Is it correct that I heard that the Japanese education system of the recent past (don’t know how it is these days) had top-tier (rich) kids studying constantly until they were accepted at a good college, where they fucked off until they graduated, and then they started hot but were quickly drinking themselves to death? When my company was bought by a Japanese company you could tell the newbies by how gung-ho they were at first (the necktie thrown across a shoulder was a giveaway) and how, after six months, they were as slack as us Yanks and were sent back home. The speed of the transition was surprising, as most of us had been fuck-offs all our lives and the “wily Japanee” :rolleyes: caught on to it almost immediately.
I blame it on Human Nature which has, for thousands of years, had us males spending our nights poking the fire, telling stories, and (later) drinking. Those kids in the OP, at least the guys, will discover that lifestyle when they are in their late teens and it will fix some of their upbringing. And, as fucking off is an equal-opportunity employer, the girls will too, and the species will totter along, barely getting by, as always.
It would seem that a lot of people here don’t understand that gifted requires a new set of services/accommodations by the teacher. It isn’t a matter of who scores the most on a raw test. It is a matter of what students naturally excel in certain areas, so much so that they need extra attention.
I’m having my son tested because he really does excel in certain cognitive areas and I don’t think his teachers are responding appropriately.
It’s also kind of sad that urban school programs have parents who are scared of sending their kid to regular kindergarten.
“Gifted” as I may have been, I was there for the juice and Salerno Butter Cookies. There ain’t much you can do to “improve” a 5 year old. Coulda done without the enforced nap, but that was before I knew the value of a nap whenever the opportunity presented itself.
Does anyone know the details of the test these kids are supposedly studying for?
I hope it is not based on any sort of facts? In our district a very high score on one of the many tests they give second graders might get you into the potential pool, but so will teacher recommendations.
I’d like to point out that giftedness is potential, not achievement. That a kid is goofing off in an honors class does not mean that he isn’t gifted. I mentioned that the dropoput rate for GATE identified students is relatively high. There are lots of ways that parents and teachers can kill any sort of desire to achieve, and giftedness might be directed in a totally different dimension - like game playing or obsessive collecting. Not all parents are going to think that questions are good, or that lots of reading is good.
I like your idea, you with the face, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
I would actually go a step further, though. I think all kids, not just the gifted ones, need to be exposed to the extras that gifted kids are given. These extras typically have nothing to do with the 3 Rs, but more about keeping them interested in school. At the schools I attended, they got to go to museums and field excursions the rest of us couldn’t go to, for instance. Assuming that many of these kids were of high SES, they were probably already going to places like these, while the rest of us were not (I’m including myself in that group, and I didn’t even grow up poor).
They got to write books, which got bounded so that they looked like “real” books that they could proudly take home to Mommy and Daddy. We were doing creative writing in regular class all the time, so this seemed to be, in the eyes of a smart non-gifted student, a reward simply because someone from up above had decided these kids had something intangible I lacked, not matter how hard I tried. Like I said earlier, I was eventually allowed to write a book too and enter it into a district wide contest. How is it that I won an award (you with the face also won one as well) while my gifted cohorts did not? The contest should have been opened to everyone, so that creativity–rather than some shaky idea of “giftedness”–would be rewarded.
The gifted kids got to learn typing, as I also mentioned. Again, how in the world is this “advanced curriculum?” Anyone can learn how to type; it doesn’t take a genius. But it had the unfortunate effect of making the gifted kids look better than everyone else in middle school, because they could turn in typed papers. There’s that halo affect again. Typing should have been offered to everyone. We had enough computers for this, so it wasn’t for lack of equipment that it was limited to just to a few people. It was just an additional way to make the gifted kids feel like they were getting a more enriched education than the other kids.
For kids on the cusp like me, the gifted program meant that I could not do science projects. That was the domain of the gifted program in elementary school. I didn’t have to do one until the the seventh grade. When, yet again, my project was cool enough to win a district-wide award. How I would have loved to have gotten my feet wet earlier and done the stuff that the gifted kids did back in elementary school. (I swear, if it wasn’t for PBS and shows like 3-2-1 Contact, I probably wouldn’t be a scientist today).
So I think there should be either more discretion about who’s allowed in the gifted program (teacher recommendation, a system that combines grades with test scores) OR kids who have maintained a high level of achievement in a certain subject (such as science) should be eligible to participate in special activities targeting that area. So-called gifted kids with no interest in those areas could also opt out. I had hard-core resentment when I would see the crap some of those gifted kids would turn in for their science projects. Perhaps they were gifted in reading and writing, so it would be unfair to expect them to excel as scientists, but in the meantime the “normal” kid that WANTED to be a scientist and was good at it couldn’t get a toe into that world because of a stupid test score. It didn’t and still doesn’t make sense to me.
My mother tried. Every year she would beseech the teachers to place my sister and me into the gifted program, and every year it was always the same. “They are just shy of the cut-off. Sorry, we can’t make exceptions!” I don’t think she wanted us to get into the program for prestige or even so that we could be especially challenged (my sister and I did that on our own, especially during long summer vacations). But she saw how sad we often were by being constantly excluded from activities we could have benefited from. I actually wish the gifted program had not been right across the hall from the regular classrooms and held in a different school all together. That way we would have never known what we had been missing.
DSeid, when I said Allison wasn’t gifted, I didn’t mean she couldn’t have been gifted, only that she was not in the gifted program. The mother would have been better off asking, “How does your school challenge smart kids?” because Allison was just like me. Smart. Instead, she used that code word–the one reserved for kids on a special tract, nurtured by the school in special ways. So that’s why I thought she was fronting. But maybe she was using the word that she thought best described her child.*
*Actually, I believe she asked about Challenge kids. “Challenge” was the name for the gifted program in our school system. Her kid was not in Challenge, so that’s why it was a weird question for her to ask.
Right, because we all know that there are two kinds of kids. The gifted and the morons. How silly of me to think that aptitude is a continuum, and that trips to the symphony (which are funded by parents last time I checked) would bankrupt entire school districts.
Maybe I’m just one of those no account morons, so please be patient with me, but the idea that we should reserve cultural offerings for just the exceptionally bright kids makes no sense to me. It’s funny how we complain about how anti-intellectual, unimaginative, and provincial our society is, but then we have the nerve to act as though our current approach to sorting kids into a bins has nothing to do with that.
Really? I think it’s the very opposite. You start with the assumption that the default kid is a moron who can’t appreciate the symphony, while I start with the assumption that the default kid can. At least until he/she demonstrates otherwise. How is this dumbing down our children? My expectations are much higher than yours.
Right! That’s what I’m saying! God forbid we let a kid who otherwise would be slapped with a “non-gifted” label be exposed to things that kids with the gifted label are given. You seem to take issue with this, because you assume that in order for a smart kid to shine, another kid must be held back from shining too. And this very idea is why we have parents trying to prep their 4 year olds to get into gifted kindergarten. And it’s exactly why our schools lag behind others in terms of developing thinkers and leaders.
CP most people here understand a lot about both “giftedness” and giftedness, to put it as politely as possible, perhaps more than you do.
Yes many of the truly gifted will do poorly in regular ed environments, and those who are not gifted will flounder in a class designed for the truly gifted.
But of the parents who are sure that their brilliant kinderlachen are geniuses, very few actually have truly gifted kids, and many schools use “gifted” programming as a means of good old fashioned tracking, with its pluses and minuses. Voyager points out the why. The truly gifted are by definition very uncommon. Yes, those in the top fraction of a percentile on ability/potential (not achievement) may (not always) need special programming. They will commonly not fit in with the “regular kids” and may be ostracized. They make fake being more normal to fit in and feel bad about themselves. But unless it is both a large school and one that has a selection bias to kids higher than average IQ there won’t be enough of those kids to fill a classroom. So the bar gets lowered and “gifted” gets defined as the top 3%, or 5%, or 10% … and so on. And those kids do not need special services … and the process of differentiated learning to keep every child optimally challenged is best done in a fluid way that recognizes the variable pace of development, not in a way that pegs a child onto one or another path for the rest of his/her educational experience.
you a “gifted” program that consists of offering those kids trips to the museum and the symphony is a crappy gifted program. And most I think are not much better than that. Yes everyone can benefit from cultural programming. But the point for the truly gifted is that addressing material at their level would be inappropriate for everyone else in the class and they just don’t fit in. They are not just the smarter kids, they are far out on the continuum, far enough that they don’t fit.
And in a perfect world each kids gets the resources that he or she needs. An example that was used in the talks I went to is spelling. The teacher gives 10 or 20 words on Monday. Differentiated learning says that it is pointless to make a kid who gets all 20 write write them 5 times and use them in sentences. Maybe she can be assigned to write a story using them, or do something else. A kid who gets 2 or 3 wrong might benefit from the usual assignment. A kid who gets 15 wrong needs attention to see what the underlying problem is.
Since it isn’t a perfect world, tracking allows the level of teaching to all to be closer to the needs of all, though there should be plenty of opportunities for all students to work together to avoid ghettoization.
In case it’s not clear, I’m talking about “gifted” kids…not kids that are truly gifted by being on the far right of the bell curve wrt to aptitude and intelligence. I have no experience with programs targeted to the latter group, so I can’t make any statements about those programs.
All I know is that from my own observations with traditional gifted programs in the elementary and middle school grades, kids weren’t receiving advanced math or English lessons pitched more at their learning level. Rather, they got to participate in plays, take trips to museums, and study Latin. Stuff that has nothing to do with aceing an assessment exam or IQ test.
And of course that is the problem, you - what is passed off as “gifted ed” often is not aimed at the truly gifted and would not be what they needed if it was. It just creates this group of people who think they are special. We see them here all the time; they tend to be the ones trumpeting their allegedly scary high IQs and how gifted they are, while their posts read like drivel. (And the rest us non-gifted folk know we aint gifted, but we also know we’s still smarter than those fools.)
Arguably the programming that you describe would be better aimed at the kids who did not qualify for “gifted ed”. Statistically those who qualify for those faux gifted programs come from more advantaged backgrounds and will be more likely to have that cultural exposure with or without the school trip; the kids who do not qualify, statistically, are less likely to have that exposure otherwise.
Voyager what I don’t get is why it seems so difficult to do differentiated learning. Hell, back when I was kid (with my wax tablet and papyrus) we had a reading program that each kid would advance through at his or her own pace, color coded. Spelling seems easy to set up as you describe - two weeks of perfect scores and you move up to the writing task or even a harder list of bonus words. Have three levels of words for the classroom, or four even. Again, color coding it is not so hard and allows kids to move up or down with their developmental pace. Teachers should be able to handle three sets of answer keys. I can see having some tracking, especially for math, by Middle School, but same class differentiation, with services for those with LDs, should not be so hard for the middle 95%.
Remember, kids who are truly gifted might be that in one area but not another, and so need instruction at a slightly lower level there. Also, many truly gifted kids are very focused and self-motivated, at least when young, and need teachers to be supportive and not get in the way more than actual instruction.
I think most reading programs are. My wife’s was. Now, when I entered first grade, I couldn’t really read, and didn’t struggle with but was at the Dick and Jane level at the beginning. Sometime in there I jumped five or six grade levels, and that summer I was reading full Jules Verne books. (I’m an excellent example of why you shouldn’t sort kids when they are 5.) We had a similar reading program. I vaguely recall getting given the hardest reading in the series, polishing it off in no time, and then being allowed to read what I wanted. That shows that outliers are a bit different. Now, reading is simple, since there is an infinite amount of enriched material out there, and doing the same for math might take more teacher time.
An actual teacher should chime in here, but it seems to me that though differentiation is conceptually simple, finding the time to teach five different lessons while having the rest of the kids not get antsy is a feat that makes spinning five plates at the end of sticks look simple.
We got told that gifted students need enrichment, not acceleration. In other words, if someone is very good at math, and could do all of algebra in half a year, teach them about algorithms for computing things and other methods, and go a bit deeper, and don’t rush them into geometry or calculus. Since curricula are targeted to the average student, or below, there is plenty of enrichment possible.
I didn’t address this the first time I replied to your post due to the lack of time.
See that part in bold? Where you talk about recognition? That’s precisely what these programs are not supposed to be about, and yet they’ve evolved to become that way based on status-chasing parents. Your post encapsulates the mentality that we’re discussing in this thread very well, but you seem unaware of it.
Gifted programs shouldn’t be about making kids feel special. Ostensibly they’re about optimizing a student’s educational experience by accomodating their cognitive needs. Not unlike special education programs for slow kids, when flipped 180 degrees.
It’s precisely because parents want the pride and recognition of having their child called gifted that we see situations like the one being discussed in the OP. And children, of course, internalize these messages as well. A “gifted” kid will learn to see himself as better than his “non-gifted” peers, for reasons that are arbitrary and silly, having little to do with his ability to excel in school or appreciate higher learning. And a “non-gifted” kid will learn to see certain activities or interests as being out of his reach or something that only nerds are expected to excel in or enjoy. So we get the elitist on one hand and the antiintelletual on the other. Great outcome!
And in between you have kids like me, who didn’t have the gifted label but was periodically exposed to some “gifted” activities. This is why I have a cynical view towards schools that place artificial limits on some young kids just to set others apart. Most of it just seems like a massive con game to me.
Exactly. He’s probably not gifted, though, so give him a break.
Let’s say you set up that program you described. Exciting, rich doses of arithmetic, reading and writing, science, and social studies…along with the enrichment activities usually granted to faux gifted kids. Maybe if resources are limited, you draw up a lottery system so that only 20 kids can do a certain thing or go on a special field trip. If there’s a special resource teacher devoted to this, they can make sure the activities are varied enough so that just about every kid in the class gets exposed to something that really rocks their world.
This sounds great. Yet there will always be a vocal contingent of parents who will want to know how their little Johnny or Suzie will be challenged (read set apart from the others). It is just assumed that the class is full of dummies and that they have the cooties and that the program will cater to the lowest common denominator. Especially if the school is racially and socially/economically integrated. For instance, it is not enough that the middle school has honors classes. They will want a super duper honors class that only a small elite can get into. They will want a tiered system within the school so they can get the satisfaction that their kid will be on top, no matter how much of a jerkwad he is in class.
I remember being “dropped” into the gifted class sporadically when the kids needed my “free-lance” work, starting back as early as the third grade. At least in elementary school, I was always the resident artist of our grade, so when the gifted kids authored their great American novels, many would request me to be their illustrator. Which was actually cool beans. I got to feel “smart” for an hour and have fun at the same time.
One thing I remember is that the same kids who were disruptive in the regular class were also disruptive in the gifted class. I’m sure boredom was used as an excuse for their behavior, and maybe they just didn’t like writing books, but they were never penalized in the way that an average kid would have been. It’s almost like the more disruptive a “gifted” kid was, the more firmly the belief in his or her giftedness was entrenched.
Just another observation from someone who was on the cusp of whatever-it-was-the-school-called-“gifted”.
DSeid, I’m glad we’re on the same page about something for a change!
I went to five years of monthly meetings of parents of GATE kids. The district GATE administrator was there. There were plenty of questions, and even some complaints, often about teachers, but never this one. And many of the parents were not exactly timid about getting the best for their kids.
I suspect that the most often heard complaint was about teachers who wanted the GATE kids to be assistant teachers, and tutor the non-GATE kids. Perfectly valid, and against district policy.
I guess it depends on the school? I went to schools that were racially and economically stratified, where advantaged kids would often disappear to a nearby elite private school in a New York minute. These kids dominated the gifted program. And the honors classes. And the AP classes.
So I think that’s why I’m so cynical. It seemed to me then and now that these kids were being given consierge services because either their parents had clout or they were perceived as having clout, and the school knew they would lose them if they did anything “wrong”. And losing them would be a bad thing.
I like this idea. Also, what might be even better is if, with increasing age, kids were actually allowed to choose which enrichment electives they participated in, with the option to opt completely if they so chose. A conscientious parent who feels that their kids needs more time practicing long division rather than dabbling in more sophisticated pursuits should be able to make that call, as well as the kid’s teacher.
The “gifted” math whiz will likely be pretty bored at an art museum or studying Latin; why should his kid take the trip when a “non-gifted” kid with a natural (and perhaps unrecognized) knack for art or foreign language be denied the opportunity on the basis of an IQ score? Let the math whiz opt for an activity that lets him exercise his talents and let the blossoming artist do the same.
Really, is this that insane of an idea? I don’t think so. But I suspect that putting this in place would actually require a Libya-like revolution.
so what is the “problem” again? Middle class whites and Asians desiring to raise their kids in a particular way, such as in institutions with the word “gifted” in the name? Or maybe them using the local government run educational authorities (financed mostly by their taxes, btw) to help them in doing so?
I don’t personally like the way early childhood and primary school education is run, but if that’s what the parents want, then that’s what the parents ought to get. The people who believe in alternative models (myself included) should feel free to go establish schools based on these alternative models and then try convincing the consumer to switch to the new brand.
In other news, black people who believe in “afro-centric” alternative model of schooling were not prevented in putting their ideas into practice, including sometimes with government funds. Is it evil to make children go to a school with the word “afro-centric” in its name? What sort of a “halo effect” will it induce in them? No idea, and IMHO this makes absolutely no difference in the big scheme of things. The long term trajectory of people’s careers are not driven by where they went to kindergarten.
First, for those of you that thought my reply was too long and didn’t read, I sincerely understand. I think there is some good information in there, but you have to read for context. I have been a part of a gifted program myself, I have teachers in my family that deal with these issues, arguments, etc. and I know friends of mine who are teachers that complain about how legislation is hamstringing their teaching abilities. So I have a lot of opinions on the subject.
If you want to get an idea of what I’m referring to and don’t want to read as much, you can cut it in half by eliminating the last half of the post, which is only a personal story.
Now that’s not what I said, and you know it. There are not two types of kids. There are a number of different types of children, who can fit into a number of different categories. An infinite number of possible combinations. With that said, it IS expensive to do what you suggest. The way I read your suggestion, you are thinking 3-4 year period of everyone being “gifted” and start weeding kids out after that. OK, let’s say you have a district with 60 kids in each grade, so two classes of 30. Now, buy the tickets to every cultural event the school wants to take the kids to… add transportation and food costs, as well as any added security to make sure the kids alll get hope safely. Do that for 1 event a year? Ok, maybe no big deal. How about 6? That gets pricey very quickly. And remember, you have to multiply that number by 4, since you are continuing your program into the fourth grade. That’s a lot of money that could be spent better somewhere else, in the school district, or by the taxpayers.
Maybe you are a moron, but they are ALL accountable j/k. Here’s the problem in a nutshell. IMO, all children in some way may benefit from a cultural experience. Some kids will never “get it”, including potentially some at the top of the intellect scale as well as the lower kids.
I don’t define dumb or smart kids by the cultural items they might be interested in. That’s what we have a grade system for. Which is why I don’t understand how you propose to weed the fast kids from the slower kids based on these cultural outings. And you want to take 4 years of equal treatment to do this? I don’t think your plan is unworkable or realistic at all.
How are you going to convince the parents of children that have been labeled “gifted” are no longer so? Good luck with that, and enjoy the lawsuits.
This isn’t want I am saying, exactly, so I don’t think we are that close. In a perfect world, I’d walk into this with the idea that all kids are eligible for all activities, cultural events, etc. But as soon as expenses begin to be added up, decisions will be made, and you know it. So almost immediately, we start dividing kids into different sections with different LABELS. THE HORROR. But it’s the truth.
Where I think the smart children are taking it on the chin is during test time, when all kids are required to meet the states (which I believe come from, but not positive, from the federal level) educational minimums. To get their federal and state money for the next year, the kids must pass these standardized tests, which are dumbed down to a point that a trained seal could pass the test. Who are the kids hurt by this logic?? Certainly the high achievers, who blow through these tests as a joke, and they spend their time bored out of their minds. The teachers, who don’t feel like you are testing at all The upper (just missed, maybe next year), the lower (thanks, but you aren’t what we are looking for) and the middle, who may be able to improve if someone would actually spend some time evaluating the effort applied during the school year. But as many teacher I know, most of this coom-bye-aah crap takes valuable time, and they are put under constant stress until they MEET THE NUMBER. Whever that number is met, all is right with the world, the money will be flowing back in, and good golly! Look George, no Child WAS Left Behind! YOU ARE THE EDUCATION PRESIDENT!
Gifted students are rarely given special dispensation from this work because the truth is that these kids will do generally the best on the standardized tests. and the schools need them. so cancel that train ride! Sit down and take a test.
Is this even sinking in a little bit? I’m writing it late and I tend to slip over things that are obvious yo me.
Education programs today (as they’re taught in teaching colleges) are about enrichment, hands-on, thinking outside the box, individualized education, etc.
So the kindergarten that you with the face described is, well, kindergarten. At least, all that I’ve seen in the Denver metro area.
My fancy pancy private school in Iowa was all about academics. We had field trips, yeah, but we also had reading lists in kindergarten. :o
j/k. Here’s the problem in a nutshell. IMO, all children in some way may benefit from a cultural experience. Some kids will never “get it”, including potentially some at the top of the intellect scale as well as the lower kids.