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California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

latimes.com

281–290 of 553 posts

Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

#281

As a father with a son with IQ over 160, I can tell you unequivocally that California thinks gifted kids are the enemy. Gifted children, especially profoundly gifted kids like mine are special needs. He can’t function in a regular class because he would become bored and would act out and constantly get in trouble. Since my kid was a toddler we have had to completely rely on ourselves to figure everything out and we w…

That's interesting. My parents were told, in SC and FL, to have me skip a grade or two (not six!), but refused due to the social burden they expected it to put on me. I'm not entirely happy with where I am at 26. I wonder if I'd be further ahead - or behind - if I had skipped forward.

There was a study done in Australia that showed that radical acceleration for gifted kids resulted in the highest overall satisfaction in life. It sounds like you probably needed further acceleration.

Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> invest 2x the resources into a person that will never likely tinder a significant benefit to society? So you would rather have the cleaning lady, the garbage collector, the truck driver,... not got proper read/write/calculate/economics... education and increase their chances of ending on the side where they fall for addiction instead?

I don't think that's what they're saying. Anacostia High School in Washington DC has zero percent of students meeting expectations in Math, yet its funding per student is twice that of nearby districts that perform much better. Lebron James' I Promise Academy is similarly very well-funded both for in-classroom and wraparound services, and it's one of the worst schools in the state of Ohio. It is increasingly evident…

The reality, which politicians will never admit out loud, is there is a population of K-12 students who 1. will never become educated to any measurable standard, and 2. disrupt the education of everyone around them. You could give unlimited funding to a school, and these kids will not learn. You could assign a huge staff of dedicated top-educators to each class, and it won't make a difference. You could isolate them from everyone else, each individual into a dedicated classroom with that staff of education PhDs all to themselves, and they will not learn. They will either graduate high school not meeting the standard, or they will drop out before they graduate. You can't force education on someone whose parents, peers, and surrounding environment don't value it.

Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

#283

As a father with a son with IQ over 160, I can tell you unequivocally that California thinks gifted kids are the enemy. Gifted children, especially profoundly gifted kids like mine are special needs. He can’t function in a regular class because he would become bored and would act out and constantly get in trouble. Since my kid was a toddler we have had to completely rely on ourselves to figure everything out and we w…

As one of these kids, in Massachusetts, I had my math classes at a desk in the hallway by myself starting in 3rd grade, where I was just given an algebra textbook to read. I reviled the process of math lessons where the teachers just asked me to show the other 3 kids in my quad of desks how to do the lessons... I couldn't understand why they could not just grasp the concepts. It was frustrating for everyone involved, and the solution was worse. By the time I made it to high school I'd learned that: I could read the book and nail the tests, so I never did homework. why bother? Unfortunately they grade homework, I used to skip class because I already knew the material and I didn't want to answer for not doing the homework. I never used the muscles I needed to use for learning, and I was so over it I had trouble participating in the classes that were actually great and I enjoyed. There were AP classes in high school that I never qualified for, and I barely graduated, had to go to summer school every year, so I joined the marines which is probably the only reason the school moved things around so I could graduate.

This was a failure at every level of the education system for me, at a school system with 9/10 ratings. I needed engagement as a young student, I needed to learn and be challenged so I _had_ to study for things, I _had_ to do homework to learn... and by the time the structures where there that supported that I was lost already. There were allusions to a better future, I tested in the 98-99 percentile on the Iowa tests (except in English and spelling, I'm just middle of the bell curve there) so I was fed in Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth in 6th grade, but that never was anything more than a weekend at MIT learning about some truly amazing science, but it didn't seem to go anywhere. I'm sure my own discipline problems, apparent from a very young age, didn't help. It was just too easy to understand that the authorities around me where full of it, poke holes in their logic, see what I could get away with, etc... all because I was bored.

You've got quite a task in front of you, raising your son. I didn't find an outlet for this "gift" until I was in college and started writing code for real... self learning is everywhere in computer science and the problems are vast and difficult, there is always something new to learn and I do it voraciously. The other thing that helped immensely was learning to race motorcycles, it's a task that mandates preparation and planning, diligent practice, getting up when you're knocked down, and the amount of brain power you need to devote to it quiets down the inner loop I have that is always going. When I'm on track everything is quiet.

I hope you've got the resources to send your child to private school, I always imagined that path would have had a different outcome for me. My kids are in private (I'm also in CA) now and I've heard parents with older kids (even in school systems like Kentfield) saying the same thing you're saying about treatment of gifted kids.

Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

#284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have much experience with how education works in California, or in the US in general. But there is one universal issue with special programs for gifted kids: parents. It's hard to distinguish gifted kids from average kids with ambitious parents. If you let ambitious parents push their kids to programs they are not qualified for, they can easily ruin the programs for the actual gifted kids. Gifted programs wor…

Naming the programs gifted and creating a gifted identity is the core issue. Instead, call it something like asynchronous development, and place kids in classes appropriate to their pace of development. I'm hopeful that AI can offer highly individualized education to each kid, and get around this issue entirely.

The problem with changing the terminology is that people/kids are clever enough to turn it to a diss regardless. It's only a matter of time.

Anyways, I don't see the big deal. I was too dumb to make it into gifted classes in school but it's not like that stopped me from going to college. I just went to a lesser college. Still make good money

Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

#285

As a father with a son with IQ over 160, I can tell you unequivocally that California thinks gifted kids are the enemy. Gifted children, especially profoundly gifted kids like mine are special needs. He can’t function in a regular class because he would become bored and would act out and constantly get in trouble. Since my kid was a toddler we have had to completely rely on ourselves to figure everything out and we w…

> He can’t function in a regular class because he would become bored and would act out and constantly get in trouble. No student has ever found all their courses interesting. You'd have a behavior problem no matter what level of material is taught.

[flagged]

Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting. My parents were told, in SC and FL, to have me skip a grade or two (not six!), but refused due to the social burden they expected it to put on me. I'm not entirely happy with where I am at 26. I wonder if I'd be further ahead - or behind - if I had skipped forward.

There was a study done in Australia that showed that radical acceleration for gifted kids resulted in the highest overall satisfaction in life. It sounds like you probably needed further acceleration.

Really? I often hear the opposite, kids I knew who got a bachelors degree at 17 say well now what? What is the rush!

Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you looked at my resume you wouldn’t think I’m “moving society forward” - I went to a public undergrad with a 50% accept rate. What do you think should happen to people like me?

You don't seem to have the right perspective to talk about things at scale like this. Taking that personally is unfathomable.

Why is it unfathomable?

Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting. My parents were told, in SC and FL, to have me skip a grade or two (not six!), but refused due to the social burden they expected it to put on me. I'm not entirely happy with where I am at 26. I wonder if I'd be further ahead - or behind - if I had skipped forward.

There was a study done in Australia that showed that radical acceleration for gifted kids resulted in the highest overall satisfaction in life. It sounds like you probably needed further acceleration.

I guess the key is to not just accelerate the kid into a higher grade full of "general population" students. He'd just be surrounded by a different group of mediocre (just older) kids. I think really smart kids need to be surrounded by other really smart kids or their social circle will constantly drag them back to the mean.

Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

#289

As a father with a son with IQ over 160, I can tell you unequivocally that California thinks gifted kids are the enemy. Gifted children, especially profoundly gifted kids like mine are special needs. He can’t function in a regular class because he would become bored and would act out and constantly get in trouble. Since my kid was a toddler we have had to completely rely on ourselves to figure everything out and we w…

> We have had to go to private school because California does not skip grades even though it’s obvious the child doesn’t belong in the grade level for his age. Be careful what you wish for. Skipping 2nd grade led to bullying hell until I stayed for a second year of 6th. I think what you want for your kid is to skip N grades ahead in select subjects but otherwise stay in age peer group.

When I was going through school the gifted program allowed for kids to skip 1 grade in math and 1 grade in science. I think this was reasonable and didn’t lead to much bullying. Also helped that we had a large gifted program. A math class might’ve been 20-30% gifted kids at any given time.

Re: California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s really strange that you have such emotional reactions to the concept of equity while my Indian middle class IIT educated dad who experienced Indian institutional failure in the 70s and 80s never really cared about if me or my sibling were in the G&T program. What separates you from the people that didn’t make it out?

I don't care about G&T program per se, either. Nor did my country have it when I grew up. I do care about education. I guess my fundamental assumption is that when everyone maximizes their full potential, the outcome will naturally be different. So, pushing students to realize their potential will be against equity, but will be the best way to minimize the equity gap. Now the nuances for us in the US specifically: th…

counterpoint: https://ctmirror.org/2024/09/29/cant-read-high-school-ct-har...

America has some of the best schools, but also some of the worst. Engaging kids doesn't mean pushing them to academic heights. We should be working on engaging kids in all the facets of life instead of pushing sports and STEM.

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