Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research Nearly all kids are more gifted than Kindergarten

http://www.scpr.org/blogs/education...rter-than-a-5-year-old-new-research-sho/

Enjoy...

If this concept catches on, maybe some of our GT kids will get a break from all the teachers telling the kids who can't move up in academics because their handwriting is so poor. There will obviously be differences among kids in terms of when are developmentally ready to learn certain things, physically and intellectually, but it would be nice if teachers gave the kids a chance before they tell them they're not ready.

I believe that kids are able to understand more than people assume BUT it is this sort of thinking that means my just turned year old has spent most of this term doing statistics and facts to 20 homework when y3 (2nd grade) is time to start mult/div. I think it cam end up meaning the child as a excessively spiral curriculum where nothing is truly new after the first year until you get to calculus. Ds7 knows a fair amount about fractions because he needed a challenge last year but i am not sure everyone needs to know about everything. Our kids are taught 1/2, 1/4 etc in first year though.

I'm not sure about that tag line. That is not what we have witnessed, but we are in a large, metropolitan area. I feel like we really see an old-fashioned Bell curve.

The reason the tag line caught my attention. For varying reasons, we saw work done by level K students and the work / students did not seem gifted.

Bad handwriting is a sure sign that the kid has a future as a doctor!

I'm going the opposite direction. My seven year old enjoyed "facts" when he was in K. It was a good time to teach facts (albeit a higher level-multiplication instead of addition). He loves non-fiction, books with a lot of action and "plot," and math calculation that he can accomplish efficiently.

He was/is highly impatient with concepts that required long spans of his attention, large amounts of writing, and endless lecturing over "deep" topics. I don't believe it's related to his intellect as much as his maturity.

My thought on the subject is that the best one size fits all solution is to give up on the one size fits all concept as it pertains to education. There probably should be some minimum standards that have a very low bar. Knowledge and concepts that easily 99.9% of kids can get if they put in any effort should be that bar. Beyond that support and encourage every kid regardless of their intelligence to explore knowledge of their choice to the greatest extent possible. Obviously, within financial and widely excepted moral constraints. Obviously my vision will never fully be implemented owing to the large number of people who expect kids to be forced to learn more. But, I have to ask why? I have to ask should science be taught, or would it be better to allow kids to use the scientific method? Should advanced mathematics be taught, or should we provide the opportunity and support for kids to explore mathematics. I do not have the solid answers as to what is best for the kids or for society as a whole, but I feel it would be nice to explore the approach of attraction instead of promotion within education.

This should be viewed more as a concept idea that a true belief of what we as a society really should do. The real world is more complicated than a simple vision. This said it is an idea to spur thought.