This talk about high performers and low performers needing focused environments to perform gets me thinking about the scenario of putting them together. I know this is not what the article is suggesting, but the thought is still there.
This reminds me of conversations between the two ends of the Dunning-Kruger spectrum. In DK low performing people tend to vastly over-estimate their capabilities because their frame of reference is exceedingly narrow. High performers tend to under estimate their capabilities because in their vast experience they have forgotten a great many things that are either unnecessary or things that have become like muscle memory.
The conversations are interesting because the high performers tend to be more humble, more confident, and less arrogant while the low performers tend to be the opposite. That is extremely interesting because of what is not said in the conversation. For the low performers everything tends to be literal to the spoken word and everything else becomes an assumption localized to their personal perspective. For the high performers the negative space in a conversation is just words in a different form that the low performers actively broadcast in complete ignorance. This remains true for both children and adults.
But that's a different meaning of "need" to what's normally used. Gifted kids don't need special attention to get through school and life the same way the intellectually impaired do. It's much better in the sense, that if they will survive and probably not even cause a fuss if you treat them like the lowest common denominator. It's worse in the sense that you're unlikely to get a strong signal, but without special treatment they'll perform much worse than their potential (personal and economic) and are likely to end up with a psychological disorder. But that's not as bad as people who'll get in trouble with medical or legal issues, so it's not top of mind for legislators, educators , and caregivers. (References available on request)
It's crazy to me that there is so much pushback to ending a program for "gifted" kindergarteners. I'd say it's great for 4-5 year olds to be able to do...normal children things rather than have their lives ruined by their helicopter "my child is special" parents.
In response to OP's link, my suggestion to primary schools would be to scrap the G/T programs, and instead focus on reducing class-sizes. You should also remove any students from classrooms whom routinely distract from others' learning. Give those timesinks a broom, instead.
> the G&T system selects, however imperfectly, for merit and effort.
This is true but doesn't answer the fundamental question of whether meritocracy results in a fair, healthy society. I think this is a nuanced issue with reasonable arguments on both sides, but the author simply assumes the answer is yes without actually addressing the question.
Doesn't this all kind of hinge on the idea that these programs indeed serve these kids? Maybe things are different now, but growing up in public school, GT was kind of seen as a joke and ultimately arbritrary. I think I lost my chance to get in because of my lack of cursive skills. We would compare assignments and laugh at the sameness, sometimes even lesser challenge, of the "gifted" classes. The only thing that really mattered back then was the standardized tests.
> Even if you’re a blank slater who believes ability is evenly distributed, and a pure egalitarian who sees any demographic imbalance as injustice, even then, why destroy programs that benefit some children?
Because the benefit of one is the disadvantage of somebody else. Same coin, different side.
(That's not my argument, but I believe it is the argument on which this is based.)
> This is one of the few mainstream policies I can’t understand from the other side
A more even society may be a goal. Scandinavia in the 80s did a lot of that, left high performers in school hanging. For good or worse.
I dated someone who earned a psych degree while we were together. Her specific focus was on gifted kids. She described it as a pathology. She considered it something to be managed.
Two wrongs don't make a dilemma or a binary choice. Fixing the lack of preparedness and inappropriate pedagogy for all students will help all students. G&T students are the easiest problem, especially if self-paced learning were the norm. Then deploy more of the human resources to the hard problems.
For some reason, radical egalitarianism seems to have taken hold across the West and separating children by ability is frowned upon.
Here in Spain one of the far-left politicians was found to be sending both of his children to private school while preaching this enforced equality for the rest of us.
I entered middle school in 1979, at which time I was slotted into available "advanced" classes. This was as close to a G&T program as we had. It changed my game. Not because of the knowledge imparted, but because (a) I was with other kids who wanted to learn and were willing to work, and (b) I was largely removed from the disruptions I had increasingly experienced from kids who didn't want to be there. At last, I could relax and just do school. It didn't make school a paradise, but it sure removed the worst of what was problematic for me about it. Freed from most of the nonsense, I was in a better head space and was able to do well.
Gifted programs aren't perfect, simply holding students accountable regardless of gifted status would be better. However skin color seems like the dumbest metric to use to hold these programs accountable and has little to do with students test scores so it's highly doubtful that managing your school based on that is going to have a positive outcome.
I am so against this. I taught myself to read at 4 and taught myself up to 5th grade math in the first grade. They basically let us do whatever we wanted in that class and it was great. Then second grade onward was structured and so incredibly boring as I waited years to finally get back to the math I knew how to do in grade 1. Then I got into algebra and it was another snooze fest going at the pace of everyone else. I was deep into drugs before I got to something interesting like multi dimensional Calculus and it was only due to my severe misbehavior and my parents catching me before I OD’ed on benzos that I became lucid in the last couple of months of class to pick it up. Finally got my shit together in college and got a masters in EE, but man I feel like I wasted so much potential if I could have only gone my speed. And to be clear, I was in a G&T program after 6th grade but it was too little too late. In first grade my best friend was Asian and we worked on math together and geeked out about cool science shit, that’s what I wish I could have done the whole time. I was in a small town where there were few of us, but I imagine NYC could be an amazing place to create a space for gifted learning.
My brother was identified as "gifted" and I was identified as having a "learning disability". He got pulled out of class to work with other gifted kids on special projects (like computer programming in the 90s). I got pulled out of science class to be taught remedial grammar and receive one-on-one help with math. This made me feel like I was dumber than the other kids and that I had to study hard to compensate. Meanwhile, my brother had everyone telling him how smart and gifted he is.
We both went to university, but he barely got accepted and nearly dropped out. I think I did a lot better at university because I was already accustomed to needing to study.
Many years later I learned that there have been studies about this "praise for effort versus praise for intelligence" dynamic.
The primary reason I was admitted into my local gifted program was because my parents and teachers pushed to get me into it. At age 6, I scored a high enough IQ to get in, but my family had to pay to have the test administered privately. The makeup of my cohort was mostly white and Asian, but they were also distinctly middle-to-upper-middle-class, with a high density of stay-at-home mothers (like my own) who were active in the school board and knew how to push the right buttons to get their kids into special programs.
> I’ve never seen a satisfying explanation for why a supposedly unjust system, one assumed to disadvantage certain groups, would “accidentally” advantage Asians, often above native-born white students.
Many immigrant groups have, on average, a higher socioeconomic status than native-born Americans. Even Black African immigrants tend to be more affluent than the mean of the white American population, because immigrating is expensive and it selects for wealth. My family are middle-class in North American, but they immigrated from South America, where were distinctly better-off than the average.
Affluence has much more explanatory power than merit, especially in the absence of any mechanism for the supposed racial merit which the author of this newsletter seems to be ascribing to the Asian population.
i find it disappointing that whenever this issue comes up, the obvious solution is being ignored: montessori.
it solves both problems: integrating a diversity of children and allowing children to learn according their capacity and interest.
because each child gets to learn at their own pace, from the gifted all the way to intellectually disabled, all in the same class. (the term disabled feels wrong, but i am not sure what the correct term here is, i picked this one from wikipedia)
ironically, but in line with the title, maria montessori developed that curriculum specifically for disabled/special needs children. turns out what is good for special needs children also works for normal children.
and it would not be expensive. training a montessori kindergarten teacher takes one year. you don't even need a full degree, or it could easily be included in a degree curriculum.
The right wing thinks browns are stealing jobs from whites by simply existing. The left wing thinks whites are stealing jobs from browns by getting a better education, and want to abolish that opportunity. So both sides have decided on a remedy that actually makes everybody worse off, but in different ways.
Destroying gifted programs is an insidious form of socialism. Socialism seeks to take from those who work hard and give to those who do not. Socialism inevitably collapses into dictatorship. That is the end goal of those who push it (other than fools who believe in an impossible utopia that ignores human nature). Destroying gifted programs is just another attempt to make everyone poor and under government control.
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[ 1814 ms ] story [ 6076 ms ] threadThis reminds me of conversations between the two ends of the Dunning-Kruger spectrum. In DK low performing people tend to vastly over-estimate their capabilities because their frame of reference is exceedingly narrow. High performers tend to under estimate their capabilities because in their vast experience they have forgotten a great many things that are either unnecessary or things that have become like muscle memory.
The conversations are interesting because the high performers tend to be more humble, more confident, and less arrogant while the low performers tend to be the opposite. That is extremely interesting because of what is not said in the conversation. For the low performers everything tends to be literal to the spoken word and everything else becomes an assumption localized to their personal perspective. For the high performers the negative space in a conversation is just words in a different form that the low performers actively broadcast in complete ignorance. This remains true for both children and adults.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twice_exceptional
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In response to OP's link, my suggestion to primary schools would be to scrap the G/T programs, and instead focus on reducing class-sizes. You should also remove any students from classrooms whom routinely distract from others' learning. Give those timesinks a broom, instead.
This is true but doesn't answer the fundamental question of whether meritocracy results in a fair, healthy society. I think this is a nuanced issue with reasonable arguments on both sides, but the author simply assumes the answer is yes without actually addressing the question.
White is I imagine somewhat distributed across the board. Now Asian, does that imply broad distribution or is it mostly Chinese?
Because the benefit of one is the disadvantage of somebody else. Same coin, different side.
(That's not my argument, but I believe it is the argument on which this is based.)
> This is one of the few mainstream policies I can’t understand from the other side
A more even society may be a goal. Scandinavia in the 80s did a lot of that, left high performers in school hanging. For good or worse.
Mamdani says he would phase out NYC gifted program for early grades
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45452374
Here in Spain one of the far-left politicians was found to be sending both of his children to private school while preaching this enforced equality for the rest of us.
We both went to university, but he barely got accepted and nearly dropped out. I think I did a lot better at university because I was already accustomed to needing to study.
Many years later I learned that there have been studies about this "praise for effort versus praise for intelligence" dynamic.
> I’ve never seen a satisfying explanation for why a supposedly unjust system, one assumed to disadvantage certain groups, would “accidentally” advantage Asians, often above native-born white students.
Many immigrant groups have, on average, a higher socioeconomic status than native-born Americans. Even Black African immigrants tend to be more affluent than the mean of the white American population, because immigrating is expensive and it selects for wealth. My family are middle-class in North American, but they immigrated from South America, where were distinctly better-off than the average.
Affluence has much more explanatory power than merit, especially in the absence of any mechanism for the supposed racial merit which the author of this newsletter seems to be ascribing to the Asian population.
it solves both problems: integrating a diversity of children and allowing children to learn according their capacity and interest.
because each child gets to learn at their own pace, from the gifted all the way to intellectually disabled, all in the same class. (the term disabled feels wrong, but i am not sure what the correct term here is, i picked this one from wikipedia)
ironically, but in line with the title, maria montessori developed that curriculum specifically for disabled/special needs children. turns out what is good for special needs children also works for normal children.
and it would not be expensive. training a montessori kindergarten teacher takes one year. you don't even need a full degree, or it could easily be included in a degree curriculum.
The right wing thinks browns are stealing jobs from whites by simply existing. The left wing thinks whites are stealing jobs from browns by getting a better education, and want to abolish that opportunity. So both sides have decided on a remedy that actually makes everybody worse off, but in different ways.
Can't wait to pick that poison