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.
A lesson runs at the pace of the slowest students, and those slowest students don't want to learn and actively disrupt the class and everyone else. We tolerate this far too much its damaging to the other 20-30 children in the same lessons and moving them to their own classes would have a much bigger average impact than picking the brightest for special lessons. Ideally we would do both so people could go closer to their pace.
> and those slowest students don't want to learn
This is not a fair assumption and is what leads to kids in remedial classes not getting a decent education.
Kids can be genuinely disruptive or not care, or they can care but struggle with the material, those are orthogonal traits.
I don’t disagree that the lesson goes at the pace of the slowest students, but those slow students deserve a disruption-free classroom too, even if it moves slower than the advanced class.
Greetings fellow travelers [0].
[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.
> You should also remove any students from classrooms whom routinely distract from others' learning.
You can't do this without getting sued (at least in Massachusetts). Source: my wife is a long-time elementary school teacher and my daughter works as a one-on-one aide while she is getting her teaching degree.
I don't want to start of flamewar but the current "push in" model created by educational bureaucrats creates a classroom environment that caters to the "timesinks". When you have a good chunk of the class on IEPs (individual education plans) that must be followed by law the "high flyers" (gifted kids) mostly get ignored due to time pressure.
Add socialization problems caused by COVID and reduced attention spans due to devices and chaos is always eminent. The stories I hear about daily classroom behavior would have blown my mind as a kid growing up in the 70s/80s.
I just wish that gifted kids could get the same access to IEPs that the other tail of the curve gets. However, when you base your educational outcomes on high stakes testing it is just natural to ignore the outliers above the mean and focus on the ones below it.
Again, I don't want to start a flamewar. Everyone has the right to an education.
>> You should also remove any students from classrooms whom routinely distract from others' learning.
> You can't do this without getting sued (at least in Massachusetts).
Yes you can. Group students by entrance exam results. Discussed here:
>I just wish that gifted kids could get the same access to IEPs that the other tail of the curve gets.
It wasn't until I was flunking out of medical school that I realized the truth to your statement. I never learned how to learn (my 90's public school's version of G/T was to let a small group of higher-IQ children do whatever they want, including nothing).
I feel that smaller class sizes would encourage smart-but-bored students to behave better (i.e. not be the class clown I was), out of fear of social isolation. In larger classes, it becomes more difficult for a single teacher (+aides) to impart learning habits upon ALL students.
Also in Massachusetts...
We found that all the "best in the nation" schools here, with the possible exception of Boston Latin, aren't really all that great. The reason they're measured "best" is because all the parents hire tutors and private instructors on top of the regular school day. Russian math, science tutors, English, music instruction... you name it.
Systemically, this means the educators don't know how to teach. There are standout teachers, but by and large, the expectation from the "good" schools is that the kids are getting all the actual education outside the school system already. We found this to be true in Lexington, in Wellesley, pretty much all of the top schools in Mass. Boston Latin even has this problem, on top of the additional requirement to live within the city limits of Boston proper and hope you fit into one of their quota slots and your kid gets accepted.
Private schools are a little different, but their costs, and the small percentage of acceptance even if you bear the cost, will take your breath away.
All of this, and a host of other unpleasant features of public education, are why we chose homeschooling. It's been a huge sacrifice, but worth it.
You basically just described what the NYC "G&T" program is. All it is smaller class sizes and less disruptive students.
There are only like 4 actual accelerated learning programs out of the hundreds in NYC's "G&T".
What percentage of NYC's students are in these programs?
I was a student of public Texas ISDs, and briefly taught in Tennessee, so "public school" is an entirely different definition/beast than NYC's [probably better] education systems.
> You should also remove any students from classrooms whom routinely distract from others' learning.
A good idea but not practically possible in any district, unfortunately.
Yep. My child was just accepted into a G&T program; it replaces gym period once a week, and I believe the teacher is responsible for all the G&T classes in the entire district (3 elementary schools, 1 middle, 1 high) - so if she stopped teaching G&T and started teaching an additional class, it would help exactly one school's grade level. Maybe better than nothing, but not by much.
You are right but this is a fairly new development, driven by activist lawsuits. It doesn’t have to be this way, these sort of changes are not irreversible.
Not necessarily a good idea. Dealing with disagreements, distractions, conflicts, low and high performers around you, that's all part of social education. It's not explicitly on the curriculum, but if you just give everybody a super sheltered cotton-clad education environment until they are 18 then they will be better at using the pythagorean theorem or discussing Shakespeare, but they will utterly fail on the street and will scream hate crime the first time somebody disagrees with them at the workplace.
I'm obviously exaggerating, but it's not purely good to remove "distracting elements".
> You should also remove any students from classrooms whom routinely distract from others' learning.
Might very well be the bored gifted ones...
"...here, let me teach you how to sweep a floor, wise Bartholomew III" [hands intelligent student broom] "...now push. It's a simple task for a simple person."
src: I was a bored gifted one; only swept the floors long enough to want to change my behavior(s). I was also once a teacher for children with behavior issues.
Why does scrapping G/T programs have anything to do with reducing class sizes? You can do both at the same time, there is no reason to believe they are competing ideas.
Yes, you can accomplish both programs. However, the limitation has to do with funding constraints.
src: attended public schools in G/T programs (IMHO: "normal" and "G/T" kids benefit from being taught together, in smaller classrooms)
src2: attended college on a full teaching scholarship (am no longer teaching) — "taught"[1] the classes with behavior problems
[1] Babysat; I was made the bad kids teacher because I was a tall footballer that didn't take shit from physically abusive bullies. I never beat a kid up (although many friends have, deservedly) but definitely restrained a few.
They are very much competing for funding; reducing class sizes necessarily means hiring more teachers, which requires more budget.
Many public schools are going to opposite route, which is causing a lot of problems — classes are becoming fully integrated with both special needs and gifted students in the same room. You'll often get a teacher and a near minimum-wage assistant in one class...
Generally this is a response to a massive teacher shortage in the US, which is likely caused by low pay relative to the sheer amount of work and angst that teachers have to put up with (from both parents and students).
If the US were truly a society that valued education, teachers would be some of the highest paid professionals in the country... but teacher salaries have actually been declining relative to the average, and like many positions haven't been keeping up with the rate of inflation either. This is in addition to the long-known fact that many teachers end up buying their own supplies.
For anyone else who is puzzled about why anyone could oppose such programs, I suggest reading https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Berge... (better version: https://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html)
> 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 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.
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.
> radical
Really? Why is everything called "radical" nowadays? The "radical left" who want healthcare for everybody, the "radical right" who oppose immigration. Radical egalitarianism? Really? Because they don't want to fund programs for gifted kids? You may not like it (I myself am ambivalent and the best solution is likely in the middle), but it's not "radical".
The belief that every child has the same natural ability is as radical.
It's radical because goes against all evidence, experience, and common sense - it is ideology taken to a puritanical extreme. There is no more extreme position one can take.
Though I don't think that's the argument. Even those advocating for the end of the program for gifted kids don't believe that all children have the same natural ability. Maybe some of them do, but the main arguments are different and are not actually that "radical".
And even if that was the argument, the term was used in the context of "radical egalitarianism". So, the argument doesn't automatically transfer to such a radical variety of "egalitarianism" in society as a whole if it focuses on a single aspect.
There are two levels of quite extreme exaggeration here, calling the end of a particular school program "radical egalitarianism". Which words should we use if an actual radical proposal comes along?
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.
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.
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.
I think you may misunderstand what a gifted kindergartener is. Like, some kids come in and they essentially taught themselves to read. That doesn't mean they have helicopter parents who think they're extra special -- it means they have distinct needs that aren't well served in the normal classroom, which is boring for them.
I don't think four year olds demonstrating the ability to read several levels above their grade level is 1.) rare and 2.) a talent you can realistically tease out from over-parenting at that age.
Given the extreme levels of segregation in certain parts of the country (NYC for example has fewer than 5 percent of Black and Latino kindergartners in G&T programs, but higher enrollment for Black and Latino students in third grade) school systems like that one should seriously consider pivoting to prioritizing equality over G&T funding.
But how does pulling a GT program help with equality? Putting bored kids in a classroom with kids who are far behind them developmentally drags everyone down. Don't the GT kids deserve to learn, too?
> NYC for example has fewer than 5 percent of Black and Latino kindergartners in G&T programs, but higher enrollment for Black and Latino students in third grade
Why does it happen?
I'm not sure if you're familiar with gifted children, but some kids thrive in and want a challenging environment. Not every kid is "normal" that wants to do "normal children things". Thats kind of the point.
If Kindergarten were just play based schooling then I’d agree with you. But there is an academic component, for example learning to read, and students abilities can be radically different.
You don't need kindergarten to teach reading. Mine didn't and I did fine. (Obtained a Ph.D. degree later in life.)
What was your kindergarten like?
Was there no reading because it was academically poor or was it kind of an "alternative" learning environment ala Montessori?
(I don't know Montessori's specific ways of teaching reading)
There wasn't much directed learning. We played all day. Indoors building stuff, outdoors in the woods. All that academic material with reading and writing and maths and all that, that's what primary school was for. Which started at age 6/7.
I'd say let kids be kids and have them explore the world through curiosity, not through a planned curiculum from age 3.
montessori is very directed but the key difference is that each kid is learning on their own at their pace. which means the kids learning is only driven by their curiosity. montessori materials are also designed to make learning interesting. kids can choose what they want to play with and after introduction to a new lesson are allowed to explore the material in their own way, which makes it very playful. teachers observe the kids and suggest new lessons to each kid when they feel a kid is ready.
if it didn't teach reading it wasn't montessori.
montessori teaches reading, writing and math far beyond what an average kindergarten does.
My parents taught me diddly squat, so I was glad my kindergarten teacher taught me how to read. That's half the reason kids are in kindergarten.
Maybe it's because I'm old and things are different now, but back in the day, first year of primary school was when everybody learned to read. Some kids already knew some (incl. me), and that didn't necessarily make life easier for them since some parts of class they were then bored. Well, you learn to deal with it.
It's not like such situations never occur in adult life. I often find myself in work meetings where colleague A explains something to a group of 10 people to get everybody on the same page, and there are often one or two folks who already know this stuff and are obviously uncomfortable for those 10 min of intro. Clearly, they never learned how to deal with such a situation.
since some parts of class they were then bored.
Well, you learn to deal with it
I'm highly doubtful that forcing young kids to be bored (by making them progress/learn slowly, when they could be learning more) is the best way to do it.
Oh I'm not disagreeing. Forcing boredom is not the way. But preventing it at all costs may not be either.
There really shouldn't be any academic component. It doesn't help any outcomes.
montessori is almost pure academic, and it makes a massive difference. but the key is not what they learn/teach, but how.
It's code for not having certain kids in the classroom.
Until the 90s, they'd base G&T admission based on IQ. Now it's based on whether your family can afford a quality Pre-K. They thought my little brother was a savant as he could read on the first day of kindergarten -- my little sister taught him to read. (He is a very smart dude!)
I was in a well-regarded gifted program in the 80s in a NYC public school. The main distinction was that I was essentially trained to interpret short narratives with time incentives in a standardized test setting. It worked out for me through high school, as that skill allows me to coast through tests and blow off most of the work. Reality bit in college, where you were expected to actually read the book. :)
Because getting rid of the first on ramp is how you get rid of the entire system, year by year rolling it up until the whole thing is gone.
It’s equally crazy to me that we are spending time and money to eliminate opportunities for our kids. My school district in SFBA has done the same thing to their gifted program.
If this is really about equality then we would be strengthening these programs because gifted kids from wealthy families will continue to have access to accelerated education. It’s the poor and middle class who are losing out.
Fuck you. What about having our lives ruined by being imprisoned in a fucking kindergarten, full of violent screaming children? Have you ever tried to read a fucking book while surrounded by screaming children who keep hitting you? How about building a toothpick model or writing a computer program? Now imagine that those children are bigger than you, and you have the emotional maturity of a 5-year-old.
Forcing children who aren't normal to be normal is child abuse, and your comment is an attempt to perpetuate the kind of abuse that I was subjected to.
Kids shouldn't have to be surrounded by "violent screaming children" period. I fail to see what giftedness has to do at all with whether or not you deserve to not have this as a learning environment.
Some kids have more difficulty with it than others, and in particular it interferes a great deal more with reading a book than with running around screaming.
Which is why some countries like the US have encoded into law IEP and 504 plans for children with (among other things) sensory needs, regardless of giftedness status.
How many years were you in kindergarten?
Some days it feels like I never escaped.
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.
Do you know of any notable people in the industry or even articles or papers regarding this interpretation?
It's only a subset of "gifted" children, but (e.g.):
https://www.amazon.com/Twice-Exceptional-Supporting-Educatin...
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.
Your anecdote does not support your own conclusion, because it is very possible that affluence was obtained by parent's merit, and merit is highly hereditable.
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.
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)
I don't think all gifted kids do just fine. I would be willing to bet a lot gifted kids get put on medication because they can't sit still in the classroom due to being painfully bored. The smartest people I've ever met are all pretty much ADHD or have some other ailment that requires medication. Not all of that would go away if they were raised in a challenging supportive environment suitable to their ability, but I would be a significant percentage would.
Also a lot of kids on the other end of "special needs" don't get the support they "need" and just get pushed through the system. 35% of high school seniors are reading at or above proficiency levels.
But even in that case, the argument isn't that "let's not add more G&T programs, those kids are doing fine", it's "let's remove G&T programs because we don't like the demographic makeup of the class".
I'll also add that we don't think that way about other groups. People in wheelchairs don't "need" to go to a concert, but most people still believe things like Americans with Disabilities Act is important. So I don't know why gifted children are different. We know what to do with them. Let them flourish, they will be better off, happier and more productive members of society.
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Living/us-students-reading-math-s...
I certainly don't think (nor did I say) that gifted kids do fine. I agree with pretty much everything you say.
Gifted kids don't need special attention to get
through school and life the same way the intellectually
impaired do.
I sometimes struggled in regular classes as a young kid, because it was so painfully boring to move at the same, slower speed as the other kids. It was like trying to watch a movie at 0.25x speed. I wasn't just "not reaching my potential", I was missing out on chunks of learning. I almost don't know what the counterargument is: we... shouldn't match education to a child's learning speed and other needs?
(And for the record, I wasn't crazy gifted in terms of IQ. More like top X%, not top 0.X%)
The ability to thrive and work with others who don't know as much about $FIELD as you do is, of course, an incredibly valuable life skill. Both socially and professionally. Whether you're a plumber or doctor or cashier then you by definition know more about your job than others. But I absolutely don't think forcing young kids to sit through learning at 0.25x or 0.5x or 0.75x their "natural" speed is the way to do it.
The worst thing about this is that these kids often get prescribed mind altering medication to have them sit still in class, just because we don't feel comfortable accepting that natural ability exists.
For what it's worth, I think my experience was similar to yours. That's why I'm drilling down on the definition of "need". I agree qwth what you say, my only point was that gifted students have a different, less urgent, kind of "need". Hence, as a mayter of institutional dynamics, we have the inadequate systems we have (for the gifted at least).
That's why I'm drilling down on the definition of "need"
1. To raise all childrens' education to some sort of minimally acceptable bar? (like the equivalent of a GED here in the USA)
2. To get as many kids as possible as close to their individual educational potential as possible, for humanistic and/or societal reasons?
3. Something else?
If it's the first option, then gifted children probably do not have a "need" as urgent as developmentally-challenged kids. If it's the second option, I think that gifted children do have an equally urgent need.
The second option is admittedly loftier, and to be frank, the first option aligns more closely with the way most laws function. But god damn, I think we really should be aiming for the second option.
Strictly agree with your question.. i think it's similar to, and at the same level of importance as, the classic trilemma of criminal justice: prevention, rehabilitation, or revenge.
> But that's a different meaning of "need" to what's normally used.
The novelty of applying the label differently, is refreshing to me.
> Gifted kids don't need special attention to get through school and life the same way the intellectually impaired do.
Need is being used subjectively here, but this is effectively a repeated sentiment.
As a gifted child, I was stunted by both public school and family (my father has literally apologized to me). It took me until my 20s to start my career, which was delayed by at least a half-decade. I am willing to consider that a different approach is worth trying, to achieve a different result. Maybe this will result in a better system and I think it's worth the benefit of the doubt.
It is certainly an alternative to other approaches that are popular in some areas, like banning books that mention trans individuals.
Gifted kids don't need special attention to get through school and life the same way the intellectually impaired do.
Isn't the Wozniak anecdote a counter argument? If a gifted kid is so bored they drop out or adopt anti-social behaviors, that's a problem.
Personal anecdote... when I was in 7th grade, the school trialed a math program where some of the GT students and some of the slow learners were placed in the same class. The class had an aide. But, at the end of the year, the GT students had effectively learned nothing - the teacher and aide spent 100% of their time getting the failing students closer to par, at the expense of everybody else.
Point being, there are ways to support GT students without completing disbanding GT programs. When I was in elementary school, that was a few hours per week of enrichment (pull us out of the main class periodically for extra instruction). Maybe there are reasons that doesn't work, but certainly my memory of that time is positive. It wasn't until middle school that we had fully separate "honors" classes (and then high school had AP).
It is better to empower 1 Noam Shazeer or Terence Tao than to prop up 10 million burger flippers.
Better for whom?
The burger flippers (and society at large)
Ms. Rand! I didn't know you were active here, nor that you were still alive. Makes sense though.
I'd love to see those references. Particularly the line "But that's not as bad as people who'll get in trouble with medical or legal issues". I'm pretty sure that there are plenty of intelligent people with legal and/or medical issues, so I'm curious where that comes from.
I'll add some once I'm back at my desk. I really mean that they cause issues for the people responsible for their education or care (rather than down the line), but I see that wasn't clear.
Good, clean, healthy food cost a lot of money. It cost more to buy a container of spinach, than it does to make cheeseburger macaroni. It cost more to buy products like Amy's, which supposedly have less highly processed ingredients, than it is to buy a can of Progresso. You're not wrong, but the healthy food companies are maximizing their profit, and riding on the healthy label and should be seen as contributing to the problem. This is putting healthier foods beyond the reach of the average person. Whole Foods is a classic example.
The average person absolutely can avail themselves to healthier options than they currently consume. Blaming the environment and forgetting that people have agency is very cynical.
If you’ve availed yourself to educating yourself about nutrition AND you have adjusted your priorities so that healthier food takes the place of other expenditures and you still can’t afford healthy options, then let’s talk. If you buy soda instead of drinking water that comes free from a tap and you’re complaining about lack of healthy food accessibility, you’re not taking sufficient responsibility to improve your and your family’s health.
This is somewhat for a dumb reason, which is that we heavily subsidize meat and dairy in this country (and especially beef). We could move those subsidies to healthier and more environmentally friendly foods, like fruit and vegetables, and their prices would drop down heavily and more people could also afford them.
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.
This talk about high performers and low performers needing
focused environments to perform gets me thinking about the
scenario of putting them together.
But to my knowledge in America most gifted programs are not some kind of total segregation and I don't see a lot of people arguing for that either. In my experience in US public schools the "gifted" classes were like maybe 1/4 of our total classroom time.
Likewise with developmentally-challenged kids. Most programs have an emphasis on varying levels of integration with the other kids. In some schools, the special-ed kids are in "regular" classrooms but have their own semi-dedicated assistants.
(Example: 1 teacher, 20 kids, plus 1 special-ed assistant and 3-4 special ed kids)
Do you consider yourself one of those people for those " the negative space in a conversation is just words in a different form"?
Where is that take even coming from? Communication styles are very cultural. Japanese is very subtext-heavy while German is very direct. Are Japanese people more intelligent than German people?
Furthermore it depends on how your brain is wired. Autistic people prefer direct communication while allistic (that means non-autistic) people rely more on context.
Personally, I prefer people that are more direct. People that read crap into stuff that was never said grind my gears so much. It creates so much unnecessary drama.
The claim that one form of communication is same sign of being a "high performer" is completely insane.
I'm pretty... neurodivergence-aware as well. I favor kind but literal communication if we are trying to achieve some kind of goal.
Still, there are a lot of things that can go unsaid when people have a shared, high, expertise level.
For example, if I'm onboarding a junior engineer, I'm going to have to literally explain a lot of things. From basic compsci concepts to setting up a text editor and local development environment to getting them up to speed on the language we use.
These are things that largely would not need to be communicated to a more senior developer.
> Personally, I prefer people that are more direct.
When your social intelligence is high enough you realize everybody is always direct because communication is multidimensional. Honest only occurs when the words, vocalization, and body language are all in unison. Even then honesty only matters so much if the substance of content is inaccurate or invalid. Since you brought up autism, most people attempt to mask their emotions in times of discomfort. Masking is a form of dishonesty and people who are good a communication see it as such.
As a counter example watch North Korea ambassadors speak at the UN. They are emotionless in their answers and its extremely unnatural. They do that intentionally, because no answer is ultimately safe and the greatest threat to their security comes from defiance to their own nation.
As to your last statement high performance generally describes some utility, like a test score or job skill. Strong communication skills are generally described as an aptitude as opposed to a utility.
> Masking is a form of dishonesty and people who are good a communication see it as such.
Masking is autistic people adjusting their communication style so they are more acceptable to allistic people while neglecting their own needs.
For example many autistic people show emotions differently. They can default to a flatter tone of voice or show less microexpressions in the face i.e a flatter affect. (Just to be clear, it does not mean they have less emotions. Just because someone expresses emotions differently does not mean they have more or less. Again, they could be for example extremely happy but you would read them as withdrawn and disinterested.)
Much of autistic masking can be micromanaging these things. Tone of voice, face expressions, body language.
,And here comes the kicker: High-Masking autistic people are read as MORE honest and authentic by allistic people. Yes more honest no less. Because they show behavior that is you would say is more "in unison" from the point of view of an allistic person.
It is the same effect when people think they are good at spotting a liar. There are studies that show they are worse or close to random chance. Flipping a coin is as reliable as "listening to your gut".
People that think they are good at communication are the worst because they don't realize how full of shit they are. You can't know how another person feels, they can only tell you. I guess we are back to dunning kruger. Oh, the irony.
While interesting in itself, I don't see how both groups would benefit from such an arrangement
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.
“White or Asian”
White is I imagine somewhat distributed across the board. Now Asian, does that imply broad distribution or is it mostly Chinese?
Why does it matter?
Related:
Mamdani says he would phase out NYC gifted program for early grades
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.
> 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.
I don't know where this extreme egalitarian belief that it's bad to let smart people excel is coming from. How is it not healthy? Even Marxism, an extremely egalitarian system of belief has a phrase "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."
People focus on the second part of the phrase, but the first part explicitly states we should strive to work up our individual ability and potential. Denying that is an entirely new concept that likely never existed prior to the last 50 years or so.
it comes from valuing "Equity"
....no, pretty much by definition, "equity" means giving everyone what they need to do well.
You may be confusing it with "equality of outcomes"?
In education, the effects of striving for equity in the US have amounted to a ridiculous level of Harrison Bergeroning within the public school system, which is partially responsible for the collapse in trust in schools.
The question isn't whether "it's bad to let smart people excel". Obviously, we never want to actively stop anyone from exceling.
The actual question is whether smart people should receive a disproportionate amount of a finite resource, like education. This imbalance creates a potential runaway effect in which one group grows ever more successful at the expense of other groups.
Can you expand on how gifted program students receive a disproportionate amount of education?
G&T programs are potentially disproportionate in terms of attention from the best teachers/classes, access to high-end resources, pipelines to the best colleges, etc. If those were available to everyone who could benefit from them, then there wouldn't be such competition for them.
Source: Am a parent of a G&T student and I see the intensity with which parents push their kids into the program.
The hint is in the name. "Meritocracy" was coined to lampoon the concept.
Well, but you're going to have an "ocracy" no matter what you do. So what kind of "ocracy" do you want?
Incompetentocracy?
Randomocracy?
Celebritocracy?
Nepotocracy?
We're not going back to aristocracy (which essentially was nepotocracy). So what do you have that's better than meritocracy? What's wrong with letting the more talented be the ones who run things?
You seem to assume that "randomocracy" is a ridiculous idea. Google "sortition." it is difficult to buy outcomes in sortition. Post Citizens United I wouldn't bet against it performing better.
Sortition is (perhaps) fine for things like Congress. For running, say, the FDA? No, I want people who actually know medicine and biology there. For running the Pentagon? I want people with actual military experience there. For running the State Department? I want people who actually know diplomacy and international relations.
No one seriously disagrees with that. The question is whether the State Department should be run by people who showed diplomatic aptitude in kindergarten due to nature/nurture advantages and were thus subsequently groomed for those roles to the exclusion of others.