
Should gifted students go to a separate school? - tokenadult
https://theconversation.com/should-gifted-students-go-to-a-separate-school-71620
======
habosa
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 cast down into a track of lower opportunity? This will be highly
correlated with race and socioeconomic status since we know that poor /
minority communities don't have the best resources / results for early
childhood development.

2\. What about the social benefits of being around people who are on a
different intellectual level? "Smart" kids who never have to interact with
anyone "below" them or "dumb" kids who never have to interact with anyone
"above" them will have trouble navigating many social and professional
situations.

3\. "Gifted" kids often come with motivated parents. Removing these children
from schools will take their parents with them. These parents are often the
best advocates for positive change in their community. The worst schools will
never get better if all the talent is sucked out of them.

~~~
Aqueous
4\. This idea that education is _only_ for _my own individual welfare_ has to
end. It's creating a culture of individual atomism that is instilling the most
anti-social, selfish values and corroding the country at its roots.

We go to school not just to be educated but to educate each other. If you're
smart, you set an example to kids near us who don't feel that way. Hopefully,
those who aren't labelled 'smart' gain from the presence of 'smart' students
just as 'smart' students gain from presence of kids who aren't labelled
'smart.'

~~~
ltbarcly3
Have you ever been inside a school? The stupid kids don't gather around to
bask in the glow of the gifted kids. They DO gather around them and call them
'faggot' and trip them in the hallway, especially if they are smart but not
athletic.

~~~
Aqueous
That's a failure of the school administration and disciplinary processes, and
separating kids from each other based on perceived or measured intelligence is
not going to solve it. Bullies are going to find a target whether there's a
geek there or not. This is an argument for strict enforcement of anti-bullying
policies, not isolating groups of kids from each other.

As someone who has been bullied in the past, I never thought the solution was
avoidance. Our schools have to improve on all counts. Segregating students on
any criteria is the opposite of the solution.

~~~
ltbarcly3
Yet another reason to concentrate those smarter kids so that the people with
the most potential don't have it wasted by being forced to go to a school with
a failed administration.

In a perfect world we would make all our schools great, but I think you'll
find that this is harder to actually do than it is to say, and in the meantime
it is very easy to get great teachers to work with gifted students.

~~~
TeMPOraL
What stops the "smart kid school" from developing the same administrative
problems as regular ones? Are "smart teachers" actually better at managing
behaviour of pupils? Personally, I feel that the bullying problem might be
less about individual teachers, and more about how the whole system is
constructed.

~~~
hackinthebochs
There's simply much fewer bullies and problematic behavior in smart schools.
It's not that the administration is better, it's that the administration
doesn't have to be.

~~~
justin_vanw
I disagree, you will find better administration.

Imagine you are a great principle/counselor/teacher. You can work anywhere,
because you are great at your job. Do you choose to go to the school with the
superintendent that is nearly illiterate and completely incompetent at the
district where the kids regularly assault each other and the staff? Or do you
choose to go to the school where the kids love to learn, love to read, love to
study, and respect their teachers and their school?

------
dijit
Absolutely.

I'm going to sound very self-centered and certainly not humble but when I was
enrolled in mandatory education I was doing so under Tony Blair's Labour
government. This government was elected under premises such as nationalisation
and additionally "Education, Education, Education"[0]. As such no child was
allowed to fail school.

This had the opposite affect in my primary school, instead of segregating the
children who had difficulties learning or even the opposite- elevating
children who were learning well; instead the entire class would slow to a
crawl when it came time to do some form of verification that we're actually
learning.

In many cases 'tests' would stop any possibility of new content being added to
the class for months.

I was bored out of my mind and I'm sure I wasn't the only one. School is an
absolute torturous prison when there's no stimulation of any kind; and they
also wonder why you seek fulfillment by acting out.

Conversely, before my time there were English Grammar schools which were done
away with, those output the most well educated people and were free for the
public too. They just had very strict requirements for entry and you could be
expelled for not keeping up. A stark contrast to the kids in my class who were
unwilling or unable to allow the class to move forward as a unit.

Gah. I hated my childhood and I absolutely hated formal education because of
this.

[0] [https://youtu.be/kz2ENxjJxFw](https://youtu.be/kz2ENxjJxFw)

~~~
stinky613
But, on the flip side, faster-learning kids need to learn how to
live/work/deal with slower-learning kids and vice versa. The purpose of
schooling goes beyond the accumulation of facts.

~~~
67726e
Nice in theory, doesn't work in practice. At least growing up where I did, a
lot of the "slow" kids weren't slow. They just didn't give a fuck and would
disrupt the class. No one needs to "learn" to deal with that bullshit. I don't
have to deal with disruptive assholes in the real world.

~~~
lol214365
Then separate out the problem kids, not the slow kids.

~~~
cloudwizard
For some, the problem is the class is too slow. The slow classes are CREATING
the problem kids.

------
jawns
Here in the U.S., very few public high schools have single-track education, at
least not for "core" subjects such as English, math, and science. There are
typically remedial, standard, honors, and AP classes for these subjects.

And I would think that if you're OK with multi-track education, it would seem
like having a separate school for gifted students is just an extension of
that.

That said, in my own experience, although there were down sides to having some
single-track subjects (e.g. physical education), one benefit of attending a
school with children of all ability levels was that you were exposed to
children from all walks of life.

I would imagine that a school for gifted students would have skewed
socioeconomic demographics compared to a school for students of all ability
levels, and in many places, that might also mean less racial diversity.

At my public high school, we had a program where students at standard-level or
above would assist special-education students. That type of opportunity would
probably be missing from a school for only gifted students. You would be less
likely to come into contact with (and befriend) people with intellectual
disabilities, or even people with average intelligence.

Edit: One other point. Academic giftedness is often thought of as one
monolithic thing, but I know several people whose giftedness varies wildly by
subject. If you attend a school for gifted students, would there be an
expectation that you would be gifted in all subject areas? Would it be more
difficult for you to get help in the subjects where you struggle?

~~~
rayiner
> Here in the U.S., very few public high schools have single-track education,
> at least not for "core" subjects such as English, math, and science. There
> are typically remedial, standard, honors, and AP classes for these subjects.

It's not just curriculum, though. The whole structure of the school is usually
oriented toward "managing the lowest common denominator." Grade schools have
more in common with prisons than they do with any other societal institution.

Imagine a school with a few fixed lectures during the day, self-directed study
time built in, and the ability to take a break or get a snack at the student's
convenience. That's basically college for most people, but a lot of kids are
mature enough to handle something like that at a much younger age.

~~~
emidln
My high school was mostly like this. "Block-8" scheduling was utilized, which
resulted in four, roughly ninety minute classes per day, with our days
alternating between an "A" and a "B". This provided for 8 classes per
semester. Classes were typically broken up into 30-45 minutes of lecture and
the remaining time for group work or individual study.

------
mathattack
My 2 cents as a parent... The "Don't let any kids fall behind" is an extremely
laudable goal. Educating everyone, and aiming for a high standard for people
of all abilities and socio-economic backgrounds is extremely vital. We may not
be achieving that goal well, but it a very worthy one, and will do more than
almost anything else to reduce income inequality.

The danger is that having this focus in school means that kids get neglected
once they pass that threshold. When a school is graded by "% of kids who are
at-level" there is no incentive for the best ones. In my opinion this is why
these kids need to be pulled into separate schools where the ambitions are
higher than the minimum threshold.

I see it with kids who are several grades ahead in math and reading, and their
only options are skipping grades (and being socially awkward) or being bored
out of their mind in class.

This isn't permanent tracking, but it's giving the option to excel for those
who are ready and willing.

~~~
run4yourlives2
Devil's advocate here:

>The danger is that having this focus in school means that kids get neglected
once they pass that threshold.

Is this a bad thing? Does it even qualify as neglect?

If a child is so far ahead of his peers, what benefit is it to have them
increase that gap? At some point, they will need to interact with the group
they left behind, how does that become an easier task when the distance is
even greater?

I find it hard to believe that a gifted child is so spectacular that she is
miles ahead of her peers in _every_ possible area. It's certainly true that
they can be ahead in the small subset of skills we consider 'essential' in
school, but there are likely other areas where they are not. There's a reason
depression is correlated in a curious way with increased intelligence.

It's certainly true that they could benefit from classes with older kids; but
then, the issue is really the age based segregation of school, isn't it?. It
seems like the entire "gifted" idea would vanish in a sense if we removed the
erroneous idea that intelligence is correlated with age, at least in how it
informs the idea of "grades" being "all kids born in x year".

~~~
mathattack
There are schools that decouple learning from age (example: Khan Academy Lab
School) but I haven't seen many public ones that pull it off.

Kids learn at uneven paces, so there is no perfect formula for how to split
schools, but an imperfect split is still more efficient than boring the best.

In New York City they have a lot of G and T programs, but there it is more
about lazybtrachers letting the kids teach themselves. At least it's a
stronger peer group.

------
mholmes680
>>students who are gifted have specific learning needs that require:

>> tailored learning strategies

>> education supported by a challenging curriculum

>> teachers trained in gifted education

>> more exposure to students of similar ability

>> opportunities for acceleration

I find this interesting, coming from the "gifted" track in HS and being
married to a special education teacher at a public school. The same list
applies to both groups, and i don't see why it wouldn't apply just to all
students.

How could any of these be more important for some students and not others?
They can't be. Its just that public schools don't have the ability to deal
with a class of students 25 large and deal with 25 different ways of teaching.
Technology and public school funding hasn't caught up here... huge gap. So,
we've dreamed up schools where we group kids to deal with the shortcoming.
We're not helping students here, we're helping ourselves ignore real
solutions.

~~~
CaptSpify
I would have loved to have gone to a class with only 25 students. Mine usually
had ~32. I think this is the real issue: To effectively help any student,
gifted, slow or average, they all need more focused attention and curriculum.

------
germinalphrase
Alternatively, why not just allow advanced students to graduate and start
college/career early, if they so desire. I know this happens in exceptional
cases, but why force a kid to just load up with AP classes (which may - but
probably do not - match college level rigor) rather than simply taking college
courses? If they're past what high school can offer then let them finish and
leave. We keep far too many students in high school longer than they want/need
to be. Most - in my experience - just start to coast at that point.

A separate school for "advanced" students doesn't outright bother me; however,
I think defining "advanced" is more challenging than most would initially
consider. There are many reasons that a student may be ahead/behind at any
point in their education.

~~~
got2surf
College courses are a great option too (my school district allowed "dual
enrollment" where you could take anywhere from one to all of your classes at
one of the local community or state colleges). There are definitely some cases
where the AP equivalent is "harder", better taught, or better suited to high-
school age students, though.

I agree that defining "advanced" is very challenging, and goes beyond just the
academic as well. There's also something to be said for being academically
engaged with people similar to you (ie - some (most?) high school kids may
learn more from peers in a self-selected AP Calculus class than they would
from a Calc 1 class at the local college taken by kids looking to fill a
requirement).

~~~
aaronchall
I remember my decision making process:

It seemed to me that if I took the dual/early enrollment college course that I
would definitely get the credit, whereas the AP course would actually require
far more repetitive homework, lots more class time (which I didn't want to
do), and only then would I have a chance to qualify for college credit.

That's a no-brainer, in my book, but so many of my peers refused to follow my
lead to the University when I tried to persuade them.

In spite of lots of sales training, I've never been a good salesman.

~~~
bluGill
I remember mine - I knew university was possible, but I had no idea how to get
into the program. Latter it was explained to me that the school had to may for
my classes so they would do everything they could to discourage students from
taking that track without being obvious about it. They didn't allow any
information to be in school, the guidance consular never mentioned it (not
that I saw them).

By contrast AP was just a choice I could sign up for when choosing classes.

~~~
aaronchall
Exactly, they (the guidance counselors) did everything they could to persuade
me not to do what was clearly, to me, in my best interests.

I do not have good feelings towards those people still to this day.

Of course, now I realize why when I asked him why he would discourage me, he
repeated my question loudly for the rest of the guidance department to hear -
he was covering his butt on the matter.

------
tabeth
I'm shocked, yet paradoxically unsurprised that so many of the comments here
are saying "yes" to the question.

In practice, separating gifted students does two things:

1\. Accelerates income inequality (there's no way the gifted students on
average will do poorer than the 'regular' students)

2\. Remove equality of opportunity.

What exactly is a gifted school going to do that would help gifted students
and not regular students?

\- Small classes? Help regular students to extent.

\- Better curriculum? Hey! Helps regular students.

\- More practical education? Also helps regular students

\---

I'm not against segregation in theory. However, in practice there's very
little evidence that the gifted schools would NOT benefit regular students. If
you believe that gifted students should receive more education than regular
students, then that's an entirely separate discussion.

If you have evidence, I'd love to see it (I'm very interested in education, in
particular).

~~~
automorphism
1\. Gifted children come from the rich and poor and from all ethnicities. The
way to reduce income inequality is to take the brightest students from across
these diverse groups and help them achieve their potential.

2\. The alternative is equality of outcome, i.e. cut down the tall poppies.
This isn't a solution. Keeping gifted children lockstep with their age-mates
does them serious damage that can last a lifetime.

Regular students cannot benefit from compacting the K-5 curriculum into two or
three years, whereas the gifted can. The reality is that these kids need to be
surrounded by their ability peers if they are going to reach their potential.

For evidence, check out the work of Miraca Gross, who did her work in
Australia. She has a book called Exceptionally Gifted Children, where she
details the lives of several of these kids and shows how devastating the
school system can be to them if extra accommodations are not made.

~~~
tabeth
1\. Children come from the rich and poor and from all ethnicities. The way to
reduce income inequality is to take students from across these diverse groups
and help them achieve their potential.

2\. False dichotomy.

I've read the book you're referring to. It doesn't make any of the claims
you're making, in particular:

> Regular students cannot benefit from compacting the K-5 curriculum.

If I'm wrong (and I may, it's been a while), feel free to reply with a quote
and a page number. I have the book.

In any case, the "compacting" of the K-5 curriculum is just a hack. The real
solution is to get rid of such constraints to begin with. That way, students
who are "gifted" will naturally just go to the next level.

The reality is this: schools for "gifted" children just tend to be better
schools. The same better schools that would lead to better outcomes, for
everyone. Mind you, this isn't the same as putting, for example "special-ed"
students in separate classrooms.

Case and point:

> The major finding of this study is that third and fourth grade classroom
> teachers make only minor modifications in the regular curriculum to meet the
> needs of gifted students. This result holds for all types of schools
> sampled. It also holds for classrooms in different parts of the country and
> for different types of communities. Implications of these findings for
> researchers and gifted education specialists are discussed. [1]

[1]
[http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0162353293016002...](http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/016235329301600203)

~~~
automorphism
Ok, I better understand the point you're making. You're not arguing against
special treatment for the gifted; you're saying that, in practice, we should
raise the standards of regular students to what is normally provided to the
gifted, since the gifted have better education provided to them. Then we'll
see improvements across the board. Sure.

My point about regular students not being able to benefit from a compacted K-5
curriculum in two or three years comes from the fact that gifted student can
move through academic material faster than a regular student. A regular
student may be able to move faster than is currently being done, but not as
fast as a gifted student.

> In any case, the "compacting" of the K-5 curriculum is just a hack. The real
> solution is to get rid of such constraints to begin with. That way, students
> who are "gifted" will naturally just go to the next level.

So ability grouping as opposed to age grouping? Yes, I agree it would help a
lot, though as I'm sure you know, the gifted prefer to be around themselves
rather than older regular children. Gross' book shows a trend that the more
satisfied the kids are with their education, the better they do in life, which
is why a separate school makes sense to me. The gifted population is small
enough and funding is small enough that I think it will make a much greater
positive impact on gifted students than a negative impact on regular students.

------
iplaw
Yes. Without a single doubt.

I attended the long-running #1 public school in the nation. The School for the
Talented and Gifted Magnet High School in Dallas, TX. The environment fostered
creativity and learning. There were no distractions or negative pressures or
stressors. Being smart didn't result in being bullied, it resulted in being
respected.

~~~
shawabawa3
I think there's no doubt that it's a good thing for the students that go to
these schools.

The question is whether it's good for society as other schools may suffer

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

~~~
lol214365
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 function
across generations.

Is it ideal to have a cognitively and economically stratified america with a
cognitive elite and cognitive under-class?

Is it ideal that this cognitive elite has little to no interaction with the
rest of America, and little understanding of how the rest of the country
lives?

~~~
cloudwizard
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.

------
hawkice
I can't imagine any policymaker would be reading this thread, but if so: YES,
PLEASE, DEAR GOD YES.

When I was in normal schools (public and private) I stood out. I don't mean, I
was precocious and didn't everyone notice how clever I was. I mean, I was
bullied. By everyone. Including my teachers. My life was hell, every day
getting worse. I was physically sick just thinking about going to school every
morning.

Until I was in a Gifted and Talented program in 5th grade. The material wasn't
challenging (this is NOT about getting challenging material), but I had a
teacher that understood me and peers who didn't hate me.

Giving children a space where they're not constantly tortured is a good
policy. As a now-productive member of society, there is no amount of my
current success I would not ransom so that children now don't have to go
through what I did. It's not something a civilized society should allow.

------
URSpider94
People are disregarding three points:

1\. gifted education is a difference in kind, not degree. Gifted kids need
different things from their teachers to succeed, not just "more." I don't see
anyone asking to devote significantly more resources to gifted students, what
they are asking for is to educate them in ways that give them the best chance
of success.

2\. It's a fallacy to think that giftedness means that students will just do
fine in regular courses, and may be just a little bored. Many gifted children
(and some of them have posted to this list) will fail completely in a regular
class setting, because they are unable to engage with the material or their
peers. A significant number of gifted kids end up dropping out or under-
achieving because they aren't being served.

3\. Gifted kids are often born to gifted parents, but that does not mean rich
or successful parents. There are a huge number of gifted kids in minority
communities who are living in poverty.

Want to learn more? Documentary filmmaker Marc Smolowitz is working on a
feature-length film on giftedness. [http://documentaries.org/cid-films/the-g-
word/](http://documentaries.org/cid-films/the-g-word/)

------
SlySherZ
No, let me explain why:

\- Being "gifted" isn't a black and white trait, it's much more diverse;

\- Different people are gifted in different topics. I've always learned maths
faster than my peers, but they all dance better than I do;

\- How do you even decide who is gifted and who isn't? Just give everyone the
same oportunities;

But I do believe that school should be tailored to fit the student. What I
propose is to allow the student to progress at his own pace:

\- Classes should be open for every student that has passed all the
prerequisites to join;

\- The student can choose when he he's ready to take the test about the topics
he already learned;

\- Some teachers should keep track of the progress of the students;

\- There should be always teachers with free time ready to help students who
request it;

EDIT: Fixed broken formatting.

------
seattle_spring
This is anecdotal, but in 10th grade I transferred to a charter school with no
separate classes. The "gifted" students were in the same school as the
students who needed extra attention.

The end result was just that-- all of the attention was given to the students
who needed it. The cirriculum was dumbed down, and the "gifted" students
didn't learn almost anything.

It was better for the students who needed help, and much worse for the
students that didn't.

I view the end result akin to eliminating salary negotiations to help those
who are too afraid to negotiate.

~~~
ygaf
Going by other comments, it seems "equality of life" and fears for the future
are more important than bright kids' wellbeing.

------
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.

------
rustmemcpy
How I wish I had gone to a separate school!

I was in what you could define as the "gifted program" throughout middle and
high school.

Even though I ostensibly received a more advanced and tailored education, I
still shared classes with students much less engaged than I. I was always at
the top of my classes and was never truly challenged. I also never had the
opportunity to participate in any kind of maths or informatics competitions.

Having never been exposed to excellence, I chose to go to the much cheaper
state school (their education will be just as good, the counselors
claimed...).

There too I excelled in my classes with minimal effort, took multiple graduate
level courses, and received glowing recommendation letters from my professors.

By the time I entered my PhD in a tier 1 university, I was so woefully
unprepared -- both academically and emotionally -- that my eventual dropping
out was a foregone conclusion.

I spiraled into a deep depression and wasted a couple years of my life playing
video games and living with my parents. I ideated suicide almost daily and
willfully put my life in danger (standing at the edge atop tall buildings,
driving very fast, imbibing liquor until I blacked out).

Now, a decade later, I've mostly come to terms with my mediocrity, but perhaps
I could've risen a bit from it had my intellect been properly fostered. But
more to the point, had I been exposed to other smart kids and participated in
competitions earlier on, my ego could've been slowly molded over my youth,
rather than shattered in a few months.

------
stoic
I don't know about anyone else (a problematic side effect), but I went to a
science-focused public magnet school instead of my neighborhood high school
and it made a world of difference in my life, both in terms of instruction and
social experience.

Maybe this deprives the kids in the neighborhood school of some diversity near
the top end of achievement, but maybe they shouldn't have been dicks to us in
middle school if they wanted us to stick around.

------
shanemhansen
Honestly I think that school is state sponsored babysitting. Once you
understand that, the rhetoric teachers are often spouting about "misbehavior"
"defiance" and "insubordination" all makes sense. At school a child's job is
to not make a stir.

I also think free public school is critical to having an educated productive
populace.

There's an apparent disconnect between my first opinion and the second. That
disconnect is, and I know this will sound trite, questioning authority and
facts. It's a critically important practice that schools actively discourage.

------
trumpeta
I think we have the technology to challenge the smart kids in a mixed
classroom. The dumber kids will act as a sort of social regularizer and the
smart ones will be allowed to progress at a faster pace. I think classes
should be "stationary" and individual students will move through them at their
own pace, challenging for the good ones and slow for the slower ones. No kid
should leave the class until they have mastered the subject. They could also
move at different paces through different subjects.

I believe the current system's limitations stem from the teacher's capacity to
attend to at most 30 students at a time, this may have been the case when
everything was whiteboard. But now you have iPads and interactive websites and
so on.

------
jmduke
I know this article is Australia-centric, but most US schools, to my
knowledge, have multi-track educational programs (gifted students can take
more advanced courses, take Honors/IB/AP, etc. etc.) which have separate
curricula and teachers. In this respect, they're already in a separate
program: having them go to a separate school entirely just hurts socialization
between groups of students, which is more important for a child's development.

Overall, this seems like an unhelpful place to invest compared to more
fundamental educational issues (and, pragmatically, I can see many areas where
this goes awry, ie many aptitude tests for kids being biased for socioeconomic
reaosns).

~~~
ng12
The problem in the US is that the AP kids get shafted because so much of the
budget is spent on running a glorified daycare for the kids who really don't
want to be there.

~~~
bigtunacan
A lot of kids today think that laziness and a "fuck all" attitude is totally
ok. They don't think education is important and frankly don't realize the
potential consequences this may have on them in later life.

When I was a kid, I had to slop pigs, and shovel the shit out of the pen. My
dad would say to me as we were shoveling pig shit or doing some other awful
work, "This is why you get good grades. Some day you are going to college so
you don't end up like your old man."

I had issues with my oldest kid taking a bad attitude at school and not caring
about her education. I thought back to my childhood, then I took my daughter
out and gave her a shovel. When she asked what she was supposed to do with it,
I told her, "You are going to dig so you can practice up on how to be good at
digging ditches, since that is the type of work you will be qualified for if
you don't get a good education."

I got a call from her teacher a few weeks later telling me how they couldn't
believe the complete 180 she had made at school and that she had never seen
anything like it. She wanted to know what I had done. When I told her the
teacher was amazed at what a harsh yet unique "punishment" it was, but said
that "maybe more kids should be made to dig ditches".

~~~
tabeth
I love this story. Thanks for sharing. I'm curious though, did you try this
with your other kid? The one who's presumably not having any problems? I'm
curious if your method would further strengthen their resolve.

~~~
bigtunacan
While I haven't tried that particular thing on the other two kids I have used
equally unique/creative "punishments" on all of the children.

I set strong boundaries and consistent enforcement for all of them. For minor
infractions, my go to punishment is to make them do a plank while we "discuss"
what they did wrong. If you have ever done planks you know the agony of
holding a plank for long enough. The great thing about this as a disciplinary
technique is that it is good for them physically; they are building core
muscles so the older the kids is the longer they can hold the plank.

For serious offenses, I always like to come up with something more unique and
memorable so it really sinks in.

~~~
balfirevic
What a great way to make them hate physical exercise for the rest of their
lives. Also, agony and humiliation ("discussing") is apparently only for minor
infractions - major ones need something more!

~~~
bigtunacan
Contrary to your judgements, they have all grown a healthy love and
competitive spirit regarding athletics. My 7 year old has six pack abs which
she loves showing off and she was swimming before her 5th birthday. Her and my
son are both enthusiastic gymnastics. My son also races BMX, which is a
draining year round sport. Meanwhile my oldest competes in swimming,
volleyball, dance, and as of late has been begging me to let her join a mixed
martial art.

------
justin_vanw
Yea probably. There's no reason to hold them back or subject them to peer
abuse, or condition them to hide their gift.

Very gifted students will start knowing more about what they are studying than
the teacher between 3rd and 5th grades. They will be completely bored
throughout high school if held back to the speed of even above average
students. This teaches them that they can coast.

It's a huge disservice to our society that our smartest kids are hobbled and
quite often exposed to abuse from peers, leading them to be isolated and
preventing them from learning appropriate social skills. Certainly this isn't
always what happens, but it very often is exactly what happens.

------
wyldfire
> When these students are academically isolated in a non-selective school,
> they can “dumb down” and underachieve to improve social acceptance

I have heard of lots of anecdotes of this occurring. I can believe it takes
place. IMO this reason is exceptional and should get special attention.

The article is fairly Aussie-specific. In the US we have an education system
which has a lot of opportunity for improvement. But the metrics focus on
either the median student performance against milestones/proficiency or the
median student progress. As long as this is the way they're measured, the
outliers will not get special attention. As a result, parents should be
prepared to spend time and money educating their gifted children above and
beyond the school curriculum.

------
fsloth
Yes. Anyone who in primary school did their entire math book on one sitting
for the fun of it and got admonished for it - "what on earth I'm going to do
with you now in math, that was the entire material" probably agrees with me.

Or my wife, who knew her egyptian history inside out and got laughed at
because "she could not name Cleopatra as a female pharaoh". (Cleopatra was
greek aristocrat, not a pharaoh)

Needless to say my enthusiasm for math really wasn't the same after that. Or
her eagerness for history.

To be totally disconnected from ones peers is a torture no child should be
forced to suffer. To be taught by teachers who aren't actually comfortable
with their discipline.

And this was 30 years ago in Finland, now touted as one of the best examples
in primary education.

~~~
run4yourlives2
Your wife (and you) are wrong. Cleopatra was a Pharaoh.

Yes, she was a Greek decent of Alexander, and the Ptolemaic Dynasty was of his
blood, not Egyptian, but it's founder Ptolemy declared himself Pharaoh, and
therefore she had the title as well.

It's similar as to how Queen Elizabeth is the Queen of Canada, even though she
is English. To say she isn't the Queen of Canada is simply incorrect.

This level of hubris is a perfect example of why mixed education is a good
thing. Nobody is so gifted to be above the human frailty of being wrong.

------
mulmen
To answer the question in two words: absolutely not.

I think this kind of segregation is harmful to the development of all
students, including the gifted students.

Gifted students can help raise up their less gifted classmates. If these
gifted students are to be the next generation of leaders this is an invaluable
skill.

Nobody exists in a vacuum and putting students in an echo chamber during their
formative years seems irresponsible. A diverse viewpoint and understanding of
people different than you is crucial to a healthy society. If we learn early
on that we are better or worse than others because of an arbitrary metric that
will be carried forward for the rest of our lives.

Would those that support segregated schools based on academic performance also
support schools segregated based on athletic performance?

I agree that gifted students have needs and those should be addressed but I
don't think a separate school is the solution. Even AP classes feel like a
problem to me because the most gifted students are not available to help those
that struggle.

Standardized testing hurts all students, not just gifted ones. We need to take
a serious look at how education works in general so we can challenge all
students to achieve their best. I don't think this can be done with echo
chambers that create an increasing gap in academic performance and student
development.

~~~
Kalium
I understand and sympathize. These children are the best and brightest of us.
The future will be build by, of, and for them. We cannot have them isolated
from everyone else. That way lies disconnection, alienation, resentment, and a
total lack of empathy. Madness!

When I was a gifted student in a classroom of regular students, I learned a
great deal.

What I learned was not how to help raise up my classmates. What I learned was
that my classmates were petty and cruel people who got their jollies bringing
me pain. Combine this with material that was far below me and rarely able to
hold my attention and the result was a thoroughly miserable experience for a
number of years.

I got a diverse viewpoint and understanding of people different from me. I
came to learn something else, too - I despised them.

Gifted students are _students_. Please don't treat them as unpaid assistant
teachers. They need to be cared for, kept safe, challenged, and taught. The
same as every single other student.

~~~
mulmen
I don't mean to imply that gifted students should be used as teacher aids but
I think they have a different role to play in helping their fellow students.
The teacher's job is still to teach but having peers to turn to is a valuable
resource and skill that everyone should learn. By removing the best resource
for that cooperation we do everyone a disservice.

~~~
Kalium
I agree! Having peers to turn to for assistance is immensely valuable in any
learning process. It's most valuable when both people involved have something
to offer one another, allowing them to engage as equals.

It's perhaps less than ideal to restrict gifted students to the level of their
less gifted peers in the interests of said peers having resources to turn to
for aid in learning. They are often unable to engage as equals.

Have you considered that this has distinct disadvantages for the gifted, who
are then unable to pursue their full potentials so that they can learn to
raise up their less gifted peers? This might not be a joyous experience for
all concerned.

~~~
mulmen
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.

~~~
Kalium
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
everyone involved. The proposal neglects the needs of the gifted by refusing
to offer them instruction and material at a level that challenges them and
instead attempts to coerce them into being teaching assistants. The proposal
neglects the needs of the less gifted by relying on them learning from their
more gifted peers instead of offering sufficient instructional infrastructure.
The proposal neglects the needs of society by failing to meet the needs of
_any_ of the students involved in an attempt to use one group of students to
meet the needs of another.

What is proposed is not novel or new. I _lived_ this proposal. It is not one
that adequately serves the needs of any person involved.

Segregation may not be the answer, though it's a good way to describe what
happens in tertiary education. What we have now - and what you propose - we
know with certainty is not the answer.

After all, it's the same system that we all agree is failing for everyone
involved.

~~~
mulmen
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.

~~~
Kalium
> Gifted students can help raise up their less gifted classmates. If these
> gifted students are to be the next generation of leaders this is an
> invaluable skill.

And

> I agree that gifted students have needs and those should be addressed but I
> don't think a separate school is the solution. Even AP classes feel like a
> problem to me because the most gifted students are not available to help
> those that struggle.

Please, tell me if I'm mistaken. It sounds to me that you want to place gifted
and less gifted students together, with the goal being to encourage and
advance peer instruction of the less gifted by their gifted peers.

~~~
mulmen
Yes I think it is important that students are exposed to differing viewpoints
and levels of achievement on a regular basis. I also believe all students
should be challenged up to their potential.

Removing the opportunity for the gifted students to learn how to cooperate
with their less gifted peers does everyone a disservice, especially when as
the future leaders those gifted students will have to know how to work with
(and elevate) everyone, regardless of academic achievement. With this in mind
segregated schools do a disservice to everyone involved.

I am not advocating a system where everyone is stuck in an introductory level
class forever but I also don't think the opposite extreme is the solution.

It could take the form of encouraging gifted students to become tutors or
changing curriculum requirements so that gifted students can progress ahead of
their peers but without leaving the same classroom.

I don't have the answers but I don't think segregation is the solution.

~~~
Kalium
> Yes I think it is important that students are exposed to differing
> viewpoints and levels of achievement on a regular basis. I also believe all
> students should be challenged up to their potential.

Here we have the core of it. These two goals are in conflict. This is because
the time in which to advance both of them is limited. The same is true of the
resources to advance both of them.

You're not advocating a system in which everyone is stuck in an introductory
class forever. You're instead describing a system in which gifted students
cannot be challenged to their full capacity because they need to be on hand to
help raise up their less gifted peers in order to become better leaders.

Trying to teach students of all abilities from the same material in the same
classroom at the same time comes with... difficulties.

* The inconsistency in level and material is a significant source of work for the teacher.

* Instructional time is limited, with the side-effect being that all students get less time than they would benefit from as the teacher spends time on the diverse and distinct requirements in their classrooms.

* Encouraging gifted students to progress ahead of their less gifted peers inevitably means they are not ideally placed to aid in elevating their less gifted peers. Incidentally, this model is usually called benign neglect. The gap will tend to grow as time passes, until a gifted student is doing calculus at an age where their less gifted peers are starting to learn algebra.

* Asking gifted students to spend time elevating and raising up their less gifted peers takes away from time they might prefer to use advancing their own studies.

Thank you for coming out and saying you think gifted students should become
tutors. I suspect you've been playing with that idea internally for this whole
discussion.

Have you perhaps considered that not having the answers may mean just that?
It's perhaps possible that known approaches could not be rejected out-of-hand,
especially when one has no answers to offer. Consider, if you will, that most
institutions of higher learning essentially function through de facto
segregation.

------
RichardHeart
Yes. The smart kids don't help the dumb kids much. The dumb kids more often
harm the smart ones though. Sometimes through malice, sometimes just through
criminal habits and had behaviors that rub off. Companies and governments
don't have a quota of stupid people they have to bring on board, why should
schools?

The best education I ever received was in 6th grade.
[https://megsss.org/elements-curriculum](https://megsss.org/elements-
curriculum) it got progressively worse every year after that program ended.

It is better to increase the effectiveness of your best at the cost of your
not best. The best invent/do/produce/control more over their lifetimes.
They're also easier to make more effective because they already have a better
base to amplify.

If you try to amplify your non best at the cost of your best, you'll find that
its very hard to drag them kicking into utility. Most countries / businesses /
families are great because of the outliers of greatness in them.

Rising the oceans ever so slightly by cutting down the piers, is a bad deal.

------
opensandwich
I come from the state of NSW (in Australia), the state with this program, and
was also one of the students from selective schools. It is important to note
that in Sydney, Australia: it isn't only the public school system which have
selective schools, but there exists private schools where academic exams are
required to gain entrance (see Sydney Grammar School).

There are a lot of [selective schools; not just one or two, but
46]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_selective_high_schools...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_selective_high_schools_in_New_South_Wales))!

You can see in the implementation that some are full selective, and others are
partially selective.

Furthermore in primary school there are also [opportunity
class]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_class](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_class))
which is also for gifted students. All of these schools are partially
selective with around half the spots of high school.

My observation from these schools are that the _location_ of these schools
don't matter much. Students will travel from the other side of Sydney to
attend any of these schools! For example, there would be a lot of students
from the south-west Sydney attending school in North Sydney.

However, segregation based on academic abilities do yield some...results which
I have also read about in the US:

* Areas of top selective schools and top OC schools will generally yield higher asian population. * Schools will tend to have a higher asian population

Also (unsurprisingly) these schools have dominated university entrance exams,
with the median mark of the top school (James Ruse Agricultural School)
typically well within the top 1% of all exam-takers within the state.

~~~
solresol
More worryingly, only one of the Sydney selective schools actually is vaguely
representative of the Sydney population. James Ruse, for example has far less
students from low-income families than Cumberland High does, which is on the
other side of the street.

In practice, the selective school places are awarded to the children of
parents who are willing to send their kids to coaching college throughout
years 4 and 5. Hence the higher asian population. Actually having a high IQ
(my two children were tested by a leading psychologist above 99.8% and 99.9%
of the population for example) doesn't get you there.

And slightly worse -- if you are smart and are accelerated, then you hit high
school below the age range for which you can sit the selective test.

The result is that schools such as James Ruse underperform: when the
candidature were all in the top 1-2% at year 7, there are plenty of year 12
students who don't get even in the top 5%.

But in principle it works out very well. The teachers can run classes at a
rate more appropriate for the students, bullying is less prevalent, etc. So
it's definitely worth doing (for the students) if the entrance criteria are
half-way sane.

The effect it has on the students who don't get into selective school though
is a bit sad. It's also depressing for the teachers at comprehensive schools
who may be working just as hard as those at the selective schools, but won't
get rewarded from having highly successful students.

------
dboreham
I think much of the time what we have is "gifted parents".

Some thoughts:

Can school administrators reliably identify "gifted" students? Gifted in one
subject? Averagely gifted?

Should we remove the better able students from regular school, leaving the
average ability much lower?

If there aren't very high quality teachers available to teach "gifted"
students, then what's the point? Conversely, if we had more very high quality
teachers, wouldn't that go a long way toward fixing our education problems
anyway?

Affluent and/or highly educated parents can easily skew the finding that their
child is gifted.

Source: I went to a highly selective, private school outside the US (the
inspiration for Hogwarts, fwiw). My kids go to public school in the US - one
has been identified by the school as gifted (but doesn't want to participate
in the gifted program), the other has not. Our school district receives
something like 0.5% of the funding they get for special needs students, for
their gifted program.

I have also taught coding in middle school. In my time in the class room I saw
several students who came from higher income/higher educated households that
performed well. I saw a big middle group who did ok. I saw several students
who didn't care to do any work. I saw one student from a lower income
demographic who showed uncommon promise in the subject. Given that evidence
what am I to do with a gifted student budget assuming I have one? All I could
do at the time was to approach the parent of that one student and give my
feedback, ask that they consider encouraging his talents. I have no idea what
happened after that. The other thing I could do is help the smart motivated
kids from affluent families achieve even better results than their peers than
they were already able to. I'm really not sure that would be a good use of my
time and money..

------
mrcactu5
there are lots of people who have a knack for things that don't fall into the
traditional Stanford-Binet definition of "gifted". Nor does it account for a
person who matures in their teens or 20s or beyond.

I am also somewhat nervous of bias in the definition of "gifted", which may
have things build into it which are correlated with race or culture. Put
simply, there are really bright people that the system never catches, at any
stage.

------
ctdonath
Vouchers should be available for all parents to send their children to
_whatever_ accredited school they deem appropriate for their child's needs.

~~~
michael_h
Suddenly, the school for gifted kids is inundated with new students.

~~~
ctdonath
If parents perceive the public school is not providing suitable services, and
the private school is, then the public school finds reason to correct the
deficiency - competition works.

And if the private school can't handle the inundation, then there's incentive
to either expand capacity and/or another school adapt/open to share the load.

------
logfromblammo
The question itself falls apart when you remove the requirement that all
schools follow a rigid curriculum based on grade levels modeled upon a
particular age cohort.

If you accept that a 9-year-old student can learn productively in the same
room as an 11-year-old student, you no longer need to consider setting aside a
separate room for all the 9-year-olds with ability equal to the median
11-year-old. You just put the smart kids into the more advanced classes.

Just let the fast kids read ahead on their own. If they can get far enough
ahead of the instructor, they can skip a semester, and either start the next
class in the sequence early, or cram an elective class into the gap. There's
no need to ship them off to another building.

------
codingdave
Should they get tailored education? Certainly. Does that mean different
schools? I'm not qualified to say, probably. I know I've seen programs
recently where gifted students ended up mentoring their peers, thereby
learning the material even better, and all students are lifted to a higher
level. That seems like a pretty cool solution to me. But I'm not a
professional educator, so I don't know what all the possible solutions are.
But I do think that holding up just one possible answer for just one group of
students and asking a yes/no question of whether that answer is correct is
probably not looking at a big enough picture for all children.

------
run4yourlives2
> students who are gifted have specific learning needs that require: tailored
> learning strategies, education supported by a challenging curriculum,
> teachers trained in gifted education, more exposure to students of similar
> ability, opportunities for acceleration

So, gifted students are like every other student and excel with educational
approaches tailored to their style of learning. Okay. You could say this exact
same thing about kids with ADD, kids with Autism, boys, girls, kids with brown
hair, etc, etc.

The arguments for this type of segregation and any other type of segregation
are exactly the same. Do boys excel when removed from girls? Some of them do,
others to a negligible degree.

The issue is that the government isn't trying to educate "your kid", it's
trying to educate "every kid". Why? Because having a baseline education in
your society - particularly in a democracy - is a very beneficial thing, for
far too many reasons to get into here.

So the purpose of public schooling is not to bring you up to your full
potential, it's to provide you with a base level starting point. Equality not
of outcome, but of opportunity in life.

There is a fine balance between the good of the individual and the good of the
overall society. The latter often supporting the former. It does us no good to
further isolate ourselves from each other in ways that simply aren't
compatible with maintaining a sustainable and just society overall. Western
democracy has historically been able to walk the line between self-
determination and individual freedom and collective control and deference to
the state, but I fear we're starting to see shifts away from the centre into
more extremes. Clamoring for segregation is just another form of destructive
identity politics at the end of the day.

All that being said, I'll have to just come out and say that of course
individual kids will be better off in tailored environments than they would be
in the general populace. That isn't the question. The question really should
be, are they better off growing up in an environment so removed from the
reality of the world they are going to help run in the future? I'm not so
sure.

------
nmca
Having been to a bunch of different schools, selective, not, public and
private, I honestly think the solution to this will be primarily
technological. Allowing kids to learn at their own pace with a solid kick
towards an interactive textbook of some kind seems like a much better solution
than segregation. Let teachers stick to what they're good at (supporting kids)
and keep them away from the stuff they suck at (maths). And yeah, this will be
biased towards the more self-motivated. But that seems fairer than a one-off
arbitrary test determining a huge proportion of your future.

------
randomgyatwork
As a child, I had a learning disability, my school's principal told my parents
that I'd never do anything with my life. My parents disagree and so did I,
they found a private school that specialized in teaching students like me. The
school did some intellectual tests to make sure I could learn, and learn I
did.

They spent tens of thousands of dollars so that I could be taught, in that
environment I excelled.

I don't trust the government to be a good judge of students abilities, because
someone like me would be labelled dumb and be left behind forever.

~~~
erroneousfunk
So you're in favor of separate schools for kids with differing abilities and
needs (like you had), but better testing and assessment to determine those
abilities and needs? It sounds like you agree with the article.

~~~
randomgyatwork
Naw, I specifically said I don't trust the government.

Parents should be able to choose the kind of school their child goes to...
Though, this is unfair to kids with bad parents. That said, people who will
(knowingly) be bad parents, shouldn't have kids in the first place.

~~~
erroneousfunk
The basic premise of the article is simply that gifted children do better when
separated. It doesn't necessarily advocate for "the government" doing the
separation, only that a separation should occur. "Who does the choosing" is a
separate debate...

------
caw
It's been a while since I took German in high school, but I remember there
being a distinction between Hauptschule, Realschule, and Gymnasium. The
opportunities offered to students of each school were different (vocational or
University), and you had a test to determine which one you went to.

That sounds similar to the proposal in the article. Is there any data from
this system that would support the premise of a separate gifted school being a
better way of teaching advanced students?

------
saluki
I don't think a separate school is a good thing.

I was in the gifted program in grade school and junior high, it was an awesome
experience. (US Midwest)

Three points.

1\. Not all kids are gifted in all areas so usually we were in a mix of gifted
and non-gifted classes.

2\. It's important to interact with all levels/types of kids and there are
experiences at school outside of classes.

3\. It makes it feel more special that you get to go to certain classes/do
special things and events that not everyone is in.

Keep it as a program inside the school.

------
bootload
_" Despite two Senate inquiries in 1988 and 2001, it has taken 15 years and a
state parliamentary review for the Victorian government to decide to build a
specialist high school for students who are gifted, specifically targeting
those from rural and regional Victoria."_

Victorian here. Back when I was in HS is semi-rural setting, the school ran an
interesting experiment for students for most of the time I was there. The
curriculum was designed in 6m semesters with students allowed to move up years
in subjects they excelled in. It was labelled, _" vertical integration"_/
There were advantages and disadvantages. You could for instance move up two
years in study, move from year nine to years eleven maths. I know of one
student who did this. While they handled the subject, they didn't handle the
social dynamics well. This is a problem that could have been solved.

Having to move to another school isn't feasible on a daily basis due to
distances involved. Government schools in my state have been gutted by all
measures, facilities, buildings and specialised teacher training, so maybe the
powers-to-be are centralising smart kids and looking at ways of funding
schools even less?

------
scblock
As a gifted student who took gifted and accelerated classes from grade school
through high school, including several classes at another school, emphatically
no.

------
Zigurd
My daughter transferred out of a great school in our home community to go to a
math and science oriented selective school. She was bored and her grades
slipped. In the school she transferred to, she got her ass kicked for two
years and learned to be self-sufficient and learned she would not always be
the smartest person in the building. Now she's a CMU SCS alum. I don't know if
she could have made it through SCS without that preparation.

My son, on the other hand, thrived in our town's public school. He would have
resented going to the school my daughter went through. He would have seen it
as unnecessary, even punitive. He is at a very large university and is
thriving there, too.

Different kids have different kinds of intelligence and maturity levels at
different ages. Some never "fit in" and some kids are the kids everyone likes
and have the high school social thing totally under control while pulling
straight As.

If you undermine public schools by segregating the smart kids, my son would
not have had time to play football, lacrosse, and baseball and teach skiing as
his after school job. He would have felt getting good grades was a curse.

------
WhoBeI
Right, but aren't the groupings supposed to be called Erudite, Abnegation,
Amity, Dauntless and other silly names like that. Intellectual, social,
creative and physical sound so bland. :)

Seriously though: I'm not against separate classes but dislike the idea of
separate schools. Mostly because of where the best teachers, and budget, will
be and what effect that will have on the less fortunate.

------
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.

------
JDazzle
As a most definitely non-gifted student, I wonder what the impact of removing
gifted students from the school? I've seen gifted students help others succeed
through tutoring or even by providing a role model for others to look up to.

I believe having a gifted student in a regular school benefits the entire
school and may help them in learning other, more social skills.

~~~
lutusp
One problem with mixing gifted with average students is that the gifted start
coasting, not trying, not developing their abilities, because it's too easy to
stay ahead of the rest of the students. Then, when that person gets to
college, he/she is totally unprepared for real intellectual competition.

There are many positive points to mixing the gifted with the average, but
their personal scholarly advancement tends to suffer.

------
KiwiCoder
This article frames the question rhetorically. Of course we should not
disadvantage gifted children by depriving them of tailored learning strategies
etc. Why on earth would we even consider it?

But it's not so easy to define what this means in practice, particularly in
the UK where the debate over selective schooling is bound up with issues
related to class and wealth.

------
searine
Growing up a lot of my friends went to a "gifted and talented" science magnet
school, while I got left behind at a "normal" public school.

Now that we're all adults, I've out achieved all of them in terms of
science/tech aptitude/contribution.

"Gifted and Talented" is a trophy label for suburban parents. That's it.

------
throwanem
Not that it's going to get any traction, but I find myself compelled to ask:
is it possible that the problems with attempting to enable human beings to
make the most of their individual capabilities, by means of an assembly line,
are not best solved by incremental modification of the stations and routing on
that line?

------
cwbrandsma
Should they go to different schools? No.

But corporate learning should be done away with. Any system that involves all
students learning at the same pace just isn't cutting it. There will still be
teachers and subjects, but it is more defined by how fast or slow each
individual student can learn.

Do this, and you wont need different schools.

------
throw2016
This can be simple as long as there is a scientific way to identify gifted
children that is fairly and unequivocally available to all children and as a
society there is clarity and consensus on what to do with both groups.

If there is consensus then there also has to be a way to cross pollinate
between both groups as gifted children are discovered later and those who are
gifted but unable to cope are moved back.

And finally since the fundamental basis for any such exercise is ensuring
gifted children get the attention they need, any plan has to ensure full and
comprehensive support to the unprivileged so children who are gifted but from
unprivileged backgrounds are not denied opportunities to exploit their full
talent because of circumstance.

------
huffmsa
Yes, unless the curriculum is set to meet their level of educational capacity.

Does trickle down education work? Would a middle quartile student benefit more
from trying to keep up with the top quartile than they do for curriculum
geared to them?

Would be an interesting experiment.

------
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

------
james_niro
Ideas word spreading....

Sugragation is never a good thing, besides how you can prove that your kid is
gifted. Moreover, it will open the door to so many more prejudice and biased
toward certain race and ethnicity.

------
cschmidt
The article reminds me a bit of the Maine School for Science and Mathematics
([http://www.mssm.org/](http://www.mssm.org/)). It is a free boarding school
run by the state of Maine to support those kids who don't have a school
district where they can really get into STEM. Tuition is free if you're from
Maine, which is really cool. A great way to support kids in rural areas. It is
usually rated one of the top high schools in the country.

------
vondur
I was fortunate when in first grade to be recognized as "gifted" and the
school district I went to basically put us all in one class that was separate
from the other students. From that point on, we basically had the same
students in our classes until high school. In high school, most of had the
same core classes together, but we'd be in classes with the regular students
for our electives. We all had the same lunchtime and breaks with everyone
else.

------
dkarapetyan
No. There is something one learns by going to public schools and seeing all
his fellow human beings held to the same standards.

I grew up in Armenia in the post soviet union era. The one thing they got
right was the education part. There were no distinctions. We all learned the
same material, gifted or not. Those that lagged got extra attention and help.
When I first got here the segregation of "gifted" vs "non-gifted" always felt
viscerally incorrect to me.

~~~
stale2002
OK, so if you are all learning the same material, what happens when someone
learns all the material months before everyone else?

Do they just sit around and do nothing? Is that really a productive use of
their time?

~~~
dkarapetyan
I guess that would make them some kind of genius in which case they can start
attending university.

I was learning matrix algebra in 4th grade based on the soviet system whereas
everyone here was barely doing 2 + 2 = ? in some worksheet. Surprisingly folks
managed to not be bored. If your standard is what the current system teaches
then it's not hard to improve it and have people not be bored while still not
drawing a distinction between "gifted" and "non-gifted".

~~~
stale2002
No... That does not make you a genius if you are ahead of the class.

Getting a couple months ahead is easy, when everyone else is going slowly.

Sure, if the entire class is going quickly, that is effectively as if everyone
is in the gifted class.

We shouldn't dumb things down to keep up with the lowest common denominator.
Students should be able to work at their own pace, and if they get ahead, them
they should be put ahead.

------
chuckcode
In my experience learning is not a "one size fits all" product product, or
even fits most. I'd really like to see schools have more resources and
expertise to address different kids learning styles and aptitudes as I have
yet to see a single style of teaching that works for all kids. Ideally they
wouldn't have to go to different schools as I think it is good socially to
learn to interact with all different types of people from an early age.

------
novia
I just listened to a This American Life episode this morning that I feel is
tangentially related. I would recommend giving it a listen if you want
something to listen to for the next hour.
[https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/562/...](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/562/the-problem-we-all-live-with)

------
vikascoder
You could look at an actual implementation of such a system in Germany. They
have a three tier structure and divide students on the basis of their
"ability" at a very tender young age of 10 or so ( 4-5th grade).
[http://www.economist.com/node/5465005](http://www.economist.com/node/5465005)

------
Galinha
What do you mean by gifted? QI? Or just kids with better results at the exams?

In Germany, some schools, start to do the separation when kids have only 10
years old. It seems to me too much stress and it's not even effective, bc you
do it having an exam in consideration. School is not everything, look at
Einstein :)

------
Animats
NYC did this in 1938 with the Bronx High School of Science. That school has
produced eight Nobel Prize winners.

------
OJFord
> _Despite two Senate inquiries in 1988 and 2001, it has taken 15 years and a
> state parliamentary review for the Victorian government_

This is an incredibly disorienting sentence for one not familiar with where
_The Conversation_ is based! (Australia, I suppose, having had a few needed
minutes!)

------
akhilcacharya
They do, it's called college.

------
strathmeyer
I scored the highest in my county on a middle school math exam. I got a 4.0GPA
in high school and perfect math SATs. 2 years of calculus and 1 of stats and a
college level CS course before I graduated high school. Played sports,
presidented clubs, eagle scouted. Was rejected from 5 universities so I ended
up going to some loser school nobody had ever heard of called Carnegie Mellon
University and after I graduated with a worthless degree in Computer Science
they told me they didn't have any help for me and it should be easy for me to
find a programming job. I asked for help until they banned me from campus and
prohibited me from speaking to anyone in the "CMU community" or else they
would arrest me and hold me in jail for a few weeks again. So, yes, it
would've been nice if we couldn't gone to a separate school where they
could've explained us our opportunities.

------
gm-conspiracy
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_View_School](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_View_School)

------
lutusp
For political reasons, in the U.S. this idea is a non-starter -- many people
won't accept the idea of paying taxes to support special programs for the
gifted, but are willing to do it for those below average. So in the U.S., the
expression "special needs children" is a euphemism for handicapped, not
gifted, children.

There are noteworthy exceptions, usually in large cities with well-educated
taxpayers, but for the majority of locales, earmarks for the gifted are just
too controversial.

An interesting side effect of this anti-intellectual bias is today sitting in
the White House.

~~~
dpayne
There are many high schools like this in the U.S. that are state funded, both
in very liberal and very conservative states.

------
makecheck
In order to keep students motivated, they should have opportunities to work at
their best pace (i.e. let them work with other “gifted” students on
interesting projects from time to time). On the other hand, learning how to
interact with _everyone_ is important and that _will_ matter when it comes to
functioning in society as an adult. It will also ensure that gifted people
remain aware of and interested in _all_ of society’s problems and not just
whatever is happening in their silo.

~~~
maverick_iceman
I doubt it will matter very much. Smart kids will grow up to be employed in
intellectually stimulating knowledge based work. They will be likely be
surrounded by people with similar intellectual capabilities. I know that
"learning how to interact with everyone" gives people a warm fuzzy feeling but
the lack of it is unlikely to be a serious handicap.

------
mgarfias
Yes.

------
backtoyoujim
Should the un-gifted students be required to build that school ?

------
wibbleywobbley
I don't think it's necessary.

When I was in high school you could elect to take a more or less challenging
course load. I effective did go to a different school than many of my peers
simply by taking different classes.

------
brudgers
I suspect that some gifted kids would benefit from it and others would not and
that whether or not a child should go to a separate school should be
determined on an individual basis.

------
djr96
Where does this leave the twice-exceptional?

------
maverick_iceman
Hell ya. I was utterly bored in most classes at school since most of the stuff
they covered I have done a few years ago. This was true not only of science
and math but humanities subjects like history as well. Not to mention that
many teachers couldn't handle the fact that a student was smarter than them.
In addition, it was very hard to find intellectual peers at an average school.

------
stephancoral
Hell no. The last thing we need is to segregate arbitrarily designated
'gifted' students from the rest of the school population. Not only will that
breed resentment amongst peer groups, it also reduces the amount of important
social interaction that takes place. Some of my best friends and the most
inspiring people to me were so-called 'average' students who I wouldn't have
met if I had gone to some smarty pants academy.

I was considered a gifted student and had the chance to go to some fancy
private schools but I stayed at my public school and you know what, I
absolutely loved it. Were the classes slow for me and too easy? Obviously, but
I always brought a book (or three) and would read them throughout the day and
at lunch. I slacked off on my homework and taught myself how to program. I
helped my friends with their work - not cheating, but actively tutoring and
explaining the principles. One of my friends who absolutely sucked at math is
now graduating with a chem degree.

If a student is truly gifted, they will learn on their own and help others. As
society becomes ever more unequal and stratified, we need as much social
pollination as possible. Hell, the way public schools are going we should keep
as many smart kids in there as we can. There were some student-run after
school courses at my HS that were amazing.

------
Pica_soO
No, but there should be seperated, one project based, the other classic
frontal teaching and a way to trade gifted-extra-credits into "have the non-
gifted work on your project for better grades".

------
johnsmith21006
In the US. Our school does one day a week for the gifted kids. I have
volunteered at the school and love the program. Only issue is it fair to the
other kids? You get in based an IQ test.

------
empath75
"Gifted" programs were primarily used as a way to resegregate schools. So no,
I don't think so.

------
Galinha
What do you mean by gifted students? How you define them? Are you speaking
about extraordinary brains and high QI?

In a normal basis, my answer is no, no and no. In Germany some schools start
to separate kids when they have 10 years old. Is too soon. Intelligence it's
not only about to be good at school - look at Einstein.

------
MichaelBurge
The government should not be running any schools at all. They can impose taxes
to fund them, but everyone should go to private schools that operate on the
free market. Then you wouldn't need to ask the government to build another
school; you could just do it.

~~~
analog31
The government would still have to operate schools, because of two failure
modes:

1\. Lack of capacity: Families that can't find schools for their kids, or
entire regions that are "school deserts."

2\. Schools that fail or go bankrupt.

Both are cases of private businesses pocketing public money while
externalizing their risks and leaving the government with the cost of bailing
them out.

I speculate that a law of economics or politics is: If something requires
universal access for everybody, then it will be effectively supported by the
government, even if the mechanism is not obvious.

