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

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

#51

Post by dang » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:49 AM UTC

boublepop wrote: post #47

dang wrote: post #28

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…

“Took years to catch up” seems a loaded sentence. So yes maybe someone wouldn’t act like a 20 year old until they actually turn 20. But that is’t a great argument for keeping back their education for 5 years. If academic acceleration was more widely accepted you would just have been starting at 15 with other 15 year olds and there would have been no social context pressuring you to act 5 years older just because you…

I was good at acting older. The problem was that I forfeited peer relationships. In fact, I forfeited adolescence. That was a high price to pay. And in hindsight, what did it matter that I worked through undergraduate math at 16 instead of 19.

By the way: my experience does not negate your experience. It's hard to talk about these things in general. If you'd share how it worked for you, I think that would be interesting.

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

#52

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:50 AM UTC

black_puppydog wrote: post #14

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

[deleted]

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

#53

Post by dang » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:51 AM UTC

apsec112 wrote: post #36

dang wrote: post #28

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…

I was forced to not skip grades, and it took me years to catch up socially afterwards, because everyone was so hostile and school was such an oppressive, totalitarian environment that it made me unable to trust anyone.

I hear you. That's why I added the grass-is-greener skepticism. It may just be that it sucks either way—or that we simply needed different things. It's important not to overgeneralize from personal experiences with this stuff.

When I look back on it, I think what I needed most was for some teacher, mentor, or older/wiser person to spend time with me. That's what would have made the biggest difference. But I was completely isolated.

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

#54

Post by aaronchall » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:51 AM UTC

As a self-motivated accelerator (I dual enrolled on-site with the local university my senior year of high school) I can't help but feel like everyone trying to hold me back (I was strongly discouraged) was motivated not just by trying to keep dollars in the school and GPAs they could get credit for up, but that they were also motivated by jealousy and a sense that what I was doing was somehow unfairly improving my life.

The head guidance counselor mocked me. The secretary who was supposed to buy my books and oversee my registration made me go back and forth between the university and the high school way too many times, and had a bad attitude about it the whole way.

Several of my friends who I had tried to get to follow me got talked out of it by the same people.

If it's so bad for everyone else, of course they need to come up with excuses for why it's bad for the student.

Nobody cares that these gifted students are sitting there bored. That to get an A requires them to do meaningless busywork. That the entire situation teaches them that success means showing up and demonstrating they're smart, instead of the hard work that real success requires.

Staying in that high school one minute longer, with those who were vindictive, condescending idiots, would have destroyed my psychological well-being.

My professors talked to me like I was an adult. It was very easy to respect them and my time with them. I greatly appreciated spending my time in the stacks instead of being made to run between classes all day, taking a pass to go to the restroom, and getting berated by thoughtless busybodies on my way to the library.

Our schools are first and foremost a kind of daycare that allows the adults in all of the children's lives to go to work. Only after meeting this first goal are they educational. Some schools are fortunate enough to not have discipline problems. Others are not so fortunate, and the rules and instruction is targeted to the worst performers. This greatly shortchanges those students who need challenges - challenging books, instructions, math, performance, exams, etc...

If anything, it is psychologically destructive to purposefully hold them back.

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

#55

Post by johnny99 » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:53 AM UTC

DuskStar wrote: post #30

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

She tried to defund the Special Olympics. Her brother, Erik Prince, founded Blackwater, the security contractor repeatedly accused of murder and other crimes in Iraq. She had no experience in education prior to her appointment. Her stated goal is to defund public education, and her own department, in favor of using public money to support private "faith-based" schools. She's taking advantage of the pandemic to try and steer stimulus money intended for public schools into the hands of wealthy private schools. Even by the low low standards of the Trump administration, she a notably horrible public servant, defiling the department she's supposed to be leading. There is an endless supply of well-sourced stories trashing her, but here's one more or less at random: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/betsy-devos-s...

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

#56

Post by olliej » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:58 AM UTC

I didn’t know that this was in question.

Most of the questions I’m aware of are reinforcement of systemic bias (equivalently capable white and Asian kids being selected over other races), and the diversion of funds from teaching the less “advanced” to teaching those kids who aren’t struggling with no evidence that the acceleration actually accomplishes anything in the long term

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

#57

Post by cpitman » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:58 AM UTC

liquidise wrote: post #41

barry-cotter wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US spending per student on K-12 education has tripled since 1970. Achievement has been flat[1]. There’s no shortage of money. Practically unlimited education funding has limited effects on results[2]. It’s structural change that’s needed, like acceleration for all. [1] https://www.cato.org/blog/school-funding-system-not-broken-i... [2] https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/americas-most-c...

2 other figures to consider in your analysis (since 1970): - Total US inflation rate: ~550% - US Population growth: ~60% This suggests education spending, per child, is roughly 1/3 what it was in the 1970 (or so my late night napkin math says)

It looks like the referenced figures are already inflation adjusted and per-capita, so it really is 3x as expensive to educate students today then in 1970.

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

#58

Post by ojbyrne » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 6:03 AM UTC

liquidise wrote: post #41

barry-cotter wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US spending per student on K-12 education has tripled since 1970. Achievement has been flat[1]. There’s no shortage of money. Practically unlimited education funding has limited effects on results[2]. It’s structural change that’s needed, like acceleration for all. [1] https://www.cato.org/blog/school-funding-system-not-broken-i... [2] https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/americas-most-c...

2 other figures to consider in your analysis (since 1970): - Total US inflation rate: ~550% - US Population growth: ~60% This suggests education spending, per child, is roughly 1/3 what it was in the 1970 (or so my late night napkin math says)

I don’t really have an opinion here, but the referenced article says “adjusted for inflation.”

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

#59

Post by beaner » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 6:05 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.

It really shouldn't be. This is an excellent opportunity to hear a well-reasoned argument for charter schools. If they do help, wouldn't you want to know, and wouldn't you want to be able to argue for it?

Edit: Further, the only connection I can find between these two is support before her confirmation [0][1], based on the grounds that she is for school choice. Which is no surprise he agrees with considering the learnings of the book.

[0] https://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2017/02/04/educ...

[1] https://www.creators.com/read/thomas-sowell/02/17/education-...

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

#60

Post by MaximumYComb » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 6:10 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #46

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 experienced long term psychological effects from lack of proper education pacing. From the very beginning, I entered kindergarten as the only one in my class able to read. The teacher, doing her best, sent me off to read by myself in the corner as she taught the rest of the class. In the years where your brain is programmed to adapt itself to the environment it expects for the rest of life, I only ever had to do th…

I was identified in middle primary school and had to change school to attend another school that had a class for gifted children. I proceeded to take the top grades at that class. I finished primary school close to my 12th birthday, years ahead in basically every category. There was no option to continue in any program for high school so I was sent to the local high school, an impoverished school where the majority of the effort goes to controlling poor behaviour as opposed to education. The solution of the school was to just let me stay in a normal class doing not a great deal of learning for a few years.

I spent some very unhappy years between ~15 and 24. I wish I'd had the chance for a different youth.

EDIT: unhappy, not happy