Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Too Many Geniuses or Not Enough?

Hence the "don't want to get involved in silly games" clause, though I'd argue there are other exemptions.

In my experience (which includes the military, which I declare to be the single greatest lab environment for leadership ever, since everyone interchanges roles of leader/subordinate on a frequent basis), when you have people surveying a group of individuals they barely know for a quality they recognize as "leadership," what they're really looking for is assertiveness, a personality trait completely unrelated to IQ.

The funny thing about using "leadership" as an entry to the GT program is that we here in the US have fostered an anti-intellectual society. You can't be a leader if nobody will follow, and the smart kid is not someone we are taught to respect.

No, they can't. Maybe a few kids with IQs (or specifically, math subtest IQs) in the 100-107-ish range could do well in calculus, but I strongly doubt that any random bunch of them could. And people with IQs of 93-ish? Seems a stretch to me.

I think that people want to believe that IQ is not the barrier that it is. But believing that the barrier isn't there also requires denying that really smart people who learn really fast exist. If you accept that some people have an innate ability to learn fast, you have to accept that some people learn slowly for the same reasons. Hence the accusations about hothousing cognitively gifted kids and ideas like "everyone is gifted" and "they all even out by third grade." They MUST be hothoused, because the alternative means that real differences exist.

Even many people here espouse the belief that average kids can take classes that are hard for people with IQs of +1 or even +2 SDs, which both surprises me and implies that discomfort runs very deep, probably for lots of reasons.

For every person who is so good, she can learn a year's worth of material in two weeks, there is a counterpart who can't learn it at all, ever. And for every person who can learn it in well in a year, there is someone who can only learn it poorly in a year.

Exactly. This is precisely the basis upon which both groups of parents in my own little corner of the world seem to operate.

We are envied by the TigerParents, because our child has clearly "responded well" to the KoolAid being poured at OUR house... and they speculate endlessly on our special water supply, reasons why maybe we're doing it all for her and it's not 'real' etc. etc. The alternative is too painful to face, for that group.

The GroovyParents assume the same thing, but interpret it differently-- as abusive parenting. Until they get to know us, that is, and realize that we aren't doing those things to our child, but are responding to HER evident needs... at which point these parents conclude that our child is probably a space-alien of some sort, but that hey, it's cool as long as it isn't contagious. LOL.

Standard human response of demanding that reality conform to their model of reality.

Everybody has lacuna.

This is why I like to fill my nulls with *something*. That way, I know that the null exists and that I've arbitrarily filled it so that it doesn't bother me. I'm always looking for evidence that relates to the original null, so I just compare it with what I've filled it with already. If the evidence conflicts, I fill the null with something else.

And I'm also aware that there are unknown unknowns that arise from my own limitations.

I'll add that I disagree with QT3.1414's post re: learning style, which I also believe has less to do with how a child has been taught and more to do with innate personality differences than anything else. It's not necessarily a proxy for high IQ any more than high achievement testing is, but young autodidacts often are high-ability.

The converse, however, is NOT the case.

There is also maturity to consider. Asynchronous development means that encouraging autodidactic learning has to occur within the confines of what is developmentally appropriate for a particular child. Forcing that particular mode of learning on people doesn't make them brighter or more capable. It will make some of them less educated, though.

Also-- most of the intellectual giants in physics, mathematics, or any other field... spend a LOT of time learning the conventions and knowledge base before they start breaking those paradigms. Skipping that step doesn't work very well for even most of those with elite cognitive ability. Being autodidactic doesn't mean skipping the foundation. It means learning it on your own, something which most children find difficult because they lack life experience (perspective) and self-discipline.

They'll get there eventually. Why rush the transition to autodidactic learning with kids who aren't suited to it until they are more mature?

This is one of those things like "leadership." It's an ill-defined proxy of intellectual ability, as far as I can see. I mean, take two children, and suppose that BOTH of them can learn a year of algebra in a week's time. Child A learns it from a tutor, one-on-one, with the occasional use of a print textbook and a whiteboard to work problems, and Child B learns it from a combination of Khan, YouTube, and an online textbook, combined with a graphing calculator. Is one of those children "more intelligent" than the other?

I'd argue not. They are just different in terms of learning approach and needs. Reverse the learning environments, though... and neither one of them is going to have as much success as with their preferred learning method. QT3.1414 was Child B, and someone like my DD is Child A. No one classroom methodology is going to be appropriate for both types of children.


It's also pretty obvious to me that ONLY a EG/PG child can learn like either one of them. I couldn't have done it. Not in mathematics, anyway.

The weakness of autodidactic learning, by the way, is that you only see the weaknesses or deficiencies in your learning that YOU can observe.

As Jon pointed out-- this means that some of those deficiencies will go unaddressed-- because being human means that we all have blind spots that are driven by our perceptions and emotions.

Autodidacts may well see their learning as "perfect" because it is, at least within the construct of their own perceptions about the subject. You can't know what you don't know, in other words.

Developing autodidactic learning strategies in young students has to involve a lot of cautions about comparing sources of information, critical evaluation of information, bias analysis, etc. etc. Again, there is development in play there, in a lot of cases. I'm a far better autodidact NOW than I was in my early 20's, and the reason is that I have set aside my confidence in my understanding, and generally operate on the assumption that I do not have an expert grasp on the subject, and could always learn MORE that I haven't thought about. I set things down, of course, when I'm done learning about them, but always with the idea that there is a "maybe later" aspect to those things, that it isn't static, and is subject to additional input.

Now, learning from a teacher doesn't guarantee a BETTER outcome, by any means, but it does mean fewer gaps, assuming that student and teacher are not identical in world-view and perceptions. The more teachers, the better, in fact. Sources which disagree or emphasize different aspects of a field are quite helpful. The reason is that the teachers see some gaps as worthy of addressing, and hopefully the student will perceive others and seek clarification.

This is the idea behind peer review in publications. More eyes is a good thing, because it improves the whole by reducing the gaps. Similarly-- advanced degrees are awarded by COMMITTEES of experts, not by a single person.

This is the single lens through which spiraling makes sense to me, actually-- it improves student learning to force slightly different perspectives on the same material, and provides opportunity to learn using less familiar/comfortable modalities.

It's still stultifying for highly capable learners, however. It sure works a treat for those at the other end of the distribution, though.

What the district website says is that, in regard to a FAQ about use of IQ for iding giftedness is that, "there is no one test for giftedness," that a body of evidence, which includes high achievement, is necessary, and that using said "body of evidence" is more equitable. I imagine that they are trying to be equitable to kids from disadvantaged backgrounds whose performance on an IQ test may be depressed. However. It winds up being inequitable to 2e kids b/c they basically can't get ided without that achievement or very close achievement and teacher pleasing personalities that get them a teacher reference.

Additionally, once you've got the id, you may not get any services unless you are achieving highly. The district website again states that advanced classes require high achievement and teacher recommendation of potential. Essentially, it is all about achievement and teacher pleasing personalities.

A few weeks ago, I was appalled to learn that the identification standards here have a convenient embedded veto power for administrators. Students MUST be identified as GT by teacher/administrator appraisal, which uses a garbage-in-garbage-out set of inputs for assessment: leadership, classroom achievement, enthusiasm, motivation, and participation. It's as if they deliberately read the GT literature and asked themselves, "how can we systematically under-identify the truly gifted?"

I find myself seething whenever I read these asinine policy documents. It's a loathsome blend of wilful ignorance and anti-GT ideology wrapped up in a neat, flaming package on the proverbial threshold of every true GT child's identification process.

A few days ago, I seriously wondered to myself if there are grounds for a class action lawsuit against the public school system for hate crimes against the GT when explicit identity suppression and denial is such a central part of the process. Similar transgressions against transgendered students (imposing administrator-perceived gender identity) have been found to be permanently damaging and ruled unconstitutional. Just a musing.

Wow. That's a flaming pile of something, all right.

Personally, I think that IQ tests should not be used as the exclusive qualication for admission to GT programs. I agree that having a high IQ ought to be a valid standalone metric used to define giftedness but there should also be alternatives. An IQ test costs money and depending on familial income, potentially a relatively large chunk of money. Using IQ alone automatically excludes the majority of the kids from lower SES families. Said children are the most in need of publicly funded GT programs.