Yup. Good point. That's a logical fallacy you caught. Self-selecting groups may fit a certain pattern, but the general population--even the general population of HG+ kids--may not.
I do agree with Ruf, however, that without some sort of significant accomodation--home schooling, grade acceleration, big-time differentiation with supportive teachers, etc.--most (not all) HG+ kids are going to have a tough time in most (not all) public school classrooms. It only stands to reason. According to a presentation on acceleration by a local GT coordinator that I just saw this weekend, ND kids regularly need 7-8 repetitions of something to learn it (and this is the number of reps that teachers usually shoot for), while GT kids usually need exposure only 1-3 times. More repetitions can actually cause GT kids to *mislearn or forget* the information! So more exposure to the same thing is not only *not better*, it can be *actively worse*!
That right there tells me that the "average" GT kid is not going to be well-served by the "average" ND classroom. GT kids just don't fit the mold, and a regular classroom can't really serve both GT and ND kids at the same time without shortchanging someone. That's bound to be a problem for a HG+ kid!
