Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

471–480 of 553 posts

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

#471

Post by Clubber »

cogman10 wrote: post #66
phil21 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Killing truly progressive programs for the purpose of virtue signaling is a loss for society It's not just a loss for society. It's society-killing. Taking resources away from those who move society forward and spending them on those who are unlikely to "pay it back" is a way your culture dies. Conquerers in the past used this strategy to win massive empires for themselves. It's a ridiculous self-own. This is perha…

> Taking resources away from those who move society forward and spending them on those who are unlikely to "pay it back" is a way your culture dies. What does this even mean? To me, the measure of a healthy society is how that society treats those that are "unlikely to pay it back". The most unhealthy societies treat unwanted humans as disposable refuse. For example, I don't think we'd call the culture/society of the…

>To me, the measure of a healthy society is how that society treats those that are "unlikely to pay it back". The most unhealthy societies treat unwanted humans as disposable refuse.

Sure, but don't try to get people who can't hack college into college at the expense of those who can.

When I was growing up decades ago, we had a gifted program and a special education program. The gifted program was an attempt to expose gifted students to more complex thinking, while the special education program was an attempt to give student who struggle with normal education special attention to allow them to learn as best they can. It worked well.

In the 80's, the education system was the product of 200+ years of figuring out how to do it. For some reason, we decided it was wrong and introduce new methods of education that don't seem to be doing as well.

>The most unhealthy societies treat unwanted humans as disposable refuse.

This seems like hyperbole. I don't think the US treats any children as disposable refuse, no matter how dissatisfied you are with the current system, I'm certain that isn't the intent.

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

#473

Post by PittleyDunkin »

zdragnar wrote: post #445
PittleyDunkin wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I felt that my academic time was utterly wasted in public school No it wasn't! You learned how to interact with normal people. That's a lifelong skill. > "You're so well-adjusted", is a frequent refrain. Sure, some people make it work. I don't think this invalidates the broad observation that private and homeschooled people are frequently socially... off. I myself had a homeschooled kid in our town who transitioned…

> I don't think this invalidates the broad observation The word you're looking for is stereotype. There's lots of harmful and inaccurate stereotypes about all groups of people out there, and polite society generally frowns on using them as a form of bigotry. > Perhaps there's a critical time in development when socialization is necessary and there are other venues than public school to remediate this. There are tons…

> The word you're looking for is stereotype.

Sure, but that doesn't change anything. That some people will be unfairly characterized by this is an unfortunate byproduct of being born a human.

> There's lots of harmful and inaccurate stereotypes about all groups of people out there, and polite society generally frowns on using them as a form of bigotry.

Only the bigoted forms :) stereotypes aren't going to disappear out of inconvenience

> In fact, actual in class socialization is frowned on or punished in most schools.

I've never heard of a school that could combat socialization in any meaningful way.

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

#474

Post by glimshe »

goodhombre wrote: post #332
glimshe wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved to Forsyth County, GA, where my child has access to excellent computer science and musical education (not to mention AP classes and 3 tiers bases on student achievement). In fact, he didn't make it to the top tier in everything because they were just too strong. This is a good thing! In his supposedly "10" California school, music had been defunded to spread equality to other school systems; also, no career e…

Latino is widely understood to refer to people descended from the population of Latin America.

That was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but the term isn't very consistently applied. I mentioned it just in case someone thinks that a person from a Latino/Hispanic background would have a hard time in this part of the country (I've met people who assumed that). I live in a fairly diverse area.

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

#475

Post by hirvi74 »

jdougan wrote: post #362
csa wrote: post #10

It’s not just California, but California may be one of the more egregious state neglecters. The push at the state level for policies that focus on equality of outcomes over equality of opportunities will not end well for the gifted and talented communities. Whenever I hear these people talk about their policies, I can’t help but recall Harrison Bergeron. Focusing on equality of outcomes in a society that structurally…

> “In my early days it was an article of faith among a selfstyled ‘intellectual elite’ that they could teach calculus to a horse . . if they started early enough, spent enough money, supplied special tutoring, and were endlessly patient and always careful not to bruise his equine ego. They were so sincere that it seems downright ungrateful that the horse always persisted in being a horse. Especially as they were righ…

László Polgár kind of did it three times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/László_Polgár

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

#476

Post by immibis »

csa wrote: post #10

It’s not just California, but California may be one of the more egregious state neglecters. The push at the state level for policies that focus on equality of outcomes over equality of opportunities will not end well for the gifted and talented communities. Whenever I hear these people talk about their policies, I can’t help but recall Harrison Bergeron. Focusing on equality of outcomes in a society that structurally…

Which policies? What you've said is something the right wing frequently asserts is happening, but can never say how. It goes in the same bucket as "mexico is invading us" and "Portland burned to the ground during BLM" until proven otherwise.

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

#477

Post by rangestransform »

frmersdog wrote: post #110
rangestransform wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we in the 21st century are more bound to the success of our weakest links only because they can vote > Gifted children will get the stimulus they need at home via independent study or from their family This is definitely not true for poorer gifted students: - whose parents may not even know anything about the field that the student is interested in - whose parents may see higher education as a waste of time or have…

>only because they can vote Domain specificity of "weak link"-hood, as well as the compounding of innocuous, sub-symptomatic "weak links": Carpenter Tom is a hard-worker, great husband, and community leader. And he voted for an autocrat, against his explicit interests (benefits from ACA, benefits from undocumented immigrant labor, benefits from special-ed resources for his kids) because he dislikes keeping abreast of…

> You're going to disenfranchise him?

No, I'm just going to wish that he was more educated and informed, and that the school system 40 years ago taught him critical thinking. American school needs to get better at teaching middling students too, too many USAians I talk to are incapable of reasoning about and discussing policy. With all that being said, the way he is the "weak link" is that by voting, he is most capable of negatively affecting the most people.

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

#478

Post by hirvi74 »

I believe with great confidence that this board has a higher than average population of individuals that were in gifted and talented programs compared to most sites.

I was in the 'ungifted and talentless' program in my youth. I am curious, how did life turn out for you all? Have you used your gift in any meaningful way? If so, how? (I'm asking with sincerity and not judgement).

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

#479

Post by roenxi »

sangnoir wrote: post #461
roenxi wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're speculating that a US president has a relatively average intelligence - why are you assuming that? The top job in a democracy is generally one of the most competitive positions in the world and US presidents are typically exceptional in multiple different ways. It'd be really surprising to have a US president with an IQ below something like 120 and I'd personally be assuming >140 for the average. As far as I c…

> You're speculating that a US president has a relatively average intelligence - why are you assuming that I am not assuming that: any range that has studying nuclear engineering as its floor is above average intelligence. I thought it was self-evident, but apparently not - perhaps not many people know what a "Navy Nuke officer" is. To be more explicit the range is between above average intelligence and "genius". Reg…

> To be more explicit the range is between above average intelligence and "genius".

You haven't made your point explicit. So what? What are you basing your argument on here? The existence of Navy Nuke officers may well have no bearing at all on Carter's intelligence. If Mr Carter was trying for jobs which required genius that suggests he was one.

> I will never be convinced that people with relatively average intelligence are precluded from greatness

Greatness is one thing, competition for US presidency is something else. I'm sure it is possible and happens on rare occasions, but an ordinary person cannot be reasonably expected make it through the scrum to become a US president. They usually have to have quite a few somethings to set them apart from the crowd - including great intelligence.

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

#480

Post by BrenBarn »

jvanderbot wrote: post #75
phil21 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Killing truly progressive programs for the purpose of virtue signaling is a loss for society It's not just a loss for society. It's society-killing. Taking resources away from those who move society forward and spending them on those who are unlikely to "pay it back" is a way your culture dies. Conquerers in the past used this strategy to win massive empires for themselves. It's a ridiculous self-own. This is perha…

There's a lot of strong words thrown around regarding this topic. You need a little of both. Consider a re-framing: Rather than trying to focus on the less-achieving third (half, tenth, etc) with the goal of bootstrapping entire groups (for your definition) via equality of outcome, it would make sense to put into place opportunities for gifted students and high achievers without regard for where they live or come fro…

> There are some who immediately consider this socialism, but I think it fits squarely in the definition of equality of opportunity.

Indeed. Wealth creates opportunities. When we have large disparities in wealth, we don't have equality of opportunity. A depressing amount of talk about "equality of opportunity" seems to focus on things like "when you reach age 18, you have the 'opportunity' to get into the same college as someone else" rather than "when you are born, your family's material resources are comparable to everyone else's". The thing is that that essentially requires some measure of equality of outcomes for the previous generation.

Post reply on HN