Should "gifted" kids have special schooling to meet their needs?

[Rabrrrrrr]

I'm a firm believer in the gifted and talented programs (or advanced placement, or TAG, or whatever your local school might call them). In fact, I'm beyond a firm believer - I think that, as a community, it is our common ethical and moral duty to provide the higher-level classes, learning experiences, and challenging environments that the "gifted" (or whatever you want to call them) children need, and which they need in a segregated, exclusive environment, apart from those who lack the skills of the gifted (or whatever you want to call them). Not that they need be segregated at all times, of course. And these segregated environments could even be letting the kid skip a year or two, and take the regular classes provided to older kids.

Just as it is our moral and ethical duty to provide the special schooling needed by the mentally retarded, the learning disabled, the blind, the deaf, the learning disabled blind, the mentally retarded psychotics, the emotionally-scarred deaf learning disabled, etc., it is our duty to provide special schooling for the gifted and talented (or, as I say, whatever you want to call them).

Just as it is reprehensible to expect a mentally retarded child to be mainstreamed into a class with kids JUST because they have the same age, it is reprehensible to expect the "gifted" (or whatever you want to call them) to be mainstreamed with kids JUST because they are the same age.


We had a bit of a good flame war over in the Lounge about this, but I thought GD gets a lot more traffic, while moving more slowly, so I'm interested to see how GD handles this can of worms (which I wouldn't have thought it would be, but which, according the Lounge results, it is)

NOTE: I also posted this in the Lounge, stupidly, thinking I was in GD. ARGH!!! Sorry everyone!! I don't mean to duplicate.

[Fire Walk With Me]

1. In junior high, I was reading at 2-3 grades ahead of my peers

and school bored me shiteless, so my grades dropped.

Sure, education perfected for the ability of the individual would be a nice idea.

[Mythsaje]

4. I read

The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings in 3rd Grade. School starting boring the crap out of me by the 4th Grade.

[Fire Walk With Me]

13. How did you get past the endless swamp part so young?

I couldn't do it the second time around in HS.

[Rabrrrrrr]

16. I have a hard time doing it as an adult

:P

[Mythsaje]

21. My wife says

Tolkein's just too damn wordy...

I've found I have remarkable tolerance for even wordy authors...I'm not that way myself, but people like Tolkein and Anne Rice don't bother me in the least. I can even read King without flinching.

[Mythsaje]

19. You talking about

the journey into Mordor by Frodo, Samwise, and Gollum?

Heck, I don't know. I was more bored by the whole Bilbo wandering around in the elven halls thing than anything in the whole LOTR series. But only after the first couple re-reads.

[ThomWV]

89. Hell No

If more challenging coursework is desirable for some children then it is more desirable for all children.

Beyond that you have to ask is it the responsibility of the body public to provide all of the education a child will receive or is the also the responsibility of the student and the student's gardians to take the student's education to some level above that which is publically available? I say that in this is that the public system should provide a sound base of education but it is the responsibility of the student or gardian to take if farther if they choose to. It would seem that is acceptable to most folks, after all we, as individuals, pay for collage don't we?

[brokensymmetry]

2. Absolutely!

A mind is a terrible thing to waste. That applies to gifted students too.

[Canadian Socialist]

11. I hate that saying

re: "A mind is a terrible thing to waste."

Not to be pedantic, but the correct way to say that is, "To waste a mind is a terrible thing." Just saying.

And I agree with the sentiment. I happened to be one of the gifted ones. But this was 40 years ago. I was never challenged, intellectually. I became a mediocre student. Mostly Bs. But the odd thing was, I never studied. I never learned how to study. Then I hit University. I was challenged, intellectually. And oooh did I suffer. We do our children no harm by forcing them to learn. Or, at the very least, learn how to learn. Don't let them (gifted or not) sink down to the lowest common denominator.

Have said all that, I am definitely in favour with teaching children at the level that is appropriate for them. Yes, it costs money now. But the payoff! The gifted ones will be superiour money makers, the average will be happy and challenged, and the not so average will also be happy. I'm not suggesting that we have to make the population "happy". I'm just saying that we should teach our children to the best of their abilities.

Obviously, this is a reader's digest version of my thoughts. You can thank <the deity of your choice> that I haven't given all thoughts.

[brokensymmetry]

74. (Chuckle)

A touch of pedantry is good for the intellect.

I faced a situation similar to yours. I considered it a disgrace to not finish all my day's homework in study hall. In University, I studied engineering and followed a similar path. I graduated, but my GPA was nothing to be proud of.

Some years ago, I went back and took some graduate courses. Over the decades, I'd gotten a little better about studying; but my improved grades were, I suspect, more due to grade inflation than diligent studying on my part.

The question is - what could I have done for myself and society if I had developed more robust study habits? That's something that will never be known. If we don't encourage excellence, who will create advances in science, medicine, literature, and art?

[Mythsaje]

3. I think

that children should be taught to their capacity. Children who hunger for information should be allowed every opportunity to seek it out, in whatever direction suits them.

Learning how to learn--how to seek out information--is more important than learning to regurgitate facts.

[dave502d]

5. Yes they should. n/t

[juslikagrzly]

6. Without a doubt! eom

[lenidog]

7. I think they should have special schooling to help them grow and not

be bored out their minds

[PinkTiger]

8. But the public school system was never meant to meet the student's needs.

It was devised to meet the needs of society.
I learned that when I was getting my degree in education, during the professional "History of Education" courses.

I was appalled. I still am. But now I understand a lot more about what school is really supposed to be. It is to make us all good worker bees for the state.
And good citizens who do as they're told.

I failed miserably on all counts.

Here;s a link and some copy from it:

http://www.arc.org/erase/history.html

snip: "Some real reasons we have public education in the United States:


Public schools give businesses something they need: a pre-trained workforce that has been taught important skills. These skills may include ability in subject matter like reading or math, but even more important to business is attitude. Public schools teach "skills" that business owners find very useful like competition, obedience and respect for authority.


Public schools create the illusion that everyone has an equal chance. Even though some schools are rich and some are poor, the fact that everyone can go to public school is supposed to prove that if people of color can't get ahead, there I something wrong with them with their culture, their families and community, or their genes.


One way of looking at the history of public education in the United States is to see how wealthy people and business shaped the schools to contain and control poor people and turn them into useful workers and consumers. That's why rich people are willing to support public schools with their tax dollars because they benefit.


In earlier times, business people and their supporters were not shy about saying so directly. Horace Mann, Massachusetts' first state Superintendent of Schools told business owners in the 1840s that they would get better workers if they paid for public education. Workers who had been to school were distinguished by their "docility and quickness in applying themselves to work, personal cleanliness and fidelity in the performance of duties," not by their ability to read or do math.

[Rabrrrrrr]

12. And I totally agree with you on that one

We learned how to respond to bells, eat on cue, pee and shit on cue, how to bow to authority and have to clear everything through that authority before we could pee and shit or do anything else, and how we were supposed to think.

I had a few good teachers, though, who DID teach us how to think, and I remember one of them telling me (our whole class, actually), in junior high, that most of public school is, sadly, about training us to be good workers in factories and other places where we would just follow orders all day.

I am forever thankful to that teacher, and I wish I could remember which one it was. And a few other totally cool teachers in high school (my orchestra teacher, and my social studies teachers, who were all radical liberals) confirmed that for me.

[all.of.me]

31. it's called the hidden agenda

and it's why high school kids, even though it has been proven over and over again that they need copious amounts of sleep, have to go to school at 7:30 in the morning. they are getting prepped for the work force. their actual biological needs are not considered or tended to at all.

[Dover]

72. Colleges (particularly community colleges) are supported by corporations

in need of skilled workers. They finance the schools and give them the tools to teach specific skills their companies require.

Schools do not celebrate the individual or give them the kind of attention they need, but I do feel that we also need to learn to cope and operate IN society, so the socializing aspect serves a positive purpose there, but it is overemphaisized at the expense of individual development.

[all.of.me]

76. it's sad that a kid cannot even get an education...

...without politics controlling it from behind the scenes. my daughter is in the public high school now, the first main stream school we've dealt with, and i wish we had a alternative. the administration frustrates me with their policies, which also punish parents! i feel i can't change anything there, but i am vocal. it may change ONE person's mind!

we did homeschool when she was very small, but she wanted to go to school, because she is a people person. so we let her go. but homeschoolers get plenty of socialization. they learn to get along with all kinds of people, not just their age group, which is another thing public schools do not encourage. you can learn a lot from older people, and you can teach younger people. there are no age groups when you homeschool, which i think serves children better as they get into the world. they learn that there are no lines between people.

[Mythsaje]

38. I sometimes wonder

what it would be like if someone actually opened up a school (or several schools) to teach students in the way of some of the alternative methods proposed by certain science fiction authors...

Heinlein's "Fair Witnesses" come to mind. People who are taught the fine art of observation and speak directly to what they see rather than their preconceptions. In example, if you ask an FA what color a house is, the response would be... "It appears to be white. On THIS side."

Also...imagine a school of mentats (data analysis and projection) or the Bene Gesserit (politics, religion, and social structures and how to manipulate all three).

We have not yet BEGUN to educate.

[wtmusic]

56. This is nonsense

"rich people are willing to support public schools with their tax dollars" -- oh really? Is that why they're also fighting tooth and nail to introduce vouchers? :silly:

[tnlefty]

9. Yes and no. I do think that TAG students should have oppotunites

to have part of their time away from the regular ed class as elementary and middle school students, and advanced placement classes when they're older. We refused to allow 2 of our kids to skip grades when they were younger because we didn't want to have them in classes with kids 3-4 years older.

I firmly believe that diversity in many areas is best. Bright kids learn to get along with other kids who aren't as bright and the less bright kids benefit from their interaction with TAG kids, and kids of all stripes.

[katinmn]

10. I agree with this statement you made:

Just as it is reprehensible to expect a mentally retarded child to be mainstreamed into a class with kids JUST because they have the same age, it is reprehensible to expect the "gifted" (or whatever you want to call them) to be mainstreamed with kids JUST because they are the same age.
:thumbsup:

In the little town I grew up in we had to fight for Title 1 (or was it Title lX?) funding for the truly gifted kids because there wasn't any other legislation that addressed the special needs of kids who weren't being challenged.

We've come along way.

I think that the term "gifted" is used a lot more loosely now, though.

[Lorien]

14. I went to a high school for the gifted

and a small private-and EXTREMELY liberal-grade school that catered to the more gifted students. I attended a public junior high school, and my grades actually DROPPED while I was there. It wasn't just the boring classes, it was the distracting atmosphere as well. I really felt like an outsider there (I honestly felt that way at my high school too because I wasn't *as* gifted as many of my peers, but the classwork was better). So yes, I'm with you on this one. Gifted students can become drifting slackers in standard classrooms, from what I've seen and experienced.

[streblin]

20. nailed it

very very well said...

[bluestateguy]

15. I tried to get into those programs for years when I was in Jr. high

I was a harder working student than anybody, with a GPA of over 3.6 in middle school. I was a serious student who enjoyed learning. I persistently asked if I could be in the gifted and talented classes for English and Social Studies, or "GT" as it was called at my school. I was persistently told no, NO and NO by the teachers and bureaucrats at my school. It seems that back in the late 1980's in California you had to score in the 98th percentile on the state's bullshit standardized test. Well, I'm not a standardized test person, and my scores tended to be in the upper 70's or lower 80th percentile range. Good, but not "gifted" in the minds of California's paper pushing education bureaucrats. So I was on the outside looking in, even as I watched many rather mediocre, half-ass students be labeled "gifted" because they were good at taking a standardized test.

[streblin]

17. without a doubt

not only education but sports, arts, technical skills (ie: woodworking, mechanics, etc. ) all these folks need specialized attention. unfortunately in our times these valuable commodities are the first to be cut (from school budgets), it's unfortunate. hey america has all the resources to be the best and we're barely average. we educate to the lowest common denominator in america, that's a bad practice.
schools beyond our borders certainly realize and practice the method of specialized attention to a special individual. :patriot:

[Rabrrrrrr]

18. Good thinking! Yes, include the arts and the mechanical

and the athletic and everything!

We really do educate to the stupid.

[IChing]

22. The needs of all, is a thing a teacher should be trained for

But most are not in pedagogic development
never mind what this country is doing to education,


cooperative learning,(and society) done correctly, where power distribution is done correctly
can enrich all, intellect, in an educational system.

In Europe a separate system as expressed in our Culture and Education system is not
handled the same way in regards to societal needs.


I was both Special Ed, and T/G when I grew up
and both of my Kids were/are.

and have a masters in SE,
plus others.

[all.of.me]

35. i agree

but they only deal with kids that are average. bright kids and not so bright kids fall through the cracks. if you're average, they cater to you, but don't push you to excel. not here, anyway.

[progressivebydesign]

23. I was recognized as gifted in 3rd grade.. dropped out in 10th grade.

Nothing was ever done with me and my supposed giftedness. Now they have special programs in some schools, but when we tried to get my stepdaughter into the program (as a bright A student) we were advised by her great teacher that the program became a status symbol for the rich parents at the school, because the kids were chosen by a committee. So much for that.

As far as my experience in school. I did great at tests, hated the boring homework. I got in trouble for daydreaming a lot. Was well liked by teachers, but hated being couped up for 7 hours at a time at school. I started cutting class in 6th grade and never looked back. I took the proficiency test in 10th grade, passed it, and left school. My high school counselor advised me to do so. He said that I would never have the credits to graduate (aim low apparently), and with my IQ, I'd be better off entering the work world. Guess uneducated intelligent teenagers are some sort of hot commodity in the biz world. NOT.

Gifted programs are only useful if they actually serve a purpose... like teaching gifted kids how to function in life and the world and school. It's not enough to design a rocket or read books beyond your grade... it should be a more holistic approach.

In case anyone wonders what became of me.. after leaving school 28 years ago. I tried every single job there was. I have had, probably almost 100 different jobs. Seriously. I quit almost every single one of them.. I don't know that I've ever been fired. I never took more than a semester or two or three of community college (screenwriting). Worked as a commercial writer/producer for a tv station, a PR officer for a banking company, a community affairs direrctor for a tv station, a marketing exec, a PR assistant for a non-profit, and a client relations director for an interiors/architecture firm. I completed an interior design program recently and have a great fledgling design biz going, after working in home staging for a few years. I think I've found my calling (though tv writing was the other one). I think the problem with gifted people is that we dabble and drift and unless we're taught how to channel our talents, we continue to drift and try it all.

Anyone else out there the same??

[all.of.me]

33. my brother is very smart, but school was not his venue

he flopped around like you did, struggled with alcohol, but is now sober. he went into the service, got disillusioned, drove a propane truck for about 10 years, got fired from that, and is now trying to collect ssi. he's 53. sad. very sad.

[conflictgirl]

24. Absolutely, yes

Disclaimer: my 7.5 year old is in the gifted/talented program in our district. For as small as this area is, I am really impressed by how much they have to offer at different learning levels.

My son was reading at 4 (I recently discovered that my middle child, currently age 4, taught himself to read, so we may be going down this road again). He just finished first grade and he is working on large-number multiplication right now. G/T programs here begin in first grade, and kindergarten was really, really difficult for him because he was so bored. He would beg me every day to homeschool him, which was really hard to hear. I asked him to see what happened in first grade, since I suspected he'd get into the G/T program, and we'd revisit it. He didn't have many friends in kindy at all because he didn't know what to talk about with the other kids. The other kids were playing games and talking about normal kid stuff and he wanted to talk about building a time machine in his "lab" and which one of Jupiter's 63 moons was the coolest.

I attended a G/T program myself and it was actually because of my experience in that program that I was really reluctant to send my child to one. The G/T program I attended was unfortunately very elitist and they kind of drummed the message into us that we were sooo much smarter than the other kids, which obviously had no positives whatsoever. The school itself also overplayed competition among students. I've talked to some of my former classmates over the years and almost all of us ran into the same problems once we got into the real world - we discovered that nobody was willing to kiss our feet just because we were bright and that hard work counted for a whole lot more. There was just this pervasive sense of disappointment because we were led to believe that great things would happen to us by virtue of IQ alone, which obviously isn't the way the world works.

I was really pleased to see that the program my son attended was a lot better, though. There were only 20 kids in his class, which was great because most classrooms in other schools have 30 kids and a lower student-teacher ratio would benefit every kid. The other kids in the class were more like him so he didn't feel like the lone freak anymore and actually made friends this year. The teacher had 30 years experience teaching gifted kids in particular and I was always really impressed because it was clear that she "gets" what makes these kids tick and works with them on it. (ie Perfectionism and being hyper-critical of oneself is kind of a hallmark of G/T kids, and she really helped him with learning to go easier on himself.) And this program seems relatively free of the elitism and competitiveness of the program I attended.

I understand all the arguments against G/T education. I know that only being around other kids like themselves may hurt them in the long run. At the same time, an entire school career in which a kid has no friends and is made out to be a freak can be the next Columbine in the making, too. Sort of a no-win situation. Ultimately I think G/T education matters though for the same reason any other form of special ed matters (and yes, I do see them as being in the same category). Some kids are so far away from the norm that functioning in a regular classroom is virtually impossible, and regardless of what makes them different, being too different usually means those kids slip through the cracks because the teachers don't have time to address their needs.

Sorry for the super-long post...this topic is obviously really close to my heart.

[Pobeka]

25. My 2 daughters are both in gifted programs in public school.

We are lucky enough to have full day, 5 day a week programs for gifted kids in our school system.

We were starting to see the signs of classroom boredom in 3rd grade before they started this program, and keeping their minds challenged at the right level has kept them interested in education. Without this program I think we would have 2 daughters who viewed school as a waste of time.

I am also a firm believer in special programs for the below average kids as well. Putting kids in classes way over their capabilities sets them up for failure.

On edit: And then there is me, who can't type so well. :eyes:

[all.of.me]

32. my daughter is in all honors classes

and is bored shitless. they don't expect much from the kids in our school district. the teachers will even tell you so!

[noamnety]

26. I completely agree

If a child already knows how to read at a 10th grade level in third grade, worksheets on third grade vocabulary aren't educational for that student.

I'm sure a number of people here have horror stories of being taught the same information 4 or 5 years in a row - teaching an entire year (or years) of information that a student already knows isn't any more productive than teaching calculus to a 1st grader who's severely retarded.

Myself, I placed into 6th grade math in 4th grade, so I took math class with them - great. but it was a K-6 grade elementary school. So in 5th grade, I was in 6th grade math. In 6th grade, I took the same class again. In 7th grade, the teacher announced that the year would be spent honing the skills we learned in 6th grade, as review.

If no learning is taking place, it's not an education.

[rwenos]

27. I Was in An Elementary School Class of All Gifted

It was an experiment, an idea of the principal of that SF Bay Area elementary school. The wildest fluke. It was 1961.

Most of us graduated from HS together in 1971, and from UC Berkeley, UC Davis or UCLA in 1975.

I was astonishingly lucky. We read 2-3 grades above level. We studied French in 2nd, 3rd and 6th grades, which all came flooding back to me when I was 27 years old and visited Paris for the first time. No computers in those days, and the math was about at grade level, but it was wonderful and I had no idea how lucky I was until I went off to college, and heard stories similar to those related above by other DUers -- very similar stories my wife told, growing up in a small town in the Central Valley of California.

My kid is getting none of this in the public schools, which unfortunately have adopted the factory model. We give her French and piano lessons privately, and drive old cars to make up for it.

[DURHAM D]

28. I don't know. I have never figured out if the purpose of public

education is to provide equal access to learning or produce certain results.

What is supposed to be the mission of public education?

Seems to me that because the mission is not precisely articulted it is no wonder we are having this discussion. Also, I find that the most confused citizens are our teachers and administrators.

I remember being taught in school (back in the dark ages) that the reason our founding fathers supported public education was to "create an informed electorate".

[deadparrot]

29. I was in a parochial grade school...

and I was pretty smart (95th+ percentile on the Iowa basics all through grade school).

School bored the shit out of me. At the parent/teacher conferences in 2nd grade, my teacher told my parents that I would be the one she'd pick for an learning disability, because I sat in the back of class and didn't say a word. I had a shitty grade school experience, socially and intellectually, so the boredom didn't help.

I wish that there had been some program available (aside from the gifted summer program that teachers recommended for me) for me to get ahead during the school year. Anything.

There was no joy in learning by the end of junior high. I did my homework during class, and little else.

[elehhhhna]

84. My 9 y/o is having your experience now...

she wasn't referred for GT because she's so "quiet". I was in GT as a child and didnt skip a grade because, as the youngest in my class already, was judged too immature to make the leap (fine by me--and true). The school suggested arts training and my parents spent a LOT of money thay didn't really have to get me into Acting/Theatre classes.

High school I took advanced courses and was still somewhat bored, but the extracurriculars (speech team, theatre, art) kept me motivated and out of trouble. Freshman year at a University was like highschool, but with ashtrays. Dropped out and made my $$$ in sales.
No worries.

Hubs & I are providing the girls with oppt'ys outside the school system ( music, tae-kwon-do, soccer, riding lessons...) as much as possible (the girls are still dabbling and haven't settled on their "passions" yet.)

I think I'll call the school and demand a GT test for toots.

[kineneb]

30. Hated elementary, secondary school, loved college

I was/am one of the "gifted" folks. And I despise "mainstreaming" with a passion that burns holes in my socks. I didn't test well in the academic subjects, but boy, give me those abstract reasoning tests and I scored in the 99th percentile on all of them. I was bored, bored, booooored in most of my classes. The really hard ones that few people took were the ones where I got the best grades: math, science, German.

[SW FL Dem]

34. I have very mixed feelings

I would have qualified for the gifted program, if one existed when I was in school. As is was, I was accelerated, which wasn't an ideal solution. I started high school as a tall, skinny, 13 yr old underdeveloped girl. Even though I wasn't emotionally ready for high school, I breezed through with an almost straight A average. I never needed to study and was really shocked when I got to college and was competing against kids who had been in private schools and gifted programs. I would have benefited from a gifted program, but even without it, I managed to graduate from a great liberal arts college and a top ten law school.

That said, I have a wonderful son who is perfectly average when it comes to standardized test scores. For the past 9 years, I have seen the schools focus on the top 10% and the bottom 10%, the rest of the kids are all but ignored. The gifted kids get special attention, extra field trips, smaller class size, more resources etc. When my son was in 4th grade, the average size of the regular classroom was 30-32, the gifted class had 12 kids. The regular classroom had 3 computers, the gifted classroom had one for each kid. The gifted kids were given computer classes while the regular classrooms did gardening projects or read to the kindergartners. The end result is that the gifted kids continue to out perform their classmates - I wonder why?

The worst thing about gifted programs is the effect on the kids. I live in a district where the median test scores are above 70%, most of the kids are well above average, but they end up feeling bad because they aren't in the gifted classes. The gifted kids are essentially segregated; they have smaller classes, different teachers, they get to go on special field trips, they are the only ones that are allowed to work on the middle school newspaper or yearbook. The kids are so used to special treatment that most of them end up feeling that they are somehow special and better than the other kids. This feeling is reinforced by their parents and by the school.

I understand the need to keep the gifted kids interested and motivated to learn. My problem is where do you draw the line? When does keeping the kids interested become giving them an unfair advantage, because you are taking away resources that could be used by other kids. I am amazed that DUers don't see the inequity in this.

[rwenos]

37. There are all kinds of Inequities

One of them being putting three bright kids in a classroom of middle-level students, and expecting the bright kids to teach the middle-range ones. This is, in effect, a hidden subsidy for the school district -- it doesn't have to spend money for gifted programs, and it gets free labor, in the form of smart kids who teach the mid-range ones.

Your position is that of many public school teachers -- i.e., "Who do these gifted students (and their parents) think they are?"

I'm sorry, it seems to me that your view hitches racehorses to a plow. This is NOT the way to get doctors, engineers, chemists and Nobelists.

[alittlelark]

39. That's what happened at our school as well. My daughter was

placed w/ 'lower achieving' students to help them. The teacher told me that it would help her to learn how to teach others, and direct a group.... yea, it will do that. But what about the fact that she is bored to tears and doesn't want to do it!

[rwenos]

41. The Teacher was Conning You

A good teacher would have figured out how to conduct a bi-modal class, challenging the smart kids and leading the others from where they are to a point further down the road.

There are some WONDERFUL public school teachers. About 1 in 6-8, I'd say. The others are in it because it's a 9-month job and school lets out at 3:00 p.m., hours utterly unavailable in the private sector.

I speak as the son and brother of public school teachers. Sorry.

[wtmusic]

57. Exactly

Don't throw out the program because it's being implemented poorly (in some cases).

[SW FL Dem]

43. You have totally misintepreted my post

I didn't say that the gifted kids should teach the others. I questionedthe inequity in giving the gifted kids extra resources, e.g., class sizes of 12 when the regular classrooms have an average of 30- 32 kids. Why do the gifted kids get a computer per kid, when the ratio in regular classrooms is 1 computer per 10 kids.

You missed my first paragraph. I never had the advantages of gifted classes, but I still managed to graduate from a great liberal arts college and a top ten law school. I want to encourage kids to learn, I just have a problem with devoting a disproportionate percentage of the district's resources to the "gifted" programs.

[rwenos]

45. So Where Do the Doctors, Chemists and Nobelists Come From?

The public education system is responsible to society as a whole for providing educational opportunity to society as a whole. That includes the smart kids who need French, math, computers, advanced reading material, as well as Special Ed.

If society quits trying to produce geniuses, America will cease being the innovation engine it has been since the mid-19th Century. There's a reason why American universities lead the world in Nobelists, wouldn't you say?

[SW FL Dem]

48. Who said I was against education??

I also disagree with your premise that society produces geniuses. Geniuses are born, not made.

[rwenos]

49. "Born, not made" -- Sorry, I Don't Agree

Now I know why we're communicating at cross-purposes. We don't share a major premise. Yours is the geniuses will simply appear. Mine is the education system has to develop them.

No sense in arguing about it, it's an issue as old as the study of Psychology.

Meanwhile, my kid's going to get the best public education I can get for her, as I got. Maybe she'll become a genius, maybe not. But at least I'll know I gave her as much opportunity to become one as I could.

[conflictgirl]

52. Following that logic

Society would also produce people with mental retardation.

edited to add "with"

[rwenos]

61. Obviously, Society DOES Produce People With Retardation

Think about it.

[conflictgirl]

42. Well, I for one see the inequity in it

My son's GT program (elementary school) has a teacher/student ratio of 20:1 while regular classes have a ratio of 30:1. Of course that's unfair. I think ALL kids would do better with the smaller ratio. Some of the positive things about GT programs should be extended for all kids in school - not just smaller class sizes, but the extra field trips, resources, etc. (Though I will say that at least in this district, the number of computers available to the kids is pretty consistent throughout all the schools at each grade level.)

I don't think the solution to the inequities is to mainstream the gifted kids, though. The solution is to make sure all kids get equal teacher/student ratios and access to resources. If my son was in a regular classroom, he'd have no friends and he'd be totally bored. Granted, he's still very young, but even in kindergarten last year, I talked to the teacher about the fact that he was bored and asked what kind of extra challenges she could give him. He was already reading at a 3rd grade level and the class was still going over the alphabet until Christmas. There wasn't anything she could do for him except give him different worksheets and let him participate in an accelerated reader program in which he could get points and prizes for certain books he read. Edited to add, that in giving him these different assignments he was still being segregated from the class - as they went over recognizing the sounds that the letters made, he was by himself in a corner working on worksheets. Public schools are not designed in such a way that a teacher can give that much special attention to one kid whose needs fall far outside the norm, regardless of whether the difference is due to functioning at a level several grades higher or having a severe learning disability. Sure, we should improve the quality of education for all kids, not just those in GT programs - but I don't know as though there's any way for kids with significant learning differences to get their needs met in an "average" classroom.

[rwenos]

44. Inequitable . . . but Inevitable

The idea that all those kids can get equal opportunity is laudable but not practical. We all have our own interests here, and mine is to get the best education I can for MY kid. Your interest is obviously the same.

To say that one sees the inequity is only to say one has identified the issue. Yes, it's inequitable. But are the parents who complain about it sacrificing things for their kids' education? Are they doing homework, paying for tutors, talking to their kids about their classes?

[wtmusic]

63. Then the whole idea of public education is "not practical"

The whole goal of public education is to provide equal opportunity in education. Of course the goal is never attainable; that doesn't make it any less valid as a goal.

And of course we all want the best education for our own kids, but by taking it away from others? Not me.

[Rabrrrrrr]

66. But how do we define equal opportunity?

Everyone learns the same thing, or everyone gets to learn to the same potential level?

That is, does everyone only learn A and B?

Or do those who have the capacity, get to learn A and B and C, while those who don't have the capacity, maybe only learn A?

To me, the latter is what equal opportunity means: that everyone is taught to the maximum level of their own ability; not that everyone is taught to the same level.

[wtmusic]

87. agree

it's a lot of extra work for teachers, but it can be done. My school district has what in CA is known as a GATE program (Gifted and Talented Education) for which it receives additional funding from the state. Kids are given different homework and have "pullout" sessions where they have a mini class-within-a-class.
I'm not sure this is completely fair to everyone. But it's really not that hard to get into the program, and I've noticed when underperforming kids see their friends get into it, they work harder.

[noamnety]

59. You could make the same argument for special ed

"When does keeping the kids interested become giving them an unfair advantage, because you are taking away resources that could be used by other kids. I am amazed that DUers don't see the inequity in this."

The students at both ends of the spectrum have special needs, which take extra resources. I'm guessing you don't object to grouping special ed students by ability, or giving them at least a little extra help in one form or another, even if it's just an hour a day with the special ed teacher. You probably don't object to their teachers altering lesson plans to fit their ability.

You should think about the alternatives to having gifted and special ed programs. The alternative is to keep them all in the same classes together for the entire day doing the same assignments, regardless of ability, and either don't bother trying to teach them, or take away teaching time from the average student to work more with the top 5% and bottom 5%. That's not doing anyone any favors, either.

I work in a school where the reading levels for a single grade range from 3rd grade level up to college. How do you plan a literature lesson for that? Have you ever tried to teach a class that's composed of 3rd graders and college students?

[cally]

36. I have very mixed opinions on this

I agree that gifted students need different curricula and more challenge. Too many teachers think that adding more work or additional assignments is the way to challenge 'gifted' students. Instead the additional work adds drudgery and takes students away from pursuing their own interests.

I was put into the 'menatlly gifted minors' program which I despised. I was taken to another school two afternoons a week and told to work on puzzles. I hated puzzles, still do, and found nothing challenging in the class. My teacher made me make up all the work I missed. I kept begging to get out of this program but couldn't do it.

Both my children are/were in GATE. California places a child into GATE if you score in the 99 percentile of a certain standardized test. It's a test that weights mathematical and spatial reasoning. So, surprise :eyes:, more boys than girls are placed into GATE. The teachers like they had done 25 years earlier with me believed the GATE work should be in addition to regular school work. Both my kids dropped out. They didn't want more school work, just the ability to read harder books, analyze the concepts in ways most students don't, do more advanced math, not do so many repetitions of math problems once they got it.

For my older daughter, the middle school placed all students in the same level math class. So she spent months bored out of her mind while the teacher made sure all students knew how to count by 5s. Three years later, fifteen sixth grade students were moved ahead two years in Math. My youngest felt more challenged and enjoyed the class but by eighth grade only two girls were in a class of 26. She hated that class and the atmosphere.

My husband moved to a new school in elementary school and they refused to test him. He was put in a low level class (remember the dummy classes for all those 40 or older?) It was horrible for him. By HS, he was in the advanced classes but it took years for him to overcome the feeling of being a dummy. So everyone in my family had bad experiences, and not much good, with the gifted classes.

So, everyone in my family had bad experiences with segregating students. I'm against the GATE programs the way the classes work in schools.

So, all three of us had bad e

[UdoKier]

40. I'm all for advance placement courses...

But people excel in different areas, and there is a creepy social darwinist aspect to your idea of cloistering away the "gifted" kids from the riffraff. There are valuable life experiences they miss out on by being segregated that way, including the extremely valuable experience of an occasional ass-kicking.

I took my share of bullying in school, but it is a part of who I am, and I can empathize with others who have been bullied because of it.

But I do agree that bright kids should not be held back at the pace off regular kids, and should be put in courses that suit their academic needs.

[Rabrrrrrr]

50. NO, I didn't say to cloister them from the riffraff

I said that their advanced learning classes would have only advanced learning students, not be mixed. That is how I interpreted "segregation" in the post.

For their non-advanced classes, if they were to have any, they would be with the other "regular" students. (this last sentence was a point I did NOT make at all clear in my OP, so sorry for any confusion I might have caused).

[UdoKier]

67. Well, I know you said not total segregation...

but just to be sure.

I know that there are programs where the "gifted" kids are cloistered away.

When we lived in Miami, they had a public high school called MAST academy, where all the top-scoring kids from all the high schools went. The school was on ritzy Key Biscayne, a bus ride across the bay from the rest of the city. I'm sure it's a great environment academically, but there is something to be said for rubbing elbows with all types...

[applegrove]

46. They need to hang with kids their own age. They can excel in the future.

A little boredom in school, if they have extra-curricular things to do - never hurt anyone. They need to have a childhood - same as any other kid.

[rwenos]

47. Recipe for Mediocrity (n/m)

[applegrove]

54. Mediocracy? No more like happiness. Everyone deserves a childhood

with their family & pears. Carefree.

If their love of learning is enough to carry them through - let them decide that as tweens. In the meantime - teach them music, sports, acting, and how to play.

[conflictgirl]

64. And how exactly do you propose to do that?

My child knows how to play. But apparently to you it's not the "right" kind of play because he's not like a normal kid.

Seriously, please answer this for me. Say you have a 6-year-old who is at his absolute happiest discussing possible ways to break the time-space continuum and make time travel possible. His idea of play is taking apart and rebuilding old household gadgets in hopes of turning them into some form of working laser. How exactly would you propose to make him more like his peers?

BTW, he's been in extracurricular activities. He enjoyed them. But he's still weird compared to the other kids.

[applegrove]

85. Well good for you for sussing out environments for him. Not every

gifted child is exactly the same. Some need and would miss the company of peers. Same as any other kid. What works for one, doesn't work for another. How you find those peers and what programs or tag program the child is in as a child - again depends on them. But I wouldn't trade off the secure years of childhood for anything. Keep them away from total adult environments until they can ask & beg themselves to go to university (as opposed to reading the textbooks from university). Lots of brilliant kids show up at university with math way beyond the first or second year level and start right in form there. I'm not saying they shouldn't be in a special program or stream... but I am saying childhood is a time to play and be happy and to learn how to get along. Even the most brilliant need emotional investment in their own person. And if you are so bright - playing dumb may be a tool you need to fit in with regular folk. Let's say you are a CEO or a doctor. You gotta know how to talk to all people. Many many people grow up and dial down their habits and personality quirks to 'get along'. There are a few places where the truly brilliant can all hang together without having to deal with regular people their whole careers. But a child has not made that choice yet. Don't you think the heads of government departments or NGOs are pretty bright? And they all could have been considered gifted. But 90% of their day is spent talking to people (say victims of human rights abuses) who are not gifted. So while they are nattering away (playing dumb) they are also assessing the situation and the witness in 15 different ways.

[conflictgirl]

51. But gifted kids AREN'T going to be like other kids, no matter what

Being in a gifted program enabled my son to actually have friends his own age. You get some 6 year old who wants to talk, in detail, about ways that you can break the time-space continuum and make time travel possible, and even if you put him in a classroom with 29 other so-called normal kids, he's still not going to be like the other kids. He won't have a damn thing to say to any of them. It's like putting a deaf person in a class without sign language - they might be physically in the classroom, but the huge barrier is still there.

Also, just FYI, in gifted programs kids are with kids their own age. They're just other kids that aren't like normal kids either. GT programs aren't about excelling, and they're not about pressuring kids to be hyper-successful. (Or at least they aren't supposed to be.) They're about addressing an educational need that is such a pervasive part of a child's persona that the child cannot function normally around other kids the same age. You can put those kids in a normal classroom with normal kids all you want, and they're still not going to become like the other kids. It doesn't work that way.

[applegrove]

58. Most common field of work for Mensa membership used to be

truck-driving.

I say we give the kid extra work and extra curricular activities... and leave it to them to decide when they want to leave their playmates in the dust.

[noamnety]

65. One of the important things

that happens in a TAG program is exactly what you described - forming friendships with other students that are on the same level. When other kids are looking at you funny because you are drawing robots or planning Walmart protests instead of talking about the latest pop star at lunch, the TAG kids are your support network.

Peer approval is an important part of childhood, and one way to get it certainly is to "pretend not to be smart" - and there is a lot of pressure on students to underachieve to fit in. Even in this thread, you can see the negative peer pressure. Be mediocre, you can be smart when you grow up. My sister was a victim of that for a while in high school. She'd know every answer on a test, but deliberately mark a few wrong, so people wouldn't think she was a freak, getting everything right, yet again.

Another way to get that approval is to cultivate a network of people that appreciate you for who you are. The positive feedback encourages people (of all ages) to reach their potential. It's a cycle - you hang out with people that inspire you, you get more inspired, you inspire them, everyone feels good about themselves.

[Rabrrrrrr]

55. Assuming they bother to finish school, don't become drug fiends,

or go off on a shooting spree from all the teasing and/or boredom.

I was lucky, I knew it was all bullshit, but that I also needed to stick it out until I was able to go someplace with people at the same intellectual level as me (college). And I was willing to put up with the bullshit, and found other areas (with no help from the school, the school administration, the school board, or my parents; and with a lot of help from some very awesome adults in my church, and a few incredible teachers, and my friends) in which to explore my needs and expand my mind and my creativiity and my intellect.

Many of my friends were not so lucky, and destroyed themselves through the boredom of it all, and went on to accomplish very little in their lives.

Needless to say, no, there was no gifted program at my school. There were "Level 1" classes, but those were for the students who were just above average. For the people like me, scoring in the 99th percentile on every part of every test, there was nothing.

I was DAMN lucky. But for the grace of God giving me a few adults who knew the bullshit and helped me out, and my own whatever it was that allows me to go with the flow and ride the bullshit and still be mostly socially acceptable and capable even when around people are annoyingly slow-witted and dim, I could have ended up as a dope-smoking alcoholic car mechanic, assistant manager in the plumbing department at a home supply store, low-level engineer dropout cum part-time job-holding drifter, or any of the other lifestyles/jobs that my overly-intelligent friends ended up in (and all those jobs are real ones that my real friends are working in now).

I consider myself very lucky.

[wtmusic]

60. Or, to your credit,

you were able to challenge yourself (a knack which even intelligence doesn't guarantee)

[noamnety]

62. It's not actually the "same as any other child"

because the other children are being challenged in school.

You're suggesting that sitting in a noneducational classroom for 6 hours or so a day bored out of their minds doing busy work is a healthy part of childhood that they need to experience?

[expatriate]

78. As a kid, hanging with kids my own age

was my notion of absolute hell. I was one of the kids who these days would have qualified for a gifted program. I didn't want to hang out with my peers - I wanted to be with people ten years older, and I could hold my own with them too. Whenever I was forced to hang with the peer group and act like a kid, I was miserable to the verge of clinical depression. It truly isn't for every kid.

I would much rather have been in a class with older kids, doing course work at the level I was capable of handling, than having a stereotypical normal childhood. I wasn't normal, why have a normal childhood?

[LeftyMom]

83. The years I was mainstreamed in school

din't involve "a little boredom," I was bored and angry and frustrated, and that was at a grade level above my age. What mainstreamed classes really taught me a disdain for people I eventually perceived as stupid that it took me a long time to work past. I had much more of a childlike innocence when I could answer a question or turn in an assignment without questioning how much I had to dumb my response down to avoid being hassled by my classmates.

[tblue37]

53. I have an essay on my "Teacher, Teacher" website

entitled "We Don' Need No Stinkin' Gifted Programs!":
http://teacherblue.homestead.com/gifted.html

In it I too lament the fact that our schools usually do nothing to interest or educate our highly gifted students.

[NMMNG]

68. Absolutely

And I know it will be considered politically incorrect for me to say this considering I work with the developmentally disabled, but for some of them the whole "mainstreaming" concept is hogwash. Putting a child with severe intellectual, physical and behavioral disabilities into a regular classroom, where s/he is going to be ostracised and completely unable to keep up just for the sake of being PC, is more of a disservice than anything. Of course this does not apply to those with milder disabilities who need only minor adaptations.

And of course children who are far ahead of their peers developmentally should be able to advance to upper grades regardless of age. If they need special social/emotional support to assist them then give it to them. This is far better than making them stagnate in classes that are too easy for the sake of keeping them with same-aged peers.

[noamnety]

69. And now a brief commercial message

actually a plug for my college - I dropped out of high school after 10th grade, to go to college full time. I was in that group that just wasn't getting what I could out of high school classes, so I went to Simon's Rock, which is a college in MA designed for kids who are capable of doing college level work, even though they don't meet that age requirement that society says you have to have.

A number of you probably know of at least one of the graduates: Eli Pariser of MoveOn. He got his BA at 19, which is about the norm there.

Just mentioning it because this thread is probably attracting a few parents of kids that would find it to be a welcome escape.

http://www.simons-rock.edu/about/index.html

[Dover]

70. In truth, ALL children should be getting more individualized attention

It would make a world of difference to have better trained teachers who can recognize what different children need in order to respond more effectively to their strengths and identify their weaknesses. We have a LONG way to go with our education system. I don't think I've yet seen a really good and comprehensive plan for improving the system, the training, paying teachers much better, and reducing class size.

My 9 year old niece is waaaay above average intelligence (college level in several areas according to a battery of tests) but has had big problems in school and ends up feeling like a failure. She cries in frustration. Long story short, there is a disconnect that makes it difficult for her to communicate her thoughts (something that might be overcome with certain kinds of therapy). Although she's an 'A' student, it's very stressful because of this problem and taking an emotional toll. Nobody at her school spotted the problem,
...thought she had ADD....and while her parents recognized there was a problem, they couldn't put their finger on exactly what it was. Now they know and it's a big relief and makes perfect sense. She will need to find a better 'system' that accomodates her individual issues if she is to ever express her potential and not feel trapped by her disability. So the search is on for finding the right place for her. This will likely be costly, but necessary.

I'm sure there are more kids than not, who don't suffer this particular issue but have other issues, who desperately need to have them recognized and dealt with in whatever way best suits them. And many parents cannot afford to take their children out of the public school system. So the whole education system needs an overhaul imo.

A footnote: Just rented a wonderful French flick titled, To Be And To Hold, a documentary about a school teacher in rural France teaching in a one room school house with different ages. It's beautiful! Providing a good education is NOT rocket science, it's just a matter of paying attention and working with the whole child...body, mind and spirit.

[NawlinsNed]

71. Well, here's my story

I was 4 years old when I entered kindergarten. Somehow, I managed to pass an oral aptitude test and entered in the slower learner's class, not because I was a slow learner (I could correlate symbols between television and newspaper before I hit 2), but because my parents had literally never taught me to so much as spell my own name. Imagine how embarrassed I was when everyone else is writing their names on the first day of class, and I don't even know what the letters look like.

By 3rd grade, I was reading at an 11th grade level. I'd go to the public library and check out high school textbooks. I excelled everywhere academically where there was a sense of competition. If we had workbooks to go through, I'd speed through an entire series in less time than it took my classmates to do a single book. Ultimately though, I was scholastically bored out of my freaking mind. I taught myself most of the foundations of algebra in 4th grade when my dad bought a Ti99/4a computer.

My problem was that I could learn so quickly that I often got bored and ignored the classes themselves. I scored a 24 on the ACT in 5th grade to earn admission into a college gifted program, yet had a B/C average in the 5th grade because I wasn't interested in the course work.

Same thing happened in college... I had never been given any direction from the time I was a small child, and while I could easily pass even the hardest math and CS classes with ease, my grades were downright horrid. Of course, I followed that up by scoring higher than my professors on the graduation evaluation exam that they used to determine how well we understood Computer Science concepts, and scored tops in the entire college of arts and sciences on an accreditation aptitude exam. Got my degree in Dec, 02 and haven't had a single interview in my field since. Of course, IT ain't exactly hot in Louisiana. :)

If I had been given direction AT ALL, other than had some more books thrown at me, I'd be in a much better place than I am today. Instead, I get to drive during rushhour traffic this morning to go take a clerical typing test for the state Civil Service board. After all, I've only been unemployed for 10 months now.

[Not_Giving_Up]

73. Both of my kids are GT

My son is classified as Special Ed and GT at the same time. Really smart kid, but he's an Aspie, and he has issues that need to be met. For instance, he's allowed to do the math in his head (not showing his work) as long as he's getting the answers right. He has dysgraphia - trouble getting info to paper, so he can verbally respond when needed.

When he wasn't in GT, he was bored. He refused to do his homework because it was stupid. He said he wasn't learning anything he didn't already know. After GT, he comes home telling me about things he's learned, thinking he might know something that I don't. Little does he realize, dear old mom was GT as well.

[ProfessorGAC]

75. I Support It

I went to a school where we were set apart. There were no downsides at all. Sure, some of the people in the Honors program were considered nerds, but that would have been the case if everyone were homogenized in the class anyway.

We had athletes, stoners, dweebs, and gearheads in our program, just like all the others. But, we were always at least a full year, academically, ahead of the other classes. Many of us graduated early and got to start college at 16. It was useful, productive, and a good experience. I see no reason why anyone wouldn't benefit from it if they would otherwise feel bored, intellectually.
The Professor

[losdiablosgato]

77. I could not agree more.

[expatriate]

79. If special education is provided for some who need it,

why not for all?

My story - was reading at age two and a half. Could write at three. Entered kindergarten at four and found I was expected to play with blocks and color pictures. After half a year of boredom, was put in a "pre-primer" class, where we read Dick and Jane. I read my father's Peanuts collections at home, so was bored foolish.

Continued to be bored foolish through much of elementary school. Had a couple of teachers who recognized my need for more challenge, and was encouraged to write creatively by them - this was a lifesaver. Otherwise - I would finish classwork in a matter of minutes, and then would just read quietly at my desk. This pattern continued all through high school. College was the wonderful goal held out to my by teachers and parents who knew I was bored silly - supposedly it would be this great place where I could concentrate on what I was interested in and really get my teeth into things.

Maybe it was the college I had to attend (state university in the South), but it was the same old story. I would read the textbook the first weekend after the semester began, and listen in lectures. Never took notes. Never studied. Graduated with a 4.0 average and was bored silly the entire time. Big let-down, considering this was supposed to be the great reward at the end of my academic career.

So yeah - some kind of gifted and talented program would have been most welcome. I did really well all through school - but I always had this terrible sense of waste. Waste of time, waste of energy, waste of my abilities. Thankfully, early on I began to set out projects and study for myself, which I did in my spare time. I taught myself to play many musical instruments, read hundreds of books, learned to draw and paint, learned needlework and sewing, learned to garden. Studied genetics, Tudor history, Anglo-American folksongs and folktales, Renaissance art, the history of film and more. It made me a freak at high school, but by then I didn't care what my peer group thought.

Considering that I've never used any of my formal education in my career, with the exception of one half year's typing class, I just feel as if my seventeen years spent in educational institutions was a bit of a bust. I wonder if it might not seem so much of a bust if I'd been able to explore things at my own pace and look into areas of study that were outside of the set curriculum.

[IdaBriggs]

80. My Mother always said, "Its not how smart you are; its what you do with it

that counts."

My Mom is way smart. I am in the "gifted" category, and skipped second grade. They wanted to skip me another grade, but it was decided that my social skills were equally important. Unfortunately, this was a joke. Socially I didn't find a good fit until college when I 'blossomed' -- fortunately, most of my earlier schooling wasn't completely wasted as I would ignore the teachers and "read quietly." My elementary school had some excellent teachers, and they gave me the best stuff they had. My junior high years were horrible, despite the 'nice folks' who were teaching -- they just had too many students to pay attention to every 'gifted' kid out there, so as long as I didn't cause disruption in the classroom, they let me read. My senior high years were a repeat.

College was a challenge; study skills were NOT something I had ever learned, and frankly, my personal life was a complete disaster due to a seriously messed up family. The friends I made there, tho, have been life saving! I finally finished my degree as an adult when I finished 75 credit hours in 8 months at a respected four year university. (Yes, I had to jump through hoops like crazy, and I didn't sleep much, but it was one of the best times in my life!)

I support teachers, education, and schools, but if I can do anything about it, my kids will be going someplace with a very small teacher/student ratio. Individual needs are something I think parents should be paying attention to... :)

[MadHound]

81. Well, first off, I think that all educational standards should be raised

I listen to my mother's stories of her curriculum while growing up. Back in the thirties and forties, public educators realized that they would only have many of these kids until the eighth grade, after that, many students quit in order to help out on the farm, or start working to help out with the family finances. Thus, the curriculum was an advanced one, for all students. Subjects like algerbra and chemistry were introduced in the sixth grade, as opposed to being introduced in the ninth grade when I was in school, and eleventh, twelfth or not at all today. And back in my mom's day, if you actually went to high school, the curriculum was much more akin to a college load than today's school curriculum.

That said, yes, I think that it is entirely right and proper to push a kid who is above average. I suffered throughout elementary school due to being more advanced than my peers. I easily became bored, and made a game out of proving the teacher wrong on issues involving history, math, and english. When I was in jr. high, things got a bit better because I was able to choose some of my own classes, and thus was able to challenge myself. I went to a wonderful high school that allowed me to really push myself, taking courses for college credit, and advanced placement courses that challenged and interested me. I was quite lucky in that regard, for I have talked to many folks who attended schools in small towns that didn't have access to a college, and the education they received was quite abysmal in some cases, and really didn't prepare them for college level work.

So yes, we should teach to the needs of all levels of childrens' intelligence, and challenge all students to learn more in grades from K-12. To do otherwise is reprehensible.

[Cobalt Violet]

82. Yes. They should be challenged at their own levels.

[Kraklen]

86. As long as it doesn't take resources from where it's needed.

If some kid's advancing beyond his or her peers, give her access to a library and the internet. Let them work at their own pace. Pushing a kid can be as bad or worse than keeping a "gifted" kid in a class that's too slow.

[KittyWampus]

88. No, Mix Gifted, Challenged & Average Into ALL Classrooms. Gifted Kids

can tutor the challenged ones.

Gifted kids learn about interacting with others and how to instruct.

My Dad was a Science teacher and administrator.

He and his school used this method throughout his career.

It works.

School isn't all about learning subjects...it's about getting along with others and observing their various approaches to stuff.

[LeftyMom]

90. I was in classes like this from time to time

and I was almost always absolutely f'n miserable. The other kids didn't seem to like them either, I think they made them feel stupid.

Most of the time the only thing the other kids wanted to less than to apply themselves and learn something was my help. Classes like that, combined with group projects where one smarter kid is assigned to work with the average to slow ones are two of the biggest reasons I'd rather roll naked through a pile of broken beer bottles and dirty syringes than send my kid to public school.

The only time a class like that worked at all (from my perspective) was my freshman year of high school when the admins did an experimental class of smarter girls and boys who didn't apply themselves in school, in the hope that the boys would do better to impress the girls. (They didn't tell the kids this, I overheard two teachers talking about it while making photocopies for another teacher in the English dept lounge.) I have no idea what the results were or if they tried the same pairing again the following year, the teacher left to run the library at another school. It wasn't a bad class, but I think that had more to do with the teacher, who mostly taught seniors and had high expectations for her one class of freshmen.

[conflictgirl]

91. How do you think kids react to being tutored by their brighter classmates?

Hint: they don't tend to like it. I was in a GT program in elementary then a regular program in junior high. Several of my teachers took the approach you described - they knew I was bored so they thought the perfect solution would be to have me tutor the students who needed extra help. All that resulted in was me getting beaten up for being a "teacher's pet", "know-it-all", etc. I got really good, really quickly, at hiding the fact that I was smart. If that's what being smart brought me, I didn't want anything to do with it! I worked very hard at dumbing myself down so I could fit in better and it worked, by sophomore year of high school I was pulling Ds in English (which was always my best subject). Go me!

Also, bright kids aren't supposed to be in school to be tutors. They're supposed to be there to LEARN something themselves. Expecting everybody to function at the same level and the brighter kids to assist the teachers brings the bright kids down to the lowest common denominator. I'm sure you've heard about how much the US lags behind other countries in terms of education - part of it is due to exactly that, teaching to the lowest common denominator.