The case for expanding rather than eliminating gifted education programs (2021) • Hacker News Board

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

#851

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 4:03 AM UTC

thegrimmest wrote: post #662

jacobolus wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Good teachers are wasted on troublemakers and class clowns It is entirely natural for children to “clown around” in a boring setting, and their lack of interest / trouble focusing reflects a societal (and school) failure to make school engaging and give them the appropriate challenges and direct feedback to keep their attention. Many of the greatest human breakthroughs were made by people who were squirmy and distr…

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.

> School was never meant to be "engaging".

If it aims to be effective at education, it should.

> It's not recreation, it's work.

That's very true of what a lot of schooling is, largely because it evolved from a model aimed at indoctrination of a compliant population rather than education. But, nominally at least, the goal of the modern system is not to be work as a means of indoctrinating people to work.

> The problem seems to be that we've lost the value of working hard and pushing through things we find dull and uninteresting

Or, maybe, the problem is that while it is easy to make material dull and uninteresting, that's far from optimal from an educational perspective.

> Real world success is not like that - it's work

Real world success is mostly been born on third base and constructing a narrative about the hard-work of hitting a triple.

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

#852

Post by arbitrary_name » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 4:17 AM UTC

EddieDante wrote: post #807

thegrimmest wrote: post #703

Earlier 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…

> Why do we need these, exactly? What benefit are individuals who have not been appropriately conditioned to work, suffering, and self-sufficiency? What the fuck is wrong with you?

In loud stage whisper: He's a 'libertarian'

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

#853

Post by com2kid » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 4:24 AM UTC

dpbriggs wrote: post #706

com2kid wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Step 1 is divide rich and poor.

Step 2 is divide the poor against each other.

Step 2 is important so people who are poor won't ever band together and demand change.

It is sad that the "left" has forgotten this, while those in power continue to use the same tactics decade after decade, century after century.

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

#854

Post by AmericanChopper » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 4:49 AM UTC

walnutclosefarm wrote: post #840

AmericanChopper wrote: post #721

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But shouldn't equity in education mean that every student gets the instruction and support they need to achieve their potential, insofar as the school is able to provide it, without respect to their race, class or sex? You’re taking about equality. Equity is always just a euphemism for equality of outcome. Which can only ever be achieved by lowering the outcomes of top performs to the same level as the lowest perfo…

I know. But I refuse give up the meaning of the word "equity" - which is not equality of outcomes, but rather fair, impartial. In the case of schools, that means fairly and impartially meeting the needs of every student. You can call med old fashioned, if you wish (I'm certainly old).

Sadly the constant battle to control the meaning of language for political purposes will rage on with or without you.

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

#855

Post by r00fus » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 5:46 AM UTC

chaostheory wrote: post #838

r00fus wrote: post #819

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if that's an issue in many Montessori schools? What evidence do you have that bullying is a byproduct of mixed age classes?

None, because it’s not common. All I know is that research shows that bullying develops and evolves by age. It’s not going to be as prevalent in early age Montessori schools as it is in middle school. Let’s also not ignore that a private Montessori school is also a filter.

Do you have any cite for your research about bullying and mixed-age?

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

#856

Post by musicale » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 5:54 AM UTC

chaostheory wrote: post #814

nine_k wrote: post #798

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is deeper. The traditional grade-based school is not good. It pushes some kids, and stymies other kids. Slicing kids in thin same-age layers is not good, especially for teenagers who cannot form reasonable social structures and end up with gangs and a group of outcasts. A more reasonable school, after the elementary level, should mix and match kids, so that older kids with more advanced skills could help…

The reason children are “sliced up” by age is because of their lack of maturity. Consequently, if you mix younger children with older, more physically developed children what will inevitably happen is a lot of bullying.

> what will inevitably happen is a lot of bullying.

It may not be inevitable. Personally I had pretty great experiences with multi-grade clubs, camps, sports teams, classes, academic competitions, after school programs, etc. (not to mention the neighborhood/real world.) The older kids were usually pretty nice, often really helpful, and provided a kind of role modeling.

Sports teams can sometimes be kind of hilariously unbalanced due to the drastic difference in sizes of some kids though. Perhaps some sports should be sliced into height or weight classes rather than age classes, but that's probably only practical for large leagues.

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

#857

Post by kaba0 » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 7:50 AM UTC

westurner wrote: post #728

zozbot234 wrote: post #718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be quite obvious that memorization is convenient , but 'required' means "you can't do it any other way" and that's obviously incorrect.

IDK why we'd assume that there's a different cognitive process for learning mathematics with radix 10 than with radix 16? Mathematics_education#Methods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics_education#Methods : > [...] Rote learning: the teaching of mathematical results, definitions and concepts by repetition and memorisation typically without meaning or supported by mathematical reasoning. A derisory term is dril…

I think they mean that it is very useful to “cache” these primitive results, but it is absolutely possible to regenerate them if one is missing or the like.

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

#858

Post by kaba0 » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 7:57 AM UTC

thegrimmest wrote: post #778

jacobolus wrote: post #763

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 h…

I don’t know, it is entirely different to sort of become an addict of a specific problem until you solve it vs the day-to-day’s life work addict.

There are plenty of geniuses who did terribly in work/academia, etc, or who were literally outcasts from society.

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

#859

Post by kaba0 » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 8:06 AM UTC

the_sleaze_ wrote: post #841

jacobolus wrote: post #760

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take almost any “academically gifted” student and start looking into their biography, and you’ll find a shitload of preparation. As a general rule (to which, sure, you can find rare exceptions if you really hunt) the more “gifted” the student, the more hands-on help and attention from experts they had. Even for those without significant expert help, the “gifted” students are the ones who spent a ton more time thinkin…

This is a fundamental aspect of human life that most people do not understand. My kids all walked long before their first birthdays. Why? For the same reason my lower back hurt so much before they turned 1. I held their hands and we practiced walking for hours upon hours. Mozart wrote his first symphony at 8. He was also playing piano for courteseans at age 3. All at the behest of his father, to support the family. I…

> For the same reason my lower back hurt so much before they turned 1. I held their hands and we practiced walking for hours upon hours.

I’m sorry to call you out on this but that is very much not a good thing to do. The mind is much more plastic so one can probably start teaching very advanced subject to their child soon, but the body does need plenty of support strength before it will be able to hold itself up, and holding hands is shown to not be too good for the child. Nonetheless, not ideal is far from harmful, so don’t worry, I’m sure they are wonderful children.

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

#860

Post by kaba0 » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 8:14 AM UTC

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.

Sure, larger socioeconomic problems will definitely turn up in statistics, because it turns out that being gifted heavily relies on parental model, and many many other things. Even a very motivated child will fail to partake in such a problem if he/she has serious problems at home, e.g. being beaten, having to work to support the family, etc.

But I feel it is very unfair, outright evil to take away an opportunity from gifted people (both from privileged families and a few from very bad families that would have been lifted up by said programs!! The aforementioned example could perhaps break the cycle and get a much much better life than any of his/her relatives) on the basis that the statistics on the enrolled will be biased. It is not the task of such a small-scale program to solve a huge, complex problem that probably can only be solved in decades if ever.