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

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

#141

Post by Nasrudith »

lordnacho wrote: post #75
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've long wondered why education isn't just a bunch of different ladders that people can crawl at their own pace. For instance my kid is starting to read about stuff they normally only introduce in high school, but there's no way he will ever be examined on it until then (he's turning 8 in a few weeks). If someone wants to learn something, luckily these says we have the likes of Khan Academy and other internet resour…

Putting aside stupid cultural bullshit logistics are a non-trivial issue. If you or your parents get involved with Medicare you get to see that it is a mess of different subtley different options. The information overhead isn't free.

It seems like an area where urban areas could do better in general via supporting specialization yet in practice they often wind up infamously mixed in quality in ways totally seperate from specializations. Digitization has been attempted but hasn't had the best of luck.

While we can certainly do better solving it would be non-trivial even if we in the societal sense gave it appropriate resources in funding, oversight, and intellectual effort.

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

#142

Post by throwaway98797 »

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…

There’s no remedial maturity classes. If your smart but immature it might take nearly a lifetime of being hit over the head before you realize why being a jerk isn’t productive.

Many smart people don’t learn cause they can still get by in western society.

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

#143

Post by brightball »

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’ve always felt like the answer to this is many smaller schools that are more peer oriented, rather than large community schools.

Combined with large community wide after school / sports programs.

This is actually similar to the home school model now where home school students can participate in sports. Home school groups are figuring this out too.

I always assumed home schooling was just being taught by your parents but seeing how some of these groups work to form small schools of about 20 people is impressive.

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

#144

Post by zozbot234 »

HenryKissinger wrote: post #137
barry-cotter wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Forcing someone to waste years of their life is bad. Taking the time to develop one's personality alongside one's peers, to share the same experiences and to make bonds with them is totally not a waste of time. > Outside school people actually care whether you do your work, and if your don’t do it there are real consequences Not sure what schools you attended. I had good teachers, who cared if I did my work. And if…

People can develop their personality just fine outside a prison-like school environment. We need to rebuild our local communities, so that these shared experiences and bonds can occur freely among people of all ages.

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

#145

Post by zozbot234 »

throwaway98797 wrote: post #142
HenryKissinger wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There’s no remedial maturity classes. If your smart but immature it might take nearly a lifetime of being hit over the head before you realize why being a jerk isn’t productive. Many smart people don’t learn cause they can still get by in western society.

The traditional approach to that problem is to join Navy boot camp. That sort of environment will no doubt teach you "maturity" extremely quickly - and 18 is just about the right age, too.

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

#146

Post by Izkata »

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 seem to have a bit of a unique story: Early in elementary school, I was identified as a good candidate for the accelerated program. However, my parents didn't just say yes or no, they gave me the choice.

I remember actually saying something along the lines of, if they had asked me any time earlier, I'd've gone for it, but I didn't want to leave the friends I'd made that year.

This set the tone for a large chunk of my schooling: When given the choice, I always ended up choosing the middle path so I wouldn't stand out, even though every time I quickly got to the point where I'd've done fine in the more advanced path. It wasn't until the year before highschool, when a bureaucratic mixup ended up with me skipping a year of math (pre-algebra, which was a full year in my district - jumped straight into algebra), that I realized what I was missing. Then in highschool, the accelerated program only accepted freshman and lasted all four years, so I decided to go for it. Ended up just on the edge of being accepted, but didn't get in because of affirmative action.

Oh, and that group of friends I didn't want to leave way back in elementary school? I drifted away from them barely a year later. I've regretted not just going for the more advanced path ever since.

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

#148

Post by Nasrudith »

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…

Anti-intellectualism is usually largely about "intellectuals who keep on bringing up their annoying facts instead of just being useful to those currently in power and not rocking the boat" although it often takes on a life of its own to their own detriment. There has been a large history of rage at military innovations which disrupt the "elite's" favored tactics from Spartans lamenting siege engines to the hatred of crossbows.

One example which comes to mind as similiar but more practical than intellectual is millers being portrayed as literally satanic in European feudal systems for getting richer through cleverness not a part of neither the church hierarchy nor conquest or even patronage.

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

#149

Post by phkahler »

mattlondon wrote: post #135
colechristensen wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Everything was easy until it wasn't Similar experience for me (apart from the social distancing - never an issue for me) - being told how clever I was by parents, relatives, teachers, class-mates etc from ages 5 or 6 up to early-/mid-teens. It soaks into you and you end up becoming a bit arrogant about things. For me I had a rude-awakening during my late teens when we did our first "real" exams and I assumed that w…

Same thing regarding kids. I like to split it and attribute their success to effort and a bit of inherent awesomeness. I think it's good to build self-worth while also sending the message that you have to make the effort to get good results. Failures are simply due to not putting in enough practice right?

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

#150

Post by zozbot234 »

spugody wrote: post #134
colechristensen wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Similar story to me. Academically fairly gifted from an early age, testing high IQ later (I know, I know) and was recommended to be placed in an advanced school. My parents were modest and didn't pursue this, nevertheless, everything was easy until it wasn't. The part I never learned properly was effort=reward. I was also diagnosed with ADHD and was on ritalin for several years. Later school years were bad for me bec…

Rote learning and memorization is the kind of thing everyone loves to hate, but it can be important in many fields and people should get good at it. These days we also have spaced-repetition (SRS) software that helps a lot with memorization of many kinds, making it almost game-like.
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