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Gifted children are special needs children

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Re: Gifted children are special needs children

#61

Post by Y_Y »

bko wrote: post #9
Y_Y wrote: post #3

But that's a different meaning of "need" to what's normally used. Gifted kids don't need special attention to get through school and life the same way the intellectually impaired do. It's much better in the sense, that if they will survive and probably not even cause a fuss if you treat them like the lowest common denominator. It's worse in the sense that you're unlikely to get a strong signal, but without special tr…

I don't think all gifted kids do just fine. I would be willing to bet a lot gifted kids get put on medication because they can't sit still in the classroom due to being painfully bored. The smartest people I've ever met are all pretty much ADHD or have some other ailment that requires medication. Not all of that would go away if they were raised in a challenging supportive environment suitable to their ability, but I…

I certainly don't think (nor did I say) that gifted kids do fine. I agree with pretty much everything you say.

Re: Gifted children are special needs children

#62

Post by ryeats »

Gifted programs aren't perfect, simply holding students accountable regardless of gifted status would be better. However skin color seems like the dumbest metric to use to hold these programs accountable and has little to do with students test scores so it's highly doubtful that managing your school based on that is going to have a positive outcome.

Re: Gifted children are special needs children

#63

Post by teiferer »

schnitzelstoat wrote: post #51

For some reason, radical egalitarianism seems to have taken hold across the West and separating children by ability is frowned upon. Here in Spain one of the far-left politicians was found to be sending both of his children to private school while preaching this enforced equality for the rest of us.

> radical

Really? Why is everything called "radical" nowadays? The "radical left" who want healthcare for everybody, the "radical right" who oppose immigration. Radical egalitarianism? Really? Because they don't want to fund programs for gifted kids? You may not like it (I myself am ambivalent and the best solution is likely in the middle), but it's not "radical".

Re: Gifted children are special needs children

#64

Post by Y_Y »

yunyu wrote: post #11
Y_Y wrote: post #3

But that's a different meaning of "need" to what's normally used. Gifted kids don't need special attention to get through school and life the same way the intellectually impaired do. It's much better in the sense, that if they will survive and probably not even cause a fuss if you treat them like the lowest common denominator. It's worse in the sense that you're unlikely to get a strong signal, but without special tr…

It is better to empower 1 Noam Shazeer or Terence Tao than to prop up 10 million burger flippers.

Ms. Rand! I didn't know you were active here, nor that you were still alive. Makes sense though.

Re: Gifted children are special needs children

#65

Post by kragen »

snitty wrote: post #60
kragen wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fuck you. What about having our lives ruined by being imprisoned in a fucking kindergarten, full of violent screaming children? Have you ever tried to read a fucking book while surrounded by screaming children who keep hitting you? How about building a toothpick model or writing a computer program? Now imagine that those children are bigger than you, and you have the emotional maturity of a 5-year-old. Forcing childr…

How many years were you in kindergarten?

Some days it feels like I never escaped.

Re: Gifted children are special needs children

#66

Post by ProllyInfamous »

a_red_horse wrote: post #50
alsetmusic wrote: post #45

I dated someone who earned a psych degree while we were together. Her specific focus was on gifted kids. She described it as a pathology. She considered it something to be managed.

Do you know of any notable people in the industry or even articles or papers regarding this interpretation?

It's only a subset of "gifted" children, but (e.g.):

https://www.amazon.com/Twice-Exceptional-Supporting-Educatin...

Re: Gifted children are special needs children

#67

Post by danaris »

liveoneggs wrote: post #29
bko wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where this extreme egalitarian belief that it's bad to let smart people excel is coming from. How is it not healthy? Even Marxism, an extremely egalitarian system of belief has a phrase "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." People focus on the second part of the phrase, but the first part explicitly states we should strive to work up our individual ability and potential. D…

it comes from valuing "Equity"

....no, pretty much by definition, "equity" means giving everyone what they need to do well.

You may be confusing it with "equality of outcomes"?

Re: Gifted children are special needs children

#68

Post by Y_Y »

schwartzworld wrote: post #8
Y_Y wrote: post #3

But that's a different meaning of "need" to what's normally used. Gifted kids don't need special attention to get through school and life the same way the intellectually impaired do. It's much better in the sense, that if they will survive and probably not even cause a fuss if you treat them like the lowest common denominator. It's worse in the sense that you're unlikely to get a strong signal, but without special tr…

I'd love to see those references. Particularly the line "But that's not as bad as people who'll get in trouble with medical or legal issues". I'm pretty sure that there are plenty of intelligent people with legal and/or medical issues, so I'm curious where that comes from.

I'll add some once I'm back at my desk. I really mean that they cause issues for the people responsible for their education or care (rather than down the line), but I see that wasn't clear.

Re: Gifted children are special needs children

#69

Post by teiferer »

forgotoldacc wrote: post #24
teiferer wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need kindergarten to teach reading. Mine didn't and I did fine. (Obtained a Ph.D. degree later in life.)

My parents taught me diddly squat, so I was glad my kindergarten teacher taught me how to read. That's half the reason kids are in kindergarten.

Maybe it's because I'm old and things are different now, but back in the day, first year of primary school was when everybody learned to read. Some kids already knew some (incl. me), and that didn't necessarily make life easier for them since some parts of class they were then bored. Well, you learn to deal with it.

It's not like such situations never occur in adult life. I often find myself in work meetings where colleague A explains something to a group of 10 people to get everybody on the same page, and there are often one or two folks who already know this stuff and are obviously uncomfortable for those 10 min of intro. Clearly, they never learned how to deal with such a situation.

Re: Gifted children are special needs children

#70

Post by Zigurd »

munchler wrote: post #15

> the G&T system selects, however imperfectly, for merit and effort. This is true but doesn't answer the fundamental question of whether meritocracy results in a fair, healthy society. I think this is a nuanced issue with reasonable arguments on both sides, but the author simply assumes the answer is yes without actually addressing the question.

The hint is in the name. "Meritocracy" was coined to lampoon the concept.
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