Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement • Hacker News Board

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#121

Post by barry-cotter » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 2:21 AM UTC

koolba wrote: post #112

borski wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amen to this. I was separated (went to Stuyvesant HS in NYC) and it made a world of difference for me, as compared to JHS or elementary school. Prior to Stuy, I was bullied like crazy, beaten, and it was very difficult to try and fit in with many of the others around me who, frankly, just didn't give a fuck . It really sucked. Stuy was a different world, and the first time in my life I felt the opportunity to actuall…

The solution is not to pull out a handful of high performers, it’s to kick out the even smaller number of disrupters.

That’s illegal.

https://educationrealist.wordpress.com/2019/08/06/public-sch...

> Wonder what allows a school to at least consider permanent expulsion? The student has to be convicted of:

> murder drug dealing aggravated assault rape possession of a deadly weapon

> But expulsion can be permanent if and only if he or she is over 16 or older. And of course, forget all those criteria for the disability manifestation exclusion–if the student was convicted but disability is the reason for the behavior, no action can be taken.

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#122

Post by travisoneill1 » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 2:21 AM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #60

How do we help those kids that are in 'gen pop', though? Simply pulling the smarter kids out, helping them, and ignoring the rest doesn't seem like a good answer, either. I feel like HN is not the best place for this sort of discussion, since everyone is coming at the problem from the perspective of the high achiever. The low achievers deserve help, too.

Why do they need more help? The classes are already designed for them. The problem is that the smart kids are forced to be in them too.

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#123

Post by AnimalMuppet » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 2:21 AM UTC

jstewartmobile wrote: post #111

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By your definition, yes, I went to an ordinary school. My personal experience is against your position, for what it's worth. >>> Their paymasters want high-value cogs. > If what I wrote was drivel, it should be very easy to refute. You made the claim. You have the burden of proof. Show that either the educational bureaucrats have a "paymaster" that is different from the state bureaucracy, or that the higher-ups in th…

"educational bureaucrats" includes "state bureaucracy". They're just pocket-lining middlemen. They have no agency. The final "paymasters" would be corporations, small businesses, and their PR agents in the non-profit sector. Examples: - textbooks--topics that haven't changed in centuries--better-covered by texts from generations ago. school system still buys sorry books at $100+ a pop because salesgirl wined-and-dine…

You show several examples of bureaucrats making decisions that other people make money off of. But you said "paymasters". Got any evidence of "pay"? Or just evidence of bad decisions and suspicion of pay?

I grant you that, if you are correct, it would explain a lot. It would explain why we spend so much on education for so little result. But, as I asked, do you have evidence of pay?

And "paymaster", to me, doesn't imply just a little cash under the table. It means that they're getting paid something in the neighborhood of their salary, or more. (Maybe that's just how the word strikes me.)

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#124

Post by Consultant32452 » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 2:22 AM UTC

I was in the gifted program. So is my daughter. It's a nice break from the monotony of regular school but it's not challenging in any way. It's not really clear to me what the purpose of the program is, but it doesn't appear to even try to challenge the students or introduce them to more interesting/meaningful curriculum.

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#125

Post by faizshah » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 2:26 AM UTC

Kaveren wrote: post #117

faizshah wrote: post #89

It's worth mentioning that gifted and talented schools also put all the top test takers into a small number of schools within a system taking away AP opportunities and other funding from other schools within the system. Additionally, other kids in the system miss out from the interaction with top performing students whose habits and interests can rub off and help lift up other students. One of the most important part…

the best students should never be weighed down to benefit the lower performers. the top percentile people in essentially any pursuit are responsible for a disproportionately large impact. it is far more important for the top performers to achieve their potential than for the middle to do slightly better.

At any school in the system the top performers would be in advanced classes and receiving the top education at that school. We are talking about public schools, everyone pays taxes for these schools not just the families of the top performers. Therefore, every student should have access to the AP classes and resources that are centralized within magnet schools.

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#126

Post by catalogia » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 2:26 AM UTC

wwright wrote: post #81

downerending wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one deserves to be bullied. And I'd be pretty okay with permanently removing bullies from the general population. That said, in my experience, the gifted/nerdy/aspy kids got the lion's share of the bullying. I still carry it with me decades later, and at least one of my comrades in misery killed herself because of it.

Do you not feel that gifted/nerdy/aspy kids reciprocated? It might just be that I’m a complete asshole, but I grew up in Mississippi feeling very isolated and estranged from everyone around me. I think I definitely felt like I was bullied when I was very young. But by high school and college, I was being outright toxic to people. If I am generous to myself, a lot of that could be attributed to anxiety, depression, la…

In my school, the 'gifted/nerdy' group had significant (but not complete) overlap with the 'socially/athletically outgoing' group, with the 'aspy' kids sprinkled around and generally respected by their peers. A lot of the dichotomies being described in this thread are therefore alien to me.

The bigger divide was between the 'gifted/nerdy/popular/athletic' group and the 'prone to violence, nihilistic body modification and hard drug use' group. Those kids weren't cool though. Drug use, poor grades, and criminal records all disqualified people from participating in sports, which negatively impacted their ability to socialize.

I think sports are a big equalizer. Through a shared enthusiasm for a sport, a stereotypical 'aspy nerd' and 'popular jock' can come to understand and respect each other. I don't think there is much else in the public school system quite as effective at tearing down these barriers as a healthy athletics program.

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#127

Post by Merrill » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 2:31 AM UTC

koolba wrote: post #112

borski wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amen to this. I was separated (went to Stuyvesant HS in NYC) and it made a world of difference for me, as compared to JHS or elementary school. Prior to Stuy, I was bullied like crazy, beaten, and it was very difficult to try and fit in with many of the others around me who, frankly, just didn't give a fuck . It really sucked. Stuy was a different world, and the first time in my life I felt the opportunity to actuall…

The solution is not to pull out a handful of high performers, it’s to kick out the even smaller number of disrupters.

It was a relief when some of the worst bullies finished 9th grade and dropped out.

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#128

Post by _kxbd » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 2:33 AM UTC

i am compelled to bring up "growth mindset". the author of this article, Jo Boaler published this book [0] which is about as textbook Growth Mindset as you can get. the general idea is that there's very little real talent gap between people, it's all societal or whatnot.

Growth Mindset is weak scientifically. I believe that the belief in it drives articles such as this submission, so I think it is directly related.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/08/no-clarity-around-grow...

https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/07/growth-mindset-4-growt...

https://www.buzzfeed.com/tomchivers/what-is-your-mindset

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Dweck#Criticism

important to note that there is a necessary baseline necessary for someone's potential to be unlocked. you can't be starving with poor nutrition and no education and become einstein. stable home environment is important. baseline being necessary to unlock talent does not mean talent is not important.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Limitless-Mind-Learn-Without-Barriers...

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#129

Post by leetcrew » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 2:36 AM UTC

shantly wrote: post #96

ryandrake wrote: post #47

When I was in middle school in the 90s, I think around 7th grade (~12yo), the school district experimented with a new way of organizing the student body where they separated us into six distinct, equally sized cohorts based on some evaluation of each student's performance and capability. From what I could tell it was rougly: 1. Gifted / clearly university-bound 2. Potential college prep 3. Community college 4. Normal…

I truly don't know how to significantly improve the school experience for most kids short of just kicking out (or isolating) the bottom few percent, in terms of disruptiveness, violence, and GAF-ness, certainly by 6th or 7th grade, if not earlier. Which seems like a shitty solution and is legally untenable for a bunch of reasons I'm sure, but they're responsible for a large part of why school sucks so much and is so…

I think there's an argument to be made that the disruptive kids need special attention just as much as the gifted students, albeit of a different kind. they don't seem to benefit from the standard "just pretend they're learning" approach.

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#130

Post by cycrutchfield » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 2:37 AM UTC

jstewartmobile wrote: post #111

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By your definition, yes, I went to an ordinary school. My personal experience is against your position, for what it's worth. >>> Their paymasters want high-value cogs. > If what I wrote was drivel, it should be very easy to refute. You made the claim. You have the burden of proof. Show that either the educational bureaucrats have a "paymaster" that is different from the state bureaucracy, or that the higher-ups in th…

"educational bureaucrats" includes "state bureaucracy". They're just pocket-lining middlemen. They have no agency. The final "paymasters" would be corporations, small businesses, and their PR agents in the non-profit sector. Examples: - textbooks--topics that haven't changed in centuries--better-covered by texts from generations ago. school system still buys sorry books at $100+ a pop because salesgirl wined-and-dine…

>religion--the motive behind most western art and history, be it protagonist or antagonist. can't talk about it though--massive black hole in any sort of humanities education.

Went to a public school in California. We learned plenty about religion, of all kinds. We even read parts of the Bible during literature class. Perhaps you should re-examine your assumptions.