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Should gifted students go to a separate school?

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Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#341

Post by emiliobumachar »

URSpider94 wrote: post #307
habosa wrote: post #85

A lot of comments here sound something like this: "I am smart and when I was in high school the classes bored me because they were taught to the lowest common denominator". This is not an argument for intellectual segregation of schools. While I could put forth a hundred arguments against this, here are a few off the top of my head: 1. When do we decide who is "gifted"? What happens to late bloomers? Are they forever…

My reply: 1. There are standard tests and evaluations for giftedness, these can be given at any time past age 4. They are about thinking and behavior, not achievement. Years of study shows that these traits don't generally change much with age. So called "late bloomers", if they are gifted, would almost certainly have been gifted much earlier in life but maybe not identified. 2. I think this is a valid point, but I'd…

> No amount of Baby Einstein or aggressive pre-schooling is going to change a kid's IQ dramatically

Proper early nutrition will. There's no bottom for parents' motivations, nor to their capacity, unfortunately.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#342

Post by arikrak »

Everyone should be taught according to their ability. It doesn't make sense to mix people who learn at different rates into all the same lectures and the same overall grade system. Why make children spend 8 (boring) years in elementary school if some of them could have learned the same material in 2-6 years? Why hold children back from achieving their potential just because they have a higher potential? Gifted schools is one solution but there are many other possibilities as well:

- more tracked classes

- let people advance based on what they learn instead of based on their age

- individualized technology-based instruction instead of large lectures

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#343

Post by nunez »

There is a good "This American Life" episode that touches on this argument somewhat. Due to mismanagement and zoning issues, students at a low-income and underperforming public school in Missouri were forced to go to a wealthier and better performing school a few towns over. The daughter of a family profiled for this episode demonstrated significant gains in her grades, vocabulary and social life. She isn't alone; there is data that supports that "integrating" students like this improves performance in kids that would typically underperform at a less accomplished school alone.

My fiancée, a HS math teacher for eight years, saw this in her classes too. The smarter kids (the kids that got the material quicker) would catch up the kids that were lagging behind. While she did have to prepare more nuanced lesson plans, she did see improvement in kids with similar characteristics of classically-underperforming kids she taught previously.

Given this, I think smart schools do humanity a great disservice.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#344

Post by nikdaheratik »

I think some separate program is good for a variety of reasons, but a separate school, or even education where a majority of their time is spent on the program is not good. They do have different needs from most students that should be addressed, but separating them out is just as bad as moving mildly disabled children into a separate program when they don't have to be there.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#345

Post by [deleted] »

justin_vanw wrote: post #278
r00fus wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More light, less heat. Where're your facts or evidence?

Facts? The argument against me was 'you shouldn't help people because you might not help some people that you could also help'. That's a moral argument, and my reply was a moral argument.

[deleted]

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#346

Post by cloudwizard »

lol214365 wrote: post #134
maverick_iceman wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it bad for society for bright students to excel?

It reduces social mobility. Charles Murray talks about how there is a trade-off between social mobility and meritocracy due to the heredity of IQ. In a meritocratic society, the smartest kids go to the best schools, then to the best colleges, then the most elite companies, then likely marry someone from school or work, and then have the smartest kids. Socioeconomic classes become set due the stability of cognitive fu…

Cognitive elite or financial elite. The rich get to send their kids to private schools. Smart poor kids get locked into mediocre public schools with reducing standards. Rich parents pass on their wealth at a lower tax rate.

Being smart is not a guarantee of success so we should make it harder so the less intelligent do not suffer any disadvantage.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#347

Post by bartwe »

crushton wrote: post #289
TeMPOraL wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you were to create a special "school for smart people only" and magically teleport all geeks there, I wouldn't be sure it would eliminate the problem of geeks being bullied. Bullying seems to be an emergent thing that comes up naturally in the sort of environment a school is - as long as kids have a "hierarchy of popularity", there will be some people at the bottom of it, and those are your bullying targets.…

Intellectual bullying is also a thing. Having the social intelligence not to be bullied or to form strategic alliances with bullies is useful and less likely to happen for these precious gifted geeks if they are placed together in an unrealistic safe haven. We are all in this world together. If anyone on this thread believes IQ determines social value they need to be bullied a bit more.

Because bullying kids boosts their social intelligence and learns them important lessons ? Bullying had a far greater impact on me then any class in those elementary school years, but i can tell you it has the inverse effect you suggest.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#348

Post by mulmen »

Kalium wrote: post #339
mulmen wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is a mistake to assume that students with a lower level of academic achievement have nothing to offer students with a higher level of the same.

I agree! I do not believe they have nothing to offer. I do believe that what they have to offer may not universally be a good fit for a classroom environment. I know that when I was a gifted student, my less gifted peers had much to offer outside the classroom. They also had nothing to offer inside the classroom in terms of instructional aid. I believe that the system described fails because it neglects the needs of…

What proposal are you referring to? I'm not advocating for treating gifted students as teaching aids. I am advocating for an educational environment that serves the interests of all students.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#349

Post by thereisnospork »

_m8fo wrote: post #235
thereisnospork wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you argue pt.1 when the kids of high income parents already receive, at great expense but to great personal benefit, the kind of academically segregated education you are arguing against? How is a smart kid from Detroit or Camden supposed to catch up to his intellectual peer who is learning calculus while he/she is stuck in a school right out of Stand and Deliver? Without help one of them is going to Harvard…

I can relate to the situations you describe, but they're not going to happen. The link we're all discussing is not talking about making these schools public, free or even accessible. It talks about, more generally, whether segregation should exist. As for Detroit. Most of Michigan's "gifted" schools are private and NOT free [1] [2]. [1] http://migiftedchild.org/faq/#zero [2] http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/sites/def…

So you advocate mandatory public education? In fact mandatory boarding public education? -- I can think of no other way to avoid intellectual segregation as surely their are more 'gifted' children in Berkeley than Compton.

So much for the land of the free...

To the point: you are arguing that segregating students by capability increases income inequality - which is false to disingenuous over generations.

Re: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

#350

Post by mulmen »

Kalium wrote: post #337
mulmen wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do not misunderstand, I do not think the current system is working, I just don't think segregation is the solution.

I understand. I agree! The current system is not working for anyone. I also think that the system you have described, in which gifted students are placed with their less gifted peers to raise them up, is identical to the current system. What you have described is literally identical to a system we have just agreed does not work. As a result, I believe that what you describe does not work.

I'm honestly not even sure what such a system would look like so I think you are jumping to conclusions. I just don't think segregated schools are the solution.

I think we need to rethink the entire system. Every student learns differently and at a different pace so forcing everyone into the exact same experience isn't going to work. Maybe there is a case for more advanced opportunities based on academic (or athletic, or any other criteria) achievement. I don't think that requires an entirely separate school.

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