Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mentally count 5 6 7 8, sure. Why not?
Well, it would be 3, 4, 5 ,6, 7, 8 unless you have memorized the commutative property ;-)
Heck, why even memorize the names of the quantities...
The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)
771–780 of 922 posts
Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)
#772Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having been in public school for most of my life I can say unequivocally: yes. It is not uncommon for teachers to purchase books and classroom supplies out of pocket since there simply is not enough funding.
Most estimates I've seen of funding for New York students is $25k to $30k a year though. I would think that's more of a sign of incredible corruption and mismanagement and not that there isn't enough money to go around. To compare, Stuyvesant High School, the best in NYC, is $18k per student.
Stuyvesant, like most good schools, raises a good deal of private funds. That actually accounts for good deal of the difference in resources between schools.
Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)
#773Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - George Bernard Shawn
Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)
#774Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess we're circling around this question: Should schools bend to the natural tendencies of students, or should students bend to the rigours and structure of academic life? Given that society itself doesn't bend much, I'm inclined towards the latter.
Do you think kids should have recess? If so, for what purpose? Or, what do you think of Montessori education?
> Do you think kids should have recess? If so, for what purpose?
Sure, for the same reason that adults take coffee breaks. This doesn't seem to contradict what I said. In fact it's a very clear delineation between recreation and work. The problem is when children (or adults) behave as though they're on recess when they're supposed to be working.
> Or, what do you think of Montessori education?
I'm no expert, but it doesn't seem as though the educator/pupil ratios required to make it work are scalable.
Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)
#775Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It is entirely natural for children to “clown around” in a boring setting Murder, rape, and eating your children is natural. That's not a good justification. Perhaps there is a way to help children rise above these base instincts instead of giving into them?
You think 6-year-olds not paying attention to a boring classroom is comparable to rape and cannibalism?
No, I think "it's natural" is a bad defense of both.
Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)
#776Earlier quoted context omitted.
Regardless of the usefulness of sports in schools (and I do believe they are useful), you point out that they are "often limited in participation by elitism" much as I suppose the critics of gifted & talented programs would say of those programs. If so, then they must be studied to make sure they don't disproportionately exclude certain racial groups. If racial imbalance is a guideline for cancellation then it should…
In your equivalence, the "sport" is studying math (or something) and everyone is participating, simply on different levels. Your equivalence would only work if the non-gifted students weren't allowed to study anything at all.
?
Everyone in school studies math and reading. Everyone is participating, simply on different levels.
I guess I don't understand your comment at all.
Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)
#777Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
We're on a forum called "Hacker News". Would you consider hackers to fit better into the conformist or non-conformist category?
Most hackers nowadays are extremely conformist, particularly within the SV startup culture from which Hacker News originates.
Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)
#778Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> What benefit are individuals who have not been appropriately conditioned to work, suffering, and self-sufficiency? This ideology sounds an awful lot like fascism to me, or maybe some kind of psychopathy. If you start looking around at the highest-leverage contributions to humanity throughout history, a disproportionate number of them come from people who weren’t “appropriately conditioned to work, suffering, and se…
I don't think it's psychopathic or fascist to expect that individuals be able to sustain themselves. Nor do I believe it's right to enslave the collective in order to provide a cushion on which those who fail to do so may land. I don't think it just to mandate the protection of people from the full consequences of their own misfortune, failure, or inadequacy. This is the domain of (voluntary) charity.
If you take a harder look at the disproportionate contributors you mention, you'll find that they were motivated to persist at problems for very long hours, often for many years without respite, and for very little reward beyond satisfying their own impulses. None of this indicates poor work ethic, or a reluctance to take responsibility for one's own actions and their consequences.
Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)
#779Alright, I don't imagine this will be a common take here but here goes. I am a product of the New York City public school system. I have spent the majority of my life as a student in it. The New York city public school system is both the largest public school system in the country and the most segregated. The argument about removing gifted programs are built on the faulty assumptions that the students in those progra…
Yeah, it's sad that there's no way to signal boost this. There's no way to convince people on this board to understand what is going on in New York. When you say "gifted program" people think that they are giving the smart kids opportunities that challenge them, but in New York it's not that at all. The screening process happens primarily before kids step into a classroom for the first time, and the divide between kids who get in and ones who don't is not innate intelligence, but rather preparation. The G&T program is the means by which the most motivated parents build a system within a system in which they can have good classes for their kids while neglecting the rest of the students, covered by a thin veneer of supposed meritocracy.
Re: The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021)
#780Earlier quoted context omitted.
> When we are calling for an end to "gifted" programs in New York, it is not because we "hate smart kids" but because we want resources to be evenly divided so that everyone can get a well funded well rounded education, not just the rich kids in gifted classes. This is not a single issue but is a larger component of an attempt to dismantle segregation in public schools. Ok, then that's what you should ask for. Ask fo…
> If you single out the elimination of a specific program as a proxy for what you really want, The problem is that in New York at least the gifted programs are the direct mechanism by which rich parents uphold the status quo of segregation. The gifted prgrams are not a proxy, they are a symptom. As I said elsewhere in this thread: we are looking for a fair allocation of resources to actually give schools the ability…
Aren't poorer Chinese students the ones that dominate various gifted programs throughout the city? Rich parents send their kids to private daycares and schools like Collegiate.
More funding doesn't solve the problem. If that were case, the whole country could have spent it's way out of special education. At an median of $24K per student, New York has plenty of funding. Kansas city once tried an unlimited funding model to disastrous results (https://www.cato.org/commentary/americas-most-costly-educati...).