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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?

#291

Post by urahara »

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…

Smart kids are not more important than other kids. And where did you get the idea that default-smart kids will benefit the society more than dumber kids given a chance to become smarter? Lots of examples of smart kids becoming dangerous a-holes, especially when they grow up in environments that completely exclude mid and low level kids.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#293

Post by cloudwizard »

lol214365 wrote: post #122
67726e wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For some, the problem is the class is too slow. The slow classes are CREATING the problem kids.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#294

Post by swift »

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…

Point 1 presents a false dichotomy. We can absolutely let kids move at different speeds while keeping them within the same school. And we can ensure that there are still shared classes and opportunities for students with different skills and abilities to interact.

Frankly the tone of your comment troubles me. None of these students are more or less "deserving"; the goal is to help every student reach their potential.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#295

Post by cloudwizard »

_m8fo wrote: post #84

I'm shocked, yet paradoxically unsurprised that so many of the comments here are saying "yes" to the question. In practice, separating gifted students does two things: 1. Accelerates income inequality (there's no way the gifted students on average will do poorer than the 'regular' students) 2. Remove equality of opportunity. What exactly is a gifted school going to do that would help gifted students and not regular s…

It does accelerate inequality. The answer is to make sure we are all equal.

To solve this problem, we should not allow the special Nike sports camps because I do not make as much as a basketball player as an NBA player. We need to equalize all opportunity at the lowest common denominator. Of course the US would never see another gold medal in the Olympics.

Gifted students do not require you to repeat the same things as often. By forcing them to go at the same pace as other students, you bore them and stunt their growth.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#296

Post by Spoom »

bluGill wrote: post #231
John23832 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just make schools better for all, rather than replicating the educational resource hoarding that takes place in private schools?

You are missing the other half of the problem: what about the non-gifted. The majority of kids are average: they didn't get whatever it is that makes some people above average. They need the slower pace of school to learn, otherwise they won't learn. The right thing for an average student is not the same as what is right for either the gifted, or the "retarded" (I forget what the correct term is.

Generally I've heard the term "remedial" used.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#297

Post by stale2002 »

dkarapetyan wrote: post #255
stale2002 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, so if you are all learning the same material, what happens when someone learns all the material months before everyone else? Do they just sit around and do nothing? Is that really a productive use of their time?

I guess that would make them some kind of genius in which case they can start attending university. I was learning matrix algebra in 4th grade based on the soviet system whereas everyone here was barely doing 2 + 2 = ? in some worksheet. Surprisingly folks managed to not be bored. If your standard is what the current system teaches then it's not hard to improve it and have people not be bored while still not drawing…

No... That does not make you a genius if you are ahead of the class.

Getting a couple months ahead is easy, when everyone else is going slowly.

Sure, if the entire class is going quickly, that is effectively as if everyone is in the gifted class.

We shouldn't dumb things down to keep up with the lowest common denominator. Students should be able to work at their own pace, and if they get ahead, them they should be put ahead.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#298

Post by imdsm »

swift wrote: post #294
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…

Point 1 presents a false dichotomy. We can absolutely let kids move at different speeds while keeping them within the same school. And we can ensure that there are still shared classes and opportunities for students with different skills and abilities to interact. Frankly the tone of your comment troubles me. None of these students are more or less "deserving"; the goal is to help every student reach their potential.

Not if the teachers aren't adequately able to teach the gifted children. All you then end up with is a child with a lot of wasted potential and a teacher losing patience with a bored child.

As for me, programming since the age of about 10, when I went into secondary school (age 13), the level of IT (in)competency amazed me. I was reprimanded for finishing assigned work quickly and studying independently. I was kicked off the network for writing code because it wasn't understood. Nothing got better, yet I was forced to waste 5 years of my ~81.5 years on Earth (~6.13%) of my ALE, getting a pointless state education that from that day on has not once helped me.

Further education wasn't any better. I joined a course at a local vocational college, one with certificates of excellency, with the prospectus stating it would teach the fundamentals of computing; data structures, networking, algorithms, through to applied computing including ASM, C, C++, et al. In my three weeks there, they taught (very poorly) VB.NET and had students design flyers in Publisher. I was refused entry to the one-year pre-university course as I didn't have the correct number of education goody points. The response I got to quitting was that you can't always have everything you want in life.

This is why education in the UK sucks.

I think if you see a child who has potential, let them explore that potential. There are hundreds of other children who will go through the standard educational system, get their GCSEs and A Levels and useless degrees, before getting ordinary jobs. Let the ones with potential do something different.

Reminds me of the kid recently whose school refused to let them take the time out to work on an acting opportunity, due to the loss of education that a week would present. I'm sure the child would have learnt a lot more about their most likely future career in that week than they did in the classroom.

Anyway, rant over. Standardised education sucks.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#299

Post by r00fus »

justin_vanw wrote: post #282
r00fus wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A whole raft of opinions that have no backing, in fact, I can provide a lot of evidence that counterargues your points. > Dumb kids don't benefit from being around very gifted kids. Let's not use the words dumb but lets say, "less smart". If this were the case, why would parents fight to get their kids into magnet and charter schools? Also special needs kids benefit from mainstreaming. Evidence > Unsubstantiated opin…

>> I think you'll find that parents are very uninterested in your theories of social engineering [cite needed] How can I find a citation for a my own statement that I believe something? Are you under the impression that the comments section of HN is a scholarly journal where all claims are documented? I notice that you don't ask for citations for any of the claims in this thread that you agree with, so your demands f…

A belief is not an argument.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#300

Post by imdsm »

pawn wrote: post #218
CodeCube wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 betwe…

My anecdote matches yours. In highschool I was one of the higher-ranked people in my class, but I got along better with guys on the lower-end of the scale. Despite getting terrible grades, they often had a surprisingly quick wit that made them a pleasure to be around. Probably because they cared more about being funny than getting good grades. I sometimes wonder if it was motivation more than actual capacity that mad…

My anecdote conflicts. I found that being in an institution, following a learning path, designed for the average child, meant I progressed less than I could and had my potential wasted. Poorly behaved children or those who aren't academically minded will have one teacher each, trying to force them to climb that academic tree, while high-potential children will be left to rot and told off for wanting to do more.
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