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Academic acceleration in gifted youth: a 35-year longitudinal study

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11–20 of 195 posts

Re: Academic acceleration in gifted youth: a 35-year longitudinal study

#11

There is no argument against academic acceleration beyond that it increases inequality of achievement. If the school system was about education more than childcare acceleration would be the norm for bright children and we’d have 14 year olds starting their Bachelor’s level studies in every school and 20 year olds who already had doctorates in every city of any size. Instead we waste their time, to their detriment and…

Counterpoint: the general level of maturity of an individual, and in particular their emotional maturity and their social maturity, do not strongly correlate with their intellectual maturity. Someone may be advanced enough to graduate at 18 with a bachelor's degree in a technically challenging field, but lack enough self-discipline, sense of responsibilities, or basic social graces and knowledge of social codes to re…

Does any of that matter if they move through the system faster if they ultimately, as the abstract suggests, don't suffer psychologically by age 50? Whether they're "socialized" seems unrelated to whether they find personal happiness.

Re: Academic acceleration in gifted youth: a 35-year longitudinal study

#12

There is no argument against academic acceleration beyond that it increases inequality of achievement. If the school system was about education more than childcare acceleration would be the norm for bright children and we’d have 14 year olds starting their Bachelor’s level studies in every school and 20 year olds who already had doctorates in every city of any size. Instead we waste their time, to their detriment and…

Counterpoint: the general level of maturity of an individual, and in particular their emotional maturity and their social maturity, do not strongly correlate with their intellectual maturity. Someone may be advanced enough to graduate at 18 with a bachelor's degree in a technically challenging field, but lack enough self-discipline, sense of responsibilities, or basic social graces and knowledge of social codes to re…

One could also argue that emotionally mature(er) students have their emotional growth stunted by being forced to study and socialize with the less mature students.

Re: Academic acceleration in gifted youth: a 35-year longitudinal study

#13
Here's my data point to the contrary: I entered college a few weeks short of my 17th birthday in the early 1980's. I was about 1.5 years younger than others in my class, on average. I made many good friends, but my relative lack of maturity still had a huge impact on my emotional well-being (especially when it came to dating). I'm now in my 50's and still dealing with the psychological repercussions of my parents' decision to accelerate me.

Re: Academic acceleration in gifted youth: a 35-year longitudinal study

#14

There is no argument against academic acceleration beyond that it increases inequality of achievement. If the school system was about education more than childcare acceleration would be the norm for bright children and we’d have 14 year olds starting their Bachelor’s level studies in every school and 20 year olds who already had doctorates in every city of any size. Instead we waste their time, to their detriment and…

That's also why you practically never hear about anyone being left behind a grade. From the start of kindergarten to the end of high school, the everyone I knew who started in my grade finished in it. I can't remember a single exception. In what other areas do the fastest and slowest do 13 years of work at nearly the exact same pace? The only difference allowed seems to be in AP classes, which are pretty limited in a…

> everyone I knew who started in my grade finished in it

Couldn't be further from the truth in Germany at least. While in my school days (primary, middle, high) this carried a huge stigma, nowadays there are some regions (think "states") that have a system where primary school "takes as long as it takes" for every child. Basically,

  for i in range(3):
      school_year(kid)
      if kid.is_ready():
          break

Re: Academic acceleration in gifted youth: a 35-year longitudinal study

#15

There is no argument against academic acceleration beyond that it increases inequality of achievement. If the school system was about education more than childcare acceleration would be the norm for bright children and we’d have 14 year olds starting their Bachelor’s level studies in every school and 20 year olds who already had doctorates in every city of any size. Instead we waste their time, to their detriment and…

I agree. How do we change it?

Fund education sufficiently that "No Child Left Behind" doesn't turn into "No Child Allowed Ahead".

Re: Academic acceleration in gifted youth: a 35-year longitudinal study

#17

There is no argument against academic acceleration beyond that it increases inequality of achievement. If the school system was about education more than childcare acceleration would be the norm for bright children and we’d have 14 year olds starting their Bachelor’s level studies in every school and 20 year olds who already had doctorates in every city of any size. Instead we waste their time, to their detriment and…

Counterpoint: the general level of maturity of an individual, and in particular their emotional maturity and their social maturity, do not strongly correlate with their intellectual maturity. Someone may be advanced enough to graduate at 18 with a bachelor's degree in a technically challenging field, but lack enough self-discipline, sense of responsibilities, or basic social graces and knowledge of social codes to re…

It doesn't have to be done with accelerated individuals not experiencing that school environment - just expand existing dual-credit systems and make it possible to spend your four high school years doing dual credit for the entire common core curriculum in your normal high school environment. That alone would probably make a huge difference. Not sure what the equivalent for trades would look like, I don't know enough about the academic process for those. But my high school had an auto shop, so it would be doable in at least one place for at least one trade.

Academic progression does not necessarily have to be tied in lockstep with social development.

Re: Academic acceleration in gifted youth: a 35-year longitudinal study

#18

There is no argument against academic acceleration beyond that it increases inequality of achievement. If the school system was about education more than childcare acceleration would be the norm for bright children and we’d have 14 year olds starting their Bachelor’s level studies in every school and 20 year olds who already had doctorates in every city of any size. Instead we waste their time, to their detriment and…

Counterpoint: the general level of maturity of an individual, and in particular their emotional maturity and their social maturity, do not strongly correlate with their intellectual maturity. Someone may be advanced enough to graduate at 18 with a bachelor's degree in a technically challenging field, but lack enough self-discipline, sense of responsibilities, or basic social graces and knowledge of social codes to re…

People should not be deliberately handicapped. Forcing someone to waste years of their life is bad. School is so unlike every other social institution that it is (close to) useless as preparation for anything else. Outside school people actually care whether you do your work, and if your don’t do it there are real consequences, but the standards are completely different, depending on the workplace. Outside school if you’re surrounded by assholes you can just leave unless you’re in prison. Outside school the chances of physical violence being overlooked or covered up by the authorities nominally in charge of your welfare are much smaller. Outside school there are no contexts so rigidly age segregated.

People become responsible when responsibility is thrust on them. They do better, faster with real support. School doesn’t do that. It infantilises people. Nothing you do in school matters of itself. You can choose to do projects or research that people care about but that’s completely optional.

Re: Academic acceleration in gifted youth: a 35-year longitudinal study

#19

Here's my data point to the contrary: I entered college a few weeks short of my 17th birthday in the early 1980's. I was about 1.5 years younger than others in my class, on average. I made many good friends, but my relative lack of maturity still had a huge impact on my emotional well-being (especially when it came to dating). I'm now in my 50's and still dealing with the psychological repercussions of my parents' de…

1.5 years isn't even that much? I mean you can probably find that variance within any cohort so I doubt it was the acceleration that caused any psychological repercussions.

Re: Academic acceleration in gifted youth: a 35-year longitudinal study

#20

Here's my data point to the contrary: I entered college a few weeks short of my 17th birthday in the early 1980's. I was about 1.5 years younger than others in my class, on average. I made many good friends, but my relative lack of maturity still had a huge impact on my emotional well-being (especially when it came to dating). I'm now in my 50's and still dealing with the psychological repercussions of my parents' de…

1.5 years isn't even that much? I mean you can probably find that variance within any cohort so I doubt it was the acceleration that caused any psychological repercussions.

True, though small differences when you are young can seem radically more important than they really are. tldr; Teenagers are very very insecure.
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