZachPruckowski]

The claims made against us were that we were "stealing" all the good students from the public schools, meaning, apparently, that students are not in school to learn, but they are in school to make their schools look better.

It's a pretty significant difference. I graduated HS a few years ago, and I and a few other people I know would have had the option of going to a charter school, but we didn't want to for social reasons (2 hour drive, no thanks). When I figure our school's average SAT and work out those 3 or 4 scores, it drops a few points. When I look at Newsweek's stupid AP test/student ratio thing that they rank schools on, I (personally, individually) account for at least a half-dozen ranks in that standing in my junior and senior years (we were in the mid-700s nationwide), since I took 10 AP tests my senior year and 6 my junior year.

Re:To flesh that out some

[Anpheus]

It's revisionist to say that Albert Einstein did poorly in school and in higher education. He did well, and there's very little writing to indicate whether he was bored or not. The fact that he taught himself deductive reasoning, logic, calculus, and pretty much everything that made him the scientist we revere him has suggests, but does not prove that he was bored out of his mind at school.

It's possible that his gift was noticed, appreciated, and encouraged by the school. I think he finished in the top of his classes, at least wherein that information is recorded.

It was a different era then, with schools that genuinely appreciated intelligence...

Re:To flesh that out some

[chaoticgeek]

But it is the truth... I'm not a genius but I was much smarter than most in my school, I'd guess somewhere around the top 20%, I had all A's and B's without trying and I was bored. I liked math in high school but it was always boring. The first semester of each new year of math class was always reviewing what we did last year the 2nd semester. We spent one semester learning something new then we re-learned it again next year. All the sciences were the same, and english was never very challenging because the teachers always gave us the answers to anything that required any brain power.

Plus in 6th or 7th grade they deemed my brother to be "gifted" and the only special classes he ever took was something about US government in 7th or 8th grade. Beyond that they never had any classes for people who excelled in a particular subject. It is all the same, either you start at basic math or start at algebra one and work up while taking the same sciences, english, social studies/sciences/government classes with everyone else. Few electives that challenged you aside from senior year you might be able to take the "AP" science classes that were a joke too.

Re:To flesh that out some

[mikael]

Most of the teachers that I had, went into teaching because there was no local demand for anyone with "pure subject" skills.
Apart from the science/biology teachers, many of whom who had come from research institutes, because Mrs. T. had the idea
that she could save the taxpayer money by closing down UK research institutes and buying the technology from abroad instead.
So they all found jobs in the education (public sector) instead.

Re:To flesh that out some

[Brad Eleven]

Hear, hear. The analogy about drinking resonates. The bored student just stirs the water with the straw--the thirst for knowledge makes you want to pick up the bucket and chug. There's an ocean of difference between the student who just wants to please the teacher and the one who transcends the concept of the student/teacher relationship in favor of satisfying profound curiosity about the subject. Recall that Newton didn't even need a teacher; he was happy to sit in his room and poke himself in the eye with a blunt knitting needle to better understand how the human eye perceives and processes light.

It wasn't until I realized that I wanted to understand computers--after trying theater, music, flipping burgers, working in a warehouse, transcribing Russian, teaching mentally retarded adults--that I really got motivated. I had developed this irrational fear of math, and when I realized that the curriculum for CS was a based on a math major, I hesitated for about 45 seconds. Then I just gritted my teeth and drove to the university and got started. Two months later I was in my first programming course, fifteen months after that I was interning as a sysadmin, eight more months and I had a UNIX system to myself with an assignment that required me to learn C in order to use a database API to "mechanize" purchasing for a regional phone company. Between internships, I'd ask my professors for more and they'd work with me to develop independent studies. During my final semester, the campus recruiters were peeing their pants because I already had a resume. Twenty years later, it's still all about digging in to figure out what's in it for me. Work has only been boring when I've forgotten this and found myself fulfilling someone else's ambition. Many times, it's been these very forums that remind me of this. Past the frosty piss and trolls, some of you have reawakened the curiosity because it's obvious that you know more than I do.

It's not--it can't be about being led the whole way. At some point, you have to realize--as in make real for yourself--that you want something bad enough to stay focused, to stay interested. My favorite professor used to present new programming concepts and then say, "Now go and convince yourself that this works."

This is not unlike the difference between playing around with, say, Perl, and having the language be the vehicle to get something that you want. I couldn't ever get math for math's sake, but when I saw it as the way to get and keep accounts on the computers at school, I saw the teachers in a different light.

And, of course, they weren't public school teachers, which is the matter at hand. Also, they could tell that I was after something. There's a noticeable difference to any teacher in the student who is engaged, who asks questions that indicate that he or she is committed to going beyond the subject matter of the course.

It also helped that I was paying my own way that time around. Your mileage may vary.

It's an entirely different experience when you're somehow in it for yourself. Up until my second time in college, I'd just been filling squares, trying to do what someone else told me. I thought there was something wrong with me because I knew I was intelligent, but I couldn't seem to get anything done. Straight A's with no plan is not going to bring anyone happiness. I didn't grok grammar by passing English in elementary school. I got it in Discrete Math. That unlocked what had been only rote memorization.

Then again, I did meet the guys who formed the Butthole Surfers while pretending to study Drama, so it wasn't a complete waste of time. Sometimes the value of an experience isn't apparent without the benefit of hindsight. Come to think of it, none of it was a waste. Even the sloppy attempts at "enriched" and "advanced" courses in middle school were valuable exposure to the subject matter. I developed the distinctions after I got myself aligned with what I wanted.

Re:To flesh that out some

[pclminion]

Now that's a pretty damn sour attitude. I was a gifted kid too -- a standout even among the other gifted kids. I was chronically bored in school. By my senior year of high school, I was probably skipping class 60% of the time. Would I describe all the "normal" people I was surrounded by all those years as "violent stupid monkeys?" Not in a million years.

The most important thing I learned in public school is how to interact with so-called "normal" people on the level of an equal, not a brainiac who comes to intellectually lord over them. You know, stuff like "respect," and "politeness," and the concept of giving everybody a fair shot to prove their abilities.

If you really look at the world and think, "What a bunch of complete turd brains!" You are going to have a very sad life.

Re:To flesh that out some

[superpulpsicle]

If the school systems were catered to intellectuals, they might have "discovered" Einstein earlier and allow him to contribute to society even earlier in his life. What needs to be done is mirror our system to the capitalist model.

- The rich can become unlimitedly rich = The smart should be given unlimited resource. Lets see what they can do.

- The middle class will find a way = Regular students will find a way.

- The poor should have good welfare = The dumb should never be left behind.

What's missing now is that our systems can't harness or do much with the smartest group besides giving them alot of decorative useless A+ on their report cards. Cut sports program and move the budget over to this group. Setup think tanks, do something. Wasting brain power is probably the worse thing you can do to your country.

Re:To flesh that out some

[ResidntGeek]

The thing about it is, I learned those things too. I learned stuff like respect, politeness, and how to interact with people like equals. That took, what, two weeks? Not four years. School is a waste of time, and the fact remains that while I'd never say it out loud, the people around me _were_ violent stupid monkeys.

Re:To flesh that out some

[The One and Only]

It's rather easy to treat everyone with respect and politeness when you don't get shoved into lockers or called a fag every day, for instance. When those things do happen to you, you learn that the only way to treat some people is to treat them to a good chokeslam against the wall.

Re:To flesh that out some

[bhiestand]

If you really look at the world and think, "What a bunch of complete turd brains!" You are going to have a very sad life. It's true, though :(. How can you force yourself to be ignorant of that fact without keeping up with current events? I know I'd be happier if I didn't think that, but the world has spent a lot of time and effort to pound that into my brain.

Re:To flesh that out some

[bhiestand]

Sorry, mixed two thoughts. Should either be "while keeping up with current events" or "without remaining unaware of current events".

Re:To flesh that out some

[The One and Only]

Success isn't about intelligence: it's also about discipline, energy, drive, and attitude. A surplus of the last four can even mitigate against weaknesses in brain power.

Then really, shouldn't our schools be about developing discipline, energy, drive, and attitude even in their best students, instead of developing boredom, cynicism, and putting them in an environment where, paradoxically, people only have their intelligence to feel good for themselves about?

Re:To flesh that out some

[Lemmy Caution]

I don't think that's true, actually. A lot of jocks and socialites come out of school feeling good about themselves, as do class presidents and art-class types. The hyper-focus on academic success is something that occurs, as a rule, among the academically successful.

Re:To flesh that out some

[justinlee37]

Umm... yeah, right up until he mentioned that school is basically worthless and that the exceptional will be bored by everything.

Sounds like my high school experience.

Re:To flesh that out some

[Anonymous Coward]

> The claims made against us were that we were "stealing" all the good students from the public schools, meaning, apparently, that students are not in school to learn, but they are in school to make their schools look better. If the public schools could have given us as good an education, Charter wouldn't exist.

Don't flatter yourself. Charter schools also do a great job at taking in students too unfit for mainstream society (i.e. students that get expelled from public schools, for example).

Re:To flesh that out some

[Anonymous Coward]

I also attended a high school for gifted children - our claim to fame was that we had the highest average SAT scores in the country, and that over 90% of the student body graduated before age 16. We were a high-performing, high caliber student body that was damaged only by the politics of "not leaving anyone behind".

Like your school, our school was underfunded. We had some of the worst teachers - many that didn't have advanced degrees or that didn't have a degree from a prestigious institution. They made us share some "extracurricular" resources with the dolt-filled local high school, which was totally unfair - as we also had the best athletes, musicians, and artists in our school. Inner-city demographics be damned, we were simply the best, yet we were treated as the same as everyone else.

Fortunately, parents and students got together and managed to get the administration fired. The guy running the show was a lousy 25 year veteran of public school administration, and he certainly couldn't help the top-notch students he was responsible for. A small set of politically-capable parents forced the creation of a specially funded school board that permitted the student body to excel, and managed to steer much mismanaged money away from the other local failing school to our school.

Needless to say, most of us went on to high caliber higher ed institutions, but it was only because some creative parents went above and beyond to save our school.

Re:To flesh that out some

[Anonymous Coward]

"the failure to nurture gifted children is ensuring our future demise."

Actually, a world without the inventions of gifted people would probably work quite alright.

"...thinks mediocrity is ok. It's not ok"

If nothing else, mediocracy will serve to make idiots like you feel they are better than everybody else. The notion that being mediocre is not ok is the number one reason why so many these days falls into depression.

Why do people that are extra talented moan about society not putting up the red carpet for them? They don't need that much extra efforts since they will (most of the time) turn out alright anyway.

Re:To flesh that out some

[Metasquares]

You're both correct: someone who is gifted will likely be bored at school, particularly if the school is underchallenging, and thus will find other outlets for his or her intellect. Thus, the accomplishments are achieved, but not in school. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if gifted students in normal schools (pre-college, anyway) ended up becoming underachievers because they've found more interesting things to do.

Re:To flesh that out some

[tburkhol]

Schooling is only 1 part of a much much much larger equation

Good schooling is about more than "book learning." Good schooling should also develop interpersonal skills, teamwork, leadership, and all of those hard-to-quantify skill that contribute to a successful, or at least adequate, life. Programs like NCLB, with their exclusive focus on test results, discount every skill that can not be measured by filling in circles on a multiple choice exam, and punish school systems for creating good citizens in favor of good mathematicians.

Like so many other government programs, NCLB answers the demand to "do something" with "This is something!" I am continually amazed by the calls for Federal government intervention (most recently: Tunnel inspection should be like bridge inspection). The historical strength of the US has been its ability to craft local policies that meet the local needs and values. I want my country back.

Re:To flesh that out some

[Anonymous Coward]

I went to a private school, but it was still the same. I did go to some "gifted classes" for a few years in middle school, but nothing in high school. I had a great math teacher who recognized that me (and a couple of my friends) were finishing assignments and test made sooner than the others and started letting us work through the text book at our own pace during the class time. Not too revolutionary, but the fact that 2 of my friends were doing the same made it easier.

Re:To flesh that out some

[corbettw]

A surplus of the last four can even mitigate against weaknesses in brain power. Just look at Congress!

Re:To flesh that out some

[Oktober Sunset]

That's not the capitalist way at all. The capitalist way is: exploit everyone to their limit for your own personal gain.
The poor are only given enough money so they can continue to work like slaves in factories for the rich.
If you were to make a capitalist-like system, the dumb kids would work as servants to the smart kids, fetching them books and carrying thier bags, while only getting enough education to read the spines of books they had fetch to the smart kids.

The smart kids would get smarter, while the dumb kids get dumber.

Re:To flesh that out some

[neuromancer23]

>> If you really look at the world and think, "What a bunch of complete turd brains!" You are going to have a very sad life.

Really? I'll remember that the next time I'm lining up to pay taxes to this fascist state.

I feel great as long as I don't have to interact with any of these morons or watch the news. Unfortunately however, these assholes do engage in repeated and frequent acts of violence against me. They call it voting. Democracy is the tyranny of the stupid so eventually, these people are going to invade your home with the barrel of the gun as soon as it suits their interests (see: socialism).

I don't see how your philosophy helps that situation since they are still invading my home and robbing and raping me by violence (I think the word they use for this is government).

No matter how far you tuck your head in the sand, you're still not going to change a thing. If you want to live in a fantasy world that's certainly your prerogative, but I can tell you reality is going to come crashing in the first time you have to fill up the tank of your car with gas or some douche bag red neck comes riding down your street on his Harley Davidson.

The only solution that would make me feel any better about this is:

1. Being reinserted into the matrix which would mean I would have to be as dumb as everyone else

or

2. Receive more benefits from the government than are stolen from me so that I wouldn't feel like I am being robbed.

Option one is out since my parents were not related and I can't really stomach the taste of gasoline or glue.

In order for option 2 to be valid, I would have to be a billionare, in which case, I could probably be like Oprah and Rupert Murdoch and find enjoyment by having 300 million mindless slaves at my disposal.

"The biggest conspiracy int the world is the conspiracy of the stupid" - Robert Antont Wilson, Maybe Logic

Re:To flesh that out some

[Toddlerbob]

Success isn't about intelligence: it's also about discipline, energy, drive, and attitude. A surplus of the last four can even mitigate against weaknesses in brain power.

I've spent the last twenty years teaching a "gifted" section in an Elementary school. Your comment (and also the rest of it, which I have not quoted) express exactly my point of view on the subject. When kids entered my class, they ceased to be the elite within their former classes, and instead became just another kid in the class, and, often for the first time, had to develop some discipline and drive.

Although I do have some egalitarian-inspired sympathy with the folks who want all students heterogeneously thrown into the same class (except they somehow still don't want the special ed kids and the out-of-control kids, of course), my experience is that "gifted" kids cannot be properly challenged in such a setting, if only because much of the challenge in a class comes, not from the teacher, but from the other young minds in the community.

Also, most teachers I know spend most of their time helping the kids on the bottom of the class. The idea of a teacher who only favors bright students with his attentions is, as far as I've seen, a myth. In thirty years of teaching I have yet to meet one. Of course, your mileage may vary, since I've only one lifetime of observations. This tendency of teachers to reach the bottom students at the expense of the top ones was true long before the No Child Left Behind Act, with it's disaggregation of students' test results, increased the pressure to focus on the bottom of the class. It's bound up with the reasons why most teachers become teachers in the first place.

Re:To flesh that out some

[chris.evans]

Yes, maybe thats why the violent stupid monkeys don't want to be your friend?

Re:To flesh that out some

[rben]

One of the important tasks of an educational system is to teach kids how to interact with each other. To that end, our schools might still be doing some good with the brighter students.

Like many others who have posted here, I'm not thrilled with the education I received in Elementary and High School. (I was paddled on the first day of First Grade for reading ahead.)

What bothers me is that our whole country seems to have adopted an anti-intellectual attitude, and I think our current problems are a direct result. The President we have in office is about as anti-intellectual as you can get. As long as we fail to educate our children by teaching them how to think critically and skeptically, we'll continue to see bad choices made by the electorate.

(Yes, I know people will say Bush stole the election, and I agree. But he couldn't have stolen it if the gap had been wide enough. It shouldn't have taken more than a cursory glance at Bush's record to rule him out as a viable Presidential candidate.)

The best and surest way to ensure a viable future for our country and the rest of the world is to provide everyone with as good and education as we possibly can. Refusing to fund education is moronically stupid. It's the children we are educating today that will be supporting us tomorrow.

Personally, I think there should be a world-wide effort to put a University of the World on the Internet. It should provide course material from grade-school through graduate school, so that anyone who is willing to put in the time, may educate him or herself to any degree he or she likes. Ideally, the school would be staffed by volunteer and paid teachers who would assist students and administer examinations to verify that students have met the requirements for advancement. It might not be regarded with the same respect as a degree from Harvard, but it would provide the chance for self-starters anywhere in the world, to get the education they need.

As the poster from India pointed out, the problems with education aren't confined to the U.S., the disabled, or gifted students. We need some fundamentally new ways of educating people and helping them continue learning throughout their lifetimes.

Re:To flesh that out some

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if it WERE like that, in the capitalist-inspired classroom the "dumb kids" would be smarter than the dumb kids in the other classroom. Everybody is better off than they would be otherwise.

It doesn't make any sense to compare the smart kids and the dumb kids because the smart kids will be smart regardless of what class they are in; likewise with the dumb kids. The only reasonable comparison to make is between how much any given kid would learn if they were in your little ideal socialist classroom vs the capitalist-inspired classroom. And at the end of the day, they are all going to learn more in the latter, and will have more opportunity to jump into the "middle class" of achievers. Just like poor people in capitalist societies are generally better off than poor people in non-capitalist societies, and have the opportunity to jump into the middle class with a little extra work.

Re:To flesh that out some

[Lemmy Caution]

(except they somehow still don't want the special ed kids and the out-of-control kids, of course)

I have a word for that: "plateau solipsism." (A misuse of the word "solipsism," but it captures the nature of the trait.) I describe that as the tendency to naturalize the difference between one's self and peer group, and those "below" them, while either not even seeing the gaps between themselves and those "above" them (whether intellectually, creatively, socially, culturally, etc.) or viewing those as arbitrary and accidental, or even just wrong. So, the kid who has a learning disability is out because they don't mean the grade, but those snobs who watch foreign films and laugh at our bad sci-fi tastes should let us hang out with them and realize that our tastes are "just as good as" theirs.

Embracing difference means embracing the fact that there are spheres and planes to which one may only aspire, and competencies one will never achieve.

Re:To flesh that out some

[Lemmy Caution]

Something else just occurred to me - you describe how teachers prefer to teach toward the bottom of the class. A lot of that is actually admirable and appropriate, I think: a society with a huge illiteracy rate would be a bigger problem than a society where some of the brightest and best are bored and have to find stimulation out of class. At the same time, I can't help but think of Matthew Broderick's character in "Election," who wanted very much to be a "good teacher" as long as his students didn't excel too much. The drive and ability shown by Reese Witherspoon's character, however, he couldn't stand - the kind of pleasure he got from his patronizing stance toward students whose accomplishments were unlikely to surpass his own significantly in scale was threatened by her character, who was clearly destined for grander things. Of course, all the resentment came out in the final scene in the movie, where the emotional logic of his character was stripped bare.

Is that what you mean about "why most teachers become teachers in the first place?"

Re:To flesh that out some

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be new here

Re:To flesh that out some

[Anonymous Coward]

So what have you accomplished? Cured cancer? Ended famine? Free Energy? What exactly do you think those 'violent monkeys' owe you anyway? Your saying you have had a genetic advantage over others but despite having more by dumb luck (i.e. genetics) your still a miserable bastard? Perhaps you should have had things a little harder.

Re:To flesh that out some

[I(rispee_I(reme]

The man truly was a genius.

Sure, he's a genius without his interference cap.

Re:To flesh that out some

[cduffy]

I didn't get that after junior high. Cultivating a few of the right friends (and rumored access to the VAX that stored grades) stopped most of the physical abuse.

One high-profile instance of fighting back successfully (in a case where the bully was a teacher's kid -- and I got away scott free) didn't hurt either.

Re:To flesh that out some

[cduffy]

Since when was depression the same kind of problem that lack of ambition is?

I know lots of people who've been depressed from time to time. They get out of it. I find an interesting project or problem to focus on, my wife goes back to school or finds regular employment, folks with chemical imbalances have those treated appropriately; life goes on, and folks who've been depressed can go on to do some useful and interesting things. Lack of ambition, on the other hand, makes an individual's life an utter waste. It's an absolute travesty when an individual who has the talent to be a professional artist would rather spend his life restocking shelves at Target or a woman who was at the top of her class in high school ends up wasting her days with a dead-end job she hates at Wal-Mart.

"I'm okay, you're okay" is abso-fucking-lutely not OK at all. Too many people with wonderful potential simply waste it because they were never motivated, growing up, to expect great things of themselves. Am I sometimes a little bit depressed because I squandered some of the potential I saw in myself around age 21 or so? Sure -- but I've still gone on to do useful things; I'm working in an interesting and important field, my coworkers respect me, and I can live with not being one of the best in the world (as one of my peers from '01 is now).

Society should not be optimized to maximize the perceived self-worth of its members at the expense of maximizing the value of individuals' actual contributions.

Re:To flesh that out some

[jessecurry]

In second grade I was pulled from my "normal" classes and given an IQ test by an administrator, apparently my scores earned me a spot in a "gifted program", then a "gifted school". Overall the program just consisted of all of the same books that someone who was 2-7 grades higher would use. When I moved to the "gifted school" the program basically consisted of college-style education.
The problem was that none of the instruction really stimulated me. I didn't get a chance to learn on my own, I was given latitude to explore my interests, I was basically just given more work. The idea that more work is better work is central to the problem of educating "gifted" students. In the US it seems that the majority of people hoping to get ahead just work more, get overtime, and get paid a little more; instead they should work smarter, work less, get the same amount done, and enjoy themselves. I kind of got off topic there, but mediocrity is reinforced because so many jobs just pay you to show up; there's no reward for doing more.
Educating "gifted" students should focus on creativity and problem solving, not piling more and more memory work on them. Someone with a good memory isn't smart, those who know how to conceptualize and form abstractions are the smart ones.

Re:To flesh that out some

[DeadChobi]

YES. That is exactly what school should be about, developing those core skills instead of filling your head with knowledge which is sketchy at best. School should be about learning to learn and learning to be a more powerful and independent person. Thanks for saying that. I still don't understand where the cynicism comes from though, except that the larger the institution is, the more a one-size fits all approach prevails and the more people are beaten down under it.

Re:To flesh that out some

[The One and Only]

If you're clever enough to see how much your school sucks, you start to wonder if anything is run correctly and you become cynical.

Re:To flesh that out some

[haggus71]

This is, of course, why many of those who are gifted go into solitary professions. The IT industry opened up opportunities for jobs in which you could use intelligence to design and produce hardware/software and be rewarded for the quality you produced, not just how many widgets you made in a day. It also gave us a chance to challenge ourselves, not to rely on some structured system to delegate at what pace we could excel.

In Europe and Japan, after a certain year they figure out by intelligence and aptitude what secondary education will be best for your interests and abilities. I understand they do it by the 8th or 9th year of school. You either go into the university track, or you go to a vocational system. They figure, why send someone through a four-year system that they either don't need or aren't up to in performing. Of course, our 4 year system has started suffering the same "dumbing down" that our schools have, so we don't offend the political correctness of everyone being "special".

Remember the line from Jack Black in The Incredibles:

"...and when everybody is special, no one will be special."

Re:To flesh that out some

[John_Booty]

The most important thing I learned in public school is how to interact with so-called "normal" people on the level of an equal, not a brainiac who comes to intellectually lord over them. You know, stuff like "respect," and "politeness," and the concept of giving everybody a fair shot to prove their abilities.

Amen. Being smarter than 99% of the population doesn't make one better than 99% of the population.

Also, there's always somebody smarter than you. At some point, if you work hard and achieve, you will find yourself amongst intellectual equals and superiors.

I was bored in school, too - from nursery school through high school I was one of the top few brains in my school. This was generally true in college as well. I just had no idea what it was like to be in an environment where I wasn't smarter than most of the others.

But I never based my worldview around feelings of superiority. I would get frustrated with the slow pace of other students but I never thought they were "stupid violent monkeys" as the other poster said. And thank goodness I didn't base my whole existence around that kind of thinking... because once I got out of college and made my way in the field of software engineering, I *did* find myself in situations where everybody else was at least as sharp as me. That probably would have been a soul-destroying experience if feeling smarter than everybody else was what kept me going in life, because what happens when that rug gets pulled out from under you?

This gives me an advantage over others in my field, many of whom have a hard time interacting with "the norms" or "the mundanes" or whatever. I enjoy explaining concepts to and making software for people that don't necessarily have 130+ IQs. I can work with them and help them without being patronizing, and this has been hugely helpful to me and the people I work for. I'm certainly not the best coder but I'm a good one and when combined with people skills, it's a fairly rare combination.

Re:To flesh that out some

[String of Letters]

Exactly.

Not addressed to the parent, but the young folks with a lack of perspective:

I understand that it is hard living among those whose chief pastime is procreation, but, and this is very important:
all to often I see all those self-proclaimed "intelligent" people who seem to, sadly, lack spiritual development.

Humility folks. It's a virtue.

And, hubris is a weakness.

Even if you consider youself intelligent, erudite, etc, I can assure you, there are people far superior in their abilities to you. And will always be.

So do not be lazy, use that potential of yours to learn more, and then even more.

Improve yourselves. There are no limits.

Re:To flesh that out some

[fractoid]

But by instituting a tenet that "There are no losers" so let's give everyone an award - we're raising a generation that thinks mediocrity is ok. It's not ok, and the failure to nurture gifted children is ensuring our future demise. Well, yes and no. The vast majority of the human race is destined for mediocrity by definition. Half of all people are of less than average intelligence, and all that, you know? That's the 'no' bit - people don't HAVE to be special and gifted to be 'OK'.

The 'yes' bit is that yes, they're spending far more effort making sure that little Johnny Two-21st-Chromosomes is able to read "spot can run" than they are on making sure that Johnny's neighbour, little Timmy, is taught differential equations once he can solve x + 3 = 5 for x. I fully agree that it's not OK. Who knows how much potential is being wasted because smart kids are bored out of their skulls and stop paying attention?

Re:To flesh that out some

[Bifurcati]

> If you really look at the world and think, "What a bunch of complete turd brains!"

It's worth pointing out that this article was posted on the same day as the one about presidential candidates believing in creationism...

Re:To flesh that out some

[Anonymous Coward]

how far I could have gone.

If classes last say 50 minutes, I doubt you could have walked to help kids outside your school building.

Re:This article is like waving a red flag at a bul

[Rakishi]

But who has the most opportunity to get by in life despite of a weak education system? Those born to wealthy or well connected parents who are capable of gaming the system and providing special attention to their children.

Read about Luther.

[khasim]

I'm getting sick of the constant anti-Christian rants here on /. I happen to be Catholic, and nobody who knows me would accuse me of being an intellectual lightweight -- i.e., Christian != stupid.

Luther (1483 - 1546) and the Protestant Reformation

Which lead to many, Many, MANY, MANY years of war between Catholics and Protestants.

Galileo (1564 - 1642) ... hmmm, born AFTER Luther. Forced to recant his heliocentric model by the Inquisition.

I guess that depends upon what your definition of "stupid" is. The Church ACTIVELY opposed printing the Bible in local languages.

Re:Read about Luther.

[chromatic]

The Church ACTIVELY opposed printing the Bible in local languages.

Meanwhile, plenty of Christians supported it even to the point of persecution (John Wycliffe is my favorite example).

Re:Read about Luther.

[dosius]

William Tyndale, and his friend John Rogers (aka Thomas Matthew) who published his unfinished manuscripts after his death. They were both executed as heretics for translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek to English. And there's no question Tyndale was a brilliant, brilliant man. He just disagreed with the Catholic powers that be over the Bible, and he was burnt at the stake for it.

-uso.

Re:Read about Luther.

[dgatwood]

Meanwhile, plenty of Christians supported it even to the point of persecution (John Wycliffe is my favorite example).

Precisely. Mere adherence to the teachings of a church does not necessitate blind devotion to its every tenet. One can be Christian without believing anything the Catholic Church has handed down as truth since the double digits A.D.

Criticizing Christians as being universally against scientific thought merely because of the actions of the Catholic Church's past leadership is no different than criticizing American citizens as the antithesis of family values merely because of President Clinton's blow job, or as universally rejecting sound foreign policy because of George Junior's war on terror.

Humans are individuals, their beliefs as numerous as the stars in the heavens.

Nothing new...

[Vrallis]

Having gone through public schools starting early/mid 80s, I can say this is nothing new.

I had three teachers in elementary try to skip me ahead, but administration stopped them. I grew bored, didn't do all the 'busywork' crap (copy the blackboard 20 times type work), didn't do my homework, and was even sent to the principal and paddled for it once.

As of 4th grade the teacher was testing me on 12th grade reading and comprehension books just to keep me doing something closer to my level.

Finally around 5th grade they started up the GT (Gifted & Talented) program. It didn't help much. They had a 'specialist' pull another student and me from class a couple hours a week to do slightly more challenging work. It kept me going as I went into middle and high schools in further GT and advanced / dual credit courses later on.

When my brother and sister went through elementary, they received a little better treatment. Instead of a traveling counselor, they brought in qualifying kids from multiple schools to a central classroom a couple times a week for about half a day. This proved to work far better, and I wish it had been in place when I was there.

Instead, I went through school with crappy grades (zeroes on homework / busywork, hundreds plus extra credit on every test). Hell, I nearly flunked a grade because I just couldn't make myself waste time on busywork I already knew.

In the meantime, every drooling retard in the district had tons of special treatment--though I have to admit they outnumbered the gifted students by an order of magnitude.

Intellectual != weak

[AHumbleOpinion]

... We love the captain of the football team; big, handsome, and dumb ...

You have basically proven that you are just as ignorant and just as wiling to stereotype as those your rail against. Captains are usually intelligent. And some football (American) positions do require intelligence, the ability to quickly analyze a fluid situation (an unfolding play), develop a successful plan and refine that plan in real time as further developments occur. The fact that these skills are applied to big guys hitting your rather than a network intrusion is irrelevant.

... know-it-alls ...

It is not intellectualism that people dislike, it is arrogance and condescension. Also, if a political candidate can not communicate without seeming arrogant or condescending then they have some shortcomings in leadership skills.

... namby pamby sissy faggot intellectuals ...

Not all intellectuals are liberal. ;-)

I apologize if the preceding joke went to far. The point is that intellectuals come with various political viewpoints, various athletic abilities, various levels of moral courage, etc. Again, you display a narrow uninformed stereotype and resemble those your criticize.

*nods*

[Etherwalk]

And it's help the schools should give or find for someone with your disability. But I also know a lot of kids who needed help with the smarts. Some still do, years later.

I'm "special"

[crovira]

unfortunately, that just means "I get to ride on the 'short' bus", with the other window-lickers. (Many thanks to Tim Henson of "The Distorted View Daily" podcast [ http://www.distortedview.com/show/ ] for that wonderful imagery.)

The US Educational System is Not About Education

[Greyfox]

It's about soaking up the most amount of Federal dollars for the least amount of work. They don't want excellent students. They want slow kids who are worth the most cash in the "special ed" programs. And they're not above boring a bright kid to death and then classifying him as 'autistic' or 'add' to wring that cash out of the government. If you really want your kids to be well-educated you can't just throw up your hands and expect the government to do it. You're going to have to get involved and make sure they're doing truly educational things outside of school. Because God Knows they aren't doing much of use IN school.

Shows the failures of socialism

[timmarhy]

This proves the point, that when ever someone cries "the government should do something" the answer is probably NO

Re:Shows the failures of socialism

[dokebi]

Wow, such display of sheer brilliance! I wish I had your educational background and superior intellect. I mean, I could have said "Whenever someone cries 'the market will take care of itself', the answer is probably NO", and it would have proved that capitalism is a failure. Uh-huh. Right.

Re:Shows the failures of socialism

[Bemopolis]

Given who conceived of and produced the NCLB Act (hint: it starts with W, and ends in 2009), it argues less against socialism than it does of a one-party government fully bought and paid for by industrial interests.

Oh, but that pisses on your precious socialism-bashing. Please, do go on.

Re:Shows the failures of socialism

[Denial93]

Actually, it is interesting you bring up socialism. Education is one of the very few things that socialist states, especially the Soviet Union and Eastern Germany, did very right. The Finnish education system, known for producing the highest-scoring pupils in the OECD-wide Pisa study, is a carbon copy of the East German system. The Soviet Union had an amazing percentage of university graduates and their number of female highly educated professionals was amazing for the time. Now sure much of their university time was wasted studying Marxism-Leninism, and the many-bedded dorm rooms of the time would seem ghastly today, but they did get the job done. For free, too.

Despite all talk of equality, socialist states spent a lot of time screening for promising students. Guess having a surveillance culture helps with that. Ever wonder why the Soviet Union had so many chess champions? Doping doesn't explain that one, early screening for talents and widespread chess clubs do.

Re:Shows the failures of socialism

[sakonofie]

Public education is far from an obvious choice of the "failure" of social government programs. It has issues out the wahzoo, but just quickly imagine going back to the days of fully private education. Disenfranchisement and degradation of modern society here we come.

Now to be fairer to your original point, does this example illustrate the danger of knee jerk assholes in positions of power who do not do a better job of thinking these policies out before they implement them? Yes.

Re:Shows the failures of socialism

[Anonymous Coward]

It merely shows the failures of ill-considered policy, whether in a public or private institution.

It's just that something like this is more likely to occur when those in charge of said policy are decided by a contest of the least undesirable where the majority of the population is roughly average and feels intimidated by those who are more capable of learning.

(The reason I say it's a contest of the least undesirable is that with only two choices the less-disliked tends to be chosen most often even if neither choice is liked, eg. a choice between having a handful of flour or a handful of sand thrown in your face, while with a larger number of choices comes a lower tendency to have no desirable choices available).

Re:Shows the failures of socialism

[spicate]

This proves the point, that when ever someone cries "the government should do something" the answer is probably NO Say what? For the most part, the countries that are beating the pants off of us on test scores have excellent PUBLIC education systems.

In fact, from what I can tell, most have fewer private schools than the United States.

Tracking

[Descalzo]

As another responder already said, it has been called 'tracking,' though I don't know if it's illegal. My school district frowns most heavily upon it, and prefers to deal with it in-class. But what if a student is 'mis-tracked?' If it's a track in which the student is re-evaluated annually then that kid is going to be really messed up for a year. I have been toying with the idea of regrouping on a weekly basis. The problem with a weekly basis is that it's hard to make a week as meaningful as a year. It's a hard question, one teachers and administrators are trying to solve.

On a related topic, it's odd that if a student has an IQ of 70, that's like 2 standard deviations below the norm, and the student is identified as intellectually disabled. Failing to identify and serve this student's needs is going to get your school into an enormous amount of trouble.
Then you have another student with an IQ of 130. This student is no more normal than the other. He is intellectually gifted. Failing to identify or serve this student's needs will not even earn anyone a slap on the wrist.

This problem will get solved when a slashdotter decides he has enough money to take this comparison all the way to the Supreme Court.

Re:Tracking

[blahplusplus]

"Then you have another student with an IQ of 130. This student is no more normal than the other. He is intellectually gifted. Failing to identify or serve this student's needs will not even earn anyone a slap on the wrist."

There's a huge difference though, the high IQ type has all ability to self acutalize. The internet and library are there for a reason, you can learn at any pace you want, its more likely gifted kids are just too lazy to do their own learning. In the age of the internet there is less and less of an excuse for high IQ types in my opinion, while the low IQ student will ALWAYS be at a sever disadvantage for the rest of his life, the high IQ type will not be. They just need to be pointed in the right direction and also most of the time to be left alone to study and create new works on their own, the people at teh edge of the high IQ spectrum should not expect their 'needs' to be served so much as as creating what they need since they at the top of the pile, why should anyone gifted expect interesting work when they in the top %1 of the population? I mean come on the dice is so loaded with gifted kids, most of them simply have character flaws, are lazy or oblivious to their own egotistical flaws.

One thing the article never said was: What about having her go to regular classes with her agemates but allowed to do her own learning? Bring her own books, get correspondance cousework from university? The article sounds like a big pity party.

Re:Tracking

[dbc]

Sorry to inform you, but it doesn't work like that. Kid's need intellectual coaching, just like the future sports stars need sports coaching. What if you had a stand-out little leaguer, and the coach absolutely refused to nurture that athletic giftedness. Two things would happen: a) the kid would not become a major leaguer, even if he had the potential, and b) every dad in the neighborhood would get together and form a lynch mob to take out the coach (rightly so, I'd join). Yet, your attitude with respect to intellectual giftedness is extremely common -- and it absolutely does great harm to these kids.

My own 8 year old daughter would not be able to teach herself math, physics, geometry, literature -- but she absorbs coaching very well. Oh... and she has an IQ of 187, and reads at the college sophomore level. Do the math: earlier in this thread an IQ of 70 was labeled special needs, and an IQ of 130 was labeled gifted. 130-70 = 60. Now, observe that 130+60 = 190, or roughly my daughter's IQ. Does she belong in a class with kids whose IQ is 100-130? If you say the kid with an IQ of 130 does not belong in the same class as the kids with IQ of 70, you have to say no. But she *does* need teaching, coaching, and peer interaction.

It's great to watch her get together with kids that are both age and intellectual peers. She and one of her friends were both studying Egyptology when they were 6 years old. They got together to play -- and did the normal 6 year old "dress up" thing that girls do... except that all the stuffed animals were turned into Egyptian gods and they wove Egyptian history into their play. *That* is why you need to give these kids a chance to interact with each other. A normal classroom is a torture for these kids.

Re:Tracking

[Aesir1984]

the people at teh edge of the high IQ spectrum should not expect their 'needs' to be served so much as as creating what they need since they at the top of the pile, why should anyone gifted expect interesting work when they in the top %1 of the population? I mean come on the dice is so loaded with gifted kids, most of them simply have character flaws, are lazy or oblivious to their own egotistical flaws. Clearly you have no idea what it is like to be in the top 1%, so let me explain a little. I was identified 99th percentile, Talented and Gifted (TaG was 95th percentile and above if I remember correctly) in first grade. I was in a small school district which didn't have enough TAG students to make up a class so they offered to skip me a year. Unfortunately I have a summer birthday so I was already quite a bit younger than most of the other students in my grade and my mom wouldn't me skip. They tried to give me extra work for a short time but that lasted less than a year because it became too much work for my teacher to keep up with. By the fifth grade they wanted to skip me two years. I did the best I could by reading and learning on my own, but when you have to sit through 7-8 hours a day that are completely worthless to you and then try to be as socially normal as possible afterward there's only so much extra time you have to learn. Remember these are kids! They shouldn't be forced to have no social life just because they are smarter than average.

High school was almost as bad, I had passed out of all of the science classes by the end of my sophomore year. Luckily my school had the one math teacher that could teach through AP calculus in the district and he was willing to let me be an independent study in his computer programming class or it would have been a similar story for math. My school had other AP classes, but they all got canceled one-by-one because there weren't enough kids and the school didn't have enough money to be able to spare a teacher. We also had a college in the schools program but my family had to pay for it ourselves and we didn't have enough money for me to take more than the one writing class I did. The one thing high school really taught me was that I shouldn't work too hard academically because 1) it becomes very difficult to make friends if they know you are smarter than they are, and 2) why bother? There is no difference between 95% and 105% after the report cards come out.

You are correct in one respect though, high IQ students usually can teach most things to themselves. We just have to have a teaching system that allows them to. Give them packets and different work accelerated to their level. When the other students are working on math let them be learning their own math, the same for science, grammar, spelling, etc. But when you hold them back and force them to learn with the rest of the class you aren't doing anyone any good.

Re:Tracking

[Breakfast Pants]

I hate to inform you, but there isn't a single test that can measure up to the 180+ range.

Re:Tracking

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it such a tragedy to "mis-track" a smart student into a dumb class, but it isn't a tragedy to lump all smart students with average and dumb ones?

Re:Tracking

[ZachPruckowski]

I was in a tracking system in 5th grade. It worked out pretty well. There were actually two systems. We took most subjects with our "class", which was (semi) random.

English was split according to a test given at the beginning of the year and split for the whole year. I would say this worked out OK, despite the lack of mobility. Students who needed extra help were in the "slower" class and could get it, while students who excelled could be challenged in the advanced class. There was also a third middle class.

In math, we were divided into three groups roughly bi-weekly depending on our scores on pre-tests. I think this was best, because it allowed students some mobility, and let someone who excelled in one area but was weaker in another be dealt with appropriately.

In my high school, we didn't have formal tracking, but we had Academic, Honors, and AP classes in each subject. Despite the lack of tracking, I think that there was definite a tier of students who were in all Honors/AP classes, and a tier who took virtually none.

Re:Tracking

[blahplusplus]

"Yet, your attitude with respect to intellectual giftedness is extremely common -- and it absolutely does great harm to these kids."

It doesn't 'do great harm' the only person doing great harm to them is parents and their childs refusal to adapt to adverse circumstances. The truth is PARENTS are the biggest source of harm for intellectally gifted children most of the time by trying to force their development when they are not ready or giving up because they are not serious about it their interests comes before their childs. And ESPECIALLY having no initiative themselves (taking matters into their own hands). Next I would sue the school system, if I had a precocious child, I would (just some really quick and dirty ideas):

1) Want to free her from institutional constraints, i.e. she can not show up to class, etc, she can just hang out at school
2) She shows up but she does college work instead of what other kids are doing
3) I would move somewhere or find other parents and we do fundraising to fund a private school for our kids.
4) Go meet with corporate executives, write to other rich people, etc to invest in such a private school. I would make myself so forthright and persistant that someone would hae to listen... if I were you I'd be marching into googles offices and asking for help in fundraising, they would CERTAINLY listen to you (so get off your ass!)
5) Take fucking intiative for god sakes!

Many parents of high IQ types wnat the world handed to them on a platter just because their kid won the genetic lottery and like to scorn the money spent on 'economic losers' like low iq types. The truth of the matter is fighting does us and no one any good, its not a solution. If I knew you I would myself on your behalf go on and do said things for you after talking to you about it because I am that passionate about helping others not screw up their lives and having to endure what happened to me for instance. So don't think I'm not on your side just because I point out they should be taught to learn how to learn on their own and they hav eand sever advantage over other kids. Since that is one of the things that will keep them going when they've 'burned through' everyone else being a small percentage of the population. Next is teaching them a mature perspective: That you are different but YOU CHOOSE your attitude towards life and others who are not intellectually on your level, you can meet them half-way and see it as learning experience or you can be come a snob and only associate with other people like you, it's all in how you look at it. I would not baby her, the world has enough prejudice at all ends of the IQ spectrum.

Look at Williams James Sidis for example of accceleration. It's not that I'm trying to be disrespectful because obviously, I was genrelizing and obviously many kids need to be analyzed on a case by case basis.

I can see your point but I did't say they need no help at all, but they don't need to be given everything either. Some of life's best learning experiences come with difficulty, disappointment, etc, not having it all handed to you on a platter with a silver spoon in your mouth. I know as a father you are invested in her and I would be too, just don't panic or lose sight if your objectivity and become so wrapped in social competition and deification of genius that you lose sight of reality. Some problems she should deal with on her own, and not have her hand held and have everyone at her beck and call. Teach her self reliance, thats one of the most important things you can teach a gifted child is: Confidence, backbone, and good spirit. To hold onto lofty ideals as inspiration and treating people well despite what everyone else thinks or how she is treated, and most importantly a passion to never give up in the face adversity. I tell you this from experience, what I needed was not special education or smart people to be around, but was self-esteem and guidance to be self reliant. I had character traits that were very limiting and distorting o

Re:Tracking

[uncreativ]

"A normal classroom is a torture for these kids."

Ohh so true. My 2nd grade teachers thought I had learning dissabilities. In reality I was just so damn bored.
Thankfully my mother was a teacher for the school district, so when she told my teachers they needed to challenge me to get me to do better they were willing to give it a shot. They probably hated me for the trouble I was in class and would probably try anything by that point to make me less annoying. My teachers were somewhat surprised that all of a sudden I was less disruptive in class and did better academically.

I was not self actuated until high school. By that point, I didn't need teachers to teach me subjects--particularly math and the sciences. So I agree with your assertion that a young intelligent kid can benefit from some academic coaching.

I was placed in classes where I was the obviously much younger student in the class. I hated the ridicule directed my way for being intellectually capable. I was sensitive to the fact that I was threatening to others, so I learned to not speak up and give answers in a class environment except only occasionally--it wasn't necessary for the education of myself or my classmates, and I could just ignore the class and read ahead. That is an important social lesson that I may not have learned had I only been among peers as capable as me. It allowed me to know when it's appropriate to shine and when it's not--when an answer is needed to solve a problem nobody else knows, then show your stuff. I can pick out the special ed. (as in gifted special ed.) student a mile away. They never learned humility or how to interract with the rest of the world. They never learn how to take their gifts and use them to sway the masses since they are too busy trying to convince everyone they are right to the point of losing supporters. They develop their abilities for the most selfish goal of satisfying their need to feel they are better than everyone else. They become ignored geniuses.

Despite the assumed rigor attached to the study of physical sciences, for instance, acceptance of a scientist's theories often include a measure of politics. The history of science is filled with people long dead before their work is recognised or accepted. Einstein was a rare example of genius excepted in his lifetime. I believe it's not a coincidence that Einstien was also generally a humble and kind person.

I urge you to find a way to have your daughter be in a setting, at least for a small portion of her education, where she interracts with regular people. Afterall, the world is filled with regular people. Your 8 year old could, when ready and appropriate, spend time in some traditional college prep classes in a high school for instance. You can even have her approach this likely dull class not as an opportunity to learn the subject, but rather an exploration into how to interact with normal people. And please do everything you can to ensure she does not learn contempt for average people. Otherwise your daughter could end up sounding like the snotty girl in the article :

" 'People are, I must admit it, a lot of times intimidated by me,' she told me; modesty isn't among her many talents. She described herself as 'perfectionistic' and said other students sometimes had 'jealousy issues' regarding her. "

Re:Tracking

[Wavicle]

I hate to inform you, but there isn't a single test that can measure up to the 180+ range.

I have great news for you, you get to raise your intelligence just a little bit today! You're wrong! Now you know a single test (like Stanford-Binet which measured Marilyn vos Savant with an IQ of 228) can measure up to the 180+ range and beyond.

Re:Tracking

[Descalzo]

I think it's probably because the low group has a stigma attached to it, and the 'normal' group doesn't. So the brainiacs who get lumped with everyone have no stigma, but the 'normal' kid who is thrown in the buzzard group does.

Re:Tracking

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll notice that nearly all 180+ IQ test results are children. Adult tests on the same people are almost always lower. It seems that the age adjustments that are made in IQ tests are not as appropriate at high IQs as they are at the average IQs. The GP's 8-year-old daughter will likely test in the 150+ range as an adult. The adult test will be far more accurate.

Disclaimer: I'm a child of a psychologist who was tested regularly as a child and scored 170 when first tested at age 6 and steadily declined until I junior year of high school when my results stabilized to what I score now at age 29 (roughly 145).

Re:Tracking

[sjames]

Take ANY adult with a normalish IQ. Mandate by law that their "job" for the next 12 years (like it or not) is to circle the shape that doesn't belong. Nothing tricky, we're talking 3 different triangles and a square level of difficulty. Give them stacks of those at frequent enough intervals that they never have more than 15 consecutive minutes of excess time on their hands in the day. Act as if this work is very important to their future.

No chance of being released early, no chance to change jobs, no becomeing self employed, nothing. The next 12 years are clearly defined with no escape clause.

I assure you that by the 6th year or so, that adult will exhibit exactly the flaws you mention and more.

The thing is, yes the student with the IQ of 70 needs extra help and is at a natural disadvantage. That student deserves assistance. However, the student with the IQ of 130 is actually much cheaper and easier to accomodate. It could be as easy as giving them one or two formal classes a day and a heap of barely supervised library time. A school where the administration actually THINKS might even realise that and apply the savings to the students with more expensive needs.

In short, if the school can not or will not accomodate the gifted students' needs, perhaps it should get out of their way before it manages to teach them that "educational opportunity" means being bored senseless and kept too busy to grow intellectually. That may not be ideal but it would be an improvement over the current system.

Re:Tracking

[stdarg]

I think Breakfast Pants meant there isn't a *single* test that can *accurately* measure up to 180, and he's right from what I've read. Most tests will just say 160+ or even 150+ and you have to take specialized tests to measure the value of "+".

Think about it, someone at +5 sigmas (175 IQ) is smarter than 99.9999% of the population, and someone at +6 sigmas (190 IQ) is smarter than 99.999999%. So you're hunting in a very, very small margin. Can you think of a single question that would distinguish them? Okay now think of 10 so that we can reduce the impact of guessing and careless errors (if 1 lucky guesses can raise your IQ 15 points it's a bad test), and don't forget we need to identify 180 and 185 within that.

Now compare that to 100 vs. 115, where the percentages are 50% and 84%. That's a huge range which is easy to distinguish.

Re:Tracking

[RespekMyAthorati]

The argument that the anti-trackers make is that the slower students will benefit from the presence of the smarter ones. Removing those smarter ones will make the others "feel dumb", and if they feel dumb they will act dumb and distruptive.

The anti-streamers also maintain, with some validity, that the slower students are a more serious problem for society, as they are more likely to wind up illiterate and unemployed. Some 90% of criminals come from this group.

Re:Tracking

[dbc]

You are mis-informed. Many IQ tests have ceilings, that is true. The commonly used ones typically ceiling at 145. The Stanfor-Binet form L-M has no ceiling. Unfortunatly, it is an aging test. Some of the questions are anachronistic. Still, it is the best we have. Even then, the statistics get pretty thin above 180 or so. My daughter hit the ceiling in most areas of a modern IQ test. The 187 score was measured by the S-B L-M as administered by the Gifted Development Center in Denver. I belive the GDC is better informed than you.

A score above 140 in any single segment of an IQ test as administered by most school districts should be examined. The child may have hit a test ceiling, and should be retested using a test with higher ceilings. Most school districts will not be well informed in this area.

Re:Tracking

[dbc]

There is debate as to whether IQ falls on a normal distribution. Some think there is a "double hump" and that there is another peak someplace above 140. Remember, the normal distribution is simply a convenient assumption to make the math easier for statisticians -- it doesn't apply in all cases.

LCD

[Marc_Hawke]

At least every child will quickly learn the material lessons behind the term "Least Common Denominator."

Sigh.

[SatanicPuppy]

Because claiming that the church that beat down and imprisoned Galileo has a bias against intellectualism is obviously an unfounded slander, right? This is not a slander. This is a historical fact.

At any rate, I wasn't talking about the Catholics. They started it, but the Protestant churches picked it up and ran with it to the point where the Catholics now look intellectually progressive by comparison.

Re:Sigh.

[sydbarrett74]

Because claiming that the church that beat down and imprisoned Galileo has a bias against intellectualism is obviously an unfounded slander, right? This is not a slander. This is a historical fact. And you are absolutely correct. Many in the Church have made apologies for the blind arrogance and dogmatism of those in centuries past. It doesn't help that the current Pope is provincial and bigoted. But please don't paint us all with the same brush, m'kay?

Um, No... Not Necessarily...

[morari]

Does No Child Left Behind mean that nobody can get ahead, either? The school system has always been set up to cater to the lowest common denominator.

I am officially a genius. I spent years in alternative classes, set aside to cater to my unique "gift". These classes occurred one day out of the week, in which we left the confines of the normal teachers' textbooks and sat around solving slightly more abstract problems. Some really fun projects took place as well, but they were few and far between. Afterwards we were still required to make up the work that we had "missed" in normal class that day and we received no special credit for our alternative work. It was akin to gym class, where the only way to get something other than "Satisfactory" on your report card was to not participate at all. This was up to the halfway point in junior highschool, afterwards I was traditionally home schooled and then attended an online academy.

Even for the regular kids, school is meant to be slow and plodding. You cannot get a head, but you can fall behind. The teacher is there to slowly explain things so that everyone can attempt to comprehend them. If that means boring 80% of the children that could manage fine without, then so be it! The public education system really isn't about learning though, is it? It's about molding youth into the form that civilization sees as beneficial. It is social conditioning with the intent of forcing you into being a productive member of society. You're made to memorize things while never truly understanding, and many of said subjects aren't nearly as valuable as others that aren't even taught at all. Of course, what is and isn't valuable is largely dependent upon what talents you have. I for one was never given the opportunity to indulge any of my interests in a school setting. Everything I know (save for some advanced mathematics and science) were self taught. My lifelong talents further guided me in the direction that I wanted to take my life and now contribute to a very satisfying lifestyle.

Not everyone can be successfully self employed, but anyone can find something that they like and make it their own if they only try. Too many of us get caught up in being or competing with the proverbially Joneses to live a happy life, and much of that is due to the social conditioning we encounter throughout youth. Many are not told or cannot see this when it is happening, only to be too far assimilated into the machine or much too beaten down by it to do anything once they do realize. Don't let that happen.

Re:Um, No... Not Necessarily...

[Breakfast Pants]

Hey you, official genius. Yeah that's right, you. It's 'ahead', not 'a head'.

Re:Um, No... Not Necessarily...

[dapho]

Hey, you, meaningless nitpicker. Yeah that's right, you. Physical weaknesses (mis-spacing) are not symptoms of stupidity, as much as you'd wish they were.

Re:Um, No... Not Necessarily...

[Breakfast Pants]

The difference is I didn't dub myself better than the rest of the lot.

Re:Um, No... Not Necessarily...

[dapho]

I thought that much was obvious.

Re:Um, No... Not Necessarily...

[morari]

I didn't dub myself better than anyone either. I specifically made mention that I am "officially" a genius for that very point. I forget that tone is easily misrepresented while in text form. Such credentials mean very little, just as they currently do when decided if children are or are not intelligent enough for a school to receive funding (or the school officials to receive a pay raise) . These things are based on tests and nothing more. There is no substantial weight to the outcome.

Save for the low amount of children that seem to have a genetic disposition towards stupidity, I think that everyone has about the same amount of potential. Unfortunately our environment does not assist most in reaching such, and thus those that do are heralded as so-called geniuses. I was given a head (aha!) start when it came to my education and wasn't just thrown into the classroom with as little prior knowledge as possible to let the government teach me whatever they thought important and correct.

Real geniuses are very few and far between, they're the ones that are remembered. With much of my life left, I hope to contribute something towards a similar goal, but I don't consider myself a genius in any practical or realistic sense.

Parent is 100% spot-on, folks!

[Anonymous Coward]

Without fail, intelligence is SPIT ON in American society.

In school, you have social pressure from peers not to appear too "nerdy" and the teachers actually feel threatened if you're too openly bright (they're afraid you're going to make them look dumb in front of the class).

In work, you would think the gifted have an advantage, but any business with more than two layers of management is based on pure politics. Too smart == "Holy crap! That one will go over my head and steal my job/ get promoted ahead of me/ outperform my team/ catch me embezzling! Better get rid of that person right now!"

Socially, intelligence in science equates to blasphemy against religion; intelligence in sexuality marks you as a pervert, intelligence in sociology makes you a bleeding-heart liberal. And of course, being smart with computers makes you a "dangerous hacker".

It isn't just the religious influence, however; while ESR is wrong about many other things, he pegged it when he said, "After all, people in authority will always be inconvenienced by schoolchildren or workers or citizens who are prickly, intelligent individualists -- thus, any social system that depends on authority relationships will tend to helpfully ostracize and therapize and drug such 'abnormal' people until they are properly docile and stupid and 'well-socialized'."

Speaking as one who would rather read a book than watch TV, I have "failed" in one career after another until I gave up, sat at home, and started my own freelancing career online. Finally, being my own boss allowed me to work to my full potential for the first time in my life, and my whole outlook has completely turned around - but of course, 90% of my business is from outside the U.S.! I'm derided as a creep in the United States and hailed as a genius in Canada and Europe. I'm pretty much saving up to bail as soon as I can. I advise anybody else with ambitions they can't seem to get fulfilled to do likewise.

The politics of other countries in history has caused a "brain drain" before; this time, it just happens to be the United States' turn. But since we're heading into Dark Age #2 with a side order of Spanish Inquisition, then this country doesn't deserve to enjoy the fruits of the labor of those it would burn at the stake. And the steady decline of United States scientific achievement in the last 50 years has affirmed this fact, with vigor.

This is horseshit

[FormOfActionBanana]

Guess what. School is just a place to keep kids so they don't burn down bus shelters and get pregnant all day. And also so their parents can go to work and be economically productive.

Guess what too. School sucks if you're smart, but it also sucks if you're dumb. Many kids are dumb and they deserve some attention. Smart kids are going to be bored, but in that case good parenting means directing their kids toward reading good books.

The example of the mother who home schooled until she couldn't be helpful anymore is also horseshit. I love that word. Mom could have sent her daughter to a college library to learn about ANYTHING. Physiology of color vision. Semi conductor design. Medieval history.

No child left behind attempts to put the burden on well funded schools to help out their neighboring underfunded schools. It's just a method of shifting children around to spread the school funding on a flatter curve that what the US had previously, with very local property taxes paying for education.

Little geniuses DON'T need an extra hand up in life. They're going to do fine eventually.

Some book comes to mind...

[sethstorm]

...when it comes to the dangers of streaming of any type. Unfortunately some would rather take it as a manual than fiction.

I agree.

[Anonymous Coward]

My parents and extended family worked with me a bunch (probably because I was first born, before all my siblings and cousins) so I could read very well from an early age.. Then my dad got a new job in a country bumpkin town in the middle of nowhere.. I was enrolled in the first grade and I got IN TROUBLE for reading aloud "the dog chased the cat" instead of "t-t-t-th-th-the-the d-d-d-og ch-ch-ch-ased t-t-the c-c-c-at".

Jr. High and high school were jokes. I slept through some classes and did most of my homework during the class directly before. I'm not saying I'm proud of myself or how I did.. I was always in the top 5%, but I'm just disappointed where I feel, as a kid, that the education system and yes my parents, had failed me when I sought out more education.. The counselors kept pushing things like volunteering or which classes to take, but nobody had a clue of the real world.. I lived in IL and had opportunities to go to better schools like IMSA (Illinois Math and Science Academy) but my parents didn't want me living so far away or didn't have the money (or so they said)

I just never realized how much else was out there in the world until I left that town. I just wish I had a mentor or something. I was doing great in the tiny community from which I came, but not so hot on a country level. I could have even been valedictorian at my podunk highschool and still not amount to anything compared to so many of these otehr top-tier high schools, which I never even knew existed.

Ultimately, yes, I agree it's the parents responsibility, but sometimes the parents just aren't aware and that's where a competent school system/counselors come in. I had taken anything I could in my field of interest, and always did phenomenally, but nobody seemed willing or able to offer any guidance even when I asked so many times.

Best vs. brightest

[benhocking]

"Bright" does not correspond to best.

Absolutely. There is obviously a correlation between the two, but there are plenty of lazy bright kids in the advanced classes and plenty of hard-working not-so-bright kids in the general/remedial level classes.

As a former public high school teacher, I speak from experience. I taught physics and AP chemistry (both classes composed of advanced 11th and 12th graders) and physical science (composed of general/remedial 9th graders). I felt really bad for the few really hard working kids in my physical science class who had to put up with the disruptions of their fellow students. (Yes, I disciplined those kids, but you can only do so much in certain school systems.) I fought to put one student who I thought was of average intelligence but very hard-working in an advanced class for the following year. Unfortunately, that didn't work out as the advanced class was too far ahead of her. I had another student who was mildly mentally retarded, but was such a hard-worker that he outperformed almost everyone else in that class.

Re:Best vs. brightest

[cibyr]

I don't think it really matters. In my maths C ("very hard" maths) class, it was about 50/50 bright lazy kids and hard-working slower kids. The slower kids might have slowed us down sometimes, but they always made sure we got a good explanation for everything we covered. But then again, we had a very good teacher and I doubt the class would have fared so well without him. In physics, the class ran the gamut from very bright hard-working to goofing-off I'll-pass-somehow. Yet thanks to a skilled teacher, I know I learnt a lot more in that class than many of my peers at uni did in theirs.

In the two classes I didn't at uni that weren't considered "hard" or "academic" (read: mandatory) - English and Religious Education - the classes were full of students who didn't give a crap and/or had fundamental misunderstandings as to how the world worked. So the teachers didn't give a crap, and we learnt nothing. I literally spent more time in RE listening to my ipod than my teacher and yet only one student in the class did better than me.

In chemistry, the class was full of students who were trying hard to do well to get into uni, with a few bright-and-lazys who were there because it was a pre-req for their degree. Yet a useless teacher managed to confuse everyone to the point that ignoring him and reading the textbook was easier and set such poor exams that the major hurdle was understanding the questions rather than the chemistry.

So I think the teacher matters more than anything else. I know my maths teacher got good results out of one of the remedial maths classes as well. My physics teacher is now lecturing at the local university. My chemistry teacher... well, I think some poor boarding school has him now. But the problem is, all the metrics are geared towards measuring the students, rather than the teachers. And even if we could easily say Mr A is a much better teacher than Mr B, the unions are very much against any sort of performance bonuses or differential pay. A bad teacher hurts a weak student much more than they hurt a strong student, but a good teacher can take a strong student much further than a weak student. /Everyone/ needs better teachers, and crap like No Child Left Behind is disguising the problem.

Is your reasoning circular?

[lheal]

I'm not sure. It appears that you began with a premise, that Americans hate intellectuals, and reasoned to it.

However, I think you're mistaken. Americans don't hate intellectuals or smart people per se. We hate elitists of all stripes. As counterexamples of our supposed disdain for intellectuals, I submit the names Franklin, Jefferson, Emerson, Lincoln, Edison, Einstein, and Hawking. What do all of these have in common? Great intellect coupled with common humility. Except maybe for Jefferson, but he's rather unique historically.

Granted, they were not all known purely as intellectuals, but they (and many others like them) are in our pantheon of heroes, and not for their pugilism or beauty.

Re:Is your reasoning circular?

[SatanicPuppy]

I like how you substituted the pejorative word "hate" for the mild phrase "view intellectualism with suspicion." Then you immediately make the connotation between brains and elitism, because obviously if you're smart, you're an elitist, the kind of person a sensible, wise, god-fearing American hero would be bound to hate. Can't blame them for hating hateable people, right?

This is how deep it runs, where the very idea of intelligence is immediately coupled with negative identifiers. If I described a girl as "smart" the thought would be that she's ugly, because if she's not ugly, then I would have had something better to say about her than smart, right? In the movies a character's physical attractiveness/fitness is often inverse to his/her intelligence. The smartest person is rarely the hero, unless he happens to be an action hero,in which case his intelligence only emerges when there is nothing to shoot at. Villains are often intelligent. Evil Genius. Criminal Mastermind. Mad Scientist.

If that's not enough, then you have the smart-but-dumb stereotypes. He's book smart. Bumbling scientist. Ivory tower intellectual. Impractical. Naive. He's got this big brain, but really he's dumb. He's a social outcast. Smart people can't communicate with normal people. He doesn't understand the real world. He has high intelligence but low wisdom (that one is even enshrined in D&D...Intelligence for the mages and their dark and violent ways, and Wisdom for the healing priests).

Blah blah blah blah blah. I don't know why I bother. Believe what you want to believe.

Re:Is your reasoning circular?

[lheal]

I like how you substituted the pejorative word "hate" for the mild phrase "view intellectualism with suspicion." Then you immediately make the connotation between brains and elitism, because obviously if you're smart, you're an elitist, the kind of person a sensible, wise, god-fearing American hero would be bound to hate. Can't blame them for hating hateable people, right?[...] My post, which perhaps you should reread, was about the difference between intellect and elitism. Some intellectuals are elitists, but some are not, and Americans don't hate smart people, but they do hate elitists. That's why elitists don't get elected President.

As far as my use of the word "hate", you said the last two losing presidential candidates were thought to be "know-it-alls, dorks, geeks, namby pamby sissy faggot intellectuals". That's not just viewing something with suspicion.

Re:Is your reasoning circular?

[SatanicPuppy]

I read your post...It is possible to read something and not agree. Your examples are shallow; you pick flat out exceptional world changing people and say, "See we like smart people, just not bad smart people." This has no relation on how smart people in general are viewed.

It's okay to be smart if you change the world. It's okay to be smart as long as you're really humble about it. But if you don't change the world, or if you lack the proper humble demeanor to go with your big brain, then you're just an arrogant elitist. You've only yourself to blame. What gives you the right to know more than someone else anyway?

Failing our Geniuses

[Anonymous Coward]

Compared to what?

Such a zealot.

[SatanicPuppy]

My post was about as dispassionate as it is possible to be. I honestly don't care about "Who started the anti-intellectual trend in America." I really don't. My personal opinion, based on historical and current knowledge of religion leads me to suggest that that probably had something to do with it.

Then, out of the woodwork, come all these hysterical Christians, horrified that I could say anything at all that might reflect poorly on their faith. Really, it me being completely biased. Apparently I hate puritans, for example, which is news to me.

The fact that most Christians react extremely strongly to statements that they do not agree with, coupled with the general trend of social conservativism in religion, is exactly why I think that religion is responsible for this countries attitudes toward intellectuals. The church has not historically been kind to intellectuals, and while more modern sects may indeed promote literacy, it has not been that long since the church restricted the printing of the bible to a dead language.

Re:Such a zealot.

[natedubbya]

The church has not historically been kind to intellectuals, and while more modern sects may indeed promote literacy, it has not been that long since the church restricted the printing of the bible to a dead language.

Your reference to the church restricting printing of the bible relates to the Catholic Church. Your previous post was about *Puritanical* influences on today's views. Either (a) you think the puritans and catholic church of the 1700's are the same, or (b) you just throw out random examples of oppression. You can cherry pick however many unrelated examples you want, but it just makes your argument baseless. Read up on the puritans and the USA's educational system history, please.

Re:Such a zealot.

[SatanicPuppy]

Shrug. They're all Christian to me. Frankly, these days, I view the Catholics far more kindly than most Protestants. My biggest problem with the Puritans is with their immense social conservativism, and I'm hardly alone in that. The inability to tolerate behaviours that deviate from the social norms poses a problem for all kinds of free thinking, not just science.

Hans Reiser

[leereyno]

Hans Reiser has apparently accomplished 1st degree murder.

Welcome to life

[Sycraft-fu]

That is just how it is going to be, and that's not a bad thing all in all. It's a nice thought that we pour tons and tons of money in to gifted kids but all in all that's a non-workable solution, and I don't know that you'd really get any better results. My school experience was somewhat similar, I'm a high perform according to standardised tests, as were most of my friends. We all went to public schools, in a state that doesn't fund them all that well in comparison to other states (Arizona). This meant most classes were really easy, in fact to the extent I did get bad grades (meaning less than an A) it was mainly from just not wanting to do the work. I can't recall finding any of it too hard.

However for all that, my friends and I turned out fine. One of my friends was a Flynn scholar. She got her PhD in linguistics at 26 and has been rather successful. We all went to university and I certainly haven't heard any failure stories there, and so on.

Now this is interesting to contrast to a few kids I knew from a private school. They were all supposedly gifted hence why they went there. They got a lot more personal attention, smaller classes and such, than public school children did. They basically got more special treatment since they were special kids. This became a problem for the two of them that I knew that went to university where I did. When they weren't treated as special anymore, they had trouble coping. Also, perhaps some of what they'd been getting taught wasn't as applicable as was thought as they failed the English entrance test and had to take remedial English, though it was not very hard (in my opinion).

Well, having worked a normal job for some years now, I've come to understand and accept that this is just how it goes. You can't expect people to bend over backwards because you are smart. Actually, the opposite is true, because you are smart you are assumed to be able to solve problems and learn new things on your own. Someone who's not that bright may be sent to two weeks of of training to learn to use MS Word, you'll be handed a new software package and told "have fun".

I don't think it is that unrealistic or bad to want gifted kids to do a fair amount of self learning. It is not only something you need to become used to doing, but it is a valuable skill to have. That's not to say schools should just ignore gifted kids, but I don't think it is unreasonable to have them in some normal classes. It is good preparation for life in many ways.

Problem Predates "No Child Left Behind"

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a child who graduated from college at age 20, and is now working on a PhD. She didn't go to graduation ceremonies for her masters, she was at a conference delivering a paper. Throughout the '90's - before the "No Child Left Behind Act" - My wife and I constantly encountered administrators who were not interested in providing more education than any other child received. There is a "gifted and talented education" program in our school district, and she was in it, but it was clear that many administrators thought it unnecessary.

In my state, the state law requires state sponsored community colleges to "dovetail" with state universities. There's a statewide standard for the general undergraduate requirements, that all community colleges and universities must meet, and accept. In addition, the state requires that school districts 1) allow any student who meets community college admission requirements to take community college courses, and 2) accept those credits towards high school graduation. This doesn't cost the high school student anything more than high school costs. The state, through the school district, picks up the tab. Every year, there are several thousand students statewide who graduate from high school without ever having stepped in the school building for the last two years, then a few days later, get their associates degree from the community college where they've been attending full time. Plenty more have had at least a few courses at a community college.

Only after the local school district realized how many of the top students were "dropping out" of high school and attending community college (this means money) did the district start to seriously consider offering the "advanced placement" or "honors" courses. Now they have several. But the administration is more interested in keeping the students (and the state and federal money that goes with each student), than they really are in offering an education that keeps pace with the really smart students.

Re:Exactly. "Developmentally Disabled" is bullshit

[JP205]

You're absolutely right, most students just don't want to learn. I mean when was the last they you heard a middle schooler comment how they can't wait to get home and spend the rest of the evening studying geometry or algebra. Society would be much better off if we simply stopped wasting time and money on students who don't want to spend all day being lectured at by people who think them incapable of learning.

makes sense

[aflag]

Slow people require more money to be taught, smart people don't waste as much, they learn faster and by themselves.

Re:of course (from a teacher)

[Ying Hu]

Yes.

The answer that immediately came to my mind as well.

I'm a science teacher, and the focus of my school is exactly as described - it is to raise the test scores of marginally achieving populations. There are advanced courses in most subjects, but other than that no extra attention is paid to gifted kids, except at the most minimal level (i.e. the extra efforts of one sponsoring teacher) in some extracurricular clubs. Even the training provided to districts by national consultants such as those of Professional Learning Communities make virtually no mention of gifted kids (I listened very carefully for this at the conference I took part in). They advocate standardizing and homogenizing instruction, to a) increase the teaching skills of poor teachers, and to b) allow all kids to be graded by standardized tests. The implicit and explicit assumption is that a rising tide will raise all boats. Unfortunately, this whole process completely excludes the programs of truly gifted teachers (and they are admittedly too rare), and gifted kids find normal schooling to be incredibly boring a lot of the time.

Yes - to hell with it

[John Boone]

If the dimwits want to take over and ruin the world that smart people created for them, so be it. We'll see how they fare when it comes to sticks vs. crossbows.

It isn't the school's job...

[Inertiatia]

...to make geniuses take full advantage of their genetic/environmental talents. The only job of the school is to prepare as many students as possible for the "real world." And since time/resources are finite, you don't blow them on the kids that are already set. (Although I knew plenty of "smart kids" in school that would have benefited from a "Laundry 101" or "How to cook without setting your kitchen on fire and producing more than macaroni and cheese 101.")

Most geniuses should already be fairly well prepared intellectually for the "real world," they just need some time simmering in school to build up their emotional and social readiness. And besides, nothing keeps them from going further intellectually on their own. In fact - it can be a good life lesson for smarter students - I wasn't challenged until college and now I'm an unambitious, procrastinating, lazy asshole.

If our biggest concern is that those of us that already have the most gifts aren't getting more attention then we must be doing pretty good as a society... /sarcasm/

Old news ...

[sgunhouse]

Don't blame this on "No Child Left Behind". As a gifted student myself and someone who used to work in education, I can tell you this goes back a lot further.

YES, and here is why:

[MLS100]

This is most certainly the situation for any intelligent individual who was unfortunate enough to end up in a public school. The reason: schools are giving more and more credit for simply doing work, and giving less and less for clear demonstration of knowledge.

Anyone who has attended high school within the last 10 years probably noticed this. Test weights plummeting and homework weights skyrocketing. I can't count the number of times I've had a class, aced every single test, and got a B in the class because I didn't want to waste endless hours plowing through hundreds of practice problems when I already know how to do them all, which the A on my test SHOULD demonstrate.

But instead, I am given a B in the class.

Now consider what happens on the other side. Some kid who gets a C on the test, but takes the time to plow through 500 practice problems, most of which are done incorrectly, is given the same grade I am.

Now fast forward a couple years in time as the effect of this permeates. My calculus class is now full of students who got D's and C's on the tests in the prerequisite classes, so they are now doing even worse on the tests in this class. Test averages plummet, so what is done? You got it, give more weight to homework! Now, the students who actually know the material and can clearly demonstrate their knowledge are forced to spend even more time plowing through useless practice problems in order to even get a C in the class. Additionally, instructors spend more and more time re-explaining past material to get these people who shouldn't have even passed the previous class in the first place up to speed with those that did deserve it.

As a result of falling test grades, not only will mere 'hard work' get you by with a better and better grade, but classes will also be made easier. The 'hard chapters' will be cut from the curriculum or given its own class even.

Let us consider the effect of all of this upon a gifted individual beginning high school after the effects of this idiocy is taking hold.

Because of the increased weight on homework, he/she now is forced to commit a significant amount of time to very tedious busy work to maintain a good grade in the class.
Because the difficulty of the class is lessened, and more time is spent on recapping past material, he/she learning much less than he/she normally would. As a result he/she is forced to expend more semesters learning what used to take two semesters, but now takes three or four.

The total effect here is a frustrated, undergraded, individual who, despite his/her abilities, is forced into step with everyone else. It is akin to your feeling when you are in a hurry to get somewhere and there are a hundred people in your way slowly trodding along, stopping to talk with other people, et cetera. You just get more and more frustrated until you just accept your fate and move at the speed of the crowd.

-MLS

Failing our teachers as well

[solar_blitz]

One of the reasons our nation's gifted children are suffering is because of a severe lack of skilled, qualified teachers to suit their needs. Let me elaborate with a personal story: my mom always talks about how my grandmother was a second grade teacher, and was well known for her ability to teach her second grade students well enough to read from the newspaper by the end of the school year. Parents went out of their way to get their children into her courses. The problem, though, was that she had a horrible salary. She was a single mother and had to take care of four kids. Life for my mother was hard.

Teachers like my grandmother aren't around anymore because other industries pay better. That's not to say people are greedy money grubbers, though, because in most of the United States it is difficult to support oneself on a teacher's salary. So when given the choice between taking a $40k teaching gig or a $60k software developing gig in a state like, say, California (where schools are nearly last place in the country and living costs are HIGH), the majority would go for the $60k gig. And without good teachers or resources, we end up taking the mindset of "How do we keep the less gifted students on track with the norm?"

We all see ads and propaganda for the Army, right? Recruiters at every school. But where the hell is the propaganda for teacher recruitment? If our public education system had the same budget as the military, none of these problems would've existed. We'd have had ads asking for teachers playing at the theaters before the previews came on. Superintendents of public school boards would be making speaches at universities about why you should get a job in teaching. Gifted students would have access to advanced courses and cirriculum in the same school as the normal kids. (I've got nothing against the nation's military, though, and I wasn't intending to give that message off. Sorry.)

On another note, I took an IQ test a while ago and found out that... well, my IQ wasn't as high as the girl in the beginning of the TIME article, but it was up there. I don't remember being able to talk as well as she did, but in my psychology research I found out I did a lot while I was a kid. Memorizing the names and locations of the United States, making large structures with building blocks, y'know? However when I was at school I was a complete bonehead! I'd find it hard to read a lot of the material they gave in class and outright hated writing and grammar lessons. And I was always imagining different things, I never really focused on the teacher's lessons or anything. I was told that some of my classmates didn't even think that I would get past high-school.

There's a lot in deciding who is smart and who is not. A lot of the issues that students have are simple barriers or developmental issues that they haven't grown out of. Things like dyslexia, attention deficity disorder, or even an early fear of math. And there are a lot of issues with standardized testing, because many students learn and study in different ways, and if teachers aren't aware or open to these different types of learning methods, how are students supposed to excel?

Add onto that a lot of immigrant children don't even know English, so how are they supposed to learn in a classroom? One of the issues with the "No Child Left Behind" Act is that it rewards schools that perform well in academic standardized testing, but when a lot of students from poor immigrant families perform poorly because of a lack of education or the language barrier, the school and the entire district suffer the consequences. Ultimately the children are being taught material from the SATs and standardized testing for the sake of passing the exams only!

...nobody can get ahead, either?

[iminplaya]

Yes

And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.

It's government schooling

[kwiqsilver]

"Public" (i.e. government-monopoly) school will never be good at teaching the advanced students. Most government schools meet the minimum standards, because that's all they're required to do. There is rarely an economic incentive to do better.

There are a few exceptions. In SC when I was in high school, the schools got $400 extra for each student in an AP class, so, with all other things being equal, schools were motivated to teach AP classes, and get the students to take them (and do well, since the schools looked bad, if their scores were low).

In general though, without the incentives, innovation, and risks that a profit-motivated free market would bring to schooling, American schools will continue to suck. But at least we have good high school football teams (schools have a strong motivation to have good sports teams...they bring in more money, and boasting rights).

Austrian Economic theory (founded by Ludwig von Mises) explains why government-monopoly services (education, the postal system, social security, etc.) fail to provide a quality product at a competitive price.

If you want to improve American education, then vote for Ron Paul. Not only will he get the Feds out of local education, but he's also the most pro-internet freedom candidate since...well...ever!

50/50?

[benhocking]

Aren't you missing a few groups there? In addition to "bright lazy kids and hard-working slower kids" you also have hard-working bright kids, and lazy slower kids, as well as hard-working average kids and lazy average kids. Part of the problem with 2-way tracking is that you end up with hard-working average kids, hard-working bright kids, and bright lazy kids in one group, with hard-working slower kids, lazy slower kids, and lazy average kids in the other group. Notice something? The "lower" group has more lazy kids than the "higher group". A problem is this leads to a feedback loop. It now becomes cool to be lazy in the lower group. I'm over-simplifying it, but this type of thing does happen. Of course, there is no perfect solution to this problem.

Furthermore, in addition to the quality of the teacher being important (and the poster who said the best teachers get the best groups is right, in general), the quality of the parent(s) is vital. A large number of the parents that I called about the disappointing performance of their children just didn't care. (I'm not saying parents are the only ones to blame, either.)

Re:50/50?

[cibyr]

To [mis]quote someone's sig "Try reading my posts before responding to them. It's like reading, but of my posts." If you'd have read my 2nd or 3rd paragraph you would've noticed that I most certainly don't put everyone in those two groups.

You do bring up an important point about the "feedback loop" though. "Listening To The Boys" is a very interesting read relating to that (specifically, the effect that gender and gender separation in education has on it).

Re:50/50?

[Anonymous Coward]

When I had drive, ambition, and interest, I was shunned, ignored, and bored out of my mind. By the time I was in high school they had me bouncing from remedial to honors & gifted because they couldn't figure out what to do with me. Remedial because they were afraid I was going to drop out, but was much to easy for me. Honors and Gifted kicked me out because though I received passing grades, I did little or no work, and often slept in class.

If they would've put me in gifted in ELEMENTARY school I wouldn't have had the problem. By the time I was in High School, I no longer had any interest, and though my knowledge and experience was average, my ability to figure things out kept me ahead and feeding my laziness.

In the end, like many kids the school, the school system did me more harm than good.

Two Quotes

[carre4]

Homer: Musical instrument? Could that be a way to encourage a gifted child? [to the heavens] Just give me a sign! [At that moment, the store owner happens to put a sign in the window reading "Musical Instruments: The Way To Encourage A Gifted Child".]

Lois: You don't think I'd sacrifice this one? Let me explain something to you. I would sell Malcolm down the river in a heartbeat to save Reese. Malcolm's gonna be fine no matter what happens ... Reese is the one who needs saving.

By design

[nurb432]

Geniuses and radial thinkers are dangerous to soceity as they often promote change.

Society prefers everyone to fall into line and step in sync with the rest.

Exceptional Children *are* Special Needs Children!

[ZephyrQ]

----this will be flame-bait for the un-informed--------

Some have put forth the idea that special education funding be used for exceptional children at *all* points on the learning spectrum...including the exceptionally smart ones.

Did you know that some that qualify as 'genius' also have learning disabilities (a math wiz with verbal deficiencies and such)?

I am a special education teacher who, while growing up, was one of the persecuted 'genius' class. I can now see this issue from both sides. Imagine my surprise when a 17 year old minority student was placed in my class for obvious verbal deficiencies but was a celebrated drug dealer in a nearby city (tho never convicted...).

I asked that he be 're-evaluated' (paid for by special education funding) and I find out, one month before he turns 18 and a day before he is placed in corrections that while he had several difficulties with his verbal comprehension, his non-verbal comprehension was **genius level**. No wonder he was so good at what he did. (he came to visit me a month after his 18th birthday to show off his brand new white pick-up truck that he had purchased with proceeds from his 'contract work'.)

My point is this: part of the problem is whenever you tell a parent of an exceptionally *smart* child that they will recieve the same services as an exceptionally *not-so-smart* child (IEP, Evaluation and Testing services, legal protections...as well as ABILITY SPECIFIC EDUCATION), the parents are offended and swear that little Johnny will never 'ride the short bus'.

Part of the problem is lack of perspective...

It had to happen.

[DynaSoar]

We've run out of other kinds if victims, so now the most capable have to be victims too.

Not run out per se, but they've had their 15 minutes of our attention span.

I have a set of videos on different topics in psychology that I use in the classroom. In one, a retarded child is put in a class of gifted children and expected to perform at their level. She does, though she has to work harder at it. If a retarded child can perform at genius level, I have no doubt geniuses can operate just fine among the normals without mere mortals having to put themselves out worrying about it. Any child will seek out adequate stimulation unless taught not to. A genius is more capable than most at finding things to keep themselves interested. Making them dependent on us providing what we think is enough and of the right sort teaches them to rely on us rather than themselves. That is counter-productive.

Read the biographies of the likes of Einstein and Feynman, and you'll find childhoods encouraged in self-directed exploration and thought. They are shown how to develop their own thinking tools and left on their own unless they actively seek out assistance.

they just need to make it harder

[kaizokuace]

i would say we need to make jr high and sr high schools super hard. and require testing to advance grades. and other requirements. and when students dont pass they dont get ahead! none of this testing and then letting them go ahead even if they fail! or that the bar to go ahead is too low. We need high school to be so hard that these kids start killing themselves (maybe not that hard) like in japan or something. Maybe more personal attention to students would help instead of everyone being faceless. The harder the challenge thrown at a kid usually they harder they work to accomplish it. The potential of not being able to get a high school diploma might make people work harder or get smarter! also less ridicule of smart people would be nice. anyway i'm just spouting whatever comes out my head, take anything i say with a grain of salt.

Not in this lifetime

[yusing]

If they didn't worry about in the 60s, when all the teachers could read and write, labor unions were strong, being liberal wasn't a stain, and we were up against another superpower ... and they assuredly didn't, unless you had the do-re-mi ... no one should expect it to happen this time and this country.

It's not about genius, it's about money and the illusion of power. You must be thinking about 2 or 3 centuries down the road. "Shape of Things To Come."

Yes.

[JimXugle]

I've never been branded as "gifted" but I've been called bright, etc.

NCLB is a damnation to the sharper crayons in the box, as a former student of Public High School, I can attest to how watered-down classes are getting to be.

If people are in a similar boat as me, check to see if your state has charter schools (especially Cyber schools!) that you can attend. In PA specifically, there's the PA Cyber Charter School, of which I'm currently a student.

Stereotypes are the point.

[SatanicPuppy]

If you want to know what a culture thinks about a group, go and look at the stereotypes. Look at the language that is used to describe those groups. Liberals are all pacifist pansies, conservatives are all gun toting rednecks. Liberals are whiny intellectuals, conservatives are ignorant religious nuts.

In this country, there aren't many positive intellectual stereotypes. People may be smart, but that's rarely ever the thing that is used to describe them. Can you even think of a positive intellectual stereotype?

Re:Stereotypes are the point.

[geobeck]

Can you even think of a positive intellectual stereotype?

Einstein. Sure, the name conjures up some minor negative connotations of a messy-haired compulsive who was out of touch with regular people, but the overwhelming connotation behind the name is a strongly revered genius.

One exception to that rule

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to get over to Lake Wobegon. All the kids there are above average.

Vonnegut?

[mshaver]

Remind anyone of the story "Harrison Bergeron" from Welcome to the Monkey House?

Cue The Moaning

[MadMacSkillz]

Let loose the slashdot moaning about how bad the public education system is... regardless of the fact that the average slashdotter wouldn't last two days as a teacher. Boo hoo, the parents and administration won't support me and none of the kids want to learn, and I'm somehow supposed to motivate them. Welcome to public education. It's HARD to teach. Here's some good advice for anyone - unless you've actually done a person's job, shut the hell up. And yes, I HAVE taught. At one point in time I taught gifted 4th and 5th graders how to program, years ago. Some of those kids are now in college, studying computer programming. So I've actually DONE something. You want to change public education? Triple teacher salaries to dramatically increase competition for jobs and radically improve the quality of teachers, and change USA culture so that parents and kids respect education (good luck.) Though since we seem to value money so much, increasing teacher salaries might have the same effect.

Re:Cue The Moaning

[Dhalka226]

Here's some good advice for anyone - unless you've actually done a person's job, shut the hell up.

It's not good advice, it's idiotic advice.

The idea that I should not be able to criticize something because I haven't done it is absurd. Are you a politician? Then shut the hell up about politics. In fact you shouldn't even vote, because voting against somebody includes an implicit criticism of the other. The police beat the shit out of somebody on your doorstep for no reason? Shut the hell up. You're not a cop, you don't know how stressful it is. Shut the hell up when your favorite sports teams are playing shitty, because you have no idea how hard their job is since you're almost certainly not a professional athlete. Your surgeon leaves a sponge inside your wife and she develops an infection and dies? Shut the hell up, you probably couldn't even get into medical school. You hire somebody to clean your pool but when he's done there's a layer of slime on top of the water? Shut the hell up, you're not a pool boy!

I could go on and on, but I'll simply say this: I do not need to have done something to be able to determine whether or not somebody who has did a good job. To imply otherwise is worthless defensiveness and/or foolishness.

Re:Cue The Moaning

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all Teacher are paid WAY TOO MUCH!!!
Down here in San Diego teachers get $76,000 per year only work 8 months and have full benefits for life.

I would love to have those financial benefits but I also want to do much more with my life then that.

People dont go into teaching for many reason.
They want to make more money, they want to work with people they like (who wants to hang out with other crazy teachers), they want some adventure in life, and so on.

Re:Cue The Moaning

[Raideen]

I agree that teacher's salaries are too low--at least to start and certainly in certain neighborhoods. I have done some computer work within the walls of under performing schools and I got to listen to some lessons at those schools. For example, I was in an elementary school class where the teacher yelled at her students and spoke in broken English! Sure, most gifted students deserve better than what they're getting, but those poor kids in those schools definitely deserve a hell of a lot better than the teachers they were given. I'd rather see the money go to getting rid of incompetent teachers and hiring competent ones first.

Less entertainment, more work, individuation

[PetraData]

I have an IQ of 144. In elementary school, I had the privilege of doing several "enrichment" based classes, being taken out of regular class for further experience in focussed areas which correlated to my perceived gift -- this happened to be theatre and language, according to school psychologists. In my last year of elementary school, it was programming. Unfortunately, I never formed any friendships in elementary school. Because of my gift, I was always finished before the other students and found the "banter" boring. While they discussed Power Rangers, I wanted to talk about Leninism and political theory. My math was a little on the iffy side, but this was because I had, at that point in my life, decided that I wanted to be an actor and subconsciously cut out math. To get the attention of a teacher, I tried to get him fired during an administrative interview, which ended up getting me almost expelled from elementary school. It worked. He failed the interview but I, as a child, was just looking for attention the only way I knew how -- having never been socialized into the group dynamic, having never needed any help from other students -- I treated him like a toddler. In junior high, I cracked a school server and got into heavy trouble. I was also under investigation for some crimes, all of which I got out of. A state psychiatrist believed that I suffered schizophrenia and asked me several times if I heard voices. I told him every time that I did not, but he was very critical -- not understanding why I spent my free time reading about computer engineering and never playing with the other students. The work was just too bloody easy. I did not feel challenged. And while I could have done any of the work in seconds, I did not want to be like the other students. They had no thirst for knowledge. I wanted to be an individual. In high school, I wandered, barely passing -- here and there doing enough work to pass so that I could get on to university. If it were not for my parents, I would have failed high school (with an IQ of 144) out of sheer lack of interest. Now, in university, I am thriving -- loving every class I can take, learning everything I can use, and despising anyone who thinks of university as a ticket to a job. For me, it's a place of learning. And I love it. From the age of 5 to the age of 17, I lived in a bitter hell, all because (with my IQ of 144) I was treated like I had an IQ of 100 and told to write out the same garbage time and time again, when I couldn't care less. I tell you, people with high IQs (130+) see the world a helluva lot different than people with average IQs and just want to solve problems to prove themselves like hunters. The state cannot provide this feature. My advice to school students: drop out, become home schooled, and do whatever you can to get yourself to university as quickly as possible!

Are you kidding?

[DoubleMike]

The US educational system has a hard enough time keeping *normal* kids *entertained*, much less educated. I don't know if I count as one of the "gifted" kids, but I know that my four years of high school (graduated last year) were a complete waste of time. I wasn't one of the kids that slept all day (about 25% did, though), but I never did my homework. It didn't matter: I graduated with a 4.0 and a diploma covered with shiny stickers for "achievements" (wow, they could tell I was smart). I buried that fancy sheet of paper in a pile of junk, because that's where it belongs. I home-schooled when I was younger, and I learned more in one year than I did in all of my public high school education. It wasn't until I met one of the "bell curve" grading teachers that I realized how messed up it really is. Quite obviously, most public high-school teachers were educated by the same system. How on earth you can force a pre-determined "average grade" on a group of students and claim it's a valid measure of "progress"? SOLs (I'm in Virginia, btw) ruined things even more. No longer to teachers educate. They "teach" the SOL. It boils down to memorizing a bunch of "facts" that have been "selected" by the government to provide a "standard" for measuring "progress". The problem is, the standard is set so low that everyone learns, um, absolutely nothing. The "facts" are completely useless and the most important part of education is completely missed: self-education! It's the "teach a man to fish" deal. The schools ask you to memorized different fish swimming patterns and scale-counts, but don't even give you a fishing pole!

I'm in Engineering school now, and it's ridiculous what professors have to go through to deal with "high school graduates", a.k.a. complete morons. Sometimes half of calculus class is spent explaining a simple algebra concept to someone who obviously was never taught how to work with numbers or logic. When you get out in the real world, all those "rules" you learned (and later forgot) in high school are completely worthless. The only thing I've gained from high school is the insight to know that people who can learn things on their own (and did during the time they could have been doing busy-work in high school) are at a HUGE advantage when time comes either continue education in college or get a job that pays well. I'm living proof: I landed my dream job (computer-related) two months after I graduated from high school.

Was I somehow the best "educated" candidate? Not even close. Everything I use on the job every day comes from education and experience from outside of school. I didn't even have to apply for my job, because of the volunteer work I had done during school for non-profits and churches (they are very forgiving clients, good place to learn stuff in the real world [don't tell them I said that]) spread by word of mouth, and there is a huge demand for young people who know what they're talking about and doing it well (or at least decently).

It's a real shame that the US public education system simply cannot produce that kind of people! I don't blame the drop-outs, to tell you the truth. It's BORING! If anyone educated before about 1960 were forced to learn something the way we were required to, they would walk out just from sheer frustration. Heck, I had a math teacher that couldn't explain a mathematical constant! We learned to scan a textbook for specific answers, and regurgitate exacting, precise answers to worthless, and equally precise, questions. I took MANY tests where points were taken off for using grammar different from what was used in the textbook!

If you doubt me, watch a selection of high-school teachers either grade a "short answer" test or create a "multiple guess" test. The "short answers" are just associative keywords! In other words, it doesn't matter what you understand, but instead whether you can give the proper keyword in response to another set of keywords. Not only do students end up not understanding anything, they can't remember e

Dumbest comment I read all day

[deesine]

"A lot of it probably has its roots with Christianity."

Ah, the deep bias rears its ugly head.

The real failing

[belg4mit]

The real failing in the system isn't the lack of advanced courses per se, but the general lack of challenge and
all of the ensuing ramifications. On the scale of a lifetime, getting a few semesters ahead in one topic or
another really isn't that big of a deal. No, the problem with all of this is that it leaves one unprepared for
actual work. How does one cope with the rigorous demands of an institution of higher education when you've only
ever had to barely be awake to get by? Poorly.

I don't have a particular solution mind you, and am not convinced many of the usual suspects (Montessori, vouchers, etc.) are improvements. However I thought this aspect should be brought up: Challenge is not merely
to keep a student interested, but to train him in the necessary skills for coping with future challenges*

Finally, as an aside, grade inflation (which does not affect standardized tests) must certainly have entered
into getting us to where we are today.

*The real point of education some might say. "Kindling of a flame, not filling of a vessel" kind of thing.

P.S. Our system was called GATE, Gifted and Talented Education, none of this stupid "GT" or "TAG" bullshit.

The Brain Drain and other related problems

[erroneus]

We've been seeing a decrease in encouragement for educational pursuits in math and sciences largely due to falling wages in those areas and the propensity to outsource and H1-B visa fraud. We've been witnessing our overall educational results decrease in effectiveness, scope of curriculum and even general test scores and success rates. (All this while they continue to lower the bar for what is passing.)

We're becoming VERY stupid people in the U.S. Is it intentional or somehow merely a conglomeration of apathy and short-sighted business trying to boost their profitability for high stock values? If it's intentional, who would stand to gain from this? Why would any parties in the U.S. want a dumber U.S. while the rest of the world is passing us by?

I kind of grew up in a situation like that

[DarkTempes]

I was in a public dedicated gifted program growing up, meaning it was only gifted kids in most of my classes (pretty much the only exception being classes like gym/health). In the midst of that situation in Baton Rouge, LA we had some desegregation cosent decree nonsense. To qualify for gifted you had to pass different IQ tests among other things that I think are total bullshit, but for whatever reason it ended up that most of the gifted kids were classified as 'non-black'. The school board took the opportunity to use the gifted program to 'desegregate' and raise test scores at schools in areas that had low scores and coincedentally very high poor majority black populations. Hell, we even had the same school as the disabled sometimes (they tended to be non-black too for some reason).

Anyway to get to the point kids clashed as much with the different groups as they did with their own. The younger groups probably had more inter-group clashing. As the groups got older, in my experience, they got along better. It was some of the best and scariest experiences of my life. In middle school I had a kid hold a screwdriver to my neck and threaten to kill me. In high school I knew kids who lived in terrible situations but they were the nicest people I had ever met. I never saw anyone judge anyone else because they took 'smart' people classes. We still mostly stuck to our groups because those were the people we spent the most time with...but there was definitely friendly social interaction between groups. There's always clashes, but academic brain power does not the define the kind of person someone is. You can be an idiot and be the nicest person in the world, or a genius and be a total asshole. And yes, we can cater to the top 5% and the other 95% at the same time. Parents in their school system just have to show they care and fight for their kids wherever they fit in (school boards are scared of groups of parents, it's funny, use that).

Oh and developmentally disabled people need that money dammit. They typically need nurses and extreme one-on-one development to even have a chance at life. Don't compare spending amounts, it's rude and inconsiderate.

Ahem

[sharkey]

"All men are not created equal. It is the purpose of the Government to make them so."

It's not social ineptitude, it's being different!

[maillemaker]

>You weren't getting ostracized/teased/beat up in high school because you were smart, you were getting ostracized/teased/beat up because you were socially inept...

I have news for you. When you are smart, you are different. I don't know why, but school-age children absolutely hate people who are different. If you don't conform, your non-conformity will become the convenient pick-on target. Don't wear the right clothes? You get picked on. Don't have the right hair cut? You get picked on.

Are you smarter than everyone else? You get picked on.

It's not about being smart or not, or being socially inept or not.

It's about being different. If you are different, you are doomed.

Recollections of yet another 'gifted' student

[Rastl]

Oh, the horrors of being one of the smart ones.

And no, that wasn't sarcastic. Looking back I think we made the teachers feel threatened because we were bright and for the most part wanted to learn. We didn't want to be educated. Big difference there.

The gifted program was in its first year when I was enrolled. Afternoons, two days a week. I'll give them credit, they tried to expose us to different things but overall I got the impression they really didn't know what to do with us.

Teachers expected us to help out our 'non-gifted' fellow students, trying to turn us into teacher's aides to keep us from being bored and making trouble. Oh yes, and making their lives easier in the process.

I had several grade school teachers do me a very large injustice. Since I was one of only four identified gifted students in the school they didn't want to aggravate us or (more likely) our parents. So they didn't push me to actually do the work. The response was "We know she can do it. She doesn't have to complete the projects." My mom, to give her credit, tried to get them to make me do the work or suffer the consequences. I sometimes wonder what kind of instructions the prinicpal gave them about us.

Where is this all going? From my distant experiences I would agree that smart students are less of a money magnet than the other end of the spectrum. How would it sound to the general public if they said "We're going to invest a bunch of money into this lab so the smart kids can get smarter." Not quite as selfless as "We're going to invest a bunch of money in programs for disabled children so they can function to their highest level." No matter that 'their highest level' may be third grade, keep tossing out the money so we can funnel it there.

I've got nothing against programs for the disabled - mental, physical or other. But if they're going to play one end they should invest an equal amount in the other.

Yes, I know the arguement that public education in this country was an offshoot of the industrial revolution and is still designed to keep the working class in check. Kind of hard to dispute some times, isn't it?

SUBMITTER IS FLAMEBAITING

[i)ave]

No child left behind has nothing to do with the article, in fact TFA, specifically points out that this fact:

Since well before the Bush Administration began using the impossibly sunny term "no child left behind," those who write education policy in the U.S. have worried most about kids at the bottom, stragglers of impoverished means or IQs. But surprisingly, gifted students drop out at the same rates as nongifted kids--about 5% of both populations leave school early.

What Genius came up with this?

[the eric conspiracy]

Public schools will NEVER do a good job with geniuses. The best thing they can do is just get out of our way.

From a student in America's educaional system...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm currently a Junior in highschool, and I'm "gifted" because they tell me I am.

The educational system has been a constant source of angst and stress for me. I was, at least compared to the system I'm in now, in a very good school system in Georgia, where I spent the first 12 years of my life. Looking back, it was apparent that they actually did care about students who perform above-average. Once a week we'd be hurried off to a room where we'd attend "Target", the name for the gifted program, and we'd be instructed in such a way that it was not only more advanced, but infinitely more interesting. In fact, when I took Calculus II this summer, we were introduced to Factorials, which I fondly remember learning in 5th grade. (Of course, we didn't learn anything about Taylor's series in 5th grade :P)

However good this may have been, my education was crippled when I moved to a small town (roughly 20,000 when the local university is in session) in Louisiana. It was from this that spurred the aforementioned "angst and stress". In 7th grade, the year I moved, they wouldn't let me into "G/T", the Louisiana gifted program. I hadn't been tested in Louisiana, and obviously my IQ would be different than it was in GA. I was still allowed to be in the "C" group, which was comprised of those in G/T and those who probably should have been in G/T. They wouldn't let me continue on the academic track I had been on in Georgia. Instead of Algebra 1, which I should have been in since I took PreAl in 6th grade, I was forced to take "7th grade math" to "enforce the basics". Many similarly unfair rules would be imposed upon me as well. They didn't even get around to testing me into GT until I was in 8th grade.

And then High School came, which was even sorrier than my middle school. The only two departments that even had Gifted classes were Math and English, and Math was the only one that was above par. (This means two gifted teachers for a school of 1,500). Any class that was advanced but wasn't "Gifted", was labelled "Honors", some of which were decent. I think I actually learned something in American History. Then there were "regular" classes, which were more of a joke than anything. I found that I could sleep (I have long hair and can get away with it), and still _easily_ make A's with little to no effort. Or I found that I could skip whatever homework I felt like and still make A's because of test and quiz grades. I think that the true depravity of my school truly hit me when I realized I could learn more in an hour on wikipedia than I could in a week in school. In fact, I frequently told my parents as much.

So what did my first two years of high school teach me? That I never really need to put forth any effort to get by, because hey, the teachers certainly don't care, why should I? (Save the 2 gifted teachers). And now I'm going to a residential, highly-academic high school for gifted students from all over the state. Am I prepared? Of course not. I lost whatever study and memorization skills I had through this school system, and now I'll have to teach myself all over again. But it's a small sacrifice to make to be with like-minded students and professors that not only care, but are willing to help you succeed in whatever you decide to do.

If Louisiana didn't offer this school, LSMSA, as an alternative to those who wish to put forth the effort to get there, I don't know what I would've done. I probably would've gone on to college a year and a half early, because my high school would offer no more classes for me. So as much as I hate the Louisiana educational system, I have to commend them for this great achievement. Whether they know it or not, it's greatly appreciated.

As for social ineptness, I think that just because someone is smart doesn't mean they are more likely to have no social skills. I'm introverted when I want to be and extroverted when I feel like it. I've never been beaten up for being "smart", and I've found that if you're nice and generous and put others before you

Ugly truth

[Anonymous Coward]

Why have we reached a point where everyone has to have a stinking bachelors degree? Why can't some kids just learn very basic math and reading and spend a year in trade school? There's no shame in that. From what I've seen as a T.A., people who aren't intellectually motivated are absolutely miserable in an academic setting and drag the entire class down.

I lean heavily liberal (under this cloak of anonymity), but the ugly truth is that our priorities are really out of whack. It is absurdly counterproductive to spend even an average amount on individuals that will never amount to much. (Forest Gump was fiction --get over it.) If all of society was a horse race, I'd bet my money on the geniuses. Saving the world, traveling to the stars, or curing cancer aren't likely to be achieved by morons. For the good of all society we ought to be investing in the right people.

What a stupid question.

[Anonymous Coward]

Smart kids learn to challenge themselves. They don't need the system as much. Thus, the system can focus on those who *do* need it.

This smells of concern troll. And it's in Time, a well-known right-wing rag, so there you go.

Re:What a stupid question.

[DragonTHC]

that's the popular notion, but if you RTFA, you'd know this simply isn't true.

Thank you!

[SatanicPuppy]

Yea, I can't get over that whole "Dark Ages" thing. Every time I try, you guys start going nuts because some scientist says something that's not in your little book.

Re:Thank you!

[deesine]

"Dark Ages"? You mean, like hundreds of years before America was even around (you know, the country you were presenting a psychograph on)?

I'm no religionist: but I can spot rank bias a mile away. Dispassionate you are anything but.

Re:Thank you!

[SatanicPuppy]

If you bothered to read anything I wrote, you'd know that I claimed Christianity itself has a bias against intellectualism, which is absolutely pertinent to the Dark Ages, as Christianity perpetuated the Dark Ages by attempting to quash any type of secular thinking in order to maintain its own power.

And frankly, and bias I could be said to be showing by claiming something so obvious as "Christianity is largely anti-intellectual" is far outweighed by the countless biases that Christianity perpetuates to this day.

Dividing classes by grades

[Anonymous Coward]

I am an international college student. I went to a huge high school back in my country where each year was divided in ~10 classes of ~50 people each, according to grades, and people were shuffled around every 2 months. AFAIK, the situation was roughly the following:

- People who cycled 7th-10th were pretty much doomed anyway and didn't get accepted in any universities, though I did hear of one or other person eventually leaving the bottom of the pit.
- The huge bulk that cycled 3rd-7th got accepted in reasonable to good universities places, and were mostly happy with the system, despite the regular bitching around that they would not stay on the same class with their friends.
- Good students cycled between the first 2 or 3 classes, and were advertisement material to the school.

A couple of talented people never left the first class, like me. The good side being that the students would push the teachers as much as possible there. The bad side was that there were competition, envy, animosity and unjustified gigantic egos caused by that status, so a couple people preferred the second class, and never put their max effort into school. But hey, I came to an excellent university here, so I have no complaints.

Re:Dividing classes by grades

[Daengbo]

Hey AC -- What country were you educated in?

The essence of liberal philosophy

[detokaal]

No one should be surprised by this. The left (in this case academic elites) is in charge of education. That means the emphasis is on equality of outcome and not equality of opportunity. So the smarter you are, the less attention you get while classes cater to average and below average students.

My own school has several special classes with ideal teacher/student ratios. But guess what? All those student are borderline test students. In other words if either pass or fail by a wide margin you are forgotten and ignored. If you are on the bubble, you get all the resources to make sure you land on the right side of test scores. Why dump money, time and teachers on kids you know will pass or on students that have no chance to pass? You need to squeeze another 3% of your student population over the passing mark so you focus on them and to hell with rest.

No

[Anonymous Coward]

if anyone here were actually a genius they would understand the irrelevancy of formal education to a good mind. you cannot squelch a good mind by a lack of nurturing; it nurtures itself. so the answer is definitely no.

Re:No

[DragonTHC]

If you RTFA, you'd know that the benefits of a formal education are primarily social. That's where most of us have been left behind.

You fail

[Rix]

You then end up with a "passes a standardized test" class, located in a magical fairy land where discrimination doesn't happen.

Re:You fail

[XopherMV]

Fine. Then you can choose to send Little Johnny to the gifted school, despite the tests saying he doesn't belong there. However, you do not get to bitch at the teacher for "going too fast". You do not get to bitch if Little Johnny fails. In that case, Little Johnny packs his stuff and his sorry ass goes to the standard school.

there's one outcome they don't discuss

[buddyglass]

Without any arrogance, I can say that I rate pretty high on the IQ scale as measured by IQ tests. Not in the 160+ range, but definitely more than two standard deviations above the mean. From the time I was 11 I attended public "magnet" schools that were intended to serve gifted students. My math curriculum was usually two years ahead of the standard (meaning I took Calculus as a sophomore in high school) while the other subjects were on track, but supposedly contained advanced content.

In this environment, the insidious lie students come to accept is that they're "doing everything right" and achieving at their potential, when in fact they are not. This was definitely my experience. Consider the evidence: I attended a special school, took coursework above grade level, and exceled on standardized tests like the SAT. Unfortunately, rarely was I ever challenged. Consequently, my goal became to achieve an "acceptable" level of performance with as little effort as humanly possible. How to make that math exam challenging? Try not studying at all beforehand, then deriving methods to solve the problems on-the-fly during the exam.

The true tragedy isn't that I failed to cover material "early" while in high school that took in college; it's that I was never forced to learn such skills as "working hard to learn something even when it's difficult". This became painfully evident when I eventually did encounter challening material (in graduate school) and failed to respond appropriately.

Instead of being told "you could do so much more" when I was younger, I was continually bombarded with the message that "you are a super-star; you just need to stop slacking off and get higher grades." In other words, that my only deficiency was that I slacked off and made less-than-perfect marks. Somewhere along the line it became all about the grades, instead of learning simply because it was enjoyable and I had a talent for it. Perhaps not surprisingly, "getting good grades" wasn't enough to movitate me when things became difficult or even slightly tedious.

Re:there's one outcome they don't discuss

[RembrandtX]

Without meaning to brag, I am 160+ .. and had exactly the same experience. Technically, they didn't move me OUT of the school, but they had special classes that they only allowed 'certain' kids in. Outside of regular class work, they would pull us out of our 'normal' rooms and bring us to a separate room. Let me reassure you, the normal teachers LOVED this, no .. really.

There was a lot of unstructured learning, although, there was certainly more of a focus on learning for the sake of learning. [Similar to a Montessori like environment.] But the net result was the same. By the time I was into High school, where they no longer had this program, I had learned that it was far easier just to skate in subjects that held no interest, than to try to power through them.

It took me a number of years to unlearn this bad habit. To this day, I will sometimes procrastinate on crap that I *KNOW* is easy or tedious to do, counting on the fact that its easy to allow me to pick up the slack later. Now I force myself to learn things outside of my comfort zone, and consider myself better for it. But man, all that time wasted.

Re:there's one outcome they don't discuss

[Nephroth]

The program you were in sounds very similar to the program that I was in as a kid. We were ushered off into a separate class for about eight hours a week where we were sort of gently nudged through an advanced curriculum that was separate from our normal schoolwork. The class however, made me lazy when it came to anything that I wasn't personally interested in and if a subject didn't interest me, I had trouble summoning the necessary will power to work on it. It's a problem I have spent years correcting, and only recently have I made any real headway with it.

Re:there's one outcome they don't discuss

[FullCircle]

I had never made the association before reading this thread, but I can probably trace a lot of my failures to the gifted and talented program as well. I had always attributed my complete change of heart with regard to school to other influences, but this makes perfect sense.

When my children were eligible for gifted and talented, I was against it though. The busy work, missed fun exercises in "normal" class and the general feeling of punishment for being intelligent were something I did not want to push my children into.

My oldest son did decide to give it a try, but soon realized that it was not what he expected. Of course, I was fine with removing him from the program. Even that took a bit of time to recover from, but he is now back to being a good student again.

Why can't they realize that what the kids want to do is to learn faster and more advanced material, not just do higher quantities of the same material for no benefit?

No Child Left Behind means . . .

[YetAnotherBob]

. . .
Every Child Left Behind.

The program is rife with problems, from the mandates that ALL students achieve in the top 10% to the numerous program requirements that have no funding means. The first thing I noticed when my teacher wife showed me the program goals is that the people who drafted this are math illiterate. They seem to be the same folks who balance the federal budget. Man! are those poor kids screwed.

To top it all off, the program seems geared to eliminate Music, the Arts, Phys Ed (and at a time when youth obesity is at epidemic highs). any science more specialized than 'General Science', History, and any other extras. Just good old country schools producing narrowly educated kids that can take a single test, and who are capable of little else. Forget a well rounded education, forget being able to think. It's just to be able to tell the voters you did something, and hope they don't ask what you did.

A perfect program for the sound bite political system we seem to be stuck with.

After a decade or two of this, we will be living in a third world country.

HELL YEAH

[withears]

Gifted children need just as much additional time as challenged children in order for that child to develop their gifts. The way NCLB works is this... if a kid meets the (mediocre) criteria, then the teacher no longer has to work that kid. The teachers under NCLB need to devote their time to other children. As a result, gifted kids don't get that additional instruction and, in turn, their gifts diminish. So we're spending all this time on kids who, in all honesty, are going to be the ones who are going to be working on your car, selling you a shirt at Banana Republic, or offering to refill your drink at Applebee's. And at the same time, our brightest kids don't get the development they need. NCLB is a bane to gifted children. It results in mediocrity.

Harrison Bergeron

[lnxpilot]

This movie explains it all.

Bigger is not better

[Attila Dimedici]

In the 1950's and 1960's there was a movement in the US to consolidate school districts, small schools combined to form larger school districts to take advantage of the economies of scale. In the late 60's and early 70's it became obvious that our school systems were deteriorating, so we decided to get to get the state government involved. In the late 70's we got the federal government involved with the creation of the Department of Education. As time went on the state and then the federal government got more involved in the education and the education system got worse. Smaller schools provide a better education. Education decisions should be made on as local a basis as possible. Actually that is only part of it, but overall part of the solution to many of the problems we have is to address it at the lowest level of government possible. I have even heard it suggested that we as a society would be better off if we stopped having the government run education. I don't know that I agree with that argument, however some interesting points were made, but that argument is too complicated to make in a post on here.

Intellect getting respect in school

[wurp]

My guess would be it is almost entirely the competitive nature that makes intellect get respect in Chinese schools.

I went to school in Arkansas, and my high school had the typical attitude towards athletics. Being popular was all about either having money or being in competitive athletics.

Starting in my sophomore year, Scott paper company sponsored an intellectual competition, Scott Hi Q. One of the teachers (who, interestingly enough, was also sometimes a football coach) got interested in the competition, and took it fairly seriously. The school had a series of optional tests we could take to get onto the team.

Everyone was surprised when I made the team, since I was not rich, and generally recognized as fairly bright but nothing special. My class had five students who were tied for valedictorian and whose parents were generally respected around town. I was not one of those students.

I was, however, extremely good at math. At the time, I could multiply a two digit number and a three digit number in my head faster than most could do it with a calculator, and I was also fairly well read and intuitively skilled at more advanced mathematics. What this meant was that I could kick all the other schools' asses when the time came to answer math questions.

In particular, one math question was "What number is divisible by 7 if you subtract 7, divisible by 8 if you subtract 8, and divisible by 9 if you subtract 9?" I immediately recognized that 0 was an answer, but not what they wanted, and that if it was divisible by X if you subtract X, it was divisible by X in the first place. And that the numbers were relatively prime. So the number was 7 * 8 * 9, which is 504. I had figured out everything except the multiplication problem before the question was finished, and I buzzed in with the answer less than a second after the question was finished. (I was double checking my arithmetic or I would have buzzed sooner). Luck was with me; it was a home game, and the auditorium erupted in cheers and clapping.

I went from a nobody to being recognized by all of the 'cool kids' and generally respected around the school. No one was terribly surprised when my ACT score beat the previous school record (for the whole history of the school).

My point [other than geek bragging rights ;-) ] is that if we systematically treated being brainy as a competition in the US, we could probably move up to first worldwide in education. It wouldn't even require that the kids help - once they see someone representing their school winning (or losing!) a competition, they become very attached to the notion of succeeding in the competition, even if it is a bunch of nerds on stage instead of jocks on the field.

All or Average

[Anonymous Coward]

From my experience in public school, not only did they not teach to the gifted students, they actively attempted to hold us back. I become well known at my school for being "difficult" because I refused to just go along quietly and accept that it was boring. I finished classes 6 months early and was forced to sit in class doing nothing for the rest of the year. After finishing all the math courses offered at my middle school, with the highest score in the class, rather than agreeing to let me go to the high school for classes, they insisted I simply retake the courses offered at the middle school until I graduated. Stubborn as I am smart, I refused to give in until I was allowed to take classes at the high school. Luckily, MN has a program that allows Juniors and Seniors to take college classes for free, so for the last two year of high school I went to a private college and took classes there. Only to be told that because they weren't honors classes, they wouldn't be eligible for honors credits...and because the actual classroom hours weren't equal to classroom time for regular high school classes, they made me get a letter from the dean stating that my college classes were the equivalent to high school classes before they would release my diploma and allow me to graduate.

I can honestly say that even through college, I've barely ever made an effort towards anything. Granted, in college I could have studied and gotten higher grades, but by that point I really didn't care. I told the teachers in elementary school that I didn't want any more awards even then. We used to be graded both in terms of the quality of our work and based on our effort and the teachers would fail me in effort, yet give me the top grade in work and then complain to my parents that I wasn't trying and get upset when my mom (a teacher) would respond "well, why should she?".

Because public schools are run by the government and NOT private, do what you want institutions, I think they should either have to teach to the average level. Thus providing the average, general public with a decent education and satisfying the majority of the population, and leaving both the top and the bottom to find other means to enhance their education. You're getting a free education, geared towards everyone, and you can't complain. Once they start specializing though, and spending more money on particular groups, well...then they need to do that for everyone....top and bottom. We are under no obligation to spend enormous amounts of money to help the mentally disabled kids at the expense of everyone else...and it doesn't make financial sense. You invest where you think you'll get the best returns, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars so that the nonresponsive kid in the wheelchair gets 3 aids to push him around and "educate" him over 12 years to allow him to "graduate" from college is completely rediculous...especially while telling the gifted kids that they have to sit bored out of their minds because there isn't any funding for the gifted program.

so everybody here is a genius

[Sarutobi]

interesting...

Better idea

[Rix]

Provide Little Johnny (and Little Joany and Little Aleem et cetera) with the resources to learn, and let them make the choice. Don't arbitrarily segment children into "gifted" and "not-gifted", let them sort themselves by their interests.

Re:Better idea

[ghoul]

Why? What entitles little Joany to the same amount of resources as little Johny who is more talented?

A sore subject, tag kids are left on their own.

[baomike]

As the parent of a tag kid , there is no effort to educate these kids to their potential.
Individual teachers have tried to help, but that's it.
It's always "we'd like to but we don't have any money" (we spent it all on the football team).

The local university did furnish some help . Summer programs that could challange these kids.
It could have been worse, the area we live in is home to many university faculty and grad students.
This causes a very high level of competence in the average classroom.(The average education level of
the parents at our son's grade school was 5 years of college).

No child left behind would better be called "no child will get too far ahead".
They waste a lot of time teaching the test.

NB: I tried to foment a little bit of rebellion to the tests etc. but no luck.
        These kid were/are smart enough to Zero the test. (it was multiple choice)
        I figured 20-30 zero scores would do wonders for the shool/districts averages.
        Might give is a little bargaining power.

A POLITICALLY INCORRECT BUT EFFECTIVE SOLUTION

[Anonymous Coward]

Facts:

1.) Niggers used up 60% of the prisons. They are the largest customers of the criminal justice system. Terminate them all means less money for jail,law enforcement etc.

2.) Niggers consistently scoring the lowest 20% in any standardized test.

Not all minorities do the same. At least not Asians who has the least population in jail, highest scores in tests, pay most taxes in society and complain the least about their goverment.

IF WE ABLE TO FREE UP ALL THESE RESOURCES INVESTED ON NIGGERS WE CAN THEN RELOCATE THE RESOURCES TO THE GIFTED CHILDREN!

ENOUGH OF THIS BULLSHIT! TERMINATER ALL NIGGERS! HEIL HITLER!

"Gifted" programs are a joke.

[etnu]

When I was in high school, smart kids stopped taking the "Gifted" programs because the material was more busy work (not more challenging), and you got graded on the same scale. Nobody wanted to take the class and get a B if they could take the easier version of the class and get an A. Making kids write 20 page essays instead of 10 does not make them "smarter". It makes them learn that true genius is not appreciated by society, and that most people who claim to be able to asses and educate genius are, in fact, stupid. Of course, most "gifted" kids really aren't all that gifted anyway. By the time they hit their mid 20s, so-called "gifted" kids usually aren't doing any better in life, aren't contributing any more to society, and aren't really all that impressive. I'd be willing to bet large sums of money that most of the people who contribute the most to the world (the researchers, inventors, and other smart people who actually achieve something meaningful) had pretty ordinary childhoods. They probably were above average in school and didn't have a difficult time with the work, and they probably didn't skip more than a grade or two (if at all).

Re:"Gifted" programs are a joke.

[Nephroth]

I don't know what gifted program you were in, but the one I participated in was nothing like that.

Simple solution - Abolish Social security

[ghoul]

Have the kids pay for their parents in retirement. If parents screw up with their kids they starve in retirement. A little motivation does wonders for parenting performance. Right now we have a nanny state where the state has a bigger stake in the kids as future taxpayers than the parents and then we wonder about broken parents.

Re:Simple solution - Abolish Social security

[proudfoot]

This is actually how many Asian families operate. The child supports the parents when they become old and senile. It seems to be an effective form of motivation.

Re:Simple solution - Abolish Social security

[stdarg]

Unfortunately that would lead many people with below-average kids to create even more below-average kids to ensure a comfortable retirement.

Re:Simple solution - Abolish Social security

[ghoul]

Why? People would try to create above average children who can afford to take care of their parents. 10 homeless bums wont be able to take care of their parents as one gainfully employed person.

spanking

[r00t]

That's an interesting one.

Some places in Europe won't let parents spank. Texas lets even the teachers spank.

The problems are a mix of some spankers being dumb/evil, some potential observers being uncomfortable with discipline, and the cruel fact that some kids are naturally far more unruly than others. I certainly don't want some idiot school teacher disciplining my kid. There are people who will report spanking as child abuse; the Massachusetts kid snatchers lost a case in the state supreme court over this. People who have been blessed with 100% eager-to-please kids (common today, with such small families being the norm) have NO CLUE about dealing with a stubborn hyper kid.

Often I am saddened by the sight of an ill-behaved child manipulating his parent. The child gets his way while the parent ineffectively screams, bargins, and begs. That is far more detrimental to the childs long-term mental health than a bit of imperfect traditional discipline.

Dangerous when done wrong

[OBeardedOne]

The Australian government trialed a system here in the early 90's called the Academic Extension Program (AEP). The program put gifted students in the same class from the first three years of high school - from the age of 13-15. I reckon it could have been done better.

We found out that the teachers secretly referred to the AEP as the Arsehole Extension Program - take a group of arseholes and turn them into even bigger arseholes. The reason being that all the kids in the AEP were a hell of a lot smarter than the teachers and constantly challenged their authority. You can imagine how hard it would be for a teacher to handle a cocky 13 year old that knows more about the subject being taught than the teacher. Teachers were often openly ridiculed in front of the whole class. One had a nervous breakdown and was found up a tree, out in the rain, singing to herself. I'm sure the stresses of her class were a compounding factor.

Another problem with the whole setup was that a lot of the kids were often targeted by bullies that weren't in the program. Segregating the classes basically had you labeled for the whole of high school, total bully fodder. This meant that most AEP kids stuck together and didn't socialise much at all outside of the group. A bit of a compounding nerd factor that I don't imagine did a lot of kids much good.

I still keep in touch with quite a few friends from my class 15 years on. We had a very strong bond, some of my current best friends are from that same class. Most of us turned out alright, going on to do well in highly qualified occupations. Some dropped the ball and dropped out choosing not to follow higher education and/or hit the drugs etc. It's hard to say but in some ways I think that the pressures of the program did a lot of kids more harm than good. It was basically an experiment that went wrong, one that seemed to have very little thought put into it.

Re:Dangerous when done wrong

[Nephroth]

If the program had teachers who knew less about the topics than the students, then it was clearly poorly engineered.

Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[CFD339]

I'm just curious here, because it sounds like the next thing you'll be talking about is your superweapon and plan to repopulate the earth with your lycra jumpsuit clad workers if only you can stop that meddlesome Mr. Bond....

Seriously though -- I'm sure half the people reading this on /. found school similarly boring. Nonetheless, you are here as a result of your education and your own additional work. No point still being bitter, yes?

Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[jac89]

Here being.. on /.

Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[Daengbo]

No point still being bitter, yes?
I'm not the original poster, but I'll still answer your question: No. I'm bitter that I lost a lot of my childhood by sitting in a prison of the mind, wasting my time instead of doing something better with my life.

I'm not on Slashdot because of my time in school. I'm here because I value continuing education. Don't laugh.

Except for about four years of my schooling (one in primary, one in middle, and two in high) where I was given a chance to self-educate, I spent my time in school alternately at the top of the class or rebelling. Those times when I was self-paced, I completed a couple of years' coursework at a time. For anyone with an IQ above 130, public school is an undeniable waste of time. I'd even say that it's a waste of several hours a day for the average student. Not much goes on in school except crowd control, lunch, and socializing.

I have had a few teachers who pushed me to my limit and were educated enough to lead me, but most were just average and knew little about their subjects. The textbook was always a better source of information than the average teacher, and I didn't have to waste fifty hours of my life to get through it at a snail's pace. My time on Slashdot educates me better than my time in school did, though the signal/noise ratio has gone down in the last few years.

I understand you'll see this post as egotistical and smug, but I feel qulified to comment on this story (and your post) because

• My IQ was well above 145, just as TFA's chief subject was;
• I was not allowed to skip grades, either; and
• I stated the facts in my post as I remember them, without embellishment or hyperbole.

Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[glarbl_blarbl]

I too still feel bitter about the utter waste of my childhood at the hands of the state school system. I was identified as "gifted" early on, was reading at a sixth grade level in first grade and twelfth by the sixth. Of course, once I was identified as gifted nothing was done about it until Odyssey of the Mind in fifth grade (which was fun, but no substitute for a challenging curriculum). I remember learning about similes and metaphors on an annual basis. I remember "learning" long division four times (and of course I haven't used it in more than a decade).

After I took the SAT in seventh grade (and scored similarly to an average senior that year), I was allowed to skip eighth grade. There were upsides and downsides, and I'm fairly happy about where I am now -- but it's not for everyone. I lost a lot of friends and there seemed to be a higher asshole to polite person ratio in my graduating class.

I took a self-paced English course the summer after my freshman year. I finished a semester's worth of work in two weeks. I'm still pissed off about all of that wasted time. I could probably have learned a couple of languages, I would probably be better at math.. Hell, I could have become even more of a virtuoso guitarist if I had started music lessons a couple of years earlier ;) .

I've had this discussion with many of my genius friends, and this attitude is pretty much universal among them. Yes, the school system is nearly useless for all ends of the spectrum. In my cynical moments I imagine that it's a plot to keep the country stupid and docile while they turn the Republic into a fascist shadow of its original promise.

Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[b1ufox]

Well i completely agree but from someone who is an Indian citizen and thus an Indian student, i ll try to present the unknown half of the story.you may call it what you feel like, but your story reminds me of my school days and after math of education system in India.

During my primary standard school i use to finish my whole syllabus before the start of the new term.I am not a genius neither did i take an IQ test, nor do i think i have an IQ of 145+ but i like studying books in my free time.Science was the most easiest and trivial subject to me.As a sidenote for many /.ers, India has an education system which forces you to put more emphasis on marks and not understanding. This leads to mugging and poor understanding of the subject.I ll admit mugging when i was a kid, cuz this is how we all are brought up.Though i had to mug for grades, i never liked it.

After school i went to college for my bachelors in Computers.I realised within one week that i cannot mug anymore somehow. I felt attending classes was a waste of my time. Attending practicals which force you to work rather than learn was a torture. As expected i failed miserably at my grade in my first year of college. That was shock to me.But soon i realised grades do not matter, what matters more is my own satisfaction. Why should i follow the path which makes me feel knowledgeless. Honestly i chose to stop following the stupid rules in college, got one of the lowest marks in the class but managed to get through. I remember being touted as one of the idiot students who do not know a thing about their major.duh... it hurts when those words are from your faculty.Reason being i never liked the idea of sitting at back bench and asking questions which don't make sense. I would prefer reading books and breaking my computer, and personally i learnt more this way.luckily i managed to pass somehow.

Twist of fate, as it seems.My first job after college turned out to be a R&D job where i work as a virtualization hacker full time along with some stints on High Performance computing. And this all makes sense to me.I always liked challenges, and this job is a challenge.I don't regret not following the herd but what i do regret is low grades i got. I know now it may not matter but somehow it hurts.

I hope in US you people get good enough grades for following your heart at colleges?

Godspeed and good luck.

Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[Bob Gelumph]

What's the definition of genius today, anyway?
I remember something like it used to be based on an IQ 160 or higher, but does it have anything to do with actual achievement, or just potential?

Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[arktemplar]

I would agree with you to a great extent however not completely, I find it tough to believe that you found your 11th and 12th boring, I am ofcourse assuming that like every one else you would have tried sitting for JEE. I remember though school during the 11th and 12th was never a challenge, studying a week or so before the exams would be enough to secure you top marks (no not me I was more of a two days before the exam kinda guy still top 5 isnt bad). But I think that had the pace for the 12th been the same as the pace for JEE, it would have been a lot more interesting then again my younger brother hardly studied (at least not like the ussual expectation) in his 11th and 12th and still managed to get through.

To each his own I guess, books however will pwn everything.

Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[chuckymonkey]

I hear you, I was so bored in school with all the slavering monkeys around me that it was all I could do to keep my sanity some days. For instance when I took the SAT the only reason that I scored in the 90th percentile and not the the 98th percentile was because I was stoned out of my mind on Vicatin from damn near cutting my thumb off in a tablesaw two days before I took it. I did visit one of my teachers from back then (chemistry) and she told me that she has yet to have a class that was as fun as the one my friend and I were in. We loved to explore and blow shit up, we would use silver nitrate to turn all our lab papers silver...all kinds of crazy stuff. The key being is she didn't restrict us, if we wanted to fly ahead of the rest of the class we were welcome to do so.

Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[Inverted Intellect]

For anyone with an IQ above 130, public school is an undeniable waste of time. I have to disagree with you on that. For me it was not a waste of time. It was actively harmful. I got extremely good grades about the first six years of elementary, degrading after that, going into mediocrity and failure later on. You see, I never learned discipline because I wasn't given assignments that challenged me early on. This is also due to a lack of drive on my part, but the school system is also to blame as they never thought I might need a different kind of help. When I started getting mediocre grades, I was described as a "bright, promising student who needs to live up to his potential." I kept completing the occasional assignment which I happened to have an interest in in a competent manner, prompting more of that kind of comment. I've largely failed to live up to this supposed potential.

Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[alita69]

It was extremely harmful for me, as well. I was in parochial and private schools for elementary schooling, and was able to spend a lot of time working at my own speed. By sixth grade I was scoring post high school level on everything except spelling (heh). Then I ended up in public school, where they completely ignored my actual performance level in favor of my age. I had started school early based on where in the year my birthday falls (and the fact I could already read and write), so I was already "a year ahead" as far as the school was concerned. They flatly refused to allow me to skip any grades or take more advanced classes, no matter what level my already completed work evaluated at. As I noted, I was already scoring post high school, so the actual school itself was a complete waste for the next six years. Worse, I was actively punished by some of the teachers, who were threatened by me. I certainly didn't help matters; having no experience with public school teachers I did stupid things like offer to take the final during the first week to prove I knew the subject already. That didn't go over well, as you can imagine. For a smart kid who used to look up to teachers to suddenly be scolded and obviously disliked by teachers for knowing too much is about as good a demotivator as you can provide.

Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[RockoTDF]

What do you mean by "mugging" ?

Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[Brickwall]

I have to echo your comments, and would like to add some perspective of my own. I too was a gifted child, who could read before I started kindergarten. I remember getting our first "Dick and Jane" type reader in Grade 1 (that would be in 1961; yes, I'm a geezer). The first page was a picture of a young boy with the single word "Sandy" underneath. (IIRC, the entire book introduced some 50+ words.) The teacher took five minutes to go over that page, during which time I read the entire book. When she asked me what I thought of Sandy, I babbled on for thirty seconds about the boy, his sister, his dog, his teacher, etc. The teacher hauled me out of my seat, pulled me onto her lap, and gave me a few smacks on the ass - not at all painful, just a little humiliating. "That'll teach you to read ahead!" she said. In fact, it didn't, but it did teach me that school was not all concerned that I progress as quickly as possible.

In Grade 3, I was skipped (they compressed 3 and 4 into one year for the five of us - four girls and me). The next year, I started Grade 5 - in a class with my older sister which continued until Grade 9, an affront for which she has never entirely forgiven me. I was also a year younger than all the other boys in the class, which meant that I was always the smallest and lightest kid in the class; since the iron code of the schoolyard prevented me from playing games with my age peers in Grade 4, I was always chosen in the last few for sports and games. Doubtless, this contributed to my smart mouth and my rep as "class rebel".

All this was endured within the public school system. In Grade 10, I was admitted to a boys' school in Toronto, modeled on the English schools such as Eton. No phony egalitarianism there! There were two types of classes (or "forms" as they were known) - A-forms, and B-forms. The A-forms were considered the brighter students, and we took seven academic subjects. The B-forms were the lesser lights, and they took 6 classes and a mandatory study hall. In addition, on every report card (of which there were five a year), my ranking in the class ("2 out of 22") was duly noted. Unlike Orwell, I mostly enjoyed my years there; I was still bored from time to time, but many of my classmates had also been skipped, and so I was generally surrounded by bright kids. It also helped that the school teams were Under-15's, Under-16's, etc., so my competition for sports teams was against kids my own age, which helped soothe some of the inferiority I had experienced in public school. (It's no fun always being the shrimp!)

Now I have two daughters, 10 and 13, who have both been accepted into the PACE program at our local school. (PACE is the "Program for Academic and Creative Extension") Now, instead of skipping kids, they are brought together with other bright kids of their own age, where they explore subjects in greater depth than the standard classes. Frankly, I think this works better than skipping them. While both girls admit they are bored from time to time, they also work on more projects and have developed a greater understanding of the material than the standard stream allows. And neither of them have suffered from the social problems that I felt; both have lots of friends and seem well integrated into their classes.

From my perspective, I think the girls' school is doing a good job of challenging them academically without short-changing them socially. As I noted, they are bored at times, but I think all good students will experience those moments; I'm sure there are times their classmates wish my girls were picking something up a little faster.

Of course, this is just one school board, and I don't know what's going on in other boards in Ontario, let alone in Canada. I won't even try to comment on any other country's system.

Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[0kComputer]

For instance when I took the SAT the only reason that I scored in the 90th percentile and not the the 98th percentile was because I was stoned out of my mind on Vicatin from damn near cutting my thumb off in a tablesaw two days before I took it. I did visit one of my teachers from back then (chemistry) and she told me that she has yet to have a class that was as fun as the one my friend and I were in.

Dude, its spelled Vicodin , if you're going to proclaim yourself a "genius", you should at least attempt to spell your words right. Reminds me of that school for the gifted far side comic.

Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[ShieldW0lf]

Now, my younger brother can hardly spell when he's pressed and can't take time to review what he's written, but he hacks genomes and tutors university students on anatomy for part time cash while he's finishing school. Doesn't really jive well with your perspective on things, does it?

Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[Invidious]

Same here. I can't recall what my IQ was tested at, but when I was tested in second grade (because my teacher thought I was retarded because I was never at the place we were when we were reading books out loud -- I was generally two chapters ahead and rapidly accelerating) -- I tested out with college-level english skills, high-school level math skills, etc.

But not much happened, particularly once I moved to a shittier school district. As a result, I skated, bored, though my later years, seldom completing assignments, getting straight Cs in most of my classes (but generally straight 95-100% on tests, including the Regents examinations in high school. I could do this with an absolute minimum of effort. The exceptions to this were some of the science classes I took at an AP level, because they really interested me.) A combination of boredom, abuse, and teachers who were teaching things which were verifiably and demonstrably wrong utterly demotivated me, and enforced shitty (read: non-existent) study habits. When I got to college, I was used to being able to skate through courses -- and thus had some real problems until I got my shit together.

Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[Anonymous Coward]

This sounds almost exactly like my experience. I got straight As first through third grade, started dropping a little bit fourth and fifth grade, sixth grade dropping more, and by junior high I was failing some classes. I also got an F in handwriting class in 6th grade, ha ha! Ask me if I thought for a second that writing in perfect cursive lettering would do me any good whatsoever in the real world. Even as a 12 year old I knew that was a waste of time.

I bounced around between a lot of different schools (all private schools by the way). I would frequently get into trouble, mostly out of boredom. I don't know how many damn times we had to learn the same exact earth science concepts, year after year after year. These teachers were mostly good people and I liked most of them, but the whole system was just not set up for someone like me at all.

I went to public school toward the end of my eight grade year, since my grades were too low to continue at the private school. I quickly made friends with the "bad" kids, and started experimenting with drugs. This continued into ninth grade, where I was sent to an experimental public school which was an exclusively ninth grade campus with nothing but 1500 public school freshmen. What a complete waste of time that was. Finally my parents figured out I was smoking pot and such, and pulled me out of there, and I finished ninth grade doing correspondence school. Basically they mailed us hundreds of pages of busywork and some books, and I had to go fill it all in. I completed it all, learning little but wasting plenty of time, and I finally got back into a different private school for my sophomore (10th grade) year of high school.

I managed to complete my sophomore year without too many problems, but a couple months into my junior year I just couldn't stand it any more. I literally told my mom that I was done with school, and that I wasn't going back. My plan at that point, had she refused, was to simply ditch school every single day, and avoid going at all costs, grades be damned.

During this whole time, I was pretty unhappy, and the school difficulties caused many problems at home as well. I considered running away from home on several occasions, and I just generally felt like I was trapped forever in a world I didn't like. I resented the fact that every teacher said things like "the purpose of 5th grade is to prepare you for 6th grade", and so on. I would often ask teachers why they would give us things like crossword puzzles as actual assignments. Seriously, there would be a crossword puzzle with key words from the assignment hidden in there, and if you didn't complete it successfully, your grade would suffer.

After I dropped out of high school, I took the CSHPE, the California equivalent of the GED. I had 2.5 hours to complete it, and was done in 1.25. It was full of questions like "here is a recipe *lists recipe containing butter*... if you wanted to make half as much of this recipe, how much butter would you need?".

After that I took some college classes, and did well in the ones I was interested in, and poorly in those I wasn't. I thought college would be much different, but at least at the community / local state college level, it was basically high school all over again.

Luckily, I had always been interested in computers, dating back to a special pre-school I had attended where we used Atari and ColecoADAM computers. I was not a dumb kid, I just would have rather been doing things that were interesting. I frequently scored in the 99th percentile on the ITBS standardized tests, and I maxed out an IQ test that I took around first grade. I actually had the option several times to skip a grade in school, but I was always pretty social and didn't want all the abuse that comes from the other kids to those who are considered smart. I considered my intelligence largely as a curse when it came to fitting in in school. Plus, I didn't really think that a more advanced grade would have been any different, except with a little more homework.

Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[Baldur_of_Asgard]

In my cynical moments I imagine that it's a plot to keep the country stupid and docile while they turn the Republic into a fascist shadow of its original promise.

It is a plot. Check out what John Taylor Gatto has been doing.

Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[dapho]

Here in Arizona, the only "recognition" they EVER give gifted kids is to just put them in GATE (Gifted and talented education) classes until they get bored with those. I had a 9th grade reading level in 3rd grade, was put in the program until middle school, where I was never to be noticed again. Oh, that's not to say all my teachers didn't think I WAS a genius, but idle appreciation doesn't beat advancement. All the kids who were "high achievers" got themselves launched head first into the better programs throughout middle school and high school, but you'd be hard-pressed to find one of those kids who actually retained what they've "learned". All I'm saying here is that the grade skipping and the advanced placement is a biased process, and many kids worth teaching didn't get the same lucky treatment...

Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[dapho]

Exactly my situation as well. None of the work I did was challenging, therefore I did not do it, and hence, I had never been put in the programs I deserved to be in. They call you brilliant and exceptionally intelligent when your state test scores are higher than 99% of your peers, but hold you back because you're not proving it to anyone but an administrative board that spews out statistics like they were an early birthday present. What ended up happening was through the entirety of high school I did a near constant absentee amount of work, while sitting at home reading books about the more advanced and exciting subjects I would need to wait until at least my junior year in college to do. This then resulted in my refusal to complete such academically mediocre work in school, almost demanding to know the reason why they kept me in the same ranks as people who dull themselves with the same rock, coming back the next day for another grind.

Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[phread]

you are absolutly right. i am one of those who could be called an under achiever. i did not go to university, i escaped. any bitterness i may have had over the stupid way the cattle system called school dealt with me, i have got over it. to paraphrase heinlein you must blend in lest the other monkeys tear you apart for being different. just as true now.

my education may have started in grade two when my saint of a teacher let me run off and play with dinosaurs rather than disrupt the class, but it did not end there either. since then any learning happened from my own self study, beyond the cursory glance needed to absorb the days lesson. and it has continued for the thirty years since leaving school.

i believe the greatest gift is the ability to learn, and i use it daily, and continue to master new and varied disciplines. the theatre of my mind never ceases to amaze me. give this gift to your children, show them how to escape the rigid confines of that box with windows you're not allowed to look out of, and blossom. most of us here did it, got an education despite the 'system', and waiting for change in an establishment as large as the education monolith will leave us looking like the dinosaurs.

Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[torokun]

I have to note that my situation was the same as well, to a large degree. To this day, I have a problem doing anything not self-directed, because I developed such a hatred for even attempting to do any assignment given me from above. When I was, rarely, left to choose my own course, I developed a fear of actually doing so, as teachers would not like the radical directions I took.

For example, I wrote a long research paper about theoretical physics for English class in junior high. I wrote a paper on daoism in 5th grade, which was interesting, and one on the Iran-Iraq wars in 6th grade, which was also somewhat interesting. But even at that time, I needed help to reach my full potential, which I didn't get. What I really needed was for someone to help me understand how to keep track of academic research for a real paper, rather than keeping it all in my head and shuffling between 10 or 20 books with tons of papers stuffed in them for bookmarks.

A major problem, I believe, for gifted kids, appears when they reach more complex material, not material that's hard to understand, but material that requires organization outside one's head, or _planning_ a schedule. I think lots of us get into doing things last minute because we can. At CMU I wrote an entire basic unix-style OS and shell in less than 3 days, because I could, because I spent most of my time wracked with angst about the stupid economy and the perennial problem of income vs. what-you-love, and because no one ever taught me that non-stupid people actually do plan things and use systems for organizing sometimes.

It reminds me of the piano lessons I had for a couple of years as a kid. I never really learned how to sight-read music, because I could memorize the song as my teacher demonstrated it, and play it back sufficiently just from that and a couple of cues from glancing at the score when I was stuck. I did this so I would never have to practice at home, and because I hated the music I was supposed to be learning. I think the only way I would have learned to read music would have been if I were forced to learn a crazily complex piece without ever having heard it first.

Many things suck. I empathize with all of you. We must strive to get by in a world full of stupid shit, and to not lose that spark that animates us to voraciously learn and love it, while doing so...

Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[cyphercell]

I remember being in second grade, I found homework absolutely detestable. I'd pass the tests then have to do the same homework, I met a guy that just didn't do his homework and I thought that was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Well I did second grade twice and dropped out after 9th, got my GED and went to work. I never could stand homework where I knew the answers already. Now I've got my associates and I'm working towards my bachelors, as an adult college classes make all kinds of sense and are far more rewarding than self study. Public School on the other hand was terribly mind-numbingly monotonous.

Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[b1ufox]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mugging_(Rote_learnin g)

Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[fractoid]

Probably an aftereffect of the Vicodin? :P

Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[fractoid]

Nonetheless, you are here as a result of your education and your own additional work. No point still being bitter, yes? To be honest, I doubt many of us are here as a result of our institutional educations. My high school wasn't too bad, thanks to some good teachers, but my university course was horribly insipid compared to the knowledge needed for later work. I won every job I've had on strength of my prior experience or hobby work, not my coursework.

The vast majority of time spent in primary school and early high school, from what I can see, is basically busywork to keep children occupied so that their parents can return to the workforce earlier. You can't tell me it should take a child 9 YEARS to learn reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic.

Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar?

[zero1101]

I have to disagree with you on that. For me it was not a waste of time. It was actively harmful. I got extremely good grades about the first six years of elementary, degrading after that, going into mediocrity and failure later on. You see, I never learned discipline because I wasn't given assignments that challenged me early on. This is also due to a lack of drive on my part, but the school system is also to blame as they never thought I might need a different kind of help. When I started getting mediocre grades, I was described as a "bright, promising student who needs to live up to his potential." I kept completing the occasional assignment which I happened to have an interest in in a competent manner, prompting more of that kind of comment. I've largely failed to live up to this supposed potential.

Amazing...this is just about exactly my story as well, and I'm still playing catch-up.

Respect? Cherish? Bush reliving childhood....

[lpq]

> What ever happened to respecting and cherishing differences? ... like "This child is bright, this one... not so much"...
----

Since when have the intelligent respected or cherished the "slow" or the "retarded" class?

For that matter -- when have kids respected or cherished "the gifted" or "intelligent" kids? More often than not, they are regarded as being a pain by teachers who have problems challenging them while meeting the needs of the rest of the class.

Basically, it boils down to George W. Bush feeling really bad growing up...he wants to protect others like him...

Well,

[fireheadca]

Duh!!

When Professionals in the Hard Sciences...

[tyrione]

... are enticed through compensation then perhaps we'll see our kids be taught by someone who hasn't accomplished an Ed degree with an emphasis in this or that.

You're not going to get Engineers, Physicists, Chemists, Pure & Applied Mathematicians, Economists all in their careers willing to take some years out and pour it back into the system, without adequate compensation.

Re:When Professionals in the Hard Sciences...

[jim_deane]

Occasionally you do. I'm one of the ones who found teaching was something for which I have a knack, and I found that out while in grad school for an MS in physics.

As a consequence I decided to go through one of the alternative license programs and teach high school physics. I may decide to jump back into the higher ed arena again in the future, and in fact I am continually researching ph.d. programs in physics and physics education.

Financially, it's not all that much different from the starting salary in a variety of scientific positions I considered as well. Particularly if you factor in that you have only a ~9.5 month contract.

An unfortunate reality...

[Nephroth]

The gifted student program I was in as a child was bled completely dry by an effort to "better care" for special needs students. It is a pity because some of my fondest memories of grade school come from that class and I hate to think that other deserving children are missing out on the fun and challenging things I got to experience. I think it indicates an error in the current model of education in the US. Instead of cultivating those who have the ready potential to do more than the average person, we force them to act like they are average and to avoid making others feel bad about themselves. I understand the human tendency toward uniformity, but I think we are severely undercutting ourselves in this case.

Don't particularly approve of the article's tone

[smchris]

I've worked for a national residential program for the gifted and I don't remember that we ever ranked students' home schools by the number of grades they allowed kids to skip.

Frankly, a 145 IQ may be exceptional but I'm not sure it's "national news article extraordinary." I'm willing to say as a general principle that only the extraordinary are better served on balance by being 14-year-old college students rather than students with an individualized program that allows them to remain in their peer age group for the most part.

Truly gifted students don't need the extra support

[thesandtiger]

But people who are developmentally disabled do.

I'm back in school now and it seems readily apparent to me and many of the faculty I've spoken with that there are 2 kinds of "smart" students:

"Smart" students who will do the bare minimum to skate by and who will often complain that their classes aren't challenging but won't do anything but boast about it. Extra spending is irrelevant to this type because they won't take advantage of it.

- and -

"Smart" students who will go above and beyond in order to *make* the work more challenging, who take the assignments as a minimum, not the maximum. These students don't need extra support, either - they make their own support.

Except

[Sycraft-fu]

A good number of the previous generation's smart kids self taught what they needed for their business. Bill Gates did not go and get a degree in programming or in business. He learned all that on his own. Woz was getting an undergraduate degree in computers, but dropped out to do Apple. He'd in no way learned enough in university at that time to do what he did for Apple, he learned that tinkering around himself. This "self made man" thing is not uncommon, so you could see how many would say "Well I did fine with public education, so will today's gifted kids."

Also, many rich people find that there are other things to give their money to. Bill Gates, for example, decided that issues like global health, HIV research, and so on are more important and as such donated his money and directs his foundation (which the money created) to that end.

The problem is what you are talking about isn't cheap. The more personalized and specialized the attention, the more money it requires. To really do more for gifted kids than they do on their own and with their parents would require some substantial cash since they aren't all gifted in the same area. Consider:

We have about 60 million school aged children in the US. For the sake of argument, let's say we only apply gifted programs to kids 10 and older as at some point they are probably too young to benefit. That gives about 40 million students. Now let's assume we set the bar for gifted extremely high, we say that only kids who are 99th percentile, nearly three standard deviations above the mean get in. Normally someone would set the cutoff around the 95-98th percentile, but we'll be stingy and require what people would effectively call genius level. That gives us 400,000 kids nationally. Now let's say that all we do for them is buy them each one extra book. That's it, no new teachers, just a single book. That's about $100 (really, books for classrooms are a ripoff). That gives us a cost of $40 million PER YEAR. To have an endowment that would cover all those kids for the 9 years of primary schooling would take $360 million. That's a whole lot of money for an individual or even a company to give.

Now suppose we relax it and be a bit more realistic, we say we'll take two sigma kids, 95th percentile, and we want enough money to do some real good, at least $1,000 per year. That's a per year cost of $2 billion dollars, $18 billion for 9 years for all of them. Even then, $1,000 per kid doesn't go all that far. You won't get an extra teacher for that unless you are willing to have a class size of 50 some students (and that's for a teacher with averageish pay), and then really what's the point?

Hence why it is something that is difficult to do right, especially when schools are underfunded as it is. I think there is some merit to saying "Gifted kids do ok as it is." I'm not saying we shouldn't try and provide accelerated classes when practical (my school did) but this idea of dumping tons and tons of money in to our gifted kids isn't feasible, especially if that money comes from our challenged kids. After all, it isn't going to help anything if the answer is "Don't teach them, just have the state support them." With work, you can have people who have developmental problems become able to function in society. That's sure as hell much better (not to mention far more ethical) than locking them up and paying for it.

Re:Except

[UncleFluffy]

Thankyou for taking the time to write such a well-reasoned reply.

Just to clarify, when I was talking about the funding coming from business, I wasn't talking about voluntary donations, I meant to refer to the tax base created by the business activity, both through their corporate taxes and through the income taxes paid by their employees. In that context, neither of your examples seem so outlandish.

Although you give several good examples of people who did well despite dropping out of higher education, I would still believe that there is a strong correlation between educational level and income.

Re:Except

[Sycraft-fu]

I'm sure it helps, though I'd guess a large part of that is simply that the parents are more likely to be involved. Unfortunately, many low income families aren't there due exclusively due to bad circumstances. Often their choices in life played a large role. For example having themselves dropped out of school, using drugs, not self learning, etc. Parents like this are much less likely to take an active part in their child's education. Thus the children perform poorer not necessarily because their parents have less resources to get them things, but because their parents don't help.

Don't underestimate the importance of parents, or assume that schools can assume the roles. Parents are really the only people that can spend one to one time with a child for any significant amount of time. While personal attention like that in school would be great, the cost would not be feasible. Thus parents really have to be responsible for encouraging and facilitating a child's learning. School is primarily for teaching essential skills that we don't tend to be experts at, hence things like English, math and so on.

Also, because of the level gifted people often get to in their chosen fields, it can be hard for a school to have classes that really do much good. For example by far my most developed and marketable skill, and the one I have the most interest in, is computers. That's what I do professionally: systems and network support, and I like it. I learned all that on my own, nobody ever taught me anything significant. Had the schools tried, it wouldn't have done any good. You'd be talking basic courses like introducing people to computer's parts. That's kinda remedial for someone who's built one. The university I work at has some courses like that (though no degree in it, CS and CE only, no CIS) but I was waaaay a head of that by the time I got there. I just don't see a way that a school could have been expected to accommodate me in any meaningful way, especially since it is solving problems with them I like, not programming. It was up to me to learn it, and my parents to help (which they did).

I think the best we can realistically do is try to have some varying levels of classes. For example at a large school you probably have to have numerous math courses taught each year. Well, instead of having only four kinds, one for each year of student, have six or eight or ten. That way students that are better at math can take more advanced courses. My schools did this. In 6th grade you got tested. If you did well, you went to advanced math, poorly you stayed in regular math. Depending on your grades you could then go to either algebra, a repeat of advanced math, or basic math in 7th. This process continued up till 12th you could be taking anything from calculus, pre calc, trig, advanced algebra, algebra 2, or algebra 1 depending on your skill. More or less if you were getting a high A and demonstrated proficiency, you'd get bumped up. Get a C or worse, you'd repeat that class next year.

That was far from ideal for gifted kids, I still found it boring as hell even though I was relatively good at math, but I don't know that you can do much better when you are trying to educate lots of kids. You do what you can to give the smart kids some more, and make resources available for self learning, but you've got to direct resources to helping the poor performers. I don't want a situation where we have nice shining superstars that get everything they want and everyone else just gets shit on. If a gifted kid has to work on educating themselves in their interests so that a downs syndrome kid can be given the education they need to hold a job and function in the world, I'm ok with that. The gifted kid will not only turn out ok, in all likelihood they'll learn a lot. The downs kid may not make it without help.

Don't get me wrong, we need to give more money to our schools (and I say this as a homeowner who's property tax is what pays that) and some of that should be directed to gifted programs, but we shouldn't try and cat

This brings back memories

[Brian Stretch]

They were going to move me ahead a grade early in elementary school but decided against it because I was already behind socially (read: getting beat up on a regular basis). The school was dead last academically in the district by a huge margin. My parents couldn't afford to move and transfers were approved strictly on the basis of skin color. Maybe if the credentialed idiots running the district would enforce discipline and double down on writing and math instruction they'd make some headway on their precious "racial balance"... but that's too "simple". You'll never get a doctorate in education with THAT idea.

Anyhow, even here in the People's Republic of Ann Arbor, the Berkeley of the Midwest, it's screwed up too. Of course, if your family has money there are a couple of very nice elite private schools. Most of the government schools are decent. Sucks to be you if you're in the wrong government school district and short on cash though.

I strongly support school vouchers. Funding should follow the student. If that would have meant the closure of the rotten excuse for an elementary school I was forced to attend, GOOD! If the teachers' unions recoil in horror at the idea, I DON'T CARE! Governments are supposed to serve the people, not the bureaucracies. The MEA (aka "Michigan Mafia") and their Democratic Party lackeys can go to hell.

(Bitter? Who, me?)

Dante was a huge fan of science and philosophy

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of it probably has its roots with Christianity. The Devil is smart, remember? When Dante was populating the Inferno, he dumped Odysseus in the 8th circle, 1 up from the bottom. Why? Because he's a smart, tricky bastard, just like the Devil is supposed to be. This country has a lot of radical Christian roots (Puritans, anyone?) so it's not all that surprising that our views on intellectualism are shaped around that. You are reading The Divine Comedy in a really lousy way.

First, for Dante to put someone in hell was not a criticism of the sort you imply. Dante placed one of his best friends (Brunetto Latini) in the seventh circle of hell. In Dante's scheme, placement in hell means that you have some particular individual flaw that permanently separates your soul from God. In the case of Ulysses, the flaw is not his wisdom, learning, or cleverness, but his deceit, trickery, and faithlessness (to his wife and his subjects). Dante's meetings with characters like Latini, Ulysses, and Francesca da Rimini are particularly poignant because, aside from their defects, they have so many other qualities that are so very appealing to Dante and the reader. But that's the whole point. Being a great teacher, a heroic adventurer, or a passionate (and headstrong) young damsel are all great gifts of nature and the spirit, but these things are not what can save you from eternal damnation!

Second, Dante absolutely did not criticize intellectualism in The Divine Comedy or in any other of his works.

Dante has many of the great pagan philosophers and poets -- Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Democritus, Diogenes, Anaxagoras, Thales, Zeno, Euclid, Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Galen, and more -- getting to chill in Limbo. (In Dante's infernal geography, Limbo is a vague sort of ante-region to hell whose inhabitants suffer passively, not actively, in their separation from God). At least some other guys, like Statius, get to go to heaven despite not being Christian or Jewish during their time on earth. There's a whole sphere of heaven characterized by the virtue of wisdom, in which Dante chats with Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Solomon.

Furthermore, the entire structure of the poem underscores order, mathematics, and scholasticism. The 100 cantos (34+33+33) are carefully laid out. The geography of heaven, hell, and purgatory are constructed according to three different categorizations of sin and virtue. And although Dante's cosmos is partly allegorical (especially the locations of an underground hell and an antipodal island-mountain for purgatory), it is internally consistent, with correct accounting for time zones, dates, and directions when Dante emerges on the opposite side of the globe.

And if you consider nothing else, look at the three-mirror optical Gedankenexperiment that Beatrice lays out in Canto 2 of Paradiso. I mean, is there any other major poem in which characters set up science experiments for each other to perform?!? Now, compare that to the anti-intellectualism of romantic era poets like John Keats, implicit in his Ode on a Grecian Urn, and explicit in his Lamia! Keats could have learned calculus, electrostatics, optics, mechanics, but instead chose to run them down... I'd bet Dante would have loved to incorporate these into his work. Lacking the opportunity, he worked with what was available at the time, which is certainly better than most people do.

test

[Anonymous Coward]

test

Shouldn't exclude!

[LuSiDe]

A genius IS often (if not always) someone who is 'developmentally disabled'. First, at some point on the IQ ladder, there is the definition "insane". IIRC its at 150, which is the same as the definition 'genius'. Then there is autism (especially asperger's), OCD, and other disabilities. Hence, geniuses shouldn't be excluded from this program!

My first mouse was a Genius, btw.

Oh My Yes!

[ziggit]

The US School systems are not a place for gifted students, one may run across the occational teacher who makes up for that in some way but they are rare.

For Example: Last year my Chemistry teacher managed to snatch up some grant money approx $55k and make out highschool the first in the us to have an electron microscope(Hitatchi tm1000). And being the tech minded one in class, guess who ended up being the first one to replace the fillament me, not much but having my hands in 55k really felt good, it was a moment, but I did feel like that there is the rare gem who makes things possible for gifted students.

Take charge with the children

[dgagley]

I have a son who scored high in the gifted test, the school lost them so he must take them again. He gets bored so we push him to do more. He is in 6th grade and reads at a 9th grade level. The library at school does not even have his level of books. It takes the parents to get things done. I push him and the teachers to keep him going. The system is broken and the government as it is will not fix it.

I kinda went through that.

[Almahtar]

At my highschool they had honors courses for just about every subject. For the most part if you were in one honors course you were in them all, so the honors course kids would move in a great cluster from one class to the next down the halls.

What sucked about it was that for the most part the honors kids were smarter (less informed, but smarter) than the teachers, but far less mature. So some time around the middle of 10th grade the teachers had a lot of trouble keeping the honors students in line. They had all become socially interested in each other and were smart enough to manage to derail class every time so they could socialize more.

Sounds Familiar

[Anonymous Coward]

From 1st grade on I was in GT classes in elementary school.
some teacher would come and pull you out of class (so you missed stuff, added bonus they'd disrupt the class to do it like you were getting called to the principals office) and than they would pull the psychologist route on you, talk about feelings and how unique we were and a whole bunch of useless bullshit I think in third grade once we got the how do you get everyone while holding hands across the broomstick you are also holding puzzle.

I like many of the other posters here spent class reading ahead and not paying attention bored out of my mind and getting mediocre grades and stellar test scores.

Middle school same thing, my homeroom teach won some teacher of the year award from Disney, most memorable part of the class? the utter torture of having to write daily journal entries that wouldn't get you pegged as a mental case or in need of therapy.

High school there was no more GT, instead there were 'Honors' classes (same as GT but parents could complain to get their jock into the class) and than the almighty AP's. Two good teachers, and English teacher whole swapped majors from psych to English after one year and gave me a F for participation because he though I never talked (I talked all class and I got the entire class to prove it to him when he pulled that, dude couldn't hear). The good teachers challenged everyone the bad ones were challenged to tie their own shoelaces.

College eh dunno if I learned anything aside from WOW and Girls could both vary widely between fun and torturous, so could Linux for that matter.

after my stint in the education system, it feels like I was doing my best get through and get that piece of paper that said I'm sane while dealing with the wardens in a loony bin.

so it looks like everyone else had just as much BS shoveled at them, glad to know everyone got to "build Character" the American way.

Get so much mediocre there has got to be something better out there crap shoveled down your throat til its over, you gain some immunity, or you crack.

Its the only way to be prepared for health insurance, government, marketing overload and everything else that that bows down before the almighty I'm making a buck here go screw yourself corporate mentality.

school was terrable for me

[Anonymous Coward]

I went to a public school, and as a kid it was something of a nightmare. Looking back on it I could have made things a little easier for myself but hind sight is 20/20 you know. Anyway elementary school was great. You had nap for a while and recess and what not. Not to mention my teachers went out of there way to ensure I got more advanced material for part of the time to work on. (this was the teacher's not the schools policy). After that though school got worse and worse. Skipping to the end of my school career in high school I got a ged because I was tired of being there it made my life miserable. In the end the administration had decided I was borderline retarded because I was failing a bunch of classes. So they Iq tested me to prove it so they could skip me ahead grades (they where willing to skip me ahead despite my failing is I proved to be what they called "borderline retarded".
My mom told me to flunk the test, this would have been the easy way out. I was pissed though. They couldn't imagine that they might be part of the problem and I was just retarded. So come test day I did my best to prove them wrong. I was the only kid in the school to ever complete the tests given too me. When they got the results back they wouldn't tell me what they where. Worse yet they wouldn't even talk to me. Even worse they gave me detention for it. WTF??!! Yeah anyway. I asked my mom after I turned 18 what my score was (she wouldn't tell me before then) I had scored around 150.
Now these people where telling me I was retarded like seriously mentally impaired because I was an under achiever because school was boring as all hell not to mention some of the terrible I me terrible teachers I had. Anyway the best they could do for me was put me in a special ed class and
take me away from the normal classes and put me in with the other kids they had identified as "retarded" or what ever. Most of them just had behavior problems. Hmm there is probably a lot more nightmarish things about school I could talk about here. But just would like to point out that I not only failed miserably at school but was failed miserably and instead of being recognized as gifted in the higher grade levels was identified as being mentally handicapped and treated extremely poorly and I quote "you are not here to learn, you are here to learn to shut up and take orders." maybe I'll complain about school another time (this just brings back some seriously bad memories I've been repressing for years. I never got any higher education because it is expensive and my family couldn't afford to help me with it. I sure couldn't afford it. Anyway lucky for me I was "gifted" and was able to teach myself enough stuff to get by in life and get a "decent" job. I'm a software developer and *nix admin making not enough money but getting by. But oh how I long for some real education that I didn't have to work hard to provide myself. God bless the internet and computers. (also the suckers at the colleges near by that through away busted machines letting me get my hands on enough stuff to build a computer to get access to the info that got me this job.) well I guess thats all I want to say for now.

This should be a hint...

[Genda]

The remarkably intelligent are a problem to be managed.

When you are average, you need to capitalize on your assets, the primary asset of the average is their number. They will determine the laws, the rules, the society in which we live.

By definition, the remarkably intelligent are dangerous. They can make an disproportionately large impact on the universe, they are the purveyors of change and transformation, they shatter paradigms, and break all the rules. This makes the intelligent dangerous, disturbing, threatening, even subversive. This means that when a society of the average find the extraordinary, they must find some way to immediately subdue them, shackle them, exploit and harness them to do useful brain work. The only alternative is to break them, taunt them, portray them as social misfits or villains.

This is not the necessary state of human affairs, but it is the tendency of the average state. Unless a culture takes it genius as a blessing, a boon, a profound gift to be nurtured, it will degenerate into an average state. When is the last time you saw a brilliant statesman? When is the last time you saw a scientist in a socially prominant situation? When is the last time you heard a throng of young people speak the name of a genius with the same kind of reverance they do a rock star or a super model. Is there even such a thing any more as a celebrity scientist?

This is nothing but a consistent process of average men, attempting desperately to use traditional resources, to control large masses of people through the dedicated process of dumbing down the masses, and socializing millions to stop thinking, keep buying, do what they're told, work quietly, be good mindless citizens of a good mindless society. The last thing people want is loose cannons running around. Smart people ask questions, they make appraisals, they remember more than 5 minutes, and notice when their leaders are full of shit. They connect the dots, and see the patterns, and they're hard to lie too. They don't lay down and play nice, and ignore their ruminations on what it means to be alive, in a universe, with other sentient beings.

And that is why the average are horribly uncomfortable in giving someone who aready has a frightening advantage, an even larger hand up, because in the end they'll just have to compete with that child, and he or she will kick their ass, so it's just better to kill the genius now, before they kill you later.

Of course this is just a single thread in tapestry, a fabric of human behavior. You just want notice nonetheless, this probably isn't a mistake, or just a random circumstance... this is most likely an intentional outcome, which should make the bright among you wonder what it is that's being accomplished. What it the intent of those who steer the ship of this society?

It ain't pay ... it is the bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

It ain't pay. It is the bullshit.
It is the fact that as a teacher you have no authority. And the kids know it. My mother (1st grade) has been threatened with a lawsuit many times, not just by the parents but by the students. It doesn't matter that the suit would be meritless. It would still be a hassle. And the threats wear you down. She has gotten to the point where the kids can pretty much do as they please.

There is no support from the administration (principle to school board). They are too concerned with their careers.

If the child will not submit to your authority, there is nothing you can do. You can't grab the kid and march them to the principles. Touching a kid is a fireable offense, plus law suit. If the kid acts up you have to call the school cop on a 1st grader.

Plus teaching is a political job. Like taxes politicians can't keep their hands off the schools. Every new year a new initiative is put in place. My wife (high school art) was put in charge of a committee to implement the new school standards. No other teacher gave a rats ass. They had seen new initiatives come and go. This too would pass.

You can't fail anyone because having older kids in class would be unfair to the other students. So, you "socially promote" them. One teacher of mine had a sign on the wall (which he put up after they moved his music class to the gym; try to teach music with a basketball game going on in the next room) that said "Time will pass, and so will you".
On the other hand, the go-getter parents demand that Sally get a "A" so she can get into Harvard.

You can't get males to teach K-8'th (or whatever your high school's lowest grade is), because any man who wants to work with kids is obviously a pedophile. What guy is going to subject himself to that?
And there will be less and less ,male teachers as more and more males stop going to college (and they are). K-12 teaches most boys that the education system does not value them. Less male teachers will reinforce the idea that education is for girls.

It ain't the pay hat drives most new teachers out of teaching. It is the unrelenting bullshit.

Gifted youngsters teaching themselves

[Descalzo]

I think that in High School it is a lot easier to turn gifted kids loose and let them learn. I think the younger they are the more help they need.

Actually, now that I think of it, maybe the younger kids need help learning how to become self-taught, and the older kids need guidance in what would be good to learn.

Homeschool

[Russ Nelson]

Homeschool. It's the only way to go. Had that been an option when I was young, my mother said she would have pursued it. Easier than fighting with the school district to get the education I needed.

Genius training in the post-Sputnik era

[Anonymous Coward]

I went through the educational system in the post-Sputnik era with a tested IQ of 167. Back then, there were some efforts to catch the really smart kids and do something for them. But that era didn't last long. I got some school support in 4th grade to build a computer (a very simple one; this was 1957). I was given a Bell Labs 1-transistor "From Sun To Sound" kit in 6th grade. Got a little extra attention in 8th grade, but was very frustrated with the slow pace of algebra class.

By high school (1963-1966), the "find the geniuses" trend had run its course, and the big educational issue was racial integration. Political and social science teaching was excellent, English teaching was competent and tough (although one teacher had a Hemingway fixation), physics was taught well, using the PSSC system, and math teaching was adequate. Except for 12th grade calculus, where I was stuck with an incompetent teacher. But no one was making an attempt to challenge me; I was just grinding through the system. I took summer school classes, trying to learn about computers, but it was too early. The closest I could get was typing and business machine operation. I managed to program a plugboard-controlled IBM collator to generate poetry. But this was viewed as somewhat frivolous.

I used to read about the Bronx High School of Science with envy.

Re:of course - because that's how it is

[dragonturtle69]

This is how it has been since at least the 1970's, and how American society in general feels it should be.

To speak directly to the question, if no child is left behind, then the fastest are either waiting for the slowest or helping them along. While this slows down the fastest, everyone gets to the figurative destination about the same time, as a group. More time and money is spent getting the slow up to speed that is spent getting the fast to more faster. And above all else, "good enough" is the goal, not "the best".

Remember, schools are not there just to teach subjects, but how to be good Subjects.

I am sure that many here have been the odd kid, the one held up to allow the others to catch up, the one quickest to answer correctly yet overlooked when raising their hand to answer. One person always being first intellectually does not create harmony (why do you think there are derogative terms for the intelligent?), yet this is what we do with organized physical sports, celebrate the one that is always first/highest score.

Until there is a much public interest in intellectual sports (let's say chess matches as an example) as any physical sport, the brightest intellectually will never receive more resources to learn than the slowest will to catch up at the low end of the curve

gifted children

[Miow]

Anyone who has worked with special needs children will tell you that they are generally much brighter than they appear. Also if you have worked with gifted children you will often find they are brats. I have worked with both. Also, many 'gifted' people do not show their talent until later in life whereas many gifted children are has-beens quite young. Gifted children will always find something to do "Genius will out" as the saying goes, whereas 'ungifted' children will often lose out -not because they are ungifted- but because they develope low esteem due to lack of social adeptness. The problem with the education system is that it puts an emphasis on subjects that can be quantified. You can easily assess a good mathematician, but how do you assess a person who makes others feel happy, comfortable, cared for, relaxed, and in general is the sort of person we like to be in the company of.

Re:gifted children

[Sigma 7]

Anyone who has worked with special needs children will tell you that they are generally much brighter than they appear. Also if you have worked with gifted children you will often find they are brats. I have worked with both. Also, many 'gifted' people do not show their talent until later in life whereas many gifted children are has-beens quite young. This is generally caused by a botched education structure. In particular, gifted children aren't challenged in an American education system, in the same way that a level 50 RPG character isn't challenged by basic pest control. In addition, such children are generally abused by others as part of some cultural hazing campaign.

Gifted children will always find something to do "Genius will out" as the saying goes Only if they have the materials to do so. No matter how hard you try, you cannot translate from one language to another if you do not have a dictionary or reference for either of the two languages. Likewise, you cannot create art without paper and drawing materials, you cannot write a program without a compiler or interpreter, and you cannot learn without an appropriate textbook.

The problem with the education system is that it puts an emphasis on subjects that can be quantified. You can easily assess a good mathematician, but how do you assess a person who makes others feel happy, comfortable, cared for, relaxed, and in general is the sort of person we like to be in the company of. An employment training program used an ad-hoc procedure for determining the "non-quantifiable" aspects of a person. In particular, it involves checking with other participants about the behaviour, attitude and relationships of a given member, given to both supervisors and co-workers. Even if it isn't fully precise, it gives a general idea on what is going on.

The same system can be done in school - with the exception that you don't include blunders such as school yard bullies trying to rate down the class egghead, even if it involved throwing away data in bulk.

Mod Parent Up

[oncehour]

I can find no concionable reason why the parent post is marked as flamebait. It may be too late now, but this was a genuinely good post and I can not conceive as to why it would be voted down. Moderation like this is the reason why I give Troll and Flamebait +4 in my comment preferences.

No Child Left Behind is a misnomer

[Klintus Fang]

While I do agree that the American education system is a bit of a mess at the moment, and that feel good programs like "no child left behind" are doing a poor job of making the situation any better, I do feel a need to make one point about a lot of misconceptions I am seeing about "no child left behind".

Do you guys realize that No Child Left Behind doesn't really "leave no child behind" and isn't really designed to do so? I'm pretty sure it just has that title because it makes the initiative sound good.

Let me explain what I mean. No child left behind mandates that all schools that receive federal funding be tested every year to evaluate their performance. Schools that fail to meet the performance metrics (which are rather convoluted) become a "needs improvement" school. They are then given some window of time to "improve" and if they don't....they lose their federal funding.

The program does not mandate that the govenment spend tons of mony to make sure every student does well. It mandates that the government penalize poorly performing schools by taking away their funding.

Ask Ted Kennedy!

[WheelDweller]

He wrote it. That was because George "can do nothing right" Bush reached across the aisle to allow him control of it, as an metaphoric olive branch.

Then, at the State of the Union address he acted like it was the worst legislation known to man. But then, we've come to expect that from this particular Senator, haven't we? :>

I'm not bright.

[krunk7]

You read right. I'm not bright. Yeah, I'm in the top 98 or 99 or whatever percentile but that's just sharp enough to realize just how goddamned hard the world is to really understand. It also means that about 85% of the world comes off as at least kinda slow and about 50-60% downright dumb. I also recognize raw intelligence, I work with a few. The kind that casually mention reading the matlab book on a sunday afternoon and are putting out code better then experienced programmers by wednesday.

But here's the rub: the world is run by the 95% not the 1%. Just as I cannot fathom the depth of understanding and intuitive logic it takes to pick up advanced matlab programming like they're as trivial as the rules of checkers, I can imagine that the vast majority of the world "just doesn't get it". And why should I expect them to?

The fact is, there is only one person responsible for your intellectual enrichment and that's yourself. The more intelligent you are the more this is true. All the knowledge of the world is available (barring incredibly impoverished nations, but that's not the issue here).

I read books my entire school years up to college. The entire class, every class. I read anything I wanted classics, philosophy, mathematics. And no, I wasn't a recluse. I also played football, baseball, track, wrestling, and on the debate & speech teams. I could afford the time for those activities because school was so trivial. I had an opportunity to go to an "advanced" high school that pooled gifted children from around the state....sort of a mini university. I turned it down because of the lack of extra curricular activities, particularly sports. Many here would call me crazy, but I learned plenty from the books I read. Enough to get into the same colleges, equal and often exceed the accomplishments.

I'm not saying the education system is fine or doesn't need improvement by any means. But honestly, who *needs* more help? The disabled student trying to learn to not be a drag on society or the genius student that is a sponge for knowledge?Let them progress at their own pace without obstacles, but that's as far as I'd go.

Sometimes I think "gifted" who were also unfortunate enough to suffer various social issues have a tendency to blame those problems on "the system".

It's actually quite simple.

[C10H14N2]

We're raising a generation we don't want to pay for because we now collectively view most of our own society as various camps of "those people" and who wants to pay for /them/?

It's not just about academics.

[C10H14N2]

It's about socialization, which obviously has its caveats in all directions.

What we have now is likely skewed too far in the "all are created equal" direction, which is obviously rubbish. However, I'd far less want to live in one of one of Huxley's or Zamyatin's nightmares.

They actually *need* to be left alone

[mark99]

"Gifted" people have some unique challenges to overcome. For example thing they seem to be worse at relating to their peers, and have a less successful sex life. This was discussed on Slashdot lately in response to this study:

http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/04/intercourse-and-i ntelligence.php

In the end that can only make for less happy people.

I think it is best to make less fuss about gifted kids, and make them work on their social skills and ability to integrate with their peers. Their intellegence will inevitably make itself known anyway, and I don't actually trust schools to lead them in any useful direction either.

That is how I am raising mine :)

Re:Truly gifted students don't need the extra supp

[lukas84]

It isn't as easy as you're trying to put it.

My main problem in school was perspective: If i did nothing more than sitting in class, reading my books, listening to the teacher, i could get grades which were good, but not excellent. If i did more, i got better grades. But why should i spend time on getting better grades? Nobody will care what kind of grades i had in third class when i was looking for an apprenticeship six years later.

In my opinion, must of the stuff we had to learn in school seemed pretty pointless to me. We had to learn french, but no english. I already had a computer back then, and started to learn english, but i failed to see why i would need to speak french, and as such i didn't even do the bare minimum in that class.

At age 16, i started my four year apprenticeship (not in IT, but in general electric and telefone installations). This is where things got better. Suddenly everything had a purpose, you got money for your work, you got praised by both co-workers and customers when something went good. There were still two days of school during the apprenticeship, but these made much more sense now. I learned things which i know could actually use when doing my job - most of the teacher were industry professionals which did the teaching as a sidejob. As such, i learned more things in the 4 years apprenticeship then in the 9 years of school beforehand. During the entire apprenticeship, i had perspective and motivation. I wanted to get a good job afterwards, good references, and a good payday. This worked out in the end.

After my apprenticeship, i stayed at that company for a year, and then switched to IT. Now i work 5-7 days a week. Most of the work is still fun, but the perspective is lacking. Why do i work? I could life on wellfare, and things wouldn't change that much, except the "working" part. I've started doing some IT certifications, but they're rather easy and expensive - and i don't see much of a benefit in them.

Re:Money and Education

[Scotman]

More money does not mean a better education. Yes there is a point where you have no paper and no teachers and so on. That is an extreme. But Poor and failing teaching methods will need more money to get the same result. The number of people qualifying as "less than par" is going up. And I don't just mean that its because there are more ppl in the world. The percentage is falling. Even with far more money and lots of sympathetic ppl we are getting more failures then ever. With more money, (as can be seen over the last 50 years) we will get even worse education than ever b4. What is wrong here is that it was getting better and then ALL OF A SUDDEN it starts getting worse. You would think ppl would stop to note what changed. But instead we poor more money and get more educational failures. I will give everyone a hint: We changed the WAY WE TEACH PPL. That was all that happened. Money had nothing to do with it and so does nothing to improve it.

NCLB

[rpillala]

The term "Special Education" is supposed to apply to the low and the high end. The high end gets ignored because those kids are going to learn even in spite of you. What different needs does a gifted student have? Do any of you even know? Here's a hint: they're not just smarter. It's not IQ that determines giftedness. You almost need a whole different environment for gifted children in the same way that ED kids get a classroom with an attached crisis room. With NCLB's mandates of Adequate Yearly Progress in certain measurable areas, it's all schools can do to get enough Special Ed teachers to bring the low end up and deal with the mountain of paperwork that is Special Education.

NCLB is designed to take money out of public schools and move it to private schools. This is accomplished by increasing the Federal government's role in education to the point where people get fed up and opt out. Can't afford to opt out? Maybe vouchers are the solution! Perhaps you should vote GuilianiVote Giuliani. Private schools have an easier time dealing with the high end because they're equipped to dismiss whoever they want. With "free and appropriate public education" guaranteed to all children, private schools couldn't do what they do without public schools there to catch the ones they throw out. The private school around here notifies their students sometime around January that they're not going to be invited back the following year. Guess where they end up.

This problem has been around a lot longer than NCLB though. Teachers don't know how to deal with kids "smarter" than we are. I use quote marks because it's not simply a matter of intellect. It doesn't happen to me that often that my students outthink me but it does make me uncomfortable when it does. It doesn't help that a lot of times such kids have a sort of learned-smartass attitude. You have to push through that, often many times per year, to get them to let you offer them something worth their time. Lots of teachers aren't emotionally equipped to handle that kind of thing because they have an authoritarian style. As in: "I don't care how smart you think you are there's no way you know more than me I'm an adult."

It also doesn't help that special needs are so misunderstood that people boil kids down to smart/average/dumb. Most kids with learning disabilities have average or above average intelligence. Special needs aren't a case of kids being lazy or stupid.

Re:NCLB

[Anonymous Coward]

Vouchers are BAD!!!!! Government money means Government regulation and rules. As soon as private schools start receiving Government funding by way of vouchers, they will have to adhere to the same rules as our public schools do. They will become just as broken as our public schools are now, only worse; we will not have anywhere else to turn when we as parents DO get fed up. Where will we OPT OUT to once the same broken system is extended to our good and even decent private schools?

the answer's in the question

[mbius]

TFA, right up front: Any sensible culture would know what to do with Annalisee Brasil. The 14-year-old not only has the looks of a South American model but is also...

Two frauds

[Paul Fernhout]

The "Gifted Label":
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/18l.htm
"And American schools tend, fundamentally, to mistrust students. One way to deal with danger from the middle and bottom of the evolutionary order is to buy off the people's natural leaders. Instead of killing Zapata, smart money deals Zapata in for his share. We've seen this principle as it downloaded into "gifted and talented" classrooms from the lofty abstractions of Pareto and Mosca. Now it's time to regard those de-fanged "gifted" children grown up, waiting at the trough like the others. What do they in their turn have to teach anyone?"

The entire academic pyramid scheme leading to the PhD:
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html
"I would like to propose a different and more illuminating metaphor for American science education. It is more like a mining and sorting operation, designed to cast aside most of the mass of common human debris, but at the same time to discover and rescue diamonds in the rough, that are capable of being cleaned and cut and polished into glittering gems, just like us, the existing scientists. It takes only a little reflection to see how much more this model accounts for than the pipeline does. It accounts for exponential growth, since it takes scientists to identify prospective scientists. It accounts for the very real problem that women and minorities are woefully underrepresented among the scientists, because it is hard for us, white, male scientists to perceive that once they are cleaned and cut and polished, they will look like us. It accounts for the fact that science education is for the most part a dreary business, a burden to student and teacher alike at all levels of American education, until the magic moment when a teacher recognizes a potential peer, at which point it becomes exhilarating and successful. Above all, it resolves the paradox of Scientific Elites and Scientific Illiterates. It explains why we have the best scientists and the most poorly educated students in the world. It is because our entire system of education is designed to produce precisely that result. ... Lederman's point is that American science is being stifled by the failure of the government to put enough money into it. ... However, although Lederman would certainly disagree with me, I firmly believe that this problem cannot be solved by more government money. If federal support for basic research were to be doubled (as many are calling for), the result would merely be to tack on a few more years of exponential expansion before we'd find ourselves in exactly the same situation again. ... [The] issue itself is really just a symptom of the larger fact that the era of exponential expansion has come to an end. The End of the Frontier could just as well have been called The Big Crunch. The crises that face science are not limited to jobs and research funds. Those are bad enough, but they are just the beginning. Under stress from those problems, other parts of the scientific enterprise have started showing signs of distress. One of the most essential is the matter of honesty and ethical behavior among scientists. ... Let me finish by summarizing what I've been trying to tell you. We stand at an historic juncture in the history of science. The long era of exponential expansion ended decades ago, but we have not yet reconciled ourselves to that fact. The present social structure of science, by which I mean institutions, education, funding, publications and so on all evolved during the period of exponential expansion, before The Big Crunch. They are not suited to the unknown future we face. Today's scientific leaders, in the universities, government, industry and the scientific societies are mostly people who came of age during the golden era, 1950 - 1970. I am myself part of that generation. We think tho

Re:Truly gifted students don't need the extra supp

[Sigma 7]

"Smart" students who will do the bare minimum to skate by and who will often complain that their classes aren't challenging but won't do anything but boast about it. Extra spending is irrelevant to this type because they won't take advantage of it. Under this definition, I would fit under this category. However, this is an extremely simplistic view of what's going on in education.

At one time, I asked for a prior learning assessment - which wasn't available at the public high-school. This resulted me in taking a math course where I already knew the content - for three years in a row. The time spent in these courses learning that negative numbers didn't exist followed by a redaction could have easily been spent learning that imaginary numbers didn't exist followed by a reaction. Alternativly, the math courses could be replaced with supplemental lessons which focus on areas that can be improved.

"Smart" students who will go above and beyond in order to *make* the work more challenging, who take the assignments as a minimum, not the maximum. These students don't need extra support, either - they make their own support. In my opinion, I put a lot of effort into creating a diarama when trying to make a "realistic" depiction of WWI trenches. I don't remember whether the low mark was because it was damaged after I handed in, or whether it was because of the catch-all "effort", but it wasn't something that could be corrected without access to better material. (In particular, the sand needed to be wet to stick together - what I wanted was a mud-like material that wasn't wet but looked realistic.)

After that, alongside similar projects with an "effort/creativity" mark, I simply lost all interest in those tasks.

BTW, these students still need support. Some students that can go above and beyond in some fields will feel uncomfortable looking deficient in others, and will cover up these flaws. I have heard plenty of personal accounts concerning this - such as some students using the wall clock in order to fake their way through math. If they are naturally advanced in all visible fields, they probably need more advanced materials/textbooks in order to maintain that advancement.

FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a masters in public administration, and this is just an irresponsible and flamebait oriented submission.

Allocation, by law, for children with special needs started many years before no-child-left behind (70s or 80s). I realize that slashdot folks dont have the slightest understanding of policy, but inflammatory bs does not help educate them or move policy forward. After all, no child left behind is pretty close to an unfunded mandate and has little to do with the failure of education policy or education management to deal with bright kids--but it SOUNDED SO GOOD ON TV.

Spreading misinformation doesn't help improve the situation, is just produces more poorly funded crap--like no child left behind. If you're not providing quality information to education the public, you're just another partisan hack and part of the problem.

yes, too many 'special' kids already

[Anonymous Coward]

A single voice of sanity. I think it's noteworthy that almost every poster in this thread imagines themselves gifted. I'm sure their parents do too. If we start building special classrooms for gifted children, the other classrooms will be almost empty. I'm raising small children now myself, and everyone I know who has enough money sends their kids to private institutions because they feel their child is too special for public schools, which in my area are quite good. It starts at a very young age. When they should be working on their basic social skills, they are instead being treated like pre-med students.

The only people who might have the objectivity to make such a divisive and controversial decision as to the proper placement of kids would be the teachers. Let me ask you, as a teacher, do you think you could pull this off? I know in my school district, even strictly enforcing the age cutoff from one grade to another is extremely controversial. We do enforce a strict cutoff, and I think that's good. If we did not, the only activity the school administration would have time for would be endless meetings with parents about their special children. They have better things to do.

I think attempting to segregate children based on some arbitrary conception of "intelligence" is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard of. Like you say, there are a lot of ways for kids to excel, and just as many ways for them to screw up. That's the human condition, all through adulthood. Any metric you choose will ultimately be arbitrary, and will serve no better purpose than to enforce ridiculous stereotypes, and to punish kids who don't make the cut.

Where I work, we just let go one of our programmers. He was very "bright", but also an introverted slacker. He didn't suffer from a childhood bereft of intellectual challenge, he suffered from a childhood bereft of team sports. He could write any code you like - if he felt like it. But he could really care less about contributing to any greater effort than himself. I wish I could say that he was an isolated case, but unfortunately not. I think the pendulum in this country has swung way too far towards the celebration of the individual. We don't need more "special" kids; we need kids who feel connected to everyone else.

My experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Little story from Italy.
We have the "no child left behind" technique, of course...

When I was in primary school i have always been kind of hyperactive, I loved solving problems, helping others and learning new things, just like other slashdotters reported...
In primary school I can say I was one of the smarter in the class... I had no one there that could really challenge me, the school was not even one of the best in our region, but that was not really a problem, as long as i kept learning new things... parents helped because they gave me lots of things to do... otherwise i just played with all the do-it-yourself stuff of my dad...

I loved the last year of primary and middle school when i finally had someone that could challenge me, school itself was boring anyway, but I finally had someone "near me".
But in high-school even if I had some people that could challenge me, i didn't like school...
everything became just memorizing things, and lots of professors didn't even know how to teach...
-I just hate it when I think that I learned more things myself than by listening to those monkeys, sometimes even in the subject they teach-

Still I loved learning interesting stuff, so I started learning new things in the "computer world"...
No one actually agreed with my passion, teachers told me to focus on school, parents told me to stop "playing with the computer"...
As a result became really introvert and kept learning from myself. I don't mind being alone, I HATE having nothing to do, or doing something in the wrong way, or without having prior knowlegde.
But I feel like I wasted years for nothing, for things i didn't like, and that I could learn lots of interesting things...
I'll start university soon, I really don't care of the marks as long as I can learn something useful...

Smart people don't need challenges as much as they need someone that can teach them new things, not only school subjects. Learning has been a high-enough challenge for me for 5 years...

"Optimal" and Ratio IQ

[Metasquares]

It's worth noting that the "optimal" range reported in TFA, 125 to 155, was from 1926 and thus uses the dated "Ratio IQ". The comparable IQ range would be significantly lower now (exactly how much lower, I'm not sure).

This isn't the fault of no child left behind

[The_mad_linguist]

Since the same thing was going on before the program started.

More Money versus A Conspiracy Against Ourselves

[Paul Fernhout]

John Taylor Gatto explains in his book (online) why putting more money into the system will not change things:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.ht m

One of the most important things Gatto does is to distinguish between
"Education" and "Schooling".

The hardest thing to understand about schooling, Gatto suggests, is that
schools are not *failing* at their original purpose but are actually
*succeeding* at creating dumbed down and easily "class"-ified people.
So, for example, when people note that more money spent on schools does not
produce smarter kids, the issue isn't that schools are not working, but
instead it is that schools are actually working all the better for the more
money. It just isn't the point of schools to produce "educated" people (even
if that is what school administrators or school teachers might claim is the
point of schooling, and perhaps even genuinely believe themselves).
The big issue is just that the original purpose of schools, intended to
produce an industrial utopia by turning children into the adult robots 19th
century industry needed, is no longer very relevant to the information age
or a world where universal abundance is possible (say, via *real* robots
automating away those assembly line jobs) or even moving beyond the notion
of "work" altogether.
"The Abolition of Work" by Bob Black, 1985
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolitio n.html

Gatto maintains that public (and most private) school as we know it
is a state-oriented social institution originating in Prussia
designed specifically to produce mainly uncritical
consumers, compliant workers, and obedient soldiers, and that it is out of
step with the needs of an information age society which thrives on diversity
and creativity (as well as out-of-step with the needs of the individual).

See, for example:
"A Conspiracy Against Ourselves"
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc5.ht m
"Spare yourself the anxiety of thinking of this school thing as a
conspiracy, even though the project is indeed riddled with petty
conspirators. It was and is a fully rational transaction in which all of us
play a part. We trade the liberty of our kids and our free will for a secure
social order and a very prosperous economy. It's a bargain in which most of
us agree to become as children ourselves, under the same tutelage which
holds the young, in exchange for food, entertainment, and safety. The
difficulty is that the contract fixes the goal of human life so low that
students go mad trying to escape it."

This idea that schools need a complete overhaul is now becoming somewhat
mainstream, see for example the title of this article:
"To fix US schools, panel says, start over"
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1215/p01s01-ussc.htm l
but unfortunately the solutions proposed (like longer universal
kindergarten) are still coming from those with industrial power (the
"captains" of industry again, but now the IT industry :-) and wanting cheap
laborers (but now, cheap and compliant intellectual laborers).

Another take on this issue from a different perspective:
"Sustainable Education" By Jerry Mintz
http://www.greenmoneyjournal.com/article.mpl?newsl etterid=21&articleid=195
"Nevertheless, there is an education revolution going on, and it is long
overdue. It is moving in the

this reminds me of Hogwart's

[WhiteDragon]

A school, isolated from the normal society, that lets kids with special abilities learn and interact socially with others as gifted as them. Admittedly, being very intelligent is not quite the same as being able to do magic, Clarke's third law notwithstanding, but it is still a valid analogy in the social aspect of growing up gifted.

Re:Truly gifted students don't need the extra supp

[thesandtiger]

I don't want to come off as insulting here, but you don't sound all that "gifted" to me. You had to take three years of the same math, and yet, rather than do something interesting with it, you chose instead to just sit there and take it. Why didn't you take that opportunity to write up some interesting observations about the material? Why not design a game or other kind of exercise around what you were being given in class? With the diorama, you got a less than great grade so you gave up.

There is a student I have had some classes with who I would say falls very much into the gifted category. In one course where we were examining various models for how human memory works, the idea of cognitive idea maps came up - concepts one remembers link up to other concepts by connections of various strengths, and thus when one concept is activated other, related ones may be activated, too. Anyway, at the end of the course, she gave me a CD and told me that she got a wild hair and decided to write some software that would let people create and display their own concept maps. Not a particularly difficult thing to create, but the fact is she did it without being assigned it, she did it because she felt like it and thought it would be a good way to learn not just more about concept maps, but also to develop other skills. She didn't hand it in to the professor until after grades had gone out - she didn't want him to think she was grade grubbing.

My point? You are content to say "Other people didn't make it challenging enough, and when I went above and beyond it wasn't appreciated, so I gave up." This person I know doesn't seem to give a shit if other people don't make it challenging enough - she'll make her own challenges. And she didn't seem to care about the grades - she was more into just doing something neat.

Anyway, I'm sure you're bright, but frankly you don't sound like you're all that gifted to me, regardless of what you might have been told in school. The world is full of people who used to be the smart kid in class but gave up - that's hardly special. Don't mean to be insulting, but I will be honest.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

It would help to have some data here

[jfaughnan]

We fund special education for several reasons, one of which is to minimize adult economic dependency and disability. That is a clear social good. A secondary motivation is compassion for people who've been very significantly disadvantaged. This funding includes high IQ persons with disabilities such as Asperger's, autism, etc.

I'm not aware of any data showing that a significant number of "geniuses" (a fuzzy concept, I've met only a few true geniuses, and that group included Richard Feynman) are economically dependent. I'm even more skeptical that a significant number of people with IQs over 140, in the absence of qualifying conditions (ADD, autism, etc) are disadvantaged. Let's not use MENSA as a guide, I don't think that's a representative body.

I would even wager that we could eliminate 25% of the school day for high IQ students and have minimal impact on any kind of outcomes. I happen to know a fair number of high IQ adults, and I have not seen any correlation between the "quality" of their early education and their outcomes. The greater impact, by far, is the wealth of their parents -- and that primarily manifests not as economic rather than absolute relative outcomes. For example: family physician vs. partner in prestigious law firm.

Re:Truly gifted students don't need the extra supp

[thesandtiger]

I don't wish to be insulting, but frankly you don't sound like anything special in the brains department. You're basically saying that unless you are spoon fed a practical reason for doing something you are unable to figure out a purpose on your own, even if that purpose is just having fun with ideas. Regardless of what people might have told you, you're nothing special - the world is full of people just like you: clever enough to learn stuff when it can be presented in a palatable way, but not so special that they'll go out of their way to find things on their own.

When I was in high school we had French classes also. I loved it, not because I thought I'd ever go to France or "need" to speak French, but because my parents didn't speak French and so my friends and I could use our pidgin French around them and feel like we were getting away with something. Ditto when learning stuff like binary coded number systems in a math class. I'm hardly what I'd call gifted myself, but I do have quite a bit of desire to know stuff, to figure things out, and that desire is what motivates me. I am told, and I believe, that this kind of desire to "play" with ideas is an essential trait to have for anyone doing research, and I agree.

I will say this: If you're unable to come up with a reason why you should do the work you do vs. go on welfare, you seriously need to rethink what you're doing and figure out for yourself what it is that'll do it for you.

Can I trade IQ points for mod points?

[Behrooz]

Right now I'd almost consider trading IQ points for mod points.

There is no form of cognitive testing that you can't improve on by training your mind appropriately. IQ tests, SAT tests, driving tests, arithmetic, even anticipating shots in tennis-- neuroplasticity is a wonderful thing.

So the question becomes:

"Are the public schools encouraging cognitive training that's useful to society and individuals' performance within society, or cognitive training designed to defeat the metrics of standardized testing with no other practical applications?"

I know which one they pushed me toward, and I've felt dumber ever since... even with Google helping out.

Re:Truly gifted students don't need the extra supp

[lukas84]

I don't wish to be insulting, but frankly you don't sound like anything special in the brains department. Correct. Never said or implied that, either. I'm a rather simple person - if that weren't the case, i would've studied instead of taking an apprenticeship, and i wouldn't be doing grunt level IT work either. There are numerous people that are more intelligent than me, better at what i'm doing right now, more social, etc. pp.

Frankly, your reply looks rather smug. I have no idea why though. So you like learning things that serve no direct purpose, and i don't. That doesn't make you better than me, as you seem to imply (there are numerous other factors that _could_ make you better than me).

16 years olds are much better

[paladinwannabe2]

The 15-16 year olds are a lot more mature than the 11-year olds you would normally be stuck with. Even if the 16-year-olds are jerks, they've still got 5 years maturity over the 11-year olds in the same school. Also, when you've got an 11-year old genius in your class, they are less of a threat to the 16-year-old's social standing. They aren't going to compete with the 11-year old for girls or friends, and being able to beat up someone 5 years younger doesn't impress anyone. Even in the competition for grades it's okay to lose to the genius, it's like playing basketball with Shaq.

It's not a nurturing environment- the 11-year old isn't going to get affection or offers of support- but it is an accepting one, without the hatred, jealousy, and competition that he'd find from his 'peers'. Ideally he still interacts with some people his own age, preferable outside the classroom.

Sneaking around the Bill of Rights is not confined

[Anonymous Coward]

See Amendment, Second.

Re:Truly gifted students don't need the extra supp

[thesandtiger]

Correct. Never said or implied that, either.

Then why were you responding to a comment about gifted people with your own personal experience? If you are not gifted and don't believe you're gifted, then what possible relevance could your personal experience have to a discussion about gifted people getting the support they need? In the context of this discussion and topic it can be assumed that you were trying to make the case that you were saying you were somehow special but unsupported. Otherwise your comments were a non sequitur.

Frankly, your reply looks rather smug. I have no idea why though.

Of course you don't know why it seems smug. It's because I wasn't being smug. I had taken your response to be that you felt you were gifted (which I explained above was a reasonable interpretation of your comments) and was describing my own experience with make-work and "purposeless" academic experiences, demonstrating that it is possible to get a greater perspective without having it provided by an outside party. If you feel that is a statement that I feel I'm superior to you, you're certainly welcome to take it that way, but I'd say it says much more about your own workings than it does about my intent.

Re:Truly gifted students don't need the extra supp

[lukas84]

If you are not gifted and don't believe you're gifted, then what possible relevance could your personal experience have to a discussion about gifted people getting the support they need? The story was about that - yes. That doesn't mean that all comments will exclusively discuss that topic. I mentioned points which i haven't seen before in the discussion (motivation to learn). I added these points because i thought they can apply for gifted people too (or do you believe that all gifted people like to learn just because they can?).

Maybe i should've added more disclaimers to my posting just to make myself perfectly clear for people like you.

but I'd say it says much more about your own workings than it does about my intent. As said, i'm a simple person :)

Have a nice day anyway.

Creeping Socialism

[thethibs]

When the demand for equality of results overtakes the demand for equal opportunity, we call it Creeping Socialism.

If y'all want to see where you're headed, take a close look at Canada, where mediocrity is a civil responsibility.

Wrong Metric?

[PPH]

So we spend 10 times as much on developmentally disabled students. Perhaps that's because they require more resources to educate than the bright ones. The question should be: Do we educate each group of students to the limits of their capabilities?

Many of the gifted programs I was involved in involved greater degrees of self directed study than normal classes and as a result demanded fewer resources of the school district per unit of learning (whatever that is). On the other hand, the DD students required extra attention, tutoring, short busses, etc.

The biggest problem I can see is that schools resist the testing and other selection processes necessary to direct the correct resources to the appropriate students. I wasn't identified as gifted until I make a royal PITA out of myself and was dragged into counseling where the underlying cause was determined to be abject boredom.

So "No Child Left Behind" translates as...

[mdd4696]

"Me fail English? That's unpossible!" --Ralph Wiggum

Good luck with that

[Anonymous Coward]

I was a GATE student and it was just silly how my school district was devoting a massive 1 day a MONTH to us by the time we got to high school. I totally agree the "better" kids should get tracked into better classes, but it's not going to happen. Here's one of the many large obstacles: ALL kids are "better". No, not just normal, better. Thanks to oblivious parents, even the cracked out completely neglectful mother/father thinks their child is God's gift to the school system and wouldn't stand for their child being in the "normal" class.

FYI, my mom and mother-in-law are both very good and horribly frustrated teachers. Over the years they have tried, created innovative programs that actually help (as opposed to the current mandated crap), working hard on the kids who need it and could excel with a little attention... but now they're both literally counting the days until retirement. The system is fucked.

Beyond Math and Science

[beesmum]

I realize there's a reason behind the bias towards Math and Science since it seems like most of the community here is based to some degree in more technological industries. For all of the griping that mathematics and the various sciences are neglected in the education system, my experience growing up in Canada left me with the feeling that if you didn't excel at math or science, you weren't as smart as your neighbour who could whip off their times tables five times as fast as you. I remember being stuck, struggling with a math project while all the math whizzes got to build a Mr.Muggs spaceship out of cardboard, and the disappointment I felt at being left out of it.

My sister and brother-in-law both teach Grade 3, and they bring up the valid point that kids that finish faster need to be occupied with something, and I agree with that fact. But there's so much emphasis on math and science, art is so completely neglected both in terms of funding and its a big deal if you're gifted in "useful" things like math or science. All we did that was creative in earlier grades was craft based, making giraffe recipe holders, things that have steps and all end up looking the same. Why do you have to good at crunching numbers to be considered gifted? What about developing intuition and critical thinking. Being good at science doesn't necessarily equate to someone who can think through problems in a broader sense, say in a social or interpersonal context. Of course I'm biased myself, I'm a BFA undergrad, so of course I'm going to prioritize what I feel are my own personal strengths. But I've always felt that we could strengthen our education system by trying to introduce critical thinking and teaching children how to live, through an interpersonal context that starts right in the classroom. But of course, we have the blind leading the blind..... I know there are individuals out there who agree with me and do their best to improve the system, starting with their own roles as teachers. I've been taught by a few of them and I wouldn't be the person I am today without them. The system leeches the best bits out of exceptional teachers, I've seen that happen as well.

So, to sum things up as best as I can, tracking kids that are "smart", meaning good at math and science, still neglects other potentially gifted individuals. Universities here have to fight tooth and nail for funding for the arts, here in Alberta science and business get the majority of the government pie. So it's a problem that extends across the whole spectrum of eductation and our culture as a whole. The Arts got us to where we are just as much as science and mathematics have, and our neglect of the Arts will eventually be reflected in our culture. It already is... I mean, Robert Bateman. What greater proof do I need?

I'd be happy to hear arguments against the Arts, I'm sure there's a lot I haven't considered since my own perspective is narrowed by my own particular interests.

Honors Courses and "Gifted" idiocy...

[SETIGuy]

This is more general idiocy about public education, perpetrated by rich conservatives who all think their kids are "gifted" and need to be in "honors" courses. (My experience with honors courses is that it's the same damn course as the non-honors courses. The only difference is that pampered rich kids get a 4.0 if they get straight B's in their honors courses.) Now the conservatives need to show how the public schools that they ensure are underfunded are "failing" the kids that likely voters think they have.

The public schools are forced to pay for all the Special Ed. kids that the private schools won't take. Let's force them now to spend money on the kids that don't need it. Anything to deprive normal kids of an education. An educated populace is a threat to conservative ideology.

If you are gifted you make your own education regardless of what is being provided. I have yet to find a teacher that won't let a truly gifted student move beyond what the class is learning. If you aren't "being challenged" as Sylvan puts it, you probably aren't gifted. You're probably just a rich Special Ed. kid. Even in elite colleges it seems that so-called gifted students think that education is something they are given rather than something that they do for themselves. It's the "A+ entitlement" mentality. There is an assumption that if they do the work they deserve an A. If they do it AND turn it in on time, they think that it should be an A+.

Fail the Smart Kids and the Dumb Ones

[Anonymous Coward]

The school system fails the vast majority of its students.
So what is so bad with the system failing the best and brightest.
If these kids are so smart they should figure out how to get what they
want from the system :-)

more true than you know

[Baldur_of_Asgard]

If the US wants to know why its surrendering the production of scientists to other parts of the world, they only need to look at all those small-minded, anti-intellectual twerps that manage to get on school boards and state Boards of Education, with their Bible in one hand and hatred of knowledge in the other.

On one occasion I had reason to look through the Bible for a passage affirming the value of knowledge and education. I figured I could find something - after all, there's a passage in the Bible to justify just about anything: in favor of genocide and murder, against genocide and murder, for prostitution, against prostitution, in favor of marriage, against marriage - just about anything can be justified by the Bible.

But, no, I couldn't find anything affirming the value of education and/or knowledge. On the contrary, lots of stuff about knowledge being worthless and the wisdom of men being an affront to God. That sort of thing.

Re:Truly gifted students don't need the extra supp

[Sigma 7]

I don't want to come off as insulting here, but you don't sound all that "gifted" to me. You had to take three years of the same math, and yet, rather than do something interesting with it, you chose instead to just sit there and take it. Actually, my focus was on computer programming, which isn't a pure math subject. One of the things that I was interested in, creating a level editor for Doom, didn't get far off the ground - while I was able to read the WAD file and display the results, it easily broke down when attempting to make changes to the map itself. When I reviewed it after college, I was able to make further progress - after I learned how things could go wrong in a medium to large-scale programs.

This attempt at work didn't rely on anything related to school. It also required combating Global Warming unless you wanted to stick with something basic.

It's still a math heavy subject, especially if you intend to do anything fancy. It's easier now with floating point processors, but in the 386/486 era, you need every trick in the book in order to make something semi-fast and stable. (As well as a way around the 64KB and 640KB barriers.) At least that stuff is still easier than adding AI support to "Tourneyfest" in Starfleet Command.

The world is full of people who used to be the smart kid in class but gave up - that's hardly special. I prefer the term reprioritized. </joke>

On a more serious note, there are plenty of students that react to external influences. In cases of the school system, there's some students that try to max out stuff anyway (which is labourous if courses follow the magical 2:1 homework ratio), some students that seek out something extra, and some that simply become bored.

If students start to self learn, there also needs to be a guide just in case something goes wrong. You may believe it's difficult to mess up something as simple as programming a 4-function Calculator, but you can expect bad things to happen if you aren't looking for problems. (Case in point: I self-learned a really strange method to get the GCF from a math textbook. It wouldn't get the correct answer, and I had no way to instantly verify it - aside from the initial example that happened to give the correct result.)

Ding ding ding!

[SatanicPuppy]

Right answer! Not that it did much for my overall GPA; 2.5, 2.5, 2.5, 5.0 is only around a 3.1, which as the other guy so astutely pointed out is actually worse than my previous GPA (a C+ average instead of a B/C average).

Still, it was by far my best year of school in terms of my personal morale, my personal achievements, etc.

Hear, hear!

[zobier]

<voice tone="stern">We know that you can do better than this, pull up your socks.</voice>

<voice tone="stern">We know that you can do better than this, pull up your socks.</voice>

<voice tone="stern">We know that you can do better than this, pull up your socks.</voice> ...

<voice tone="stern">If you don't get better grades we're going to ask you to leave</voice>

The Underground History of American Education

[syukton]

There's a book you can read online entitled "The Underground History of American Education" which was written by a former New York public schoolteacher named John Taylor Gatto. The book touches on this subject, that for a paycheck a teacher will hold back a gifted child to maintain classroom quotas and such. The entire book is a highly recommended read (even more so because you can read the whole thing online) due to its content. The notion that we all need to be schooled the exact same way in the same subjects using the same methods (and so forth) is an illusion conjured by the industrialists that founded the institution of public schooling in the first place.

D'oh!

[syukton]

Here's a link to the book's TOC: http://johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm

Public Education

[Shuh]

Public education is a factory solution to a hand-made problem.

Re:Public Education

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. This is yet another example of government's cookie-cutter approach failing to provide a good solution.

girl genius

[geniac]

As a female with an IQ well over 200, school has been hell. When you taught yourself to read at 2 and are reading college-level books before starting school, Dick & Jane are an insult. It becomes even more pathetic when the traditional means of identifying a student are such that us extremists can be overlooked because we're wrecking havoc in the school and too bored to "achieve". Most tests were too easy to be worth taking seriously. Also, while the author mentions that the Davidson school doesn't "mirror" America because it has fewer minorities and women than white males, I can attest as a minority female that I was repeatedly overlooked. One teacher told me straight out that I could not handle his advanced math course because of my gender and ethnicity. Although articles like this that bring attention to our situation are hopefully positive in the long run, I think they are also detrimental to us geniuses who are above the "genius profile" of 155-170 IQ. Those students probably do test well and show their precocity in more traditional ways. I sabotaged numerous tests because I was forced to take them and they were too stupid to be worth my time. Even the accelerated math courses offered at places like Davidson were too easy and slow. Numerous teachers pushed me on to others because they couldn't answer my questions or challenge me. I know several genius women who were and are overlooked because they don't fit the genius profile (white male who acts a certain way).