# The problem of giftedness **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 30, 2011, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problem-of-giftedness/587371 "2011-06-30T11:10:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problem-of-giftedness/587371/101 "2011-07-06T01:30:29Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > An honest question based strictly on curiosity, **Voyager**. > > What was the economic and racial make-up of the schools you attended? Was there any forced or voluntary bussing at your schools? Any white flight at your schools? I graduated from high school in 1969. I lived in Queens. I think there was one black kid in my elementary school, despite there being a middle class black neighborhood just blocks away. So yes, we had de facto segregation. My junior high was similar, but that was more due to natural boundaries. They did bus kids from Jamaica into our high school, but if there was any opposition to this I never heard it. More importantly was that my neighborhood was relatively new, post -WW II, and my classes were easily 90% Jewish. My elementary school was; we were tracked by junior high and my classes were, though probably not the school as a whole. (Stephen Gould was at my junior high ten years before me.) As a metric, in seventh grade there were 6 SP (special progress) classes and 12 regular classes, one of which was for kids with developmental problems. I doubt we’d be considered upper middle class - my family wasn’t, and none of my friends seemed to be. At the time my high school had the highest test scores in New York except for the magnet schools. Even today my high school is overcrowded because they let people from far away come, and it still has very good test scores. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problem-of-giftedness/587371/102 "2011-07-06T02:09:54Z")
OK, thanks for that. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problem-of-giftedness/587371/103 "2011-07-06T04:25:28Z")
Ah. Why my kids’ ([Illinois](http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/state_policy_illinois_10015.aspx)) schools have not had explicit “gifted” programming: > [@](#): > > Dollars allocated for Gifted and Talented programming (2008-2009): $0 > Dollars allocated for Gifted and Talented programming (2007-2008): $0 > Dollars allocated for Gifted and Talented programming (2006-2007): $0 (Which, again, has not stopped the bulk of my eldest’s classmates parents from believing their kids were gifted little darlings.) Alternatively [Virginia](http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/state_policy_virginia_10046.aspx) … > [@](#): > > Dollars allocated for Gifted and Talented programming (2008-2009): $45,534,868 > Dollars allocated for Gifted and Talented programming (2007-2008): $44,757,259 > Dollars allocated for Gifted and Talented programming (2006-2007): $27,685,985 Interestingly enough, [New York is with Illinois](http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/state_policies.aspx) as one of the few “red” states, with no mandate and no state funding for gifted education. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problem-of-giftedness/587371/104 "2011-07-06T06:09:17Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > If you didn’t take honors in middle school, your chances of taking AP classes in HS was low. It may have been “open to all” in theory at my school (don’t know for sure), but in practice, you weren’t going to be prepared for AP if you weren’t already on the honors track and a teacher was probably not going recommend you for it unless you were taking honors. Your chances of being on the honors track were lower if you weren’t labeled as gifted. While our AP was open to all, the administration lost no chance reminding kids that AP classes were taught at college level. For a time anyhow AP classes got a grade boost for your UC transcript - but only if you got a high enough score on the AP test. > [@](#): > > If what you’re saying is accurate, that “non-identified” kids could get into honors only on a space available basis–presumably because was there so many gifted kids taking up seats that space for the “non-gifted” had to be rationed out–this underscores my earlier point about an exceptionally high percentage of students being labled exceptional. Do you disagree? If we were talking about truly gifted children, we should really only be talking about a handful of students at most; not an entire classroom or more overtaking the entire grade’s honors section. No, the reason was that there were few honors classes offered. The percentage of gifted kids varied widely across high schools, roughly in relation to the average income and home price in the catchment area. They didn’t release the absolute numbers, but I sorted memberships in our organization by school, and it tracked what I expected pretty well. So it was relatively easy to get into the one honors class in the schools with few kids, harder in the schools with more. They had more classes, and more pushy parents also. ---
**Author:** ![coreywest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85f322/32.png) [@coreywest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coreywest)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problem-of-giftedness/587371/105 "2013-11-10T17:15:17Z")
what is that girl name the one you was talking to ---
**Author:** ![coreywest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85f322/32.png) [@coreywest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coreywest)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problem-of-giftedness/587371/106 "2013-11-10T17:16:21Z")
what is your name ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problem-of-giftedness/587371/107 "2013-11-10T17:53:34Z")
Wow, what? ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problem-of-giftedness/587371/108 "2013-11-10T17:55:10Z")
Just checked all three of his posts to the board. I actually want to know what the story is here, but I know I shall never learn it. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problem-of-giftedness/587371/109 "2013-11-12T18:31:10Z")
My name is Legion. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problem-of-giftedness/587371/110 "2013-11-12T20:55:32Z")
I think there are two things going on. First, a lot of the G&T identification seems to be being done at a very early age, before children are all on a level playing field, or at least as level as it gets. Second, I personally think that a big problem is that at least when I was in elementary/middle school, the determinations were made from a combination of standardized test scores and class grades. So what we ended up with were classes that were half really gifted and half just bright and almost always extremely hard working, organized and determined. They were the kids who consistenly made the best grades because they really put in the effort on all the assignments and studying. However, they were often behind the curve in classroom discussions and were rarely creative in the same way that the rest of us were. For example, I recall a popsicle-stick bridge building exercise in 7th grade science. Most of the brighter students tried to actually engineer something, while the more determination-oriented students all basically did variants on glued and layered sticks to make a really tough plank. Yes, they all supported the minimum weight to make an A, but with no creativity or style whatsoever. (Mine was a series of popsicle sticks with holes drilled about 1/4" in from the rounded edge, and they were wired together in 3 Warren trusses that were also wired together in a triangular configuration- kind of like a 3 sided tube. I got 2nd place behind the no-style having guy who built a 3/8" thick plank of elmer’s glue and popsicle sticks. Anyway, what I wonder now is what the point of all of it was. Yeah, I learned a lot in those classes, but since there wasn’t a concerted effort across all schools to pick up where one left off, I ended up repeating some things, and not learning others, and ended up doing ok in college, but I wasn’t any kind of wunderkind at that point, and now that I’m out of school, I’m reasonably successful, but no world-beating type at my job. IMO the main thing they need to do for any children is teach them at the level where they’re challenged and learning. Some kids need a lot more help in this than others- I was perpetually bored in most on-level courses, because I didn’t need a week to understand the concept of the hydrologic cycle- a lecture was enough. After that, it was mostly boredom and screwing around. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problem-of-giftedness/587371/111 "2013-11-12T21:05:50Z")
> [@bump](#): > > IMO the main thing they need to do for any children is teach them at the level where they’re challenged and learning. Some kids need a lot more help in this than others- I was perpetually bored in most on-level courses, because I didn’t need a week to understand the concept of the hydrologic cycle- a lecture was enough. After that, it was mostly boredom and screwing around. I don’t know if I mentioned this 2 years ago when I killed the thread, but this is called differentiation. It applies to everyone. One example told to us at meetings is spelling pre-tests. Someone who gets all the spelling words right in the pre-test shouldn’t have to do all the “use the words in a sentence” crap everyone else has to do. However differentiation with a wide range of kids is a lot easier to propose than to do. When I went to school we were pretty heavily tracked, and it worked great for me. Reported the weird one, btw. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problem-of-giftedness/587371.md?page=5)