"Genius Denied." Is it a good read?
While the ultimate answer to this question lies in whether the book speaks to you personally, yes, it is helpful for many parents of gifted kids. "
Genius Denied" is authored by
Bob and Jan Davidson, the same people who provide this forum, the
Davidson Young Scholars, the
Davidson Database, and more.
Note that this book was written in 2004 and decries the "
pernicious notion that education should have a “leveling” effect, a one-size-fits-all concept that deliberately ignores the needs of the gifted"... which unfortunately is the direction taken since the adoption of common core in 2010: schools are now dedicated to closing "achievement gaps" and "excellence gaps", which often entails capping the growth of students at the top.
With extensive testing and
data collection ushered in by common core, teachers and schools are evaluated, ranked, and rated specifically on closing gaps. Equal opportunity is replaced by "equal outcomes"... with education having a pernicious leveling effect.
Rather than schools heeding the advice to support the innately gifted by matching the program to the student, schools seem to believe that the innately gifted are dispensable and easily replaced by those of the schools own manufacture: students selected to fit the "gifted" program created at that school are therefore "gifted students". Subtle, pernicious.
There is a huge difference between
matching the program to the student vs.
matching the student to the program.
