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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?

#381

Post by Kalium »

mulmen wrote: post #371
Kalium wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've described a system in which gifted and less gifted students are taught together with the express goal being for the gifted students to "raise up" their less gifted peers. If I've mistaken you and you did not suggest that, please accept my deepest apologies for the mistake. You're absolutely right that every student is a unique individual. You want to teach students individually. One of the drawbacks of this is…

A combination of classes shared regardless of academic performance along with opportunities for students to be challenged up to their level would be a good start. In my day to day career and personal life I am not intellectually challenged at all times, I think it's valuable if school emulates this experience. I think it's important that students don't get placed in echo chambers where they begin to think that everyo…

I think all students should be challenged to their fullest capacity. This is and should be the primary and overriding goal of education. I think this is sufficiently important to override any and all concerns about enabling the gifted to help raise up/elevate/tutor their less gifted classmates. I think that goal would be worthwhile if you had a mechanism to ensure interactions were positive, because in practice they are often antagonistic and highly negative.

The best known solution that I'm familiar with is to allow independent study work. Larger schools also allow for more coursework offerings, enabling far more than just two sets of courses.

I'm sure you won't be on board with this, because it's de facto segregation. It's an option that can be done today and is better able to offer appropriate challenges to students of all abilities.

I will take an option that serves the goal I consider of overriding importance over an uncertain rejection of a known solution with no other options on the table. I am hesitant to trade-off this primary goal via rejection of known methods to advance it in the interest of... let's go with the euphemism "encouraging peer instruction".

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#382

Post by Kalium »

mulmen wrote: post #372
Kalium wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gifted students can help raise up their less gifted classmates. If these gifted students are to be the next generation of leaders this is an invaluable skill. And > I agree that gifted students have needs and those should be addressed but I don't think a separate school is the solution. Even AP classes feel like a problem to me because the most gifted students are not available to help those that struggle. Please,…

Yes I think it is important that students are exposed to differing viewpoints and levels of achievement on a regular basis. I also believe all students should be challenged up to their potential. Removing the opportunity for the gifted students to learn how to cooperate with their less gifted peers does everyone a disservice, especially when as the future leaders those gifted students will have to know how to work wi…

> Yes I think it is important that students are exposed to differing viewpoints and levels of achievement on a regular basis. I also believe all students should be challenged up to their potential.

Here we have the core of it. These two goals are in conflict. This is because the time in which to advance both of them is limited. The same is true of the resources to advance both of them.

You're not advocating a system in which everyone is stuck in an introductory class forever. You're instead describing a system in which gifted students cannot be challenged to their full capacity because they need to be on hand to help raise up their less gifted peers in order to become better leaders.

Trying to teach students of all abilities from the same material in the same classroom at the same time comes with... difficulties.

* The inconsistency in level and material is a significant source of work for the teacher.

* Instructional time is limited, with the side-effect being that all students get less time than they would benefit from as the teacher spends time on the diverse and distinct requirements in their classrooms.

* Encouraging gifted students to progress ahead of their less gifted peers inevitably means they are not ideally placed to aid in elevating their less gifted peers. Incidentally, this model is usually called benign neglect. The gap will tend to grow as time passes, until a gifted student is doing calculus at an age where their less gifted peers are starting to learn algebra.

* Asking gifted students to spend time elevating and raising up their less gifted peers takes away from time they might prefer to use advancing their own studies.

Thank you for coming out and saying you think gifted students should become tutors. I suspect you've been playing with that idea internally for this whole discussion.

Have you perhaps considered that not having the answers may mean just that? It's perhaps possible that known approaches could not be rejected out-of-hand, especially when one has no answers to offer. Consider, if you will, that most institutions of higher learning essentially function through de facto segregation.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#383

Post by InitialLastName »

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?

I can think of a few reasons why we shouldn't optimize purely for the academic achievements of our most talented students: -Less excellent students tend to benefit from having more excellent students in their classes -Even if their academic outlooks are improved, the excellent students are segregated from having to learn how to deal with a wide range of intellectual levels and abilities -I'm not convinced it's really the most efficient way to allocate our educational resources, especially as there's pretty clear evidence that "excellence" in students is correlated to affluence, so we might really just be segregating by class anyway.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#384

Post by erikpukinskis »

reflexive wrote: post #333
erikpukinskis wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're trading intuitions, my intuition is that "the leaders of the next generation" will have mostly negative effects on society. Leaders usually spend all their resources reinforcing hegemony. And many of the people having the most positive effect on society will do it in a totally inconspicuous way. And many of those folks will come from bad schools, succeeding despite lack of institutional support. I suspect in…

If we're trading intuitions, my intuition is that "the leaders of the next generation" will have mostly negative effects on society. It's hard for me to take what you're saying seriously. You are disagreeing with the idea that leaders should be well-prepared to do their jobs, because you think they mainly are going to harm people. Therefore, you reason, we should not attempt to improve their education, because (by yo…

> It's hard for me to take what you're saying seriously.

Feel free to browse my comment history if you suspect I am trolling.

> You are disagreeing with the idea that leaders should be well-prepared to do their jobs, because you think they mainly are going to harm people.

No, I think we should prepare them just like we prepare everyone else. And I think many of them will make valuable contributions. I disagreed with your assertion that they are the only people who will contribute substantially and therefore the only people whose educations matter.

> Therefore, you reason, we should not attempt to improve their education, because (by your argument) we want them as incompetent as possible, to minimize the damage they can do.

I didn't say anything like that. I think you assumed that because I disagree with your premise (only the education of the elites matters) that I must therefore believe in the opposite conclusion (we should only educate non-elites). But I believe in universal education.

I don't mind correcting you, but this conversation would go a lot faster if you responded to my actual words rather than what you assume I must think because I am disagreeing with you.

> Who is suggesting giving power to teenagers?

Neither of us. I was saying teenagers who are already destined to be given hard power, because their parents have it, will tend to get into good schools, and will also tend to reinforce hegemony, which I consider a negative thing.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#385

Post by RichardHeart »

Yes. The smart kids don't help the dumb kids much. The dumb kids more often harm the smart ones though. Sometimes through malice, sometimes just through criminal habits and had behaviors that rub off. Companies and governments don't have a quota of stupid people they have to bring on board, why should schools?

The best education I ever received was in 6th grade. https://megsss.org/elements-curriculum it got progressively worse every year after that program ended.

It is better to increase the effectiveness of your best at the cost of your not best. The best invent/do/produce/control more over their lifetimes. They're also easier to make more effective because they already have a better base to amplify.

If you try to amplify your non best at the cost of your best, you'll find that its very hard to drag them kicking into utility. Most countries / businesses / families are great because of the outliers of greatness in them.

Rising the oceans ever so slightly by cutting down the piers, is a bad deal.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#386

Post by cema »

kazimuth wrote: post #302
cema wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Segregating gifted children in with the regular population Do you mean desegredating, that is, keeping them in? If so, I agree, it may be bordering on abuse. I have only anecdotal evidence to support it, but I suspect there may have been studies.

That's about as good as actually having studies, right?

I am not sure what your point is.

No, it is not sufficient to make a policy decision, for instance. But if I have to go and vote on this issue, it is at least something I could base my judgment on.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#387

Post by erroneousfunk »

randomgyatwork wrote: post #379
erroneousfunk wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're in favor of separate schools for kids with differing abilities and needs (like you had), but better testing and assessment to determine those abilities and needs? It sounds like you agree with the article.

Naw, I specifically said I don't trust the government. Parents should be able to choose the kind of school their child goes to... Though, this is unfair to kids with bad parents. That said, people who will (knowingly) be bad parents, shouldn't have kids in the first place.

The basic premise of the article is simply that gifted children do better when separated. It doesn't necessarily advocate for "the government" doing the separation, only that a separation should occur. "Who does the choosing" is a separate debate...

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#388

Post by reflexive »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #384
reflexive wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're trading intuitions, my intuition is that "the leaders of the next generation" will have mostly negative effects on society. It's hard for me to take what you're saying seriously. You are disagreeing with the idea that leaders should be well-prepared to do their jobs, because you think they mainly are going to harm people. Therefore, you reason, we should not attempt to improve their education, because (by yo…

> It's hard for me to take what you're saying seriously. Feel free to browse my comment history if you suspect I am trolling. > You are disagreeing with the idea that leaders should be well-prepared to do their jobs, because you think they mainly are going to harm people. No, I think we should prepare them just like we prepare everyone else. And I think many of them will make valuable contributions. I disagreed with…

> I disagreed with your assertion that they are the only people who will contribute substantially and therefore the only people whose educations matter.

Wrong. I did not assert this. I asserted that resources should be focused on improving the abilities of the group most likely to be in key positions in the future.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#390

Post by kakarot »

justin_vanw wrote: post #370
kakarot wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is because of societal and structural neglect. Don't be a part of the problem.

I love how you assert that with such confidence, as though you actually know what you are talking about!

No, it's just my speculation. It gets tiring prefixing everything I say with "It is my personal belief that"
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