Gifted Issues Discussion homepage

Oh yes. Sigh. 10+ years ago my state had yet another review of gifted education, heard good evidence, came to the same conclusions they do every time (under-served population, poor teacher preparation, irrational reluctance to follow evidence based guidelines, blah blah blah)... Finally about two years ago they announced funding so all gifted students in public schools could get some form of "appropriate education" at the school they're in... this finally been actually activated and it's statewide, virtually delivered, glorified pullout programming: 1 hr p/w for 10 weeks in one curriculum area (at best, some options are just enrichment activities like a museum visit). And once this launched ALL mention of subject or grade acceleration (which were accepted as "recommended" by the govt review) have been removed from the education department website and schools which were more supportive of subject or grade acceleration are pushing hard for inclusive classrooms and differentiation... and if you complain this is not enough that's when your child gets offered a virtual pull out. It's so distressing.

In the last 4 months I have had multiple conversations with school staff which are understanding (teachers who know the child) and multiple that clearly imply we are horrible parents, possibly to the point of child abuse (acceleration = bad). Also, complete disregard for the opinions of the actual qualified professionals in our children's life who clearly can't possibly know as much about child wellbeing as teacher "Wellbeing" leaders. This would be teacher wellbeing leaders who have never even spent any 1:1 time with the child (and have clearly never read ANY research about HG children and social and emotional well being). Let me say it again, so distressing.

Note: this child, if we lived in the US, has straight forward DYS qualifying scores on WISC-V and WIAT, and also has excellent portfolio items they could provide. But their school insists there is "no evidence" they need the educational opportunities we are asking for in their area of strength.

Philosophically our public education system is profoundly anti gifted. Some states better/worse than others.

With regard to the article in the OP I did note a number of times while reading that examples were given as proof of problematic curriculum changes that I do not necessarily disagree with. I would be (and am) far more concerned by substituting studying a popular film for deep analysis of classic literature, I just don't think that has the same level of challenge or skill building. But the array of high quality literature available to be taught in schools is vast and it's unfortunate to feel that there are only 10-20 novels that can and should be taught in schools over decades. Erasing of voices and erasing of stories is a valid concern if there is a very short list of "suitable" texts that never change.

My eldest child recently completed the IB diploma and I loved that I had never heard of the novels they studied. And I loved that I could see how deeply they were guided to analyze the text and learn about the world. They did not suffer even slightly for not studying the texts which I studied when I was their age. In fact I am quite certain they learned a great deal more than I did from my yr11/12 English studies.

The same can be said for History. It does seem, from afar, that the US education system seems especially fond of children learning facts like all the names of all the presidents in order. But none the less, I was actually pretty shocked by this quote:



How is it not problematic for a child (or parent) to consider any history class to be purely "fact based". It's not math. Should we be happy if senior school child's history class consists of rote learning a list of "facts". Really?

Surely the purpose of history class is to start to understand primary and secondary sources, source analysis, to consider that history is often told by the victor, that certain stories are privileged and other's ignored? To read widely and talk philosophically?

I did not study history in senior school. In yr9 I complained to my school's principal that the yr9 Australian History class was racist and sexist (girl's school btw). That there was not a single woman mentioned in our class, and the only mention of indigenous people was with regard to a massacre that was presented as being the fault of the indigenous people that they were massacred by invading British. I was sent to the library for the rest of the semester to do a project on a historical woman, because they literally had no honest comeback to my complaint that justified returning me to class, particularly as an all girls school covering ZERO women in history. I think it's pretty great my kids aren't being taught the exact same course 30+ years later.

Surely there are many equally interesting and complex ideas from American History that could be covered rather than a list of presidents and commonly known facts from that period? Most Australian history courses are now much more focused on aboriginal history, but I am not sure it was ever a thing, at least in the last 50 years, to memorize our past prime ministers. That said, overall I don't think our history teaching in schools has ever been quite so inwardly focused as the US approach seems to be (again from afar). My eldest studied IB History (HL), and this was very globally focused, I see that as a good thing. My middle child is currently studying yr10 history, the school offered multiple choices at this grade, but from memory not one of them happened to be Australian history. "Hot Wars", "Cold Wars", "Roman Empires: Rise and Fall", "International Justice and conflict" etc.

I do feel like there are so many topics that have in recent times become impossible to discuss rationally and openly. And children and teens are getting some weird messages. And I do think that is tragic. But high quality instruction does not require our children to be taught the exact same content we were, particularly in the humanities and sometimes they actively should not be taught what we were.

The references to no longer studying certain texts or content just seems like chest beating to me. Much of the other content though was quite alarming. We do need to learn to find and change our own biases. We do need to aware of our privilege.... That includes children of multi-millionaires from historically disadvantaged backgrounds, teaching them they are oppressed is surely the opposite of helpful.