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Should gifted students go to a separate school?

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Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#121

Post by 67726e »

_m8fo wrote: post #109
employee8000 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is unadulterated bullshit. The idea that we are supposed to teach each other is science fiction that you just made up. We need smart people in society so that we can advance. They are the leaders that will help move the needle. If we burden our best and brightest young people with "educating" their peers then we as a society lose out. The gifted children should be free to learn at their own pace so that as they…

You believe that the brightest children helping their more unenlightened peers will result in society losing out?

No, it's unrealistic and doesn't happen so let's stop pretending it does.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#122

Post by lol214365 »

67726e wrote: post #12
stinky613 wrote: post #5

Earlier 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.

Then separate out the problem kids, not the slow kids.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#123

Post by TeMPOraL »

hawkice wrote: post #96
Aqueous wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4. This idea that education is only for my own individual welfare has to end. It's creating a culture of individual atomism that is instilling the most anti-social, selfish values and corroding the country at its roots. We go to school not just to be educated but to educate each other. If you're smart, you set an example to kids near us who don't feel that way. Hopefully, those who aren't labelled 'smart' gain from t…

> We go to school not just to be educated but to educate each other. If we're smart, we set an example to kids near us who don't feel that way. Hopefully, those who aren't labelled 'smart' gain from the presence of 'smart' students and 'smart' students gain from theirs. So, if we trap the geeks where they can be bullied and beaten, they'll understand what the real world is like better? I'll be real with you, I've nev…

Even if you were to create a special "school for smart people only" and magically teleport all geeks there, I wouldn't be sure it would eliminate the problem of geeks being bullied. Bullying seems to be an emergent thing that comes up naturally in the sort of environment a school is - as long as kids have a "hierarchy of popularity", there will be some people at the bottom of it, and those are your bullying targets.

Being a geek is a reason to find yourself at the bottom of the hierarchy, but so is being overweight, wearing glasses, being shy, being in a religious minority, etc. The particular reason doesn't matter to the bullying process, it's a free variable. I'm pretty sure that a school full of geek kids will find their own reasons to bully some of its students.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#124

Post by _m8fo »

67726e wrote: post #121
_m8fo wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You believe that the brightest children helping their more unenlightened peers will result in society losing out?

No, it's unrealistic and doesn't happen so let's stop pretending it does.

Who's pretending it happens?

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#125

Post by ctdonath »

michael_h wrote: post #83
ctdonath wrote: post #47

Vouchers should be available for all parents to send their children to whatever accredited school they deem appropriate for their child's needs.

Suddenly, the school for gifted kids is inundated with new students.

If parents perceive the public school is not providing suitable services, and the private school is, then the public school finds reason to correct the deficiency - competition works.

And if the private school can't handle the inundation, then there's incentive to either expand capacity and/or another school adapt/open to share the load.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#126

Post by zepto »

FussyZeus wrote: post #94
habosa wrote: post #85

A lot of comments here sound something like this: "I am smart and when I was in high school the classes bored me because they were taught to the lowest common denominator". This is not an argument for intellectual segregation of schools. While I could put forth a hundred arguments against this, here are a few off the top of my head: 1. When do we decide who is "gifted"? What happens to late bloomers? Are they forever…

I agree with the second especially. The whole point of School is to prepare you for the world we live in (it's effectiveness in many aspects is highly up for debate, but that's another discussion) and you will frequently find yourself in Real Life having to deal with people not necessarily like you. Further isolating people into given groups is only going to increase the social fracturing we already see taking place.…

Except not. You do have to deal with people not like you in 'real life', but the conditions are nothing like school, wherein you are forced to do so under disadvantageous conditions.

Maybe it's worth experiencing this once or twice, but to be put through it for years is nothing more than abuse.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#127

Post by jules »

habosa wrote: post #85

A lot of comments here sound something like this: "I am smart and when I was in high school the classes bored me because they were taught to the lowest common denominator". This is not an argument for intellectual segregation of schools. While I could put forth a hundred arguments against this, here are a few off the top of my head: 1. When do we decide who is "gifted"? What happens to late bloomers? Are they forever…

That gifted students will be bored and not develop to their fullest extent, and perhaps more importantly, not develop the discipline to work hard in their formative years, is an argument for tailoring education to the student's ability. Asserting the opposite doesn't make it so. You argument comes down to impairing the education of gifted children in favour of improving the education of ungifted children. That is an argument if your top priority is equality of outcome, but one can question how wise that is if you care about the well being of all of humanity given the fact that it was a handful of geniuses who were responsible for a hugely outsized amount of progress.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#128

Post by randomgyatwork »

As a child, I had a learning disability, my school's principal told my parents that I'd never do anything with my life. My parents disagree and so did I, they found a private school that specialized in teaching students like me. The school did some intellectual tests to make sure I could learn, and learn I did.

They spent tens of thousands of dollars so that I could be taught, in that environment I excelled.

I don't trust the government to be a good judge of students abilities, because someone like me would be labelled dumb and be left behind forever.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#129

Post by hawkice »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #123
hawkice wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We go to school not just to be educated but to educate each other. If we're smart, we set an example to kids near us who don't feel that way. Hopefully, those who aren't labelled 'smart' gain from the presence of 'smart' students and 'smart' students gain from theirs. So, if we trap the geeks where they can be bullied and beaten, they'll understand what the real world is like better? I'll be real with you, I've nev…

Even if you were to create a special "school for smart people only" and magically teleport all geeks there, I wouldn't be sure it would eliminate the problem of geeks being bullied. Bullying seems to be an emergent thing that comes up naturally in the sort of environment a school is - as long as kids have a "hierarchy of popularity", there will be some people at the bottom of it, and those are your bullying targets.…

I don't disagree per se, but instead of this happening, it frequently does not. I suspect it is because we are massively under-serving these kids, and they are all essentially bullying refugees. They know exactly how bad it is. Maybe if the torturous experiences were less universal they'd fall into those patterns much quicker.
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