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

latimes.com

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

#501

Post by [deleted] »

bachmeier wrote: post #83
resource_waste wrote: post #6

What is the goal for gifted students? Skip a grade and teach them stuff ahead of time (No, their social skills cant handle it apparently) Teach them extended topics... aka waste their time on stuff they can already do. I was able to skip 1 grade in college due to my insistence on taking college classes in high school. Everyone from parents to teachers were against it. Had a random adult I met working tell me about it…

> I was able to skip 1 grade in college due to my insistence on taking college classes in high school. Everyone from parents to teachers were against it. Had a random adult I met working tell me about it and I got it in my head. I don't know your circumstances or when you were in school, but my son is in high school in Kansas, and he's taking university classes with the encouragement of the school. And not easy class…

[deleted]

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

#502

Post by nashashmi »

ImJamal wrote: post #467
nashashmi wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it is not a teardown we are talking about. But rather giving attention. Give certain students more attention and that takes away equal attention from everyone else. if you gave attention to two kids, one was smart and quick, and the other was slow and stiff, who would you help more?

You tear them down by not providing the education they deserve. You tear them down by forcing them into classes with dumb kids. You tear them down by forcing them into classes with trouble maker kids. Nobody is getting more or less attention and nobody is advocating for that. I would help both kids equally by having two teachers. One who could help the smart kids and one who could help the less intelligent kid. This…

> not providing/ forcing

Seems a bit of an entitlement

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

#503

Post by Spivak »

gaoshan wrote: post #59
norir wrote: post #21

I think fundamentally the problem is we are trying to fit everything into an industrial, and authoritarian, model of schooling. Students can't be trusted to self learn so we put them into a room, atomize them, strip away almost all of their freedom and force them to learn at the pace of the slowest learner in the group. It's little wonder that acting out is a constant problem. Gifted programs, while perhaps chipping…

I was a gifted program kid who was part of a new style of unstructured, learn at your own pace, self-learn program called the "informal" program. This was back in the early 1980s (the program itself had started in the 1970s). The net result was that the highest achieving gifted kids did really well and the slacker gifted kids (myself included) did abysmally. Turns out some of us needed a level of structure and rigor…

I mean this is pretty much a summary of all the problems of our education, including the problem highlighted by the article. It's a system for teaching the masses and creating societal outcomes but folks want it to be a system for teaching specifically $their_child according to their needs.

I think a lot of the discussion fades away when you're forced to pin down that it's for raising the floor and that at best what you'll get from public schools with the resources is 1-3 tracks remedial, "normal", and AP/IB. Everyone with special needs in either direction needs to switch to private or a school system in a rich area that can afford more individualized instruction.

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

#504

Post by ImJamal »

nashashmi wrote: post #502
ImJamal wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You tear them down by not providing the education they deserve. You tear them down by forcing them into classes with dumb kids. You tear them down by forcing them into classes with trouble maker kids. Nobody is getting more or less attention and nobody is advocating for that. I would help both kids equally by having two teachers. One who could help the smart kids and one who could help the less intelligent kid. This…

> not providing/ forcing Seems a bit of an entitlement

Do you want to address the actual points instead of picking on my word choice?

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

#505

Post by Eumenes »

teachrdan wrote: post #422
Eumenes wrote: post #321

In addition to many wise things stated, such as school choice and accepting some kids aren't as smart as others, teachers unions (and any public worker union, esp police) need to be abolished asap.

Massachusetts is the state rated #1 in pre-K to 12 education, and they have about 100% of teachers in unions. This seems to destroy your argument that teachers unions need to be "abolished" in the name of helping students. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/massachusetts

Yeah sorry I don't care about some click bait US News list on "best states". Also, the methodology is based on test scores which I could care less about. Being good at the SATs and ACT just mean you have rich parents that can steamroll your tutoring, which tracks with high cost of living places like Mass.

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

#506

Post by teachrdan »

Eumenes wrote: post #505
teachrdan wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Massachusetts is the state rated #1 in pre-K to 12 education, and they have about 100% of teachers in unions. This seems to destroy your argument that teachers unions need to be "abolished" in the name of helping students. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/massachusetts

Yeah sorry I don't care about some click bait US News list on "best states". Also, the methodology is based on test scores which I could care less about. Being good at the SATs and ACT just mean you have rich parents that can steamroll your tutoring, which tracks with high cost of living places like Mass.

You are literally choosing to dismiss data that destroys your argument while providing none which supports it. Your opposition to teachers unions is clearly based on your emotions and ideology rather than any facts. Please do better when posting on HN.

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

#507

Post by doctorpangloss »

WillAdams wrote: post #428
doctorpangloss wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What case might that be?

I don't know --- it was in the late '70s, early '80s, and I just heard about it from letters my parents received about it from folks who were still living there.

Yeah... you should find the case related to this memory from the late 70s of yours.

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

#508

Post by frickinLasers »

nonameiguess wrote: post #50

I was in California GATE programs in the 80s and 90s. I was also (and still am, I guess) Latino, so it's not like there was universal exclusion if you weren't white. As far as I remember, being placed in these programs was entirely a matter of scoring high on some IQ test you were given in 1st grade. It's hard to say the program made any difference. We took some extra classes I barely remember. We had special summer…

Why are "running a business" or "holding a regular job" the options? That's the most mundane description of making a living I can imagine. What about "extend laser emissions to a new part of the spectrum to enable new imaging modalities" or "found a nonprofit focused on addressing the coming water crisis," or "teach gifted kids what they're capable of accomplishing"...anything less boring than "run a business?" They should have exposed you to the wider potential you had available and tried to find your motivation.

I went the way the article discusses--stopped doing homework, finished high school on schedule with a C average. I found my motivation ten years later, and I guess I should be grateful for that, but it's been a long road to recovery. My best years were squandered drinking and fighting pointless wars, and I resent that.

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

#509

Post by cogman10 »

Clubber wrote: post #471
cogman10 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 expos…

> This seems like hyperbole.

It's not, there are multiple historical examples of societies, including the US, that place a low value on human life.

Heck, you'll even find comments in this thread talking about how important it is to cut funding to the useless eaters... errr undeserving masses.

Current US society isn't that bad, however, there is a significant population of people that see no problems with things like child labor and completely privatizing education (and everything else for that matter).

> 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.

I never said the current US policies treat kids that way. I do, however, see some disturbing rhetoric throughout this thread about how we spend to much time/money/effort on individuals the commenters deem as worthless.

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

#510

Post by [deleted] »

teachrdan wrote: post #407
elzbardico wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So paying incompetent administrators and teacher even more than what they make in California will somehow improve things magically? The solution is to always tax more, that's it?

Funny how HN never assumes that paying software developers more money is pointless. It's just those greedy teachers trying to make enough money to buy a home!

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