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The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)

teachforamerica.org

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Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)

#701

Post by zozbot234 »

MockObject wrote: post #450
wbsss4412 wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best analogy I can think of is sports. In sports, the rules are whatever we say they are, that’s the part that’s socially determined. Lebron James is a amazing basketball player, due to a combination of his genetics and his hard work. But there’s a parallel reality wherein basketball was never invented. And people enjoy sports like horse racing or marathon running, where he would never be able to be world class g…

Does social determination include culture? That's a greater determinant of outcomes than skin color, as the example of outcomes between African Americans and Nigerian immigrants indicates.

To be very clear about it, this is all the more impressive because Nigeria is, by and large, still a pre-industrial society. The differences in basic worldview and outlook (including attitudes towards education) brought by industrialization and modern economic development (often misattributed to "Whiteness" in divisive political rhetoric) are absolutely huge and easily overwhelm any model where "skin color" or "genetics" exogenously determine these outcomes. This is easily ascertained by looking at how individual countries in the modern West industrialized over time and went through these very changes in culture. The skin color of English lower classes did not change much from the 17th to the mid-19th century, but their culture absolutely did.

Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)

#702

Post by realfun »

mrtranscendence wrote: post #411
zozbot234 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You struggled with math in elementary school because of deeply flawed teaching. Even at that early age, it's not hard to understand that "3 + 5 = 8" is not something that you'd need to literally memorize. Of course, the fact that teaching quality can vary to such an extent is itself noteworthy.

I don't think I agree. 3 + 5 = 8 isn't something you need to literally memorize, but if you don't memorize such facts of basic arithmetic you're at a disadvantage when it comes to doing homework and tests. It's easier and less error-prone to memorize 8*7 than it is to work it out manually every time you see it until it sticks. For what it's worth, I struggled with math in elementary school and especially high school…

Agreed. It does need memorization. Anyone who don't think so can try to add and multiply in hexadecimal, what is 0xA + 0xC and what is 0x8 * 0x6? It becomes quite obvious memorization is required when you try it in any other radix other than decimal(which is memorized already).

Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)

#703

Post by thegrimmest »

SamPatt wrote: post #694
thegrimmest wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

School was never meant to be "engaging". It's not recreation, it's work. The problem seems to be that we've lost the value of working hard and pushing through things we find dull and uninteresting, in order to attain a greater goal. Instead we expect everything to be engaging, stimulating and entertaining. Real world success is not like that - it's work - so better get into the habit early on.

If school is work then we need to recognize the children's own agency in school, otherwise it it literally slavery. Forcing children to spend the majority of their lives working against their will leads to problems, especially among non-conformists.

I don't disagree with your characterization, but given children are not agents, and are subject to the whims of their parents, I think it's appropriate.

Locking a child in their room is imprisonment, yet is widely used punitively at the whim of parents. Beating children is assault, yet operant conditioning is effective and also widely practiced towards children. It's also permitted in most jurisdictions if undue harm is not caused.

> among non-conformists

Why do we need these, exactly? What benefit are individuals who have not been appropriately conditioned to work, suffering, and self-sufficiency?

Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)

#704

Post by thegrimmest »

corrral wrote: post #700
thegrimmest wrote: post #693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Single parent households are perfectly capable of raising children who value education, cooperation, sobriety and non-violence. I would know, I grew up in one, as did many of my peers. The key difference was and continues to be culture . The question is who is accountable for culture? Is it "society", or the individuals who perpetuate that culture in their own households?

It can both be true that a particular single-parent household is very successful, and that if you study an entire population and control other variables, single-parent households are less successful than two-parent households.

Yes it can, but it doesn't follow that these studies are justification for removing accountability from individuals, their households, culture, and practices. Nor does it follow that the solutions are not found in changes to individual behaviour.

Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)

#705

Post by slowmovintarget »

wbsss4412 wrote: post #115
jaywalk wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what happens when we decide "everyone is gifted" and teach all students at the level that would have been taught only to gifted students before? Seems like the obvious outcome would be a lot more students who struggle, necessitating a slower track for them. So instead of regular and gifted classes, you have regular and "non-gifted" (for lack of a better term) classes. This is why equity is a bullshit goal.

Equity isn’t a bullshit goal. As is typical, the concept get confused because one assumes that gifted programs correctly track students based primarily on ability, whereas in my personal experience and looking at the data, they primarily track students based on socioeconomic status. It’s not about denying that some students have the ability to excel in subjects in comparison to their peers. The question is whether or…

Gifted programs track students, accidental or not, based on prerequisites. If the circumstances required to allow a student to excel at study are not met, it doesn't matter what they look like or what their economic status is.

Among the prerequisites for excelling at study are a stable home life and parents (or guardians) that value education. If the kids don't have that, they aren't going to do well.

Historically, at least in the United States, one of the means of selecting for "parents who value education" was those parents scraping everything they had to move to a school district that provided a better education.

In other countries, this was sometimes achieved by scoring students into tiered schools. The higher your score, the better the school you got to go to. High-achieving students landed in a peer group of like-minded students that were fellow high-achievers and school was difficult.

Granted, that last solution was more typical of Asian education than Western education, and in some parts of Asia (China, for example) they have slipped into the location-based schooling to worse results.

Aiming for equity with the assumption that we just need to teach harder is foolish. Aiming for equity in the form of outcomes is equally foolish, because again, various outcomes have various hard prerequisites that, if missing, no amount of effort can overcome.

Solving for the prerequisites, not by attempting to ignore them, but by finding ways to help supply them can be far more productive in the long run. But it really starts with the values of the parents.

Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)

#706

Post by dpbriggs »

com2kid wrote: post #497
victor9000 wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, I'll bite, how are IQ tests racist?

Let's take a math story problem. Give an upper class white kid a problem involving tennis scores, no problem. The kid will be able to easily understand what is being talked about, there isn't anything mentally jarring going on. Give a poor black kid a problem involving tennis scores, boom, problem. Odds of a poor black kid knowing how tennis scoring works, much less likely. My, largely well to do, neighborhood has te…

How about a poor white kid? My family certainly could not afford rackets so we never had an interest in the game.

Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)

#707

Post by mistrial9 »

wbsss4412 wrote: post #373
abfan1127 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree its a strawman argument. Its a clear delineation. Trying to get all kids to successfully complete gifted programs is a very challenging if not impossible goal. Not all kids will be successful in gifted programs. However, Equality of opportunity states that any kids its appropriate for have access. Its an important distinction. Now, its arguable that certain sub-cultures within America make success in schoo…

I don’t have a problem with gifted programs in principle, but it’s also fair to ask how they are working in practice. People in this thread are up in arms about the principle, but the reason that they are being challenged is based on how they operate in practice. Do all children have equal access? Nominally, maybe. But that’s de facto not the case.

no, they closed the gifted programs in the urban school system I attended, at that time, right after Music Education. The emphasis went to "no child left behind" whatever that is, sports programs, armed guards (yes), and at high school, loans and grants for college admission. Advanced placement ? most gifted kids and almost every single girl from my neighborhood, disappeared in a blink at grade 8.

Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)

#708

Post by abfan1127 »

wbsss4412 wrote: post #373
abfan1127 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree its a strawman argument. Its a clear delineation. Trying to get all kids to successfully complete gifted programs is a very challenging if not impossible goal. Not all kids will be successful in gifted programs. However, Equality of opportunity states that any kids its appropriate for have access. Its an important distinction. Now, its arguable that certain sub-cultures within America make success in schoo…

I don’t have a problem with gifted programs in principle, but it’s also fair to ask how they are working in practice. People in this thread are up in arms about the principle, but the reason that they are being challenged is based on how they operate in practice. Do all children have equal access? Nominally, maybe. But that’s de facto not the case.

not only is it entirely fair to ask how they work in practice, but we must do so. Do all children have equal access? maybe is your answer. The solution to get more access isn't to eliminate it. Its to educate parents in groups who "should" be in it but aren't.

Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)

#709

Post by nescioquid »

sokoloff wrote: post #485
tqi wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is universal common knowledge that the ease with which one takes to math is different for different people. Why can't we just admit it and quit trying to make people who are unique the same? I disagree with this statement, especially at the level of arithmetic and basic algebra. While math "ability" is likely a bell curve I would wager that it is centered well above Algebra I, and whether a kid at that age is "G…

Is math ability centered above Algebra I among 13 year olds, though? I would wager Algebra I is well above the center of the curve in that age group.

Math, chess, and music seem to be domains in which child prodigies are not infrequently found.

Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)

#710

Post by whatevenisthat »

whatshisface wrote: post #3

> I agree that it is unacceptable to have eighth grade Algebra I classes and gifted education programs that disproportionately exclude Black and brown children. But if equity is the goal, we should be mandating that every eighth grader takes Algebra I—and then structure the entire pre-K to seventh grade student experience to ensure this is a legitimate possibility for every child. Since when does equity mean everyone…

> "Why can't we just admit it and quit trying to make people who are unique the same?"

Because we are dealing with a group which is motivated by ideology. It's a religion to them. Some of them have doubled down on woke-speak around "equity" for so long, that they cannot backtrack and accept that merit and performance exist. Doing this would put them at odds with their current in-group and likely their only source of meaning and "friendship" with anyone.

It's the same crowd of people who just lost their very progressive DA in San Francisco during last night's recall election outcome. They keep doubling down on their policing strategy (see: no policing strategy) and being soft on crime and consequently crime has increased significantly. The same group of people that plugs their ears to reason and reality on why policing is necessary are the same group of people that are always trying to drag everyone down to their same floor level.

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