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How do you spot a genius?

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: How do you spot a genius?

#21

Post by nicholas73 »

timr wrote: post #16

"Only four states currently mandate services for gifted students and fully fund those mandates. The failure to develop the talents of our children deprives all of us of a stable of future innovators, creative thinkers, leaders and outstanding performers." Except that clearly, it doesn't. We know this because a) we had plenty of "genius" before we had any "gifted education", and b) the nature of the thing implies exce…

I was also put into a "gifted student" class in elementary school - it was little more than extended play time. The problem is alluded to in the article - it's not really agreed on how to systematically produce brilliance. At most a school does is shunt the smarter kids into classes a bit higher than their level. That might save those kids from some time wasting, but still isn't developing them above from what they naturally are. IMO brilliance is a mix of ability, effort, long term planning, and guidance - and each have dozens on variables for maximization. Frankly I wouldn't want public schools as they are doing any long term planning and guidance for my kid. They aren't doing well enough teaching the basics as it is.

Re: How do you spot a genius?

#22

Post by mhurron »

kiba wrote: post #5

This failure has consequences. America ranked 31st of the 56 countries that participated in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, which assesses the academic skills and knowledge of 15-year-olds. Two "easy to fix" reasons why our school sucks: Summer vacation and sleep depriving school schedule. Sleep is necessary for learning, but high school students don't get enough of it because their bio…

> shift starting time to something more reasonable like 8:30 AM or 9:00 AM

I never showed up before 9:00 am myself anyway, often much later. However, there really is nothing wrong with summer vacation, there is nothing wrong with letting kids and teenagers actually have some time to enjoy life and do things they would like to do.

If summer vacation destroyed your education gains, you probably hadn't really learned it to begin with. A little review will help you pass the test, but that's it.

>"That's why adults will have rusty math and know a lot less than high school seniors unless said adult is an engineer or a doctor."

They're not remembering it because they don't need it. You are not going to remember every detail of everything you learned in high school once you leave it if you don't need it. You learned it to give you a base from which to grow from. This is a horrible example to use for removing free time.

Of course, I could have simply said all of this with there is no such thing as an easy fix. The only time you can have an 'easy fix' problem is if the problem is trivial to begin with (education is not) or you simplified the issues down so far as to make your analysis of the issue useless.

Re: How do you spot a genius?

#23

Post by fusiongyro »

timr wrote: post #16

"Only four states currently mandate services for gifted students and fully fund those mandates. The failure to develop the talents of our children deprives all of us of a stable of future innovators, creative thinkers, leaders and outstanding performers." Except that clearly, it doesn't. We know this because a) we had plenty of "genius" before we had any "gifted education", and b) the nature of the thing implies exce…

I agree, but regarding foreign language instruction I have to bring up Mark Rosenfelder's article on why people learn foreign languages: http://www.zompist.com/whylang.html

In high school, I was in "honors" classes but had been passed over for "gifted" classes because my parents refused to have my IQ tested. The gifted classes had a reputation for spending most of their time planning parties.

I don't have a clue how to "fix" America's schools, though I suspect standardized testing belongs more to the problem set than the solution set.

Re: How do you spot a genius?

#24

Post by casca »

kiba wrote: post #5

This failure has consequences. America ranked 31st of the 56 countries that participated in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, which assesses the academic skills and knowledge of 15-year-olds. Two "easy to fix" reasons why our school sucks: Summer vacation and sleep depriving school schedule. Sleep is necessary for learning, but high school students don't get enough of it because their bio…

Summer vacation is only detrimental to poor kids. In wealthier households, the children get sufficient mental stimulation so as to come back to school without fallen behind.

The problem with changing school hours is that getting children to school needs to work around parent's work hours. This is less of a problem in other countries where young children can walk to school on their own or in groups, but would require massively changing American society to work.

Re: How do you spot a genius?

#25

Post by kiba »

mhurron wrote: post #22
kiba wrote: post #5

This failure has consequences. America ranked 31st of the 56 countries that participated in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, which assesses the academic skills and knowledge of 15-year-olds. Two "easy to fix" reasons why our school sucks: Summer vacation and sleep depriving school schedule. Sleep is necessary for learning, but high school students don't get enough of it because their bio…

> shift starting time to something more reasonable like 8:30 AM or 9:00 AM I never showed up before 9:00 am myself anyway, often much later. However, there really is nothing wrong with summer vacation, there is nothing wrong with letting kids and teenagers actually have some time to enjoy life and do things they would like to do. If summer vacation destroyed your education gains, you probably hadn't really learned it…

I never showed up before 9:00 am myself anyway, often much later.

Good for you. However, my local high school still force students to start at 7:30ish in the morning.

However, there really is nothing wrong with summer vacation, there is nothing wrong with letting kids and teenagers actually have some time to enjoy life and do things they would like to do.

I am not suggesting we should end vacations. I am suggesting that the summer vacation is far too long. Or, we could supplement summer vacation with learning opportunities to reduce or prevent loss of knowledge.

If summer vacation destroyed your education gains, you probably hadn't really learned it to begin with. A little review will help you pass the test, but that's it.

Spaced repetition and the forgetting curve is a very real thing. It doesn't matter how well you learn the material. You'll need to review the materials at some point in the future.

They're not remembering it because they don't need it. You are not going to remember every detail of everything you learned in high school once you leave it if you don't need it. You learned it to give you a base from which to grow from. This is a horrible example to use for removing free time.

I am giving an example of forgetting/remembering knowledge, not showing deficiency in the education of adults.

Re: How do you spot a genius?

#26

Post by kiba »

casca wrote: post #24
kiba wrote: post #5

This failure has consequences. America ranked 31st of the 56 countries that participated in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, which assesses the academic skills and knowledge of 15-year-olds. Two "easy to fix" reasons why our school sucks: Summer vacation and sleep depriving school schedule. Sleep is necessary for learning, but high school students don't get enough of it because their bio…

Summer vacation is only detrimental to poor kids. In wealthier households, the children get sufficient mental stimulation so as to come back to school without fallen behind. The problem with changing school hours is that getting children to school needs to work around parent's work hours. This is less of a problem in other countries where young children can walk to school on their own or in groups, but would require…

Summer vacation is only detrimental to poor kids. In wealthier households, the children get sufficient mental stimulation so as to come back to school without fallen behind.

Maybe so, but wikipedia indicates that is a problem not just for poor kids, but also middle income kids as well.

The problem with changing school hours is that getting children to school needs to work around parent's work hours. This is less of a problem in other countries where young children can walk to school on their own or in groups, but would require massively changing American society to work.

For older students, this is not much of a problem, but smaller children does indeed provide significant challenge. However, given that adults are also continuously sleep deprived too, society will probably gain a lot from shifting their schedule.

Re: How do you spot a genius?

#27

Post by cowsaysoink »

casca wrote: post #24
kiba wrote: post #5

This failure has consequences. America ranked 31st of the 56 countries that participated in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, which assesses the academic skills and knowledge of 15-year-olds. Two "easy to fix" reasons why our school sucks: Summer vacation and sleep depriving school schedule. Sleep is necessary for learning, but high school students don't get enough of it because their bio…

Summer vacation is only detrimental to poor kids. In wealthier households, the children get sufficient mental stimulation so as to come back to school without fallen behind. The problem with changing school hours is that getting children to school needs to work around parent's work hours. This is less of a problem in other countries where young children can walk to school on their own or in groups, but would require…

I don't even know how you can justify the "only detrimental to poor kids."

It is far more an effect of the parents and household than it is economics of the house.

And that of the school hours is kind of wrong when you reach high school because that is when children take the bus or ride with friends with cars and drivers licenses.

Hours for school where I went (in the US):

    Elementary:    8:30am - 3:10pm
    Middle School: 8:20am - 3:00pm
    High School:   7:30am - 2:20pm
There is a huge difference in the high school, especially in bus in areas where buses come at anywhere from 6-6:45am. This isn't an issue caused by parent schedules or you would see similar times for middle and elementary school.

Re: How do you spot a genius?

#29

Post by incision »

My time in a gifted program was certainly valuable, a close second to the free lunch program that kept me fed.

I attended and later worked in and around the public school system. I have a lot of ideas about what's wrong with it that would impossible to fully articulate here. However, I can say that I wouldn't put "nurturing nascent genius" particularly high on the list.

Re: How do you spot a genius?

#30

Post by darkstalker »

numeromancer wrote: post #20

How do you write a stupid article? * Present it as a “How to...” article, provides a few vague sentences on how you might be able to begin to plan to do it, then quickly devolve into an article on what must be done “for the childrenz!”. * Use lots of emotionally charged nonesense words and phrases, like “gifted”, “radical ideas”, “enabling the genius within”, “renewed commitment to excellence”. * Make it all about th…

I stopped reading at "progress is faster if you are born with the right skills".
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