Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Why organize school socially?

I was reading the "Beautiful Minds" article in another thread, and this crossed my mind again.

The whole concept of "acceleration" depends on acceptance of the premise that school should be organized around social education and not around intellectual education. We need to do more to refute that premise instead of accepting it and trying to work around it.

Why do we (I would say "as a country", but it appears that we are the same around the world in this regard) just assume that children of the same age should be taught the same things and that any child who learns something earlier is somehow a threat to the system? Does it stem from the fact that we have a certain age for starting school--they all start at the same time, therefore they should all be in the same place for the rest of their education? If we accept the premise, we are forever doomed to working around it and trying to prove that allowing this one child to be "accelerated" won't send the whole educational system crashing down on our heads.

Let's start from the premise that kids will get along socially when they are around people who are intellectually their equals, and see what happens.

I tend to see a bit of a belief among some educators and parents that there is "equal ability" and that all children are capable of being gifted if given challenging work. I have attended a number of school meetings where parents have voiced the opinion that all students should have access to the GT classes/teachers/curriculum b/c they would all benefit from it.

One of the schools my kids attended for a while seems to be trying that premise out by putting almost half of the kids in TAG programming for at least one subject.

When my kids were in a different school, (preschool thru 1st) everyone did their work that felt right to them. If the 10 piece puzzle was a good challenge that was right for them. If they needed more challenge they got the 25 piece puzzle. Some projects were open ended so the kids could work to their level with some teacher encouragment if needed. Everyone learned at different rates so it was ok for everyone to do different things. I wish school could just be as simple as this for us now.

To get back to your original question, I believe that there is a common misperception that children who are intellectually advanced are socially delayed or at least not socially advanced. There seems to be the perception that kids of the same age are all at the same point in terms of social development (or the advanced ones are socially slower) therefore it is unwise to put intellectually advanced kids with older kids b/c they will suffer socially.

A Nation Deceived seems to have discredited this notion, but anecdotal individual experiences of some educators hold more weight in their decisions than research (at least in our experience). We have, of course, had some experiences with wonderful educators who do not subscribe to the socially delayed bright kid concept, though.

Two initial thoughts:

-Public school in the US was designed so that everyone could read the Bible.

-What may appear to the educator as a socially delayed, academically advanced child may instead be an academically, morally, and socially advanced child who has figured out how to tune out the mediocrity of pop culture.

My daughter to a "T".

My guess is that it's somehow related to the assembly line. It works great for cars...but not so much for kids.

Always trust your instincts.

Look up Social Justice some time.

You make a very valid point. Do you think it is only a possibility? I confess to know little if anything at all about the NCLB legislation but I would think the concept of equal outcome/social justice plays a part in it, but then again maybe I'm way off the mark!

Speaking from the inside, "social justice" is something educational theorists talk about constantly but never define, while teachers never talk about it at all.

As to your initial question, Nautigal, it's really set me thinking. Was going to post a reply here but it started getting extremely long so I think I'm going to rework it into a blog piece.

EDIT: The aforementioned blog post isn't up yet. Probably not for a few days.

Gee, guys. Dewey talked a great deal about social justice in education a century ago, and many have done so since. Whether those arguments penetrate the ed schools these days is another question entirely. Personally, I'm an Illich gal at heart.

Here is the NEA's take on this.

http://www.nea.org/tools/30414.htm


Some thoughts from Oz:

http://ehlt.flinders.edu.au/education/iej/articles/v5n5/schulz/paper.pdf


A question about the Justness of GT education.

http://www.philosophy-of-education.org/conferences/pdfs/Richard_Bailey.pdf



Isn't it comforting to know that high ability is just "luck" and "luck" is to be "neutralised?"

Quote:
Social justice refers to a concept in which equity or justice is achieved in every aspect of society rather than in only some aspects or for some people. A world organized around social justice principles affords individuals and groups fair treatment as well as an impartial share or distribution of the advantages and disadvantages within a society.


***Wow. I'm teaching the novel _Anthem_ right now, and that statement quoted above from the NEA is downright scary. Let me be clear in saying that there should be justice for all, but the NEA appears to be confusing two crucial concepts: "fair" versus "equal." What is "equal" is not always "fair," and what is "fair" is not always "equal." For example, if I have ten pounds of meat, I could impartially share or distribute it among all of my ten animals: my lion, my cat, my ferret, my fish, my raven, my platypus, my bunny, my three-toed sloth...well, you get the picture. Each would be given an impartial distribution of meat. The lion and the bunny would both starve. The raven, fish, and ferret would be drowning in food in a quantity too great for them to consume. Equal, yes. But fair?

I am deeply suspicious of the idea that "same" and "equal" are "fair."

Great post, Baudelaire. Do I recognize you from a while back on Mothering?

I think so!

I was/am ChristaN over there . Good to see you here.

You rock, Austin

I suggest you read John Taylor Gatto's Underground History of American Education for a really close look at why our schools are the way they are:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/

I finally wrote that blog entry on this subject. It went a direction I didn't intend after I spent some time reading about Sudbury schools. If you're interested: http://29-letters.blogspot.com/2010/03/social-structure-of-schools.html.

I think some of you are confused about the real motives of NCLB and the standardized testing push of the last 20 years or so. Do a little research and you'll be amazed at how many elected officials/families/friends have financial interests in testing companies.

And I really don't think the concept of social justice was considered much when the public school system was established in the US. The simplest answer is one from an early post- it is a system that works (relatively) well for the vast majority of students. The outliers on both ends are hurt by that kind of a system, which is why more flexibility is needed for those kids.

I sense this. I am still in my 20's and look very young. My DD goes to a magnet school which requires parents to apply 8 months before K. Young parents, like me, are less likely to plan ahead for education, so most if not all of the parents in my DD's grade are older than me & many signifianly so.

The first year there was hard for me, because I think I made some of the other mom's uncomfortable. They would unintentionally click together during activities so I had to invite myself over, which I did.
Things are better now, because we have been together for 2 years.
But every once in a while, I still feel like the young, imature, broke, mother as they drive off in their BMWs.
And I also imagine that every once a while I make them feel old or over weight just by being there.

Which is one of the reasons why I like it here. We are equals

I get the same thing being "the young guy" as a teacher (I'm 23 and I've been teaching full-time more than two years). When I was 21 (and still, according to most people, looked 17) and teaching high school, I was given a lot of warnings about how my students weren't going to respect me because of my age. Turned out the students were fine, but the teachers were a different story....