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    Originally Posted by Old Dad
    Originally Posted by HowlerKarma
    It's not that there's anything wrong with those kids with IQ down in the 110-120 range. But they cannot keep up with kids like my DD, and placing them in the same class with her forces the teacher to hold my DD back so that the rest of them can manage to keep up.

    whistle

    I'd only agree to the statement above if it read, "....and placing them in the same class with her forces an inexperienced and untrained teacher to hold my DD back so that the rest of them can manage to keep up."

    The ceiling issues is prevalent in the k12 world. Much less so in good colleges. Even less so in a hard major.

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    Originally Posted by HowlerKarma
    Because that 10,08 is a personal best for the one-- and unlikely to reflect a routine level of performance?

    Whereas the other individual may be capable of 10,00 or even 9.96, and could use the performance pressure of equally capable peers in order to get there?

    Training at the elite level presumes that your peers in training are also better than just "good and hard-working." They aren't helpful to you in terms of your own improvement otherwise.

    You've missed the point though. The point of the race was only to qualify, not to find out who's potential is reached. That's the same thing college is. Undergrad work is seldom if ever designed to bring the top performers to their potential, instead, it's simply the next level and the goal is to graduate with the diploma of the subject of choice and learn the materials needed to do so.

    No college is going to be the end all to find out if someone has reached their potential.

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    Originally Posted by Old Dad
    It appears you missed my question, WHY? What is the logic behind separate classes if both are doing the same work?

    Because they shouldn't be doing the same work. THAT'S the point.

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    Exactly. Undergraduate is not the equivalent of Olympic trials. No colleges can survive if that is their only clientile.

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    Originally Posted by Thomas Percy
    Exactly. Undergraduate is not the equivalent of Olympic trials. No colleges can survive if that is their only clientile.

    Don't segue. I said "a few" colleges for HG+ types. I never claimed they should all be that way.

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    Based on experience, it seems to be how it actually works in practice more often than not, though. I agree that in an ideal world, such a teacher would be delighted and care not a bit whether the entire discussion were more or less over the heads of many classmates-- but that's not the world that my DD finds herself in.

    The result is that DD has to opt to stay at the watering hole with the rest of the herd...

    or choose to learn in a vacuum, with occasional input from a mostly distant teacher who is still teaching the middle of the distribution, albeit one with a higher mean than in a standard setting.

    I can see the teacher's point, here, myself. A discussion which is beyond the ability of most students to follow, much less participate actively in, is probably not a good use of group instructional time.

    But that does leave students who learn best in groups out in the cold unless they can conform to what classmates are ready for.



    Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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    Originally Posted by Thomas Percy
    Originally Posted by Old Dad
    Originally Posted by HowlerKarma
    It's not that there's anything wrong with those kids with IQ down in the 110-120 range. But they cannot keep up with kids like my DD, and placing them in the same class with her forces the teacher to hold my DD back so that the rest of them can manage to keep up.

    whistle

    I'd only agree to the statement above if it read, "....and placing them in the same class with her forces an inexperienced and untrained teacher to hold my DD back so that the rest of them can manage to keep up."

    The ceiling issues is prevalent in the k12 world. Much less so in good colleges. Even less so in a hard major.



    Yes.

    Unfortunately, that means that k-12 isn't very good preparation for kids who should be working beyond that ceiling, however.


    Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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    Originally Posted by Val
    Originally Posted by Thomas Percy
    Exactly. Undergraduate is not the equivalent of Olympic trials. No colleges can survive if that is their only clientile.

    Don't segue. I said "a few" colleges for HG+ types. I never claimed they should all be that way.

    Part of the problem is that places like Harvard can't remain elite if they take only HG+ types.

    They would quickly lose status and money.

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    I have thoroughly enjoyed reading every single post on this thread. What a great conversation.

    Put me down for this: the 110-120 IQ people think differently than the 140+ people...and they will NEVER be able to understand or accept that. Ask my mother. She made my childhood miserable by refusing to accept that I was different. She still won't admit that my kids are different, or rather, that another approach to education than that which serves the masses might be more appropriate for them. She acknowledges we are "weird" just won't admit why.

    FWIW I do agree that 125 is about the sweet spot for being able to tolerate people and yet achieve at a high level.

    See, the problem with my mother, and many others is, that they really, truly in their hearts cannot imagine what it is like to walk a day in our shoes. They just can't understand being bombarded with stimuli and all of the possibilities. It's not that they are being obstinate or combative. They just well and truly can't fathom a person who thinks differently than they do.

    That is the key limitation of having a high average IQ.

    And I do agree, it would be nice if there were somewhere to go where you could really be around people who loved taking it up to the next level and thrived on finding the unexpected in what was supposed to be an everyday lesson, but there just aren't enough of us to make it worth the investment for that institution. Not only that, but create one and all of the high achievers will start finding sneaky ways to get in and dilute the program.

    Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. smile

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    Saritz, I found myself nodding with agreement through that entire post. laugh THAT is the crux of it, I think. Too many people think that there isn't any such thing as thinking 'beyond' what those ideally bright folks experience, and there are more of those people to start with... and they pin a lot of their egos on being "smart" ergo, when they meet someone who is in the 145+ range, there's a lot that just doesn't compute at all for them.

    It's easier to default to cognitive dissonance and pretend it's not so. LOL.


    Originally Posted by Old Dad
    Originally Posted by HowlerKarma
    Because that 10,08 is a personal best for the one-- and unlikely to reflect a routine level of performance?

    Whereas the other individual may be capable of 10,00 or even 9.96, and could use the performance pressure of equally capable peers in order to get there?

    Training at the elite level presumes that your peers in training are also better than just "good and hard-working." They aren't helpful to you in terms of your own improvement otherwise.

    You've missed the point though. The point of the race was only to qualify, not to find out who's potential is reached. That's the same thing college is. Undergrad work is seldom if ever designed to bring the top performers to their potential, instead, it's simply the next level and the goal is to graduate with the diploma of the subject of choice and learn the materials needed to do so.

    No college is going to be the end all to find out if someone has reached their potential.


    But the entire point of qualification as a barrier to entry is to determine who best fits into an elite group-- which is then a group of more-or-less similarly able peers.

    So I do think that the analogy is useful-- to a point. But extend it beyond the "qualification" and ask what happens next. World record performances are almost never handed in in heats without multiple elite competitors. Not just "qualifiers" but-- those who are equally capable of truly elite performance.

    They are different from "qualifying" competitors in that sense.

    And really, while I don't expect undergraduate institutions to be turning out Nobel Prize-winners left and right, it is ridiculous to me that an undergraduate education should be only marginally less stultifying than k through 12 was for the most capable kids.

    Haven't we already lowered the bar enough here?

    And yes, I do see that particular issue as the flip side of this same coin of hyper-parenting. Everyone wants a trophy, and therefore, we can't have any distinctions made between "above average" and "extraordinary" or that might hurt the feelings of the parents whose kids are just "good" at things, but not "great" at them...

    smirk




    Last edited by HowlerKarma; 04/01/14 02:40 PM.

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