Academic acceleration in gifted youth: a 35-year longitudinal study • Hacker News Board

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

#21

Post by qppo » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:06 AM UTC

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #3

barry-cotter wrote: post #2

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…

It's sort of a "least bad" option. As in harms the least number of people.

Schools are already struggling to handle incoming class sizes, they don't have the bandwidth to increase any throughput by holding older students back. To do so would be to the detriment of those incoming students and the teachers. (There's a good short scene in the Wire that sums it up but I can't find it).

The problem isn't really that students don't get held back, it's that there is no capacity in the system to handle cases where someone should be held back. Almost across the board.

I went to an affluent public school in the suburbs of a major city, and their solution wasn't to hold kids back. It was to differentiate enough between accelerated and decelerated programs to where they could essentially shovel the poor performing kids into a bucket where they wouldn't bother too many teachers or other students.

I don't know the ethics of that. A lot of those kids I knew wound up dead from opiates, in jail, or still at home.

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

#22

Post by beaner » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:06 AM UTC

enchiridion wrote: post #4

barry-cotter wrote: post #2

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?

You can start with supporting charter schools. They're public schools that are allowed to push out of typical restrictions and teach children in new ways. Overall, they're an excellent investment and the data shows that they work. They face many strong and sad political challenges. There's a recent book called Charter Schools and their Enemies that is a good read about the story of them.

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

#23

Post by beaner » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:09 AM UTC

HenryKissinger wrote: post #7

barry-cotter wrote: post #2

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…

What do you think 8-year olds constantly being surrounded by only other 8-year olds does for maturity? And that this insane pattern is held for 18 years?

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

#24

Post by aaronbrethorst » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:13 AM UTC

beaner wrote: post #22

enchiridion wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. How do we change it?

You can start with supporting charter schools. They're public schools that are allowed to push out of typical restrictions and teach children in new ways. Overall, they're an excellent investment and the data shows that they work. They face many strong and sad political challenges. There's a recent book called Charter Schools and their Enemies that is a good read about the story of them.

The author of the book you mention is a fan of the current, utterly disastrous Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. That's an instant write-off to me.

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

#25

Post by zjs » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:13 AM UTC

brianberns wrote: post #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' de…

My University had a dedicated staff, dorms, and extracurricular programming to help accelerated students make the transition during their first year.

I resented much of the structure at the time (who wants to have a curfew during their first semester of college?), but looking back I think this was critical for addressing many of the things you experienced.

I would be very interested in research that contrasts institutionally-supported acceleration with more of a "self-service" approach to acceleration. I wonder if these differences are measurable.

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

#26

Post by Larrikin » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:13 AM UTC

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #3

barry-cotter wrote: post #2

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…

Never hearing of a single person being let back sounds more like you grew up in a school district where the parents were wealthy or powerful enough to cause a big enough fuss that their kids were never left back. The practice seems less common but even if you're isolated in a gifted track of a school you'll still come across the kids who aren't in most programs.

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

#27

Post by luismmolina » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:14 AM UTC

brianberns wrote: post #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' de…

Same here. I would trade those 2 years for being with classmates of my age.

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

#28

Post by dang » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:16 AM UTC

I wonder if they lack good ways of measuring this. I skipped a few grades and started university at 15. It took years to catch up socially and in many ways I never did. I wouldn't recommend it.

In retrospect, I'd say a better thing to do with a smart kid is to convince them that they should work on things they're not as good at. Nobody's good at everything. However, that would have required individual attention of a sort that wasn't available back then.

There's a grass-is-greener effect though. It's easy to imagine that one would have done better if one had been / had not been accelerated. As a philosophy prof told me back in those early university years, "Life does not bear counterfactuals." She also said "I bet you tell that to all the girls" when I dropped her Hegel class.

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

#29

Post by austinl » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:17 AM UTC

barry-cotter wrote: post #2

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 wholeheartedly agree, and came out so disillusioned with the public education system that I'm struggling to decide what the right answer will be for my children.

I understand that many kids are not this way, but I was the type that read physics textbooks while in elementary school. We had a mentorship program that paired kids with someone from two grades above (e.g. 1st graders with 3rd graders). My reading level was always higher than my mentors' and it made me furious (and probably insufferable).

I feel like my entire time in school was spent getting it out of the way so I could study things that genuinely interested me. I would love for my children to not feel that same constraint, but instead feel free to go deeper at their own pace.

I'd recommend this talk by Sir Ken Robinson on this topic generally: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

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

#30

Post by DuskStar » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:18 AM UTC

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #24

beaner wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can start with supporting charter schools. They're public schools that are allowed to push out of typical restrictions and teach children in new ways. Overall, they're an excellent investment and the data shows that they work. They face many strong and sad political challenges. There's a recent book called Charter Schools and their Enemies that is a good read about the story of them.

The author of the book you mention is a fan of the current, utterly disastrous Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. That's an instant write-off to me.

Maybe it should be a prompt to look at DeVos with a fresh mind, instead?

I've heard very little about her actual actions or policies beyond revoking the "Dear Colleague" letter.