Yep, I've seen that discussion. I'm mostly a lurker there so I didn't post anything but I sure did feel sick to my stomach reading a lot of the comments.
I also didn't get whole cutoff with child? Apparently we're supposed to turn a blind eye when toddlers and babies are clearly advanced and just wait until elementary school before we are allowed to realize they're gifted? Sigh...
I sometimes wonder if the most vicious attacks come from people who are gifted themselves.
In the past there has been quite a bit of the theme of "I was in the gifted program and it was a joke and it just made me feel like a freak other kids hated" sort of posts. It is like the entire validity of the idea and treatment of giftedness is summed up in what happened in somebody's probably not very well designed pullout program in 1980. This sort of thing has made me wonder if in some places and at some times actually more resentment about giftedness has resulted from programs that are mostly addressing upper middle class bright kids for special treatment.
I think this very well might be the case. I have a friend of mine who found an article about some school that started gifted programs in kindergarten. She was going on a rant about how "wrong" this was. Here's the kicker. She's gifted. She doesn't have any kids yet so I couldn't help but think just wait until you have kids and then you might very well be changing your tune... But I do agree. I know from my own experience, many time these half-hearted pull-out programs can do more harm than good.
