CASE 1: GT students accurately labeled as GT
(Val, I would particularly draw attention to the cons for case 1.)
Pros:
-External validation
-Enhanced sense of community membership
- (potentially) enhanced social status based on an alignment of personal attributes and the community's expressed values.
You left out the single most important reason for correctly identifying gifted kids: their learning needs are different and they can't be addressed in the absence of what could be called a diagnosis.
All of your reasons can apply equally to special ed. kids. Why is it okay (essential, even) to identify this group but not the gifted group?
Cons:
-Internalizing the message that ability trumps effort
Why does an acknowledgement of ability automatically lead to ability trumping effort? In my experience, lack of any diagnosis, be it medical or otherwise, leads to far more problems.
But let's not forget the fact that a school's primary mission is to educate and develop the minds of our citizenry. ... . I would argue that, for all students, intrinsic motivation to study and expend effort in meaningful academic pursuits is damaged by the disclosure.
Why? Is talent development in sports hampered by knowing that some people are more talented than others? Of course not. Why is cognitive development any different?
And are you saying that schools don't have a duty to develop their gifted students (sounds that way to me)?
Sorry,
but this is really boggling my mind. I'm not sure how it's possible to hold the idea that schools should be providing appropriate learning opportunities for gifted students while also arguing that identifying students as gifted is "damaging" and that they must hide their natural abilities. These ideas are mutually exclusive.
Perhaps, instead, many people are simply:
a. uncomfortable with acknowledging giftedness.
b. conditioned to believe that acknowledging one innate quality (cognitive giftedness)
must not be done, but acknowledging other innate qualities (beauty or athletic ability) is
allowed.
In the past, most people were very uncomfortable with the ideas of disabilities and LGBT. But nowadays, people are much more comfortable with these realities of life, and these changes have been good for our society. This is because both groups, well, stopped accepting the dogma that they had to hide themselves.
Please, try to think about this. Do you think your reactions could be due to reasons that have been fed to you as dogma for years or decades? Or do they really make rational, logical sense (sorry Aquinas, much of your reasoning didn't pass that test IMO)?
