"Gifted" programs were primarily used as a way to resegregate schools. So no, I don't think so.
Should gifted students go to a separate school?
31–40 of 390 posts
Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?
#32there are lots of people who have a knack for things that don't fall into the traditional Stanford-Binet definition of "gifted". Nor does it account for a person who matures in their teens or 20s or beyond.
I am also somewhat nervous of bias in the definition of "gifted", which may have things build into it which are correlated with race or culture. Put simply, there are really bright people that the system never catches, at any stage.
Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?
#33Absolutely. I'm going to sound very self-centered and certainly not humble but when I was enrolled in mandatory education I was doing so under Tony Blair's Labour government. This government was elected under premises such as nationalisation and additionally "Education, Education, Education"[0]. As such no child was allowed to fail school. This had the opposite affect in my primary school, instead of segregating the…
The solution to the problem you describe is different classes for students of different abilities, not different schools. The school I went to (in England) split most classes into 4 sets where the 'best' student's in each subject went to set 1 and the ones that need extra help went to set 3 or 4. Then there where extra-curricular 'clubs' in certain subjects for students that wanted to go even deeper than the lessons allowed. Even the most gifted of students may need some extra help in some subject. I, for example, was in set 1 for math and science, but set 4 for french.
Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
But, on the flip side, faster-learning kids need to learn how to live/work/deal with slower-learning kids and vice versa. The purpose of schooling goes beyond the accumulation of facts.
Nice in theory, doesn't work in practice. At least growing up where I did, a lot of the "slow" kids weren't slow. They just didn't give a fuck and would disrupt the class. No one needs to "learn" to deal with that bullshit. I don't have to deal with disruptive assholes in the real world.
I was one of those "disruptive assholes" in school. It was simply too easy for me to take seriously. A big part of it was also seeing through a lot of the teachers. I realized if there was a way to be successful in the world none of these people have a clue how to do it.
Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?
#35I don't think it's necessary.
When I was in high school you could elect to take a more or less challenging course load. I effective did go to a different school than many of my peers simply by taking different classes.
Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?
#36Hell ya. I was utterly bored in most classes at school since most of the stuff they covered I have done a few years ago. This was true not only of science and math but humanities subjects like history as well. Not to mention that many teachers couldn't handle the fact that a student was smarter than them. In addition, it was very hard to find intellectual peers at an average school.
Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?
#37I know this article is Australia-centric, but most US schools, to my knowledge, have multi-track educational programs (gifted students can take more advanced courses, take Honors/IB/AP, etc. etc.) which have separate curricula and teachers. In this respect, they're already in a separate program: having them go to a separate school entirely just hurts socialization between groups of students, which is more important f…
The problem in the US is that the AP kids get shafted because so much of the budget is spent on running a glorified daycare for the kids who really don't want to be there.
A lot of kids today think that laziness and a "fuck all" attitude is totally ok. They don't think education is important and frankly don't realize the potential consequences this may have on them in later life.
When I was a kid, I had to slop pigs, and shovel the shit out of the pen. My dad would say to me as we were shoveling pig shit or doing some other awful work, "This is why you get good grades. Some day you are going to college so you don't end up like your old man."
I had issues with my oldest kid taking a bad attitude at school and not caring about her education. I thought back to my childhood, then I took my daughter out and gave her a shovel. When she asked what she was supposed to do with it, I told her, "You are going to dig so you can practice up on how to be good at digging ditches, since that is the type of work you will be qualified for if you don't get a good education."
I got a call from her teacher a few weeks later telling me how they couldn't believe the complete 180 she had made at school and that she had never seen anything like it. She wanted to know what I had done. When I told her the teacher was amazed at what a harsh yet unique "punishment" it was, but said that "maybe more kids should be made to dig ditches".
Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?
#38Absolutely. I'm going to sound very self-centered and certainly not humble but when I was enrolled in mandatory education I was doing so under Tony Blair's Labour government. This government was elected under premises such as nationalisation and additionally "Education, Education, Education"[0]. As such no child was allowed to fail school. This had the opposite affect in my primary school, instead of segregating the…
The very humble comprehensive I went to in Scotland addressed this issue with streaming - which seemed to work pretty well. Is streaming out of fashion in state schools these days? I know its alive and well in public schools as my son was streamed. Edit: For those outside the UK: public schools are a type of private school.
What's streaming?
Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?
#39Absolutely. I'm going to sound very self-centered and certainly not humble but when I was enrolled in mandatory education I was doing so under Tony Blair's Labour government. This government was elected under premises such as nationalisation and additionally "Education, Education, Education"[0]. As such no child was allowed to fail school. This had the opposite affect in my primary school, instead of segregating the…
The solution to the problem you describe is different classes for students of different abilities, not different schools. The school I went to (in England) split most classes into 4 sets where the 'best' student's in each subject went to set 1 and the ones that need extra help went to set 3 or 4. Then there where extra-curricular 'clubs' in certain subjects for students that wanted to go even deeper than the lessons…
In my experiences abilities in different subjects are highly correlated. So someone who is very good in science/math is unlikely to be completely dumb when it comes to history/language. So your proposal would actually give rise to (intellectually) segregated schools in all but name. So we might as well make it formal.
Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?
#40Here in the U.S., very few public high schools have single-track education, at least not for "core" subjects such as English, math, and science. There are typically remedial, standard, honors, and AP classes for these subjects. And I would think that if you're OK with multi-track education, it would seem like having a separate school for gifted students is just an extension of that. That said, in my own experience, a…
The diversity bit sounds nice in theory but as a kid who loved learning and went to highschool in a socioeconomically challenged area I would have given anything to go to a charter school. It was frankly a terrifying environment. Also a significant amount of the school's resources went to these kids who just didn't want to be there. They had to pay for two security guards, overtime pay for the teachers who did detent…
Yea, I was in a school full of knuckleheads and criminals (rural town, most students were expected to go work in the local mill after graduating. College? LOL). I can count on one hand the number of students in my year who ever even made it out of the state. Most of the rest are probably in jail or running meth labs. I would have given anything to go to one of the richer schools where you could interact with folks, peers and teachers, who gave a shit, and where didn't have to worry about getting assaulted daily.