Gifted Issues Discussion homepage

I echo the misgivings that Aquinas has regarding being able to offer broader educational challenges and supports to our DD due to the fact that we have (currently) an income which permits it.

This is a why I support test based gifted education that is open to all that can cross the bar as opposed to just the parents who can afford choice for their offspring. Instead of being ‘exclusionary’ I believe it to be the most inclusive option we have in an otherwise very unfair world.

I grew up in the UK as a mixed race child who absolutely encountered bias and prejudice from some individuals even in my own family. But by and large most people that I encountered, then and now, have just accepted me or rejected me based on who I am.

Now that I have a very white looking daughter it really saddens me she will be put upon in just the same way that I was just because of her outward appearance. If anything an institutional form of racism appears to be brewing. Multiplying both sides of an inequality just reverses its direction but makes things on either side of the equals no less unequal in absolute terms.

I found the discussion covered in the embedded link Url in the ‘title article’ concerning the real world applicability of the IAT to be quite concerning.

I hope that I have done a good enough job of helping by DD to calibrate her BS detectors for her not to get sucked into feeling guilty about having light colored skin.

PS - read this while it is hot - I am sure that the censors will have it soon.

Suggestion for this thread: all welcome to agree or disagree.

This topic is inherently tied to race and equity, and the parents here are largely sensitive and respectful in the discussion.

It is not mutually exclusive for visible minorities to be discriminated against, and the policies which seek to redress that inequity to also have unintended (and damaging) consequences on those not in minorities or traditionally underrepresented populations.

For example, outside of the sphere of racial inequity and from the intersectional lens of gender/giftedness as the parent of a boy, I have simultaneously held conflicting views: that it is desirable for more girls in his cohort to have access to traditionally masculine learning opportunities, while also feeling concern that the absolute number of opportunities available to my son - on a population basis - are lower than for females.

Mods - a request. Can we please keep that spirit in mind here and allow more politically themed posts in this specific thread, so long as they don't veer into the territory of stating or insinuating that a specific identifiable group (race, gender, etc) being somehow less intrinsically suited to certain paths? To have a fulsome and enjoyable discussion requires us to delve into HOW these policies are enacted, and that necessarily skirts on some topics that would otherwise be verboten.

Thanks all.

Thanks for the link madeinuk. The intense light shining on IAT is changing opportunities for our kids, in education and jobs. Could be good or bad, depending on whatever you are.

I think it is very difficult to proceed with a real discussion here without being censored because of all IAT implies and the impact on institutions, like increasing first time college AA to Ivy's. My kid is not first time college AA so I show her the trend, I help her strategize and optimize her opportunities and hope for the best. In the long run, it makes her more strategic, more competitive. She decides what she wants and understands the rules and barriers to get there.

I think the trend is a good thing. I look at Ellen DeGeneres losing her job less than 25 years ago for coming out. A few years later she is an icon, top in her field. Change is good. We will get the best and brightest from all parts of society. I was going to add here, but will get censored again.

In 2020 and 2021, in the wake of greater attention paid to what is termed racial inequity in the U.S., many selective public schools with test-based admissions, such as Lowell in San Francisco and Thomas Jefferson High School in Virginia, have abandoned their admissions policies, because they had too few black and Hispanic students. All standardized tests in the U.S., whether IQ, SAT and ACT, NAEP, state-wide achievement tests, or exam school tests, exhibit substantial differences in results by race. Those tests have not been found to be biased against blacks and Hispanics in the sense of underpredicting future academic performance. So in deciding whether test-based admissions is fair, it should not matter to what extent the reason for demographic test score differences is "intrinsic".

Fascinated by madeinuk's liniked article to IAT and its validity and application. I can't speak to that angle and will explore it more fully to inform myself.

My personal, unscientific opinion about IAT is that it is a useful instrument in promoting openness to others in self-aware, mature adults when considered in private, or in confidential consultation with a professional well versed in diversity.

I think it is also instructive, from a population research lens, to have reliable benchmarks for aggregate social attitudes (anonymized) over time, using reliable instruments and voluntary participation. I can't opine whether IAT is one given my current knowledge.

I am concerned about its use in adolescent populations, particularly where they do not have the maturity or life experience in which to contextualize their views. Moreover, I have grave concerns - in any context, adult or adolescent - with an individual's private results being shared with a group.

FYI this exact topic was covered in a College Confidential thread, which lasted for about a day before it was shut down.

https://talk.collegeconfidential.co...ave-us-the-varsity-blues-scandal/3507825

Agreed. And where barriers in these instruments exist, they can be assessed and mitigated.

I would also like to see gifted education acknowledged as a need for students from their point of entry into the education system, and resourced accordingly. I don't even necessarily think this needs to be 2SD+ congregated gifted initially - just an enthusiastic, committed acknowledgement by the teacher that curriculum can be accelerated *in the classroom*. To aeh's post upthread re: seeing up to 4SD accommodations where there is good collaboration between teachers, it's not an impossibility.

This is it, especially the bolded. Shared experience builds shared perspective.


This is exactly how it should be: the same *high* standards for opportunity of access for all.

Different talents and motivations can drive student outcomes - that's individual agency- but IMO the circumstances they come from should not be determinative of their career success, social connections, or future earning potential.

What teacher-specific traits, and institutional attitudes/policies, drove the successes and failures you've seen, aeh? (I know this is an enormous question. Feel free to be cursory!)

General comments for the group...

One of the challenges here in Canada is a philosophical resistance to the concept of giftedness a priori, before even venturing into the classroom. I know I've heard similar refrains from regular posters here in Australia and NZ. The University of Toronto's education program (OISE) is a good example of where the thought leadership is moving on the topic nationally. It's one of the leading research universities in education in Canada, and it has repealed almost all specialty programming in gifted education since c.a. 2010. It is challenging to enact effective interventions at the institutional level when the policy zeitgeist is "it doesn't exist."

In several major cities in Canada, congregated gifted schools have seen reduced enrolment spaces or been eliminated. When I was involved more actively in public special education advocacy (read: head, meet wall), it was frustrating to see tiered gifted interventions implemented which require the student to have clinically significant harm from an inappropriate environment before placement in a congregated setting is considered. To me, that is like asking a child on crutches to climb around an Escher-esque school, and only be granted ramp or elevator access after a few broken limbs... That it is prohibitively involved for someone with my privileged background to have her child placed appropriately means it would be impossible for someone without it. On that front, I will say that Canada's education system is race blind: there is an equal lack of opportunity for gifted programming for all.

I'm always heartened to hear that gifted education is less moribund for friends in the US. I am sympathetic to the intersectional lens many gifties face (whether 2e, cultural or visible minorities, etc.) because they often have the added challenge of overcoming prejudice or paying to play with less means. It feels like framing the issue around HS exit to elite universities is closing the barn after the horses have left.

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.