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

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

#271

Post by barrkel » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 10:04 AM UTC

This article largely comes down to the age-old trade-off that societies need to make: when is the individual more important vs when is the group more important?

It seems clear that people in the upper half of the ability range suffer when the very top of the ability range are creamed off. Does hot-housing the very top make up for the losses in the almost-good-enough?

This is a value judgement, and I think it's disingenuous to say one is absolutely a better trade-off than the other.

There's a lot of conflation by other people on this topic with the social structure of US middle and high schools, with all the bullying. I think that's an orthogonal topic and specific to US, and distinct from streaming / hot-housing.

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

#272

Post by hutzlibu » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 10:27 AM UTC

jcims wrote: post #254

onion2k wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of child psychologists and teachers believe that parental involvement is key to stopping a child becoming a bully (eg parents actively engaging with their kids welfare) and the most common thing that stops parents being involved in bringing up their kids is poverty. Trying to fix poverty is weirdly controversial.

Is there some kind of consensus that bullies are predominately poor? Even if thats true on a quantitative basis, the bullies that count are the ones with social standing.

Some even make it to president. Some even think, being a bully is mandatory for any higher position in politics ..

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

#273

Post by dluan » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 10:28 AM UTC

teej wrote: post #195

notadoc wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind the original post is an opinion piece with a political agenda, it is not evidence based. There is no shortage of bad opinion pieces with all sorts of terrible politically driven opinions out there. This is one of them.

I’ll give a short anecdote that might sway your opinion. I grew up poor in Baltimore City. I directly benefitted from the CTY program, where I was able to take accelerated math courses over the summer. My family didn’t pay a dime of the $3k+ per summer cost to attend. After several summers of CTY, I was able to take AP Calculus as a freshman in high school. I would not be who I am today without CTY. I agree, that art…

I definitely noticed class differences in CTY my first time - there were kids who seemed like CTY was normal but for myself, I was blown away and felt like I was in another world. Eventually I realized these kids were also ones who traveled internationally a lot, or did science fair competitions regularly, played multiple musical instruments, were learning different languages like chinese and french, were legacy kids for ivy league parents, etc. Meanwhile I was the kid who was good at basketball and soccer during breaks because everyone else was a nerd.

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

#274

Post by dluan » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 10:38 AM UTC

barry-cotter wrote: post #145

borski wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this 100%, but the issues are not intertwined. We need to fix how classes are taught in "low achieving schools," but that's really hard to do when teachers are paid so poorly. Teaching isn't a lucrative career, and thus those that would be great teachers don't generally go into it. It's a really complex and difficult problem that I don't know I have a solution for. I do know that getting rid of magnet sc…

> on average, public-school teachers receive total compensation that is roughly 50 percent higher than what they would receive in private-sector employment. While salaries are at appropriate levels, fringe benefits push teacher compensation far ahead of what private-sector workers enjoy. Consequently, recruiting more effective teachers for public schools will be much more difficult than simply raising salaries. https…

The Heritage Foundation is an extremely right-wing biased think tank that also produces http://dailysignal.com. As a teacher, you should know that.

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

#275

Post by LaLaLand122 » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 10:42 AM UTC

dcbadacd wrote: post #43

762236 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar experience. It was wonderful to be put into a magnet school filled with kids that were smart and generally wanted to learn (every one of them went to a college/university), and to be separated from the kids that hated school. That is the sad thing: so many of the kids causing problems in the normal schools wouldn't cause problems if they attended schools that focused on their vitalities in the way tha…

I have exactly the same experience as the previous commenters, I was also basically rescued into a (learning-)conducive environment and I'm seriously thankful for that. The alternative would've very likely been awful because I've seen on a good friend of mine what happens when there isn't an opportunity to get into a "magnet school". It basically caused clinical depression and such a strong distaste for school that i…

Having been educated in probably a different country, with a different school system, I am surprised to read all these comments.

Not saying my country school system is perfect, it isn't. And there are cases of abuse, bullying does exist. But 30 years ago I was the good, shy, student in a poor neighbourhood of a big city and never suffered or witnessed anything too bad (and from 4 to 12 year old we had a kid with Down syndrome in our class). And nobody would even think about splitting kids by ability, we don't have "advanced"/"honours" classes.

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

#276

Post by ThomPete » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 10:51 AM UTC

One Problem is that parents will try and get into the GT schools by hiring some tutor to help them prepare. The reality is that some of these kids arent really gifted and talented and doesent learn easilyy which actually makes their lives horrible when they mannage to get in.

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

#277

Post by bofadeez » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 10:53 AM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #44

dak1 wrote: post #7

From the article, it sounds like the measure of 'better achievement' is baseline scores across all students. I was always of the opinion that separating based on ability level was not about improving the baseline, but about allowing those able to learn greater depth to do so. Not every student is going to earn a Fields Medal or develop new medical procedures, and frankly, that's ok. But we do need some who will push…

So we shouldn't care about improving how the lower performing kids do, since they aren't going to win Fields Medals or develop new medical procedures? This is a super tricky question to answer... how much extra achievement by the top of the class is worth how much extra achievement by the bottom of the class? There isn't a simple answer.

It's not really important for someone with an IQ of 85 to attempt to study algebra

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

#278

Post by kick » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 10:58 AM UTC

artificialLimbs wrote: post #222

kick wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm currently not in a position to be able to look up this stuff (making dinner), but Duke has done a lot of research on this stuff under their TIP program that basically everyone in this thread might be interested in: it validates your experiences in numbers as the default for gifted children/adolescents/teenagers when not helped structurally, and provides a reasonable amount of information and resources to try and…

"There's nothing ot really help people who've already experienced it." Exposure therapy. No, don't go trying to get into situations where you get bullied. Re-live your worst experiences in your head over and over again until it gets boring. Make sure you're in a comfortable setting and have some comfort devices nearby (food, a beer, family, etc...) Proven extremely effective in many psychological practices.

I was specifically speaking in the context of Duke's programs; there are plenty of ways for people to try and recover from things elsewhere.

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

#279

Post by sokoloff » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 11:12 AM UTC

LaLaLand122 wrote: post #275

dcbadacd wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have exactly the same experience as the previous commenters, I was also basically rescued into a (learning-)conducive environment and I'm seriously thankful for that. The alternative would've very likely been awful because I've seen on a good friend of mine what happens when there isn't an opportunity to get into a "magnet school". It basically caused clinical depression and such a strong distaste for school that i…

Having been educated in probably a different country, with a different school system, I am surprised to read all these comments. Not saying my country school system is perfect, it isn't. And there are cases of abuse, bullying does exist. But 30 years ago I was the good, shy, student in a poor neighbourhood of a big city and never suffered or witnessed anything too bad (and from 4 to 12 year old we had a kid with Down…

At some point, every fully developed education system splits kids by ability. Not everyone goes on to advanced studies, engineering school, law, or medicine. Not everyone learns a trade.

That split might not happen until age 18, but my wager is that it does happen everywhere. The question is when is the optimal time? I tend to think earlier rather than later.

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

#280

Post by wccrawford » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 11:14 AM UTC

In elementary school, I was in the "Gifted" program. It meant 1 day per week I would go to the library with a teacher that taught special stuff like "logic problems" and doing research and making slideshows. It was a lot of stuff.

This is where I learned to program. This single skill was hugely impactful to me.

But the rest of the time was probably actually more helpful, as I was forced to do all the rest of my classwork for my regular classes and pass all my regular tests in addition to all the work for Gifted. This kept me much, much more engaged in education than I would have been otherwise.

Middle school had 1 class per day the same way, but it was a pale shadow of the Elementary version.

High school had "Honors" or "AP" (Advanced Placement, IIRC) classes that totally separated me from the kids that were just there to put in time. They had no interest in learning and were actively against it, but I was no longer associating with them for Literature, Science, and Math classes, and there were no class clowns to slow everything down. We also had dual-enrollment classes where college classes were taught at the high school for credit in both.

Missing out on these 3 systems would absolutely have stunted my growth and I doubt I'd be where I am today without them.

My wish isn't to separate kids, though. I wish they could all enjoy learning like I do. We haven't cracked that nut yet, though, and it seems like separation is still necessary in order to give everyone their potential.