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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?

#131

Post by zepto »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #108
brightball wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just described why so many people support school choice and voucher policies. It is absolutely mind boggling to me how anyone can consider more options to be worse than a one size fits all model. EDIT: In keeping with the trend, took about 30 seconds to get downvoted.

> It is absolutely mind boggling to me how anyone can consider more options to be worse than a one size fits all model. It's pretty simple, really: you're looking from your own, self-centered perspective. From the point of view of the society , it may be desirable to restrict options available to individuals in order to mitigate negative effects of everyone making self-interested choices. Whether or not options shoul…

This makes no sense - you are proposing restricting the options of high performers so that they don't make self interested choices. Why not restrict the choices of low performers instead?

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#132

Post by jlebar »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #114
justin_vanw wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. This is a Harrison Bergeron argument. "We can't let people move quickly, because it might be unfair to other people." Effectively this means denying the people you can identify because there are going to be other 'deserving' people you don't identify. Replace 'education' with 'food' and see if this logic holds up: "We shouldn't feed the people we know are hungry, because other people might be hungry and now they w…

RE 1., your analogy to food is both misapplied and unhelpful. The choice here is between "better education" and "standard education", not between "better education" and "no education at all". You can't test the logic of that argument by applying it to the food case and expect a sensible result. Unless you can disprove GP's three arguments, we're talking about a trade-off . Trade-offs should not solved by rhetorics an…

I think you're applying a very ungenerous reading to the parent.

The parent's argument is exactly the same if we change "giving people food" to "giving people who have food that isn't suitable for them food that's more suitable for them".

Maybe you think that the parent's argument is flawed because you think that all people have the same basic educational needs. That's what TFA is arguing is not true, but maybe it's wrong; you could make that case. But quibbling over the exact formulation of an analogy is not the kind of concrete thinking that you're asking for.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#133

Post by TeMPOraL »

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #105
Aqueous wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a failure of the school administration and disciplinary processes, and separating kids from each other based on perceived or measured intelligence is not going to solve it. Bullies are going to find a target whether there's a geek there or not. This is an argument for strict enforcement of anti-bullying policies, not isolating groups of kids from each other. As someone who has been bullied in the past, I never…

Yet another reason to concentrate those smarter kids so that the people with the most potential don't have it wasted by being forced to go to a school with a failed administration. In a perfect world we would make all our schools great, but I think you'll find that this is harder to actually do than it is to say, and in the meantime it is very easy to get great teachers to work with gifted students.

What stops the "smart kid school" from developing the same administrative problems as regular ones? Are "smart teachers" actually better at managing behaviour of pupils? Personally, I feel that the bullying problem might be less about individual teachers, and more about how the whole system is constructed.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#134

Post by lol214365 »

maverick_iceman wrote: post #49
shawabawa3 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's no doubt that it's a good thing for the students that go to these schools. The question is whether it's good for society as other schools may suffer

How is it bad for society for bright students to excel?

It reduces social mobility. Charles Murray talks about how there is a trade-off between social mobility and meritocracy due to the heredity of IQ.

In a meritocratic society, the smartest kids go to the best schools, then to the best colleges, then the most elite companies, then likely marry someone from school or work, and then have the smartest kids.

Socioeconomic classes become set due the stability of cognitive function across generations.

Is it ideal to have a cognitively and economically stratified america with a cognitive elite and cognitive under-class?

Is it ideal that this cognitive elite has little to no interaction with the rest of America, and little understanding of how the rest of the country lives?

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#135

Post by CodeCube »

justin_vanw wrote: post #95
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…

1. This is a Harrison Bergeron argument. "We can't let people move quickly, because it might be unfair to other people." Effectively this means denying the people you can identify because there are going to be other 'deserving' people you don't identify. Replace 'education' with 'food' and see if this logic holds up: "We shouldn't feed the people we know are hungry, because other people might be hungry and now they w…

> The very gifted kids are going to isolate themselves from the dumb people as quickly as they can as soon as they can no matter what you do.

This is quite an anecdote you've got there ... cause in my experience (gifted, and in gifted classes with many much brighter than me), all of us kept a pretty diverse (academically) social group.

But that's _my_ anecdote ... surely people will exist on the entire spectrum between self-seclusion to social butterfly.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#137

Post by jlebar »

Aqueous wrote: post #93
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…

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…

Perhaps it would be worthwhile for you to engage with the scientific literature cited in this article? These arguments are considered.

Indeed, even in TFA:

> Failing to provide an appropriate education for students who are gifted increases the risk of mental health issues, boredom, frustration, developing behavioural problems both at school and at home, leading to disengagement and dropping out of school.

> When these students are academically isolated in a non-selective school, they can “dumb down” and underachieve to improve social acceptance by their peers and minimise the risk of bullying and social isolation.

We can disagree about these conclusions, but I hope we agree that if they're right, it's not morally right to send a gifted kid to a regular school on the theory that they'll set an example for those around them if the above is the cost to the kid.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#139

Post by chrisdone »

employee8000 wrote: post #106
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…

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…

I do think that educating other people is important, because we don't live forever.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#140

Post by never4ever »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #114
justin_vanw wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. This is a Harrison Bergeron argument. "We can't let people move quickly, because it might be unfair to other people." Effectively this means denying the people you can identify because there are going to be other 'deserving' people you don't identify. Replace 'education' with 'food' and see if this logic holds up: "We shouldn't feed the people we know are hungry, because other people might be hungry and now they w…

RE 1., your analogy to food is both misapplied and unhelpful. The choice here is between "better education" and "standard education", not between "better education" and "no education at all". You can't test the logic of that argument by applying it to the food case and expect a sensible result. Unless you can disprove GP's three arguments, we're talking about a trade-off . Trade-offs should not solved by rhetorics an…

This point needs to get more attention, anyone who is boiling this down to a simple black/white situation is oversimplifying the issue.

Determining the value in integrating "gifted" kids with "non-gifted" kids is in effect the same argument that is held with regard to determining the affect that charter schools have on our school system, simply change the modifier from gifted/non-gifted to interested/uninterested in school and we are having the same debate.

There are pros and cons to both models and people have to admit to both sides of it, otherwise they are being disingenuous with their analysis.

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