

Why Do Schools Stigmatize "Gifted Children"? - tokenadult
http://educhatter.wordpress.com/2010/11/26/smart-kids-why-do-schools-stigmatize-gifted-children/

======
dannyb
In the US, there is a lot of emphasis placed on "closing achievement gaps"

It's easier to slow the smart kids down than make the slow/non-responsive kids
perform better.

I don't think there is an active conspiracy or anything, just neglect. In the
state of NJ, the only categories on standardized tests given to all K-12
students are Advanced Proficient, Proficient, and Partially Proficient.
Advanced Proficient is really what you would just call normal. There is no
recognition for high performers. Schools spend almost all of their time on
getting kids above the Proficient mark because this is ultimately how funding
will be allocated. Also, if you have too many kids below Proficient, the state
can take over administration of your district.

------
meric
The article seems a bit vague, after reading it I still don't really get how
schools `stigmatize gifted children`, besides of the perception that `gifted
children schools` are elitist, a perception not from the schools but from the
general population.

~~~
wccrawford
I was also in a 'Gifted Program' that had me out 1 day of every week. I was
told that I was expected to keep up with ALL of the normal assignments, plus
the Gifted Program assignments as well. I managed, easily, but some teachers
weren't satisfied with that.

One of them decided that because I was in Gifted, I'd have to make sentences
with my spelling words. Nobody else had to do this, and it wasn't part of the
program. When that proved no problem, then I had to stand up and read them out
loud to the class. I even got bored with that and started writing stories with
the words. When I got bored with that, I started writing stories with the
words, using the order they were given to me.

Right from the time I had to stand up and read, and I was the only one, the
trouble started. I was bullied for years, and it only stopped when I started
fighting back.

So yeah, they turned a peaceful, gifted child in to a violent child because
they couldn't handle the situation.

There are definitely problems with how they handle the whole thing.

Having said that, having the class was still a LOT better than not having it.
If I could go back and skip the class and miss out on the bullying, I
wouldn't. I'd keep things as they were.

------
greenlblue
I've been educated in two different countries and the obsession that the US
schools have at every level with segregating and separating students never
ceases to surprise me. Administrators are so obsessed with the metrics used to
perform this separation that they are no longer doing any real educating and
are instead developing more and more arbitrary rules for separating students.
If you don't believe me then I point you to the profits being made in making
standardized tests. The solution is simple but it leaves a lot of educational
pundits and standardized test makers out in the cold. Everyone is held to the
same standards gifted or not with the caveat that special education still
chugs along as it does today.

~~~
dspeyer
What of the students who can pass the 12th grade standards in 7th grade? Do
they take the next 5 years off?

~~~
greenlblue
I didn't say anything about penalizing people. If you are so gifted that you
can take college courses in 7th grade then be my guest but you'd be surprised
to know that in most other nations what people learn in 6th and 7th grades is
what the US students learn in 11th and 12th grades. The point is that
educators should be focused on educating instead of providing a custom
tailored product to suit the prevailing political climate in order to funnel
more dollars to their school's districts. Removing all the testing and
separation and holding everyone to the same standards makes it much easier to
apportion tax dollars in a fair way. Currently there are so many bureaucratic
layers and so many constantly changing rules that by the time textbooks are
published they are already out of date and new ones have to be ordered for the
next school year. Obviously this only benefits the book publishers who are
more than happy to reprint materials sometimes even different materials for
adjoining states and get paid for it.

~~~
wtallis
It's not enough to just let students take the classes at their level; you also
have to offer them classes at their pace. The 5th grader who's ready for
algebra is probably capable of finishing the course in a third of the time
that it would take a 9th grader who is taking algebra at the usual age for US
students (at least, that was the case for me and the cohort of segregated
gifted students I was in).

Offering special classes for gifted students can also help solve a lot of
problems stemming from disparities in emotional and academic maturity, or
offer instructors the chance to provide greater depth or branch out beyond the
standard curriculum.

~~~
greenlblue
How far are you going to atomize the students? Grade level, proper pacing,
emotional development, what else? The logistics of what you are suggesting is
simply impossible. I have been involved in the education space and I know
people that are still in it. If we had more resources and a lot more teachers
then providing a customized education experience for students would be
possible but the system is simply not there and won't be there for a very long
time because everyone is focused on making the system more and more
convoluted. There is no push to simplify and streamline standards and
processes because there is more money to be gained from making things
convoluted. The problem is that politicians treat it as a business and
consider tax dollars spent on it as an investment and naturally they want to
see a return on this investment so they start to measure things which almost
always ends up being the wrong way to approach the problem because an
education is a holistic process and treating it in six month chunks makes no
sense whatsoever.

~~~
jerf
Well, it's going to have to be something other than "Keep doing the same thing
but throw more money at it."

What about scrapping about 80% of the curriculum and returning to an
apprentice system as a serious career path? Does teaching "item A" in the
curriculum really _matter_ if the resulting system still churns out 90% of its
graduates who don't know or can't do A? What about really deeply integrating
computers, in a way that isn't just "Keep doing what we're doing, but throw
more computers at it?" What about any of these things but different for
different children?

I don't really know what the answer is, but I observe that it simply can't be
"keep doing what we're doing". The entire world has changed a lot in the past
few decades and schools are starting to look distinctly 19th century. Not a
typo. And I don't mean that the answer is "add lots of shiny technology"
necessarily, but this factory mentality has got to go and I don't know that we
can get there by incremental change.

"How far am I going to atomize the students?" Why, until they are what they
actually are again: Individuals.

~~~
greenlblue
Who are you quoting? Is it me? If it is how did you infer I propose doing the
same thing but with more money? In fact I'm advocating the opposite. Currently
the move is towards more and more customized education and it's not working
out well at all. The whole thing is so convoluted that whenever a student ends
up learning something people have no idea if it was because of their efforts
or some other factor so moving towards even more customized education is going
to make things worse not better. Also, in the future please refrain from
putting words in my mouth if you were indeed quoting me.

~~~
jerf
Obviously I wasn't quoting you. Your text was right there and clearly did not
include those phrases. Quotes can also be used grammatically to turn a phrase
into something that can then be commented on as a phrase, rather than as
direct speech of the speaker. This is why the Lisp quote operator is called
what it is, for instance, it is doing the same thing.

I may overuse it, but, well, I'm just very comfortable with that usage.
Sometimes it's just what is called for.

------
stretchwithme
The whole idea of levels where each kid should be at certain ages forces
achievement down. While some kids are sufficiently challenged, others are
bored and those with different learning styles are left behind.

Wouldn't it be better if children learned topics that they care about about
and at their own pace? How long must the development of the mind be hampered
by bad ideas?

Wouldn't it be the best possible outcome if children grew to love the learning
process instead of learning to sit and regurgitate?

~~~
samfoo
Several points:

First, children aren't the best judges of the topics they should be learning.

Second, children aren't the best judges of how to most effectively spend their
time and judge their own pace, nor should they be: They're children. If I were
given a choice in high school, I would have skipped all literature and English
classes, played videogames all day, or something else that would be equally
destructive to my future.

    
    
        > Wouldn't it be the best possible outcome if children grew to love the learning process instead of learning to sit and regurgitate?
    
    

You're knocking down a straw man: Allowing children absolute freedom isn't
necessarily going to lead to them love the learning process, nor is the
current system completely about regurgitating facts.

~~~
stretchwithme
Yeah, those are the two choices. learning or playing video games. straw man,
you say?

~~~
wccrawford
He gave an example, not a false dichotomy.

------
amichail
Gifted education doesn't encourage entrepreneurship and is likely to lead to
careers that are less enjoyable.

------
danbmil99
TL;DR: School sucks

