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

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

#111

Post by mathattack » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 11:50 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…

It’s an economics and policy issue. K-12 schools are measured on bringing kids up to grade level. They aren’t measured on getting kids ahead once they’ve met minimum standards. Based on how we measure and invent them, it’s more efficient to invest in pulling kids up from the bottom. (This isn’t an unworthy social goal, just adds work to parents of gifted kids)

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

#112

Post by brutt » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 11:51 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…

The answer is: competitions. I school, I was always busy with competitions in Math, Chemistry, Physics, and Informatics, so I had no time to be bored.

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

#113

Post by mmaurizi » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 11:52 AM UTC

paganel wrote: post #102

alasdair_ wrote: post #32

> “elite science, technology, engineering, and mathematics graduate students (N = 478) identified in 1992. Their educational histories were assessed at age 25 and they were followed up at age 50 using the same psychological assessments.” One thing to consider is the fact that America during the period 1992 to 2020, has seen a vast societal shift from nerds being seen as social outcasts to being seen as the thing a hu…

> say Nazi Germany in the late 1930’s I'd say Nazi Germany in the late 1930s was more of an anti-Jewish intellectual society, more than an anti-intellectual society pure and simple, the reason being that them being mostly a technocratic State they highly needed those intellectuals, engineers and technicians. One of the many proofs is the work of von Braun, without which us as a species wouldn't have gotten to the Moo…

Pol Pot.

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

#114

Post by beastman82 » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 11:53 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.

Your logic is indefensible.

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

#115

Post by RhysU » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 11:55 AM UTC

If you have such a child, get them into an extracurricular where they can compete with others based on body mass.

I got my ass kicked in varsity wrestling after a grade skip. Still, I competed as I had since late elementary school. I could start varsity because our high school was smallish and I fit into an open weight class.

I had a strong peer group orthogonal to my classmates. I spent time in the weight room and otherwise working out. I learned how to handle myself for the rare occasions that conflicts became physical. These skills helped me immensely when I began university at 16.

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

#116

Post by jkhdigital » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 12:03 PM UTC

koenneker wrote: post #92

austinl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

Have you looked into Montessori schools[1]? I had the great pleasure of visiting a school based on that model and it allowed a lot of flexibility for students. In my instance there were 4+ hours of "Free-work" blocks everyday, where we could work on whatever we wanted, we just had to make sure we finished certain (personalised) workloads by the end of the week. Pacing and what we wanted to do with our time if we fini…

Sudbury schools are even better. Unfortunately there are very few such schools in the world so you just have to get lucky and live near one, or start your own.

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

#117

Post by esjeon » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 12:03 PM UTC

From my own experiences, most "gifted" students are actually from middle or upper class families, and their parents are usually well-educated and very interested in the education of their own children. This will positively affect the "psychological well-being" of those kids, and likely also negate many negative impacts of academic acceleration.

Plus, acceleration is really unnecessary these days. There's no shortage of information on the internet, so why bother rushing into universities? Just let kids find and follow their passion.

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

#118

Post by jkhdigital » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 12:08 PM UTC

austinl wrote: post #29

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 w…

Do you have children yet? My son is 6 so I am right in the middle of this process. My wife does not share my point of view (different culture, different educational attainment) which makes it even more difficult. If I could clone myself I would just homeschool, but that’s not possible so it increasingly feels like I have no choice but to be an accomplice in the crime of sucking the creativity and curiosity out of my son by sending him to public schools.

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

#119

Post by auslegung » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 12:09 PM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #109

honkycat wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Exactly. Precisely the same thing for me. I was reading at an absurdly young age. School for me was a special sort of hell where I was able to read at a 12th grade level in 3rd grade, and yet a decade later was in class with people who could not yet read. I would stare at the clock and switch between sleeping and being insanely bored. I'm 31 years old now and I feel I have enough life experience to call it what…

> I was left in a corner to rot in child jail for a over a decade, during some of the most important years of my life, and constantly punished for the crime of being a bored young person whose time is being wasted. I read the story of Thomas Edison and think what would have happened to him in our time. He would have been medicated up the wazoo until he finally became a quiet, docile little boy who sat in class and di…

Can you point me to this story of Edison? I’m resonating with a lot that’s being said in these comments, and now I have two toddlers who are precocious and for years I’ve wanted to homeschool them.

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

#120

Post by tmaly » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 12:22 PM UTC

I have a 6 year old daughter who has been taking lessons with the 3rd graders this past year. I just had a conference with her teachers and they are ok to jump her a grade. They thought two grades would have been too much socially. But they did agree to give her advanced lessons. She is in a Montessori where grades 1-3 are together. I really believe all children have the potential for genius. Its all in how they are raised and what they are taught at a young age. The Pygmalion effect has massive power over young developing minds.