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    Joined: Apr 2011
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    Interesting. I haven't read the book. But what you say of it does dovetail with a lot of the very challenging thinking I have been doing about life, my kids, myself since leaping down the gifted rabbit hole last year.

    I never gave it much thought but looking back I guess I grew up with the assumption that there were the Einsteins of the world, and those who were clearly mentally impaired, and that everyone else in the middle was basically the same and what they did with it was choice and circumstance. I was really annoyed by how all the other kids in my school were always pretending to be stupid, or just couldn't be bothered understanding (this was my genuinely held belief, which I now realise was probably misplaced).

    As an adult I had kids and concluded that I did not believe in nature OR nurture being exclusively responsible for how my kids BEHAVED and that the truth was in the middle. Leaning towards nature being key and nuture bringing out their best (or worst). I still didn't really think about how this nature/nurture thing might apply to their intellectual potential.

    Then I started reading, learning and thinking about gifted. I now find myself believing that IQ is significantly heritable (though I do believe it is also changable and that the brain is plastic), believing that my kids other Es are also significantly heritable, knowing for a fact that I have inherited nasty auto-immune disease related genes from my Dad, and being pretty sure I can predict which of my kids have those genes. It's been quite confronting to my long standing beliefs that we are all fairly equal in potential (if not opportunity).

    I don't know whether to be hopeful or utterly depressed.

    Hmmm. I don't think that added anything useful. Time for dinner.

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    The point I had in mind when I started my last post was that all this thinking about how much is heritable puts me in the uncomfortable position of yes questioning how much behaviour IS hormonally driven? How much behaviour IS genetically programed. How much IS traditional life biologically driven and to be ignored at our peril. I don't know. It's interesting though.

    As is the challenge to preach what one practices.

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    Originally Posted by MumOfThree
    As is the challenge to preach what one practices.

    That's the easiest part. The preaching, that is.

    The practicing is harder.

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    Well, Murray's main points have more to do with upholding certain virtues as the leaders of America, but... yeah, I think the part about how he expects us to abandon some of the PC stuff will be the hardest hurdle.

    If you hang around the new upper class, there is no way to even easily explain it to your peers if you suddenly start making statements that sound (to them) more self-righteous. They'll likely just think that you've turned into a jerk if you start deciding some ways of acting or living ARE better than some other ways.

    Although, they will completely accept it if you want to sound a tad self-righteous about good clean organic food, microbrewery beer vs inferior bud, green living, and possibly some natural parenting principles... ha! At least I am one person who has no problem preaching what I practice, in this regard.

    I think the NUC is setting a great example by adopting green behaviors and looking for clean food. Those choices will filter down into the masses and will benefit everyone. Organic food is even now more widely available and cheaper than it has ever been and green living is getting talked about more and more. Better nutrition means healthier and smarter children in all social classes. That is a good start in my opinion.

    So are we supposed to broach the topic of marriage? Or at least admit to ourselves the truth about the class divide, as Murray sees it?

    Is the hardest part actually accepting that if we (well the NUC, anyway) are in power, we need to admit our advantage and power and actually accept the responsibility of doing the right things with it? Because right now the NUC isn't handling their power very wisely. They don't really try to set a good example and they don't have a "moral" code to live by, except for that weak "be nice" one...

    Saying all choices are equal is a really weak excuse for the NUC to basically do whatever they want, take what they want, show what they want in the media, do things that seem obscene to regular people (like take millions of dollars in pay and build giant homes) and then just say "Everyone needs to live and let live and that's it."

    Yet, they do have a true responsibility to set some sort of example and to try and understand the rest of the people in America who are affected by their choices.

    Last edited by islandofapples; 02/20/12 08:14 AM.
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    Originally Posted by islandofapples
    I assumed white mostly meant to old wave of immigrants from Europe... from Italy, Poland, England, Ireland, Russia, Spain, France... etc.

    The immigrants are mostly Hispanic... from South America. (There are plenty of families in South America, especially Argentina, who will tell you they are "white" because their ancestors came over from Spain, Italy, Germany, etc., as recently as WW2. But if they then move here, I think we still mostly lump them in as "Hispanic".)

    Your cultural bias is showing. Mexicans and Central Americans are white, too. They're not just saying they're white, either. They are.

    Spanish and Portuguese settlers did not make excluding aborigines from society a goal, as the English did, and as a result their DNA did mix more. But considering the mass exterminations of aborigines (accidental and otherwise) that occurred all over the hemisphere, there's little enough aborigine DNA remaining that the overall population, except in certain isolated areas, is overwhelmingly Caucasoid.

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    Originally Posted by Dude
    Originally Posted by islandofapples
    I assumed white mostly meant to old wave of immigrants from Europe... from Italy, Poland, England, Ireland, Russia, Spain, France... etc.

    The immigrants are mostly Hispanic... from South America. (There are plenty of families in South America, especially Argentina, who will tell you they are "white" because their ancestors came over from Spain, Italy, Germany, etc., as recently as WW2. But if they then move here, I think we still mostly lump them in as "Hispanic".)

    Your cultural bias is showing. Mexicans and Central Americans are white, too. They're not just saying they're white, either. They are.

    Spanish and Portuguese settlers did not make excluding aborigines from society a goal, as the English did, and as a result their DNA did mix more. But considering the mass exterminations of aborigines (accidental and otherwise) that occurred all over the hemisphere, there's little enough aborigine DNA remaining that the overall population, except in certain isolated areas, is overwhelmingly Caucasoid.

    As I like to say, North and South America are just Europe seen through a funhouse mirror.

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    My comments below are my observations from knowing people from all walks of life and political persuasion. Please do not assume that I have a dog in the fight one way or the other.

    Originally Posted by JonLaw
    He just made the point that maybe we are sending too many kids to college

    One of my first tasks when I started managing people was to drop college degree from the job description and from the corresponding job reqs. I don't need an Einstein to reboot servers.

    I do need a couple of super smart people, but everyone else just needs to be articulate, disciplined and honest. I could care less if they even finished HS.

    Originally Posted by islandofapples
    Now I hope someone engages in a juicy conversation with me about this because there is NO way I have anyone in real life to talk with about this stuff at the moment! (And my husband and I agree on this stuff, so the convo ends quickly.)

    But you are married. You live the base values. Same for my wife and I. Even if though we appear to be on opposite sides of the political spectrum. Day to day our lives are very similar. People with very varied views and from all walks of life and all nationalities provide a stable home for kids.

    IMHO, for men, work is the way they get "civilized." I saw it when I farmed, I saw it in the Army, and I see it at my job now. It teaches people how to interact rationally to further the goals of the company. It binds people to a community and gives their lives purpose. So does family. And Church. And clubs. And other organizations.

    I know quite a few people who are in the bottom 10%. Their lives are chaos. Much of their problems have to do with immediate gratification and emotional immaturity. And a lot has to do with drugs or the heavy media culture (TV) that promotes immediate gratification.

    And men are not held accountable for leaving their families and women are not held accountable for stealing a husband.
    Our society is highly mobile and people can easily cut and run.

    I know of two cases where women have able bodied husbands with jobs and 2 and 4 kids where the man left. That is unnacceptable. These men would take a bullet for their kids, so what is a little pain each day to be there for them? Again, immediate reward vs long term success.

    Another problem is that our current social safety net rewards women who leave their husbands while the kids are not of age. In the past, the families were held together by economic necessity. There are a number of "single mom success stories" that gloss over the hundreds of others who struggle and whose kids are wrecks. Its up to the school, sports coaches, scouting coaches, and others to be their dads and its not enough. Its very painful to watch.

    And our tax policy punishes marriage. If my wife and I divorced, we'd bring home a lot more after taxes. What kind of message does that send? If we'd lived in sin from the beginning, we'd have 50K more in the bank. That's not chump change.

    Originally Posted by islandofapples
    So are we supposed to broach the topic of marriage? Or at least admit to ourselves the truth about the class divide, as Murray sees it?...

    Yet, they do have a true responsibility to set some sort of example and to try and understand the rest of the people in America who are affected by their choices.

    The "white man's burden" comes up for discussion again.

    A hard discussion about delayed gratification and doing one's duty is the most important one to have and the most important example to set. But it is not.

    Show me one TV show or movie that discusses this that is not Christian in its source. And show me a "secular" show that does not make fun of this. Modern Family is fun to watch. But its not reality.

    At its root, the Church is about moral education. That is why it so successful at creating social stability. What passes for moral education in society today is "eating green" or "saving the whales" not "staying married for your kids" or "do not steal a spouse." or "do not get pregnant until you are ready."

    But these are "old fashioned" values that are seen as tied to religion, rather than facts of the human condition regardless of the time or place.

    Some more reading:

    The rise of a large group of rootless people is nothing new.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nika_riots

    Some other ideas on decline and rebirth.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss-Howe_generational_theory

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kondratiev_wave

    http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/12/summary-of-dr-bruce-cordells.html

    Last edited by Austin; 02/20/12 09:49 AM.
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    All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.

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    Originally Posted by Dude
    Originally Posted by islandofapples
    I assumed white mostly meant to old wave of immigrants from Europe... from Italy, Poland, England, Ireland, Russia, Spain, France... etc.

    The immigrants are mostly Hispanic... from South America. (There are plenty of families in South America, especially Argentina, who will tell you they are "white" because their ancestors came over from Spain, Italy, Germany, etc., as recently as WW2. But if they then move here, I think we still mostly lump them in as "Hispanic".)

    Your cultural bias is showing. Mexicans and Central Americans are white, too. They're not just saying they're white, either. They are.

    Spanish and Portuguese settlers did not make excluding aborigines from society a goal, as the English did, and as a result their DNA did mix more. But considering the mass exterminations of aborigines (accidental and otherwise) that occurred all over the hemisphere, there's little enough aborigine DNA remaining that the overall population, except in certain isolated areas, is overwhelmingly Caucasoid.


    Yes, I totally agree with you. I'm just saying that from a cultural perspective and what people *think* "white" means, most people just automatically assume if you are from South America, you are "Hispanic". At least just about every person I've ever met seems to have that idea in their minds.
    People from South America know that isn't the case, though and they have their own ideas about race / color.

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    Originally Posted by JonLaw

    All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.

    So say we all.

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