Failing Our Geniuses 815
saintlupus writes "Time has an interesting article about the failure of the US educational system to properly deal with gifted students. For example, up to ten times as much money is spent nationwide on educating 'developmentally disabled' students as gifted ones. Does No Child Left Behind mean that nobody can get ahead, either?"
of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:of course (Score:5, Insightful)
1.) "My kid should be in the smart class" (whether they belong there or not)
2.) Claims of discrimination / creation of a caste system being unacceptable.
Remember, school board officials are elected and must bow to political pressure.
One of my mentors used to always tell me: "Culture is the hardest thing to change". Parents want they perceive to be the best for their kids whether it really is or not. They also (typically - no matter how many sob stories you hear) have a greater stake in them than the teachers that only see them for a few hours a day.
Would you trust someone at the local public school to put your kid on a path that will determine what opportunities will be available to them? As one of my college professors said: too many Einsteins are passed over because the teacher was looking for that one Gauss.
Re:of course (Score:4, Interesting)
1) If the kid isn't gifted, they won't WANT to be in a harder class.
2) If the kid isn't gifted, they will do extremely poorly in a harder class.
3) If the kid isn't gifted, his friends will tease him unmercifully for being in the harder class. (Gifted kids don't have friends. Everyone teases them anyhow.)
I was in the 'GIFTED' program in elementary school. I learned a lot of things there that I would never have had a chance to learn at that age otherwise, but the class itself wasn't that much harder. What -was- harder was that I also had to do all my regular schoolwork as well. The other teachers singled me out for being in GIFTED, too. For instance, 1 year ahead of everyone else, I had to make sentences from my spelling words. I eventually got so bored with it, I started to make stories from them. And then so bored I used the words -in order- to make stories.
In middle school, they had another program that wasn't nearly as good, and a year after I left elem. school, they cancelled the GIFTED program, and the middle school one right after I went to high school. Those schools have nothing of the sort now until High School, where their are Advance Placement (AP) classes that are harder, but not really any more interesting, and dual-enrollment (colleges classes at the high school).
Without those classes, I would not have gotten into computers in 4th grade (Apple IIe!) and definitely wouldn't be who I am today. I have to wonder if I'd have the same sense of purpose without it. My sister doesn't have that sense... She only had 1 year of GIFTED and none of the one in middle school, I think. She got straight A's the entire way through school, with the exception of a band teacher who said 'nobody should get all A's' and gave her a B solely for that reason. She duel-enrolled in high school early and completed 4 years of highschool and 2 years of college in only 3 years. (Yes, she graduated both in the same year.) She burnt out on that, but that's another story. She's in college for Pharmacy now and getting straight A's as always.
Without those classes, I'd have been bored stiff. I'd definitely have a lot of time on my hands to get in trouble with.
Yes, we are failing our geniuses. (I am not genius level IQ. Any geniuses in the same situation would be very poorly handled indeed.)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I disagree about the mundane work, though. I think it's important for them to realize that not everything will be exciting, and that hard work is a necessary part of being in society, even when it seems rather stupid. Make them do everything the other students do and reward them with extra if they want it.
In fact, with the right program in place, you could do exactly tha
Re:of course (Score:4, Interesting)
It worked well when teachers made sensible placement recommendations; keeping students with similar motivations and interests together serves the same function as university selectivity. In those cases where teachers irrationally recommended toward lower tiers, slighted students who wished to migrate (back) to a higher tier in a subject enrolled in summer school. Occasionally, some teachers recommended that a student take a remedial summer class, automatically preventing advancement.
In my case, for example, a certain teacher recommended that I take remedial algebra the summer before entering highschool. The school sent an enrollment form to my parents' house, which I intercepted and destroyed, enabling me to request another enrollment form - this one blank. I submitted it, enrolling myself in summer honors geometry, placing myself one year ahead of the curve, one tier up
Neither my early education in manipulating bureaucracy nor my immersion in physics-as-Newton-intended-it would have been possible in the standard egalitarian gulag. I don't foresee sending my children to a public school; the opportunities and the quality of education are simply gone. Fortunately, they were strong enough in my day that I can afford to send my offspring to private school. TBQH, that's probably the goal of NCLB: to privatize quality elementary education, thereby further stratifying society and protecting the ignorance of the conservative voting block, who will, in bigotry and fear, will continue to vote consistently against their own interests.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It does somewhat dent the conclusion when one notes that the stories are certainly exagg
Re:of course (Score:4, Informative)
From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
But then you say: I don't see how this conclusion is at all possible based on Einstein's youth.Tracking (Score:5, Interesting)
On a related topic, it's odd that if a student has an IQ of 70, that's like 2 standard deviations below the norm, and the student is identified as intellectually disabled. Failing to identify and serve this student's needs is going to get your school into an enormous amount of trouble.
Then you have another student with an IQ of 130. This student is no more normal than the other. He is intellectually gifted. Failing to identify or serve this student's needs will not even earn anyone a slap on the wrist.
This problem will get solved when a slashdotter decides he has enough money to take this comparison all the way to the Supreme Court.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a huge difference though, the high IQ type has all ability to self acutalize. The internet and library are there for a reason, you can learn at any pace you want, its more likely gifted kids are just too lazy to do their own learning. In the age of the internet there is less an
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ohh so true. My 2nd grade teachers thought I had learning dissabilities. In reality I was just so damn bored.
Thankfully my mother was a teacher for the school district, so when she told my teachers they needed to challenge me to get me to do better they were willing to give it a shot. They probably hated me for the trouble I was in class and would probably try anything by that point to make me less annoying. My teachers were somewhat surprised that all of a s
Re:of course (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes. I went to school (through high school) in India and I was lucky enough to be in such a system as you describe. That is one reason why the whole idea of "jocks" and "geeks" and "nerds" was so alien to me until I came to the US. In my day, the person we strived to compete with and get ahead of was the super-geek-jock :P - the guy/gal who did everything right. Kinda nice when you think about it. That gave me an edge that I have never regretted. My 3.5 years of college in the US (and I say this in a good way) were the most relaxing in my life, even with a physics major and I ended up learning a LOT of other stuff as well (I love liberal arts schools :D).
To give you an idea of what the system was:
Starting with the 3rd grade, the entire school (10 classes per grade level with about 50 students each = A CR**load of students :P), was put into the running. Classes were named from A through J and your initial class was determined by a criterion that no one seemed to know :P. However, after that, it was all merit-based. Your class (A - J) in the next grade was determined by how well you did in the current grade (exams, etc.) Upward mobility was the key and with it came the chance to be with the smart kids and learn from them. Oh it was farking beautiful :D. And it didn't really hurt anyone either - if you wanted to be a fuckup, you had full freedom to do so, without bothering the sincere kids and as a bonus you got to hang out with other fuckups like yourself :D. Win-win! Everyone's happy.
Of course, it couldn't last. The parents whose kids were in the loser classes saw this as a social stigma (albeit well-deserved). I heard that they discontinued this practice a few years ago so my hometown in India should be reaching full mediocrity right about now :P.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I was in a pilot fast-track program when I was a child... completed grades 1, 2 and 3 in 2 years while mingled in amongst the grade 1s the first year and the grade 3's the next. I have to say, it's a hard thing to put a kid through when it comes to socializing... I lost a lot of blood on
Re:of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Bright" does not correspond to best. There are some students who work hard, but are not going to be tops academically.We need a system that takes the kids who do not want to learn and keep them from interrupting the education of those who do, regardless of their ability.
Best vs. brightest (Score:5, Informative)
Absolutely. There is obviously a correlation between the two, but there are plenty of lazy bright kids in the advanced classes and plenty of hard-working not-so-bright kids in the general/remedial level classes.
As a former public high school teacher, I speak from experience. I taught physics and AP chemistry (both classes composed of advanced 11th and 12th graders) and physical science (composed of general/remedial 9th graders). I felt really bad for the few really hard working kids in my physical science class who had to put up with the disruptions of their fellow students. (Yes, I disciplined those kids, but you can only do so much in certain school systems.) I fought to put one student who I thought was of average intelligence but very hard-working in an advanced class for the following year. Unfortunately, that didn't work out as the advanced class was too far ahead of her. I had another student who was mildly mentally retarded, but was such a hard-worker that he outperformed almost everyone else in that class.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
NCLB was also supposed to ensure the all teachers are good teachers by
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
To the best students should go the best teachers. It's a harsh idea in that 90% of the student body will never be taught by the best 10% of teachers. In f
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:of course (Score:4, Insightful)
If a child does not want to learn it's not the teachers job to convince him otherwise. Instead the teacher should cut him loose and accept another student who wishes to learn.
A teacher is there to impart knowledge of the subject. He's not some motivational speaker but rather an aid to study.
School should be focused on turning out students who can pass the prescribed exams not used as some form of entertainment or punishment.
Make no mistake what I want is radical, it's flushing the idea of equality away and letting merit stand on it's own. To the winners the spoils. It's a harsh system but not an unfair one.
Re:of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:of course (Score:5, Interesting)
On the one hand, as someone who experienced both sides, I really appreciated being in the advanced classes. It was night and day; better people, better work, better pace. On the other hand, it sucked hard being stuck in the standard track (there was no provision for smart kids there, because if you were smart, you wouldn't be there), and no real effort was ever made to reevaluate students once they ended up in a track.
I think tracking is in many ways too rigid, but I don't know of a better way to do it. Lumping all kids together is awful.
Re:of course (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't unheard of. In 1st grade I was considered "slow" and was at the bottom of my class. The teacher assumed I was stupid. I was bored and daydreamed constantly instead of doing the color, cut and paste dittos, which were assinine.
After maxing out a standardized IQ test (a fact that the school tried to hide from my parents) my parents thankfully realized what the problem was and sent me to a private school, where I excelled.
I'm so thankful that I went to grade school twenty years ago, instead of today. Today I would have been diagnosed with ADHD, put on drugs, and gone through life labelled a dunce.
Public schools really get my dander up, because this sort of thing is so common. There is so much blame to go around, and all of it is well-deserved. Bad teachers who don't give a crap, teachers unions, stupid politics, PTO moms who bulldoze the schoolboard into making ridiculously bad decisions...I could go on and on. There is hardly a punishment great enough for people responsible for ruining promising childrens' lives.
Home schooling used to seem like such a wacky idea, but my wife and I are seriously considering it instead of dealing with all this crap. That my tax money still goes to supporting a hopelessly broken system that does almost more harm than good pisses me off to no end.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I think he means the school was overrun by chickens.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Obligitory "Incredibles" quote: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:of course (Score:5, Informative)
AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) is a factor in the ranking of school systems. Specifically, it was designed to expose the fact that many school had masked the few poor performers with the majority of successful students.
What it effectively means is that all "sub-populations" (broken by ethnic groups, ESL/Limited English Proficiency, "at-risk," and low-income, among others) must demonstrate "adequate yearly progress." It's designed to even be a bit forgiving - the low-income group doesn't necessarily have to pass, they just have to have improved a reasonable amount from the year before. A subpopulation counts if it is 1% of the school population or 30 kids (IIRC).
If a school fails to meet AYP for two years in a row, they become a "school of choice." Parents may now choose to pull their students from that school and send them to another one, and the failing school will pay for transportation. I'm not sure how it works out in small, rural districts where a given high school is the only one in the district.
Once a school fails in AYP, kids start getting pulled. The kids who get pulled are the ones who have parents who care about education; that usually translates to the kids who do well in a school being pulled from it. You can see how much this would impact a school.
If a school fails to meet AYP for five years in a row, a radical restructuring is due; this generally means that large amounts of the staff need to be fired, or the school should be converted to a charter school or something similar. In practice, though, the actual actions at this stage usually aren't as substantial.
With the background out of the way, it's fairly easy to see why geniuses don't matter: they'll pass the test. Five or ten ESL students (or low-income, or at-risk, or whatever) can make or break a school of 3000. With the way the NCLB program has structured AYP, it should be obvious where a principal/district would focus resources.
I'm not arguing that schools don't need monitoring; they do, no doubt. But if this system sounds ridiculous to you, please do all of us a favor and let your elected officials know.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:of course (from a teacher) (Score:3, Insightful)
The answer that immediately came to my mind as well.
I'm a science teacher, and the focus of my school is exactly as described - it is to raise the test scores of marginally achieving populations. There are advanced courses in most subjects, but other than that no extra attention is paid to gifted kids, except at the most minimal level (i.e. the extra efforts of one sponsoring teacher) in some extracurricular clubs. Even the training provided to districts by national consultants such as those of Pr
To flesh that out some (Score:5, Insightful)
No child should be left behind, and certainly school can be challenging for some. But by instituting a tenet that "There are no losers" so let's give everyone an award - we're raising a generation that thinks mediocrity is ok. It's not ok, and the failure to nurture gifted children is ensuring our future demise.
What ever happened to respecting and cherishing differences?
Re:To flesh that out some (Score:5, Funny)
Judge Smails: Well, the world needs ditch diggers, too.
Re:To flesh that out some (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:To flesh that out some (Score:4, Informative)
School is only important to the mediocre.
The truely notable, exceptional people will be bored no matter what you put in front of them. School is a waste of time for everyone but those who would be left behind without this program. Nothing worthwile (acedemically) happens before college anyway, and even then real learning doesn't really start untill you break free of "those who can't do" and start getting some real world experience. And by then those that would be left behind are long gone.
Re:To flesh that out some (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Mediocre people lap up the "education" they get from school without concern for their own welfare. They learn what the book or teacher tells them to learn. They don't teach themselves to think. They do so at their own peril.
The real world will place you into a special hell called "middle management" if you're mediocre. The smart ones just burn in slavery o
Re:To flesh that out some (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are smart but otherwise ungifted, you'll probably find yourself surrounded by people you feel smarter than. If you're smart and living up to your potential, you should probably stop feeling smart, because you should be surrounded by people at least as smart as you are.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Then really, shouldn't our schools be about developing discipline, energy, drive, and attitude even in their best students, instead of developing boredom, cynicism, and putting them in an environment where, paradoxically, people only have their intelligence to feel good for themselves about?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I've spent the last twenty years teaching a "gifted" section in an Elementary school. Your comment (and also the rest of it, which I have not quoted) express exactly my point of view on the subject. When kids entered my class, they ceased to be the elite within their former classes, and instead became just another kid in the class, and, o
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:To flesh that out some (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's possible that his gift was noticed, appreciated, and encouraged by the school. I think he finished in the top of h
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The poor are only given enough money so they can continue to work like slaves in factories for the rich.
If you were to make a capitalist-like system, the dumb kids would work as servants to the smart kids, fetching them books and carrying thier bags, while only getting enough education to read the spines of books they had fetch to the smart kids.
The smart kids would get smarter
Re:To flesh that out some (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to boast any but I was in grade school in the 80s and I would finish classroom assignments much faster than all of my peers. After helping all the students immediately around me understand and complete their assignments I would get out of my seat and help other students.
Teachers labeled me hyperactive and moved my seat into the corner and used tape to create a box around my seat, telling me I'd be punished if I left the box. Later I was put on Ritalin [wikipedia.org], which was brand new in the 80s. That helped, but I wish instead of medicating me I would have been allowed see how far I could have gone.
Re:To flesh that out some (Score:5, Interesting)
a) Crappy brain + gifted drive = mediocre career
b) Mediocre brain + mediocre drive = mediocre career
c) Gifted brain + crappy drive = mediocre career
Being "gifted" doesn't mean shit without a lot of other good attributes. Even if you have a gifted brains AND drive, if you have really crappy anger management, your still screwed. Schooling is only 1 part of a much much much larger equation.
I would suggest visiting this page to see what some famous people have said about the subject.
http://creatingminds.org/quotes/effort.htm [creatingminds.org]
Re:To flesh that out some (Score:5, Interesting)
Exceptional people don't need to be spoon fed, they find repetition boring, and they find the necessity to waste their days proving to their intellectual inferiors that they can complete rudimentary tasks.
Hell, I knew how to read, print, add and subtract when I was 4 years old. You think there was a day of my life that I found school challenging? I used to finish all my classwork and all my homework homework and two paperback novels a day before school finished for the day, and I was still spending lots of time staring vacantly out the window.
I have no regard for the education system. All it ever did, throughout my life, was hold me back, slow me down, and force me to be surrounded by violent stupid monkeys.
Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar? (Score:3, Funny)
Seriously though -- I'm sure half the people reading this on
Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not the original poster, but I'll still answer your question: No. I'm bitter that I lost a lot of my childhood by sitting in a prison of the mind, wasting my time instead of doing something better with my life.
I'm not on Slashdot because of my time in school. I'm here because I value continuing education. Don't laugh.
Except for about four years of my schooling (one in primary, one in middle, and two in high) where I was given a chance to self-educate, I spent my time in school alternately at the top of the class or rebelling. Those times when I was self-paced, I completed a couple of years' coursework at a time. For anyone with an IQ above 130, public school is an undeniable waste of time. I'd even say that it's a waste of several hours a day for the average student. Not much goes on in school except crowd control, lunch, and socializing.
I have had a few teachers who pushed me to my limit and were educated enough to lead me, but most were just average and knew little about their subjects. The textbook was always a better source of information than the average teacher, and I didn't have to waste fifty hours of my life to get through it at a snail's pace. My time on Slashdot educates me better than my time in school did, though the signal/noise ratio has gone down in the last few years.
I understand you'll see this post as egotistical and smug, but I feel qulified to comment on this story (and your post) because
Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar? (Score:4, Insightful)
After I took the SAT in seventh grade (and scored similarly to an average senior that year), I was allowed to skip eighth grade. There were upsides and downsides, and I'm fairly happy about where I am now -- but it's not for everyone. I lost a lot of friends and there seemed to be a higher asshole to polite person ratio in my graduating class.
I took a self-paced English course the summer after my freshman year. I finished a semester's worth of work in two weeks. I'm still pissed off about all of that wasted time. I could probably have learned a couple of languages, I would probably be better at math.. Hell, I could have become even more of a virtuoso guitarist if I had started music lessons a couple of years earlier ;) .
I've had this discussion with many of my genius friends, and this attitude is pretty much universal among them. Yes, the school system is nearly useless for all ends of the spectrum. In my cynical moments I imagine that it's a plot to keep the country stupid and docile while they turn the Republic into a fascist shadow of its original promise.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
During my primary standard school i use to finish my whole syllabus before the start of the new term.I am not a genius neither did i take an IQ test, nor do i think i have an IQ of 145+ but i like studying books in my free time.Science was the
Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Do you also own a cat with a diamond collar? (Score:4, Interesting)
In Grade 3, I was skipped (they compressed 3 and 4 into one year for the five of us - four girls and me). The next year, I started Grade 5 - in a class with my older sister which continued until Grade 9, an affront for which she has never entirely forgiven me. I was also a year younger than all the other boys in the class, which meant that I was always the smallest and lightest kid in the class; since the iron code of the schoolyard prevented me from playing games with my age peers in Grade 4, I was always chosen in the last few for sports and games. Doubtless, this contributed to my smart mouth and my rep as "class rebel".
All this was endured within the public school system. In Grade 10, I was admitted to a boys' school in Toronto, modeled on the English schools such as Eton. No phony egalitarianism there! There were two types of classes (or "forms" as they were known) - A-forms, and B-forms. The A-forms were considered the brighter students, and we took seven academic subjects. The B-forms were the lesser lights, and they took 6 classes and a mandatory study hall. In addition, on every report card (of which there were five a year), my ranking in the class ("2 out of 22") was duly noted. Unlike Orwell, I mostly enjoyed my years there; I was still bored from time to time, but many of my classmates had also been skipped, and so I was generally surrounded by bright kids. It also helped that the school teams were Under-15's, Under-16's, etc., so my competition for sports teams was against kids my own age, which helped soothe some of the inferiority I had experienced in public school. (It's no fun always being the shrimp!)
Now I have two daughters, 10 and 13, who have both been accepted into the PACE program at our local school. (PACE is the "Program for Academic and Creative Extension") Now, instead of skipping kids, they are brought together with other bright kids of their own age, where they explore subjects in greater depth than the standard classes. Frankly, I think this works better than skipping them. While both girls admit they are bored from time to time, they also work on more projects and have developed a greater understanding of the material than the standard stream allows. And neither of them have suffered from the social problems that I felt; both have lots of friends and seem well integrated into their classes.
From my perspective, I think the girls' school is doing a good job of challenging them academically without short-changing them socially. As I noted, they are bored at times, but I think all good students will experience those moments; I'm sure there are times their classmates wish my girls were picking something up a little faster.
Of course, this is just one school board, and I don't know what's going on in other boards in Ontario, let alone in Canada. I won't even try to comment on any other country's system.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I remember something like it used to be based on an IQ 160 or higher, but does it have anything to do with actual achievement, or just potential?
Re:To flesh that out some (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that's a pretty damn sour attitude. I was a gifted kid too -- a standout even among the other gifted kids. I was chronically bored in school. By my senior year of high school, I was probably skipping class 60% of the time. Would I describe all the "normal" people I was surrounded by all those years as "violent stupid monkeys?" Not in a million years.
The most important thing I learned in public school is how to interact with so-called "normal" people on the level of an equal, not a brainiac who comes to intellectually lord over them. You know, stuff like "respect," and "politeness," and the concept of giving everybody a fair shot to prove their abilities.
If you really look at the world and think, "What a bunch of complete turd brains!" You are going to have a very sad life.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Having been one of those freaks you talk about as well as an introvert, going to classes with students 4-5 years older than me HELPED my social skills. It is very easy to socialize with people like you, it takes social skills to socialize with people NOT like you. I didn't take geometry class with 11 year old eggheads like myself, I took them with average and above average 15 and 16 year olds. That way builds social skills. If they can't deal with being a freak, how are they going to manage when they first get a job and their boss is extremely average, or their President is well below average?
Likewise, being able to impress someone your own age is NOT going to get you a job when starting out; your boss is probably going to be at least 10-20 years older than you. The high school cliques do NOT teach you social skills. Only someone who is willing to go outside their clique, even their age group, are the ones who will truly develop social skills, at least for those those for whom it does not come naturally. And if those skills are not inborn, then trying to advance yourself is one way of getting some practice.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No Child Left Behind doesn't matter (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter (Score:5, Insightful)
We, on the other hand, do not. Culturally, Americans view intellectualism with suspicion. We love the captain of the football team; big, handsome, and dumb. You have only to look at the debates on science to understand that. There is societal pressure to not appear too smart, or you'll have a number of unflattering stereotypes applied to you. The last two losing presidential candidates both had their intelligence used against them in an unflattering way; they were know-it-alls, dorks, geeks, namby pamby sissy faggot intellectuals, whereas the guy everyone regards as the dumber candidate is trustworthy and strong.
A lot of it probably has its roots with Christianity. The Devil is smart, remember? When Dante was populating the Inferno, he dumped Odysseus in the 8th circle, 1 up from the bottom. Why? Because he's a smart, tricky bastard, just like the Devil is supposed to be. This country has a lot of radical Christian roots (Puritans, anyone?) so it's not all that surprising that our views on intellectualism are shaped around that.
Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter (Score:4, Insightful)
Now we have powerful lobbies seeking to undermine science education in the United States, trying to find ways to sneak past that great product of the Enlightenment Age; the Bill of Rights, so that there superstitious worldview can be promulgated in public schools.
If the US wants to know why its surrendering the production of scientists to other parts of the world, they only need to look at all those small-minded, anti-intellectual twerps that manage to get on school boards and state Boards of Education, with their Bible in one hand and hatred of knowledge in the other.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Not without a new constitutional amendment:
Anyway, you can't simply eliminate irrationality by government edict, and if you tried you'd only end up creating a bunch of martyrs. The more fanatical elements would continue believing in secret, and you'd end up with all the myriad social rep
Intellectual != weak (Score:3, Insightful)
You have basically proven that you are just as ignorant and just as wiling to stereotype as those your rail against. Captains are usually intelligent. And some football (American) positions do require intelligence, the ability to quickly analyze a fluid situation (an unfolding play), develop a successful plan and refine that plan in real time as further developments occur. The fact that these skills are applied to big guys hitting
Re:No Child Left Behind doesn't matter (Score:5, Interesting)
I lived in China for the first 10 years of my life, so I know the Chinese culture well.
You said Asians love their smart people, it's true, but only under certain perimeters. The first problem is how do you define "smart"? Are smart kids the ones with the highest IQ test scores? Are they the ones that get the highest marks in class? Or are they the ones that can sell the most cookies to neighbors?
In China, IQ Scores are redundant and are not paid any attention to by the education system. Here however (In Canada), it is used to determine if a child is able to enter the gifted program in elementary school.
What the Chinese actually value is someone who can learn fast, think fast with flexibility and without making many mistakes. Although one might argue those people can be called "smart", but smart is too general a word in English and could be referring to a wide rage of characteristics. See, the Chinese does not value IQ or "gifted-ness" because it doesn't reflect what a person could accomplish. Instead, to get into the fast-track classes in China a child has to be placed in the top 40 in his or her grade (this is according to the middle school I was going to go to, there were 60 kids per class and 8 classes per grade.) So instead of getting the kids to take a IQ test of which they have no control over the results, getting into the fast-track classes becomes a competition between students so the winners are respected. In Canada, the gifted kids doesn't "beat" others to get into gifted classes, so there is much less of a reason for other kids to respect them.
One type of smart person the Chinese frown upon are people who stay home and study the textbooks all day, but can't carry the knowledge over and apply it to the real life. It wouldn't matter if the person has the highest mark in the class, if he or she can't solve simple social problems then they will receive little respect.
This is very similar to the definition of a Nerd in the western culture. However, one key difference is the clear line drawn between a "nerd" and a smart person in China, while here in Canada it is assumed anyone who has the highest mark in the class must be a nerd.
as a genius... (Score:3, Funny)
Err actually I went to a gifted & talented middle school (100 smartest kids in Houston). Then I went to a private Jesuit high school. Then I went to a relatively small public college in Dallas.
And now I make fat cash. I guess I really don't have anything to complain about.
Answering the hypothetical question (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone with half a brain would tune education for the average person, or very slightly above the average to encourage improvement and the stupid/disabled and smart kids would get special programs to help their development the best. Leaving no man behind is a stupid analogy to the problem, as the stupid kid who can't learn more drags down the kids who can.
Well, hang on. (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, I wish I'd gotten help for my actual limitations (mild autism, which has been moderately crippling at times), but frankly, for the genius stuff, it would have been sufficient for the schools to mostly get out of my way.
Hold up, Dude! (Score:5, Insightful)
More to the point, it would mean treating students as individuals and that would totally screw up the system.
Re:Hold up, Dude! (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing has really changed (Score:5, Insightful)
Then, like today, it was much easier for schools to keep classes uniform by holding bright kids back so that more effort could be spent on the "slow" ones. Uniformity is the goal, and it's a lot easier to dumb down smart kids than the other way 'round.
Oh, and here's a clue: if you offer bonuses for teachers of math and science, the teachers with the most seniority (regardless of whether they can add) will teach those classes. My kids had a math PhD teaching music, but she couldn't get into the math program against the ed majors who ran the system.
Intelligence reaps mockery in the US. (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't take a genius to figure it out !!! (Score:4, Insightful)
"For example, up to ten times as much money is spent nationwide on educating 'developmentally disabled' students as gifted ones."
Duh! Smart kids learn faster than 'tards. Whodathunkit? Was this article written by Captain Obvious? So you've got a choice - either invest more in educating those who are slower learners, or pay to support them. Which is cheaper in the long run (hint - you don't have to be a genius to figure that one out either).
Fail! (Score:4, Funny)
Well my school sure failed me!
It's still the parent's responsibility. (Score:5, Insightful)
It still comes down to parents doing actual parenting. If you've got a gifted child, you have to know they are only going to get so much from their school.
I was lucky. My parents knew what they were doing. They let me explore my interests without pushing. They had me in a creative writing class. They got me into science competitions. The best thing they did was buy a computer for the house. This was a TRS-80 in 1982. It was a stretch for the household budget, but messing with that taught me more than anything else.
geekd
First Hand Experience (Score:5, Informative)
Home/Private school (Score:4, Insightful)
Ideally, we need a system of student competitions that identifies talent and sponsors the winners for tuition in private, more challenging schools - as much for their protection as for accelerated education. This is unlikely to happen though because of both lack of money and current attitude of political correctness that allows "special needs" students to beat up gifted ones at will. In the meantime parents should step up to the plate, do home schooling the best they can and organize study groups where students can help each other get more information from books and Internet.
No Child Left Behind (Score:5, Informative)
The end result is that children who are just below the pass rate on the 'pre-tests' (really, just more tests, but the results only get examined by the teacher or the school faculty) get the most attention. Those above it, especially well above it and those well below it, are more or less shafted by the way it's designed.
Alternately, several school districts have simply changed the rules for what constitutes a pass, and what a failure, on their tests, so that they have a high enough pass rate to continue to get full federal funding.
As it happens... (Score:3, Insightful)
Achievement levels off once you start generating knowledge yourself. Learning logarithms when you're 10 instead of 14 isn't going to make you significantly more likely to "cure leukemia or stop global warming".
Look at those "geniuses" who get packed off to college in their early teens. Have any of them ever accomplished anything noteworthy?
Re:As it happens... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd like to see the evidence that people educated in the US system are, per capita, more "creative" and "innovative" than those produced in every other educational system in the world. Really, this sounds to me more like nationalist mythology than anything resembling a fact, and contrasting it with "hysteria" is somewhat ironic.
I don't think the difference between "gifted" and "average" students is learning logarithms at 10 instead of 14. Its more like the difference between learning logarithms at 10 and having a vague idea as an adult that they are somehow connected to the Taco Bell chihuahua.
Even assuming the answer is no, wouldn't that demonstrate that, indeed, the US educational system is, contrary to your argument, failing the gifted? I mean, if they weren't being failed, you'd expect them to acheive noteworthy things at the same proportion as the rest of the population.
Nothing new. (Score:3, Informative)
Frustration with the schools led a group of parents to form an action group that discovered, among other things, that the district had claimed they had a MGM (Mentally Gifted Minors) program to get funds when they actually weren't doing anything for the gifted children but rather just grabbing money for the budget.
They did make a small dent - especially when my dad was elected and re-elected as head of the Board of Education. But I'm not sure that any of the good they did lasted much past his term of office.
The former Secretary of Education commented on NPR the other day that 40 years ago the best option for college-educated women was teaching and that's what about 50% of them did. That pool of (probably unfairly) cheap teaching labor dried up long ago. If you want good people as teachers you are going to have to pay them. Conversely, the teaching establishment needs to stop the same-pay-for-all nonsense. Teachers in difficult-to-fill specialties like science and math should be paid more. Top-flight teachers should be compensated better as well. Bad teachers should be fired. (There's no excuse for tenure in K-12.)
It depends... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm one of the first people to admit there are problems with many public schools. I went through an education to be a secondary math teacher. I stopped after student teaching because I realized I didn't want to deal with a lot of the issues.
But when I look back over my public education -- in Utah, where per pupil spending traditionally lags pretty far behind many other places -- I have to admit it was pretty damn good overall. When they realized I was breezing through all the reading primers in first grade, they made sure I knew how to use the school library and pointed me at a few particular topics. I got after school access to some of the first computers the schools had. My parents helped, taking me to the local library and enrolling me in community classes, but the staff was helpful. That was elementary school. My high school had a full quiver of AP classes and the teachers were, by and large, good. And they had a program where advanced students could also take courses from the public community college. All in a small-government, relatively low income and not large tax-base state.
I daresay I didn't get near as much out of my public education as I could have if I were more focused and ambitious. One guy took all of the computer science classes, took advantage of after school lab time to learn everything he could about the unix minicomputer we had and C, and got a job not long out of high school working as a sysadmin for a salary that a lot of college grads don't get. Couple of people I knew used some pretty advanced language skills to work as au pairs or English teachers in foreign countries. Me, I learned to play nethack in the lab after school.
The point? I think most of the smart kids -- especially if they have any kind of decent direction from parents, or a counselor, or some kind of mentor -- can take advantage of the existing system just fine, and learn to find resources outside of it to further their own goals.
The ones with developmental disabilities, by contrast, are often the one with issues that are actually keeping them from getting even a fraction out of the system. That's why a disproportionate amount of resources are directed there.
None of this is to say there shouldn't be some changes in how things are done. I'm just a tad skeptical of sweeping statements like "no one can get ahead." My observation is that's simply false.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
... on whether or not the gifted student is smart enough to figure out how to use resources to direct their own learning.
The point? I think most of the smart kids -- especially if they have any kind of decent direction from parents, or a counselor, or some kind of mentor -- can take advantage of the existing system just fine, and learn to find resources outside of it to further their own goals.
Kids are kids. Just because a kid is a genius doesn't make him anything other than a kid. You're expecting these kids to not only be smart but also extremely motivation and fully knowledgeable about what is possible.
You know what they'll figure out on their own? That it takes 10 minutes to get the password of every student in the school. Why? Because it's about the most interesting thing they can do during school hours.
How do you expect a kid to be motivated about anything when they're forced to sit for 6
Back in the days when the grass was greener... (Score:3, Interesting)
There were more than just raw grades that determined what group you were in. Behavioral problems (you are dealing with young kids, remember) were a very big factor, and overall, how willing you were to learn took precedence over your natural talent. That's why you saw good and bad grades even in the A group (where I was in), because many kids who did try hard and therefore were in A group still didn't manage to do well, especially in courses like math.
It also meant that even some group C students got As, based on things like improvements, behavior, etc.
And back then, nobody had a problem with this system. Yes, the grades were mixed (getting an A in group C was nowhere near as hard as getting an A in group A) but the final grades don't really mean anything in middle school, it's more about what you actually learn. The shift and focus was very different. Group A (the students of which were more disciplined and hardworking) actually focused on the academic curriculum, while group C students were working more on social and behavioral issues (which to them, at that point, was more important to learn than just the academics).
And it's not like these were two different schools. Only some academic-based classes (math, English) were separate, while classes like gym or arts, as well as other activities (breaks, field trips) were together, so it did not create a "segregationalist" impression. Most importantly, it provided each group with the study THAT GROUP needed most, the problematic kids got the attention they needed and the rest had a chance to actually learn the subject without having the problematic kids interfere.
P.S. Just because I see this question coming: Yes, most students in group A TENDED to be white and in C there were more minorities, but we still had quite a few minority kids in A, and the race itself was not a factor. (The minorities in group C were there because not because they are the minority, but because they were poorly performing or problematic students who happened to be the minority). Yes, due to social factors and whatnot there tended to be more minority "problem" students compared to the general population, but you know what? Back then the schools were designed to provide an education and teach students a set of skills (whichever skills the students needed the most), instead of playing politics and trying to fix (or pretend to be fixing) social problems that have nothing to do with the school's purpose.
Nowadays, of course, any school board member who THINKS about trying to introduce such a system would be labeled a Nazi racist elitist snobbish evil person who eats children for breakfast...
There must be constant challenge (Score:3, Interesting)
But then it all changed when I got to college.
I went off to college, and I got my ass kicked. Royally. This was a concept that was totally foreign to me. I wasn't prepared to learn stuff that didn't come to me instantly. I had no work ethic. I ended up flunking multiple classes my first semester freshman year. While I had the intelligence to succeed in college, years of skating through classes had lowered my expectations and made me overconfident. I ended up graduating just fine and I've got a nice job, but throughout my time in college I didn't come close to my potential because I had gotten so accustomed to taking the easy way out.
Looking back on it, there came a point when I was no longer challenged in middle school and high school. As soon as I hit the farthest that the school would advance me, I stagnated. The problem was that I was always judge against my age group peers. If you're three years ahead and still at the top of the class, most people think that it's a great job. But it's not. You can learn a hell of a lot, both academically and socially, by being pushed beyond your comfort zone. Without a constant challenge, there is much less incentive to keep pushing yourself. Regardless of intelligence level, be it special ed to gifted, our focus on education needs to be identifying and providing difficult but attainable goals for all students. Having one standard for everyone is inevitably going to fail people at one or both ends of the curve.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The thing is, how much you know, or how skilled you are, is completly insignificant in life. I use daily less than 1% of what I've learned between 7th grade and the end of college, even though I'm working in exactly the field I studied for. The world changes, things change.
The only thing that really matters, is how g
Special needs != Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
The Money (Score:3, Informative)
Follow the wisdom of Mark Twain (Score:3, Interesting)
"I never let schooling get in the way of my education."
Schools are NOT the beginning and end of our education unless we choose to believe it (unfortunately many of us do nowadays.) Fortunately if you have a gifted person and just give them the opportunity to learn and explore and show them where resources are and how to use them (Library, searching Google, etc.) they will go running with their education themselves.
For many of us those opportunities were the home computers of the 80s and bunch of programming books and type-in game articles.
Um, No... Not Necessarily... (Score:4, Interesting)
I am officially a genius. I spent years in alternative classes, set aside to cater to my unique "gift". These classes occurred one day out of the week, in which we left the confines of the normal teachers' textbooks and sat around solving slightly more abstract problems. Some really fun projects took place as well, but they were few and far between. Afterwards we were still required to make up the work that we had "missed" in normal class that day and we received no special credit for our alternative work. It was akin to gym class, where the only way to get something other than "Satisfactory" on your report card was to not participate at all. This was up to the halfway point in junior highschool, afterwards I was traditionally home schooled and then attended an online academy.
Even for the regular kids, school is meant to be slow and plodding. You cannot get a head, but you can fall behind. The teacher is there to slowly explain things so that everyone can attempt to comprehend them. If that means boring 80% of the children that could manage fine without, then so be it! The public education system really isn't about learning though, is it? It's about molding youth into the form that civilization sees as beneficial. It is social conditioning with the intent of forcing you into being a productive member of society. You're made to memorize things while never truly understanding, and many of said subjects aren't nearly as valuable as others that aren't even taught at all. Of course, what is and isn't valuable is largely dependent upon what talents you have. I for one was never given the opportunity to indulge any of my interests in a school setting. Everything I know (save for some advanced mathematics and science) were self taught. My lifelong talents further guided me in the direction that I wanted to take my life and now contribute to a very satisfying lifestyle.
Not everyone can be successfully self employed, but anyone can find something that they like and make it their own if they only try. Too many of us get caught up in being or competing with the proverbially Joneses to live a happy life, and much of that is due to the social conditioning we encounter throughout youth. Many are not told or cannot see this when it is happening, only to be too far assimilated into the machine or much too beaten down by it to do anything once they do realize. Don't let that happen.
Failing our teachers as well (Score:4, Insightful)
Teachers like my grandmother aren't around anymore because other industries pay better. That's not to say people are greedy money grubbers, though, because in most of the United States it is difficult to support oneself on a teacher's salary. So when given the choice between taking a $40k teaching gig or a $60k software developing gig in a state like, say, California (where schools are nearly last place in the country and living costs are HIGH), the majority would go for the $60k gig. And without good teachers or resources, we end up taking the mindset of "How do we keep the less gifted students on track with the norm?"
We all see ads and propaganda for the Army, right? Recruiters at every school. But where the hell is the propaganda for teacher recruitment? If our public education system had the same budget as the military, none of these problems would've existed. We'd have had ads asking for teachers playing at the theaters before the previews came on. Superintendents of public school boards would be making speaches at universities about why you should get a job in teaching. Gifted students would have access to advanced courses and cirriculum in the same school as the normal kids. (I've got nothing against the nation's military, though, and I wasn't intending to give that message off. Sorry.)
On another note, I took an IQ test a while ago and found out that... well, my IQ wasn't as high as the girl in the beginning of the TIME article, but it was up there. I don't remember being able to talk as well as she did, but in my psychology research I found out I did a lot while I was a kid. Memorizing the names and locations of the United States, making large structures with building blocks, y'know? However when I was at school I was a complete bonehead! I'd find it hard to read a lot of the material they gave in class and outright hated writing and grammar lessons. And I was always imagining different things, I never really focused on the teacher's lessons or anything. I was told that some of my classmates didn't even think that I would get past high-school.
There's a lot in deciding who is smart and who is not. A lot of the issues that students have are simple barriers or developmental issues that they haven't grown out of. Things like dyslexia, attention deficity disorder, or even an early fear of math. And there are a lot of issues with standardized testing, because many students learn and study in different ways, and if teachers aren't aware or open to these different types of learning methods, how are students supposed to excel?
Add onto that a lot of immigrant children don't even know English, so how are they supposed to learn in a classroom? One of the issues with the "No Child Left Behind" Act is that it rewards schools that perform well in academic standardized testing, but when a lot of students from poor immigrant families perform poorly because of a lack of education or the language barrier, the school and the entire district suffer the consequences. Ultimately the children are being taught material from the SATs and standardized testing for the sake of passing the exams only!
Cue The Moaning (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Kids today (Score:4, Insightful)
And do you think when the teacher hears your assertion that you've read the book that that teacher will react with anything but scorn? And do you think that teacher will be surprised and pleased that you actually appear to have mastered the material, after he's stopped class to flip ahead and bombard you with study questions from the later chapters of the book?
Or do you think that he will be so enraged at your showing him up in front of the class that he will go out of his way to pick on you for the rest of the year? You'll end up with a reputation as a "discipline problem," and spend the rest of high school magically ending up in classes with other "discipline problems" which is the nail in the coffin as far as ever giving a damn about school.
And those grades are critical for getting you into the sort of college that you'll really need to be in to get the most out of it. Mediocre grades and phenomenal test scores will only take you so far.
Re:Kids today (Score:5, Insightful)
In my experience (mine and people I know), it's not that gifted kids don't try to get ahead, it's that they are often actively prevented from doing so.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder why so many bright kids are skeptical of school?
...maybe because some of us were thrown into alternative school for being different? For having a way of looking at life?
Example: School elections were coming up. A neo-punk and myself were musing over the morons running when it occurred to us: Why not form an "Anarchist Party", and encourage people to NOT vote? Posters went up {"I'm anarchist, he's anarchist, she's anarchist, we're anarchist, wouldn't ya like to be anarchist, too?" and were quickly torn down. Fights erupted {seriously...} until the gov
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, but that pisses on your precious socialism-bashing. Please, do go on.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)