Should gifted students go to a separate school? • Hacker News Board

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#141

Post by conjectures » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 6:25 PM UTC

CodeSheikh wrote: post #62

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 other schools will suffer? Endowments from rich parents? Being rich does not mean your kid is smart and these gifted schools should be very selective to whom they admit.

> Being rich does not mean your kid is smart

But it does mean you can pay to get them tutored to jump through hoops, and generally push them harder. There's a very strong relationship between wealth and elite college admission for example. Which is down to culture and opportunity as much as gifts and talents.

If being selective means controlling for socioeconomic background when assessing potential - then I'd be more of a cheerleader for it.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#142

Post by jlebar » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 6:25 PM UTC

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.…

> 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.

First, note that the standard the school has to meet isn't "no bullying", but rather "significantly less bullying". I presume this is what you mean.

Anyway: What is your evidence for this claim? Have you ever spent time in such a school and compared it to a regular school?

Data point of N=1. I went to a special "school for smart people only". There was dramatically less bullying than the regular-people school I came from.

But anyway the researchers are providing actual scientific evidence of this effect, and you appear to be arguing against it using, apparently, intuition based on no evidence whatsoever. "Yes, these experts say X, but that sounds unbelievable to me; therefore they must be wrong."

Surely you do not endorse this sort of reasoning.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#143

Post by xorcist » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 6:26 PM UTC

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…

> The idea that we are supposed to teach each other is science fiction

In a thread filled with anecdotes, and people who consider themselves experts on school because they went to one, the idea that you criticize is just about the only one with basis in research. Teaching the material is an effective way to gain insight on a subject.

> We don't gain anything by throttling the motivation of gifted kids

This keeps surfacing every time someone brings up education. Probably because it is so easy to argue against. The thing is, nobody wants to do that. The question at hand here is what makes for a better education for gifted children. That's not as clear cut as one might think.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#144

Post by steverb » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 6:28 PM UTC

akhilcacharya wrote: post #45

steverb wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is currently the approach used by my daughter's school (and a lot of others in Tennessee), dual enrollment. She has some high school classes and takes a few others at the local community college. Next year she will be a senior and have one morning class at her high school, and the rest will be college. She should finish her Associate's (2 year) degree two semesters after graduating high school. Some more academi…

>Some more academically gifted students have managed to graduate high school and finish their two year degree simultaneously I did that, it's not as useful as it seems.

It's more useful than graduating high school and then having to go through two years of mediocre undergraduate courses, no?

What did you find non-useful about it? Did you end up having to take just as much undergraduate coursework to make up for some perceived deficiency?

I'm genuinely curious.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#145

Post by forgotmysn » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 6:32 PM UTC

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #100

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…

Have you ever been inside a school? The stupid kids don't gather around to bask in the glow of the gifted kids. They DO gather around them and call them 'faggot' and trip them in the hallway, especially if they are smart but not athletic.

thats a generalization and sounds anecdotal

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#146

Post by morgante » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 6:33 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #133

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The smart kids have better things to do than bully each other.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#147

Post by steverb » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 6:33 PM UTC

jschwartzi wrote: post #6

jawns wrote: post #3

Here 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…

Mostly what I learned in high school was how to talk to kids from blue-collar families. Don't use multi-syllabic words, and talk only in concrete terms. Avoid use of abstraction and don't pontificate about anything.

Ha. Apparently you haven't learned not to pontificate yet.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#148

Post by hackinthebochs » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 6:34 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #133

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's simply much fewer bullies and problematic behavior in smart schools. It's not that the administration is better, it's that the administration doesn't have to be.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#149

Post by saluki » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 6:36 PM UTC

I don't think a separate school is a good thing.

I was in the gifted program in grade school and junior high, it was an awesome experience. (US Midwest)

Three points.

1. Not all kids are gifted in all areas so usually we were in a mix of gifted and non-gifted classes.

2. It's important to interact with all levels/types of kids and there are experiences at school outside of classes.

3. It makes it feel more special that you get to go to certain classes/do special things and events that not everyone is in.

Keep it as a program inside the school.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#150

Post by dpayne » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 6:37 PM UTC

lutusp wrote: post #111

For political reasons, in the U.S. this idea is a non-starter -- many people won't accept the idea of paying taxes to support special programs for the gifted, but are willing to do it for those below average. So in the U.S., the expression "special needs children" is a euphemism for handicapped, not gifted, children. There are noteworthy exceptions, usually in large cities with well-educated taxpayers, but for the ma…

There are many high schools like this in the U.S. that are state funded, both in very liberal and very conservative states.