Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Waiting for Superman

I think that success depends on a lot of factors. Success in math class means you can do the problems expected of you at the level being tested (obviously, some people go beyond that). Success in college (at a minimum) means graduating. Later, success probably means getting and doing well at it or making a contribution in some other way. For my cat, success means stealing my other cat's food.

Understanding subjects like math and English requires brain power. The higher you go, the more brain power you need succeed. Obviously, hard work is essential, but I think brain power is an entry requirement. I speculate that most humans probably have enough brain power to master arithmetic if they work at it, and that most humans don't have enough brain power to master tensor calculus, regardless of effort.

The US school system refuses to recognize this fact. So (IMO) it defines "success" as "going to college" and pushes everyone in that direction --- even if only 12% of a graduating class is proficient at 12th grade subject matter. I like the idea of raising expectations, but I don't like the idea of misleading young people by telling them that going to college is the only way to succeed in life. I don't get that at all, actually.

If you have Down's syndrome, success may be holding a basic job. If you have amazing manual dexterity, being a top-notch car mechanic or lab technician or surgeon could be success. If you're great with kids, success could be running a day care business where the children thrive. Etc. For me, success is about pushing your own boundaries, doing something positive, and finding satisfaction (and hopefully happiness). (YMMV)

Like any other school.

Why is it that Asian communities are doing just fine? Just look at the Vietnamese Boat People or the current migration out of India and China to the US. Or the Nisei at the turn of the Century. Or the Jamaican experience in NYC. Or the Marielitos.

I think race is only a tangential question and overlooks the role of culture and the history of assimilation in the US.

In NYC at the turn of the century many kids from Europe spoke one language at home and another at school. The difference today is that the parents/culture at that time emphasized education whereas the Mexican/Black communities today look down on education. Kids who are geeks get beat up.

So, beginning from the beginning means that a "successful school" would start with intact families, then an emphasis on education and studying. Once these were in place, then a successful school would look like any other.

The dominant culture in most black communities revolve around sports. I go with my nephews to basketball tournaments in Texas. The non-blacks at the tournaments are less than 5% of the people present. I see no one in the family groups reading or otherwise studying.

I also go with friends to baseball tournaments. Its a pretty mixed crowd representing the demographics of the area as a whole. You will see siblings doing homework in the stands and lots of people with books.

Success in black culture means sports and maybe music, not founding companies or getting an education. You will need a sea change in culture and families to fix these communities.

Personally, I think intermarriage will change the communities long before the communities themselves alter their built-in biases to education.


Again it goes back to culture. Do you choose for your kids to study at night or shovel manure? Read a book or play outside? Work at the family business/chores or hang out with the other kids.


Mentally challenged people or those with severe deficits are a special case and cannot be lumped in with normally functioning people.

http://www.tsowell.com/speducat.html


I have a copy of this book. It's analysis is flawed in some respects, but it captures the essence of what Sowell's essay presents.

http://www.amazon.com/Rising-Rails-Pullman-Porters-Making/dp/product-description/0805070753

At one school where I taught in Hawaii, 3/4 of the kids had some Native American ancestry. Any other ethnic group were potentially interlopers, though ethnic groups like the Portuguese, Filipinos, or Japanese were more accepted, since their ancestors had labored in the sugar cane plantations and had some history in the islands beyond Voltaire's description:

"History contains little beyond a long list of those who have accommodated themselves with the property of others."

But indigenous would also include the First Nations who were in North America before the Europeans arrived and started planting flags all over the place.

One of the major problems in getting native students--even gifted students--to achieve academically is that education tends to contain some heavy value judgments and other content that make it seem like you have to assimilate to succeed. Many indigenous people do not want to assimilate to the ways of invaders.

http://honoluluweekly.com/cover/2006/10/break-point/

Some of us gifted heirs of invaders do not particularly want to assimilate, either.

You realize that NLCB requires Special Education students to achieve proficiency on grade-level benchmarks by the same percentages as non-disabled students, right? Even those with severe cognitive disabilities (mental retardation) are required to take alternative assessments that are based on grade-level benchmarks in my state.

And if too many families of disabled students write letters requesting that their children not sit for these exams (or if too many students stay home) the school will miss their participation target. Missing any targets would cause the school to "fail" to meet Adequate Yearly Progress.

Beckee,

I'm not sure what your point is.

You mentioned definitions of success; a couple people, including me, tried to provide ideas for discussion. Yet you almost seem to be looking for a fight and/or judging certain ethnic groups who might be reading as being "invaders" and "interlopers" who have a history of "planting flags all over the place."

I don't see the value in arguing about injustices of the past here. It's not going to get us anywhere and I don't think it will contribute to a discussion about educating gifted/HG+ students.

Sorry! I am feeling uppity today because our teacher's union's case at the labor relations board is--ugh. I don't even want to talk about it.

Much of the discussion here presupposes that all ethnic groups have--or should have--the same attitudes and expectations about education as the dominant culture.

"You will need a sea change in culture and families to fix these communities," sounds like if we simply force these minority communities to have the same values as us, getting their test scores to be as high as ours will be no problem. Well, that may be true, but it may not be a realistic goal, or an ethical one.

My wide-ranging experience as a human and as a teacher has made me question these assumptions and wish to hear a greater variety of voices on the subject.

Here's one:

"We know that you highly esteem the kind of learning taught in your colleges, and that the maintenance of our young men, while with you, would be very expensive to you. We are convinced, therefore, that you mean to do us good by your proposal, and we thank you heartily. But you who are wise must know that different nations have different conceptions of things; and you will therefore not take it amiss if our ideas of this kind of education happen not to be the same with yours.

"We have had some experience of it: several of our young people were formerly brought up at the colleges of the northern provinces; they were instructed in all your sciences; but when they came back to us, they were bad runners; ignorant of every means of living in the woods; unable to bear either cold or hunger; knew neither how to build a cabin, take a deer, or kill an enemy; spoke our language imperfectly; were therefore neither fit for hunters, warriors, or counsellors; they were totally good for nothing.

"We are, however, not the less obliged by your kind offer, though we decline accepting it: and to show our grateful sense of it, if the gentlemen of Virginia will send us a dozen of their sons, we will take great care of their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them."

Benjamin Franklin's account of a 1744 Iroquois speech at a council with the government of Virginia

Quoted in Blaisdell, Bob, ed. (2000) Great Speeches by Native Americans, Dover Thrift Editions.

Beckee, I really appreciate your sympathy, but I think you are misinformed.

Lets examine literacy among the native tribes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoyah


Pretty stunning, huh? Not only did an Indian invent writing, he did a Daniel Webster on the dictionary side, made printing presses, taught others in his tribe, who then wrote newspapers and translated books And they became far more literate than their white neighbors and built a very modern nation in the span of just one generation. There really is no precedent for what Sequoyah or the Cherokee did.

There times that I wonder what the average IQ of those original tribes were and what Sequoyah's was. I'd bet it was close to 120 as a whole and 180+ for him.

As for your original topic.

I am part Apache and Cherokee. My sister is married to a Choctaw. I grew up in Oklahoma where just about everyone is part Indian.

Thank goodness I look white to most people or I cannot imagine how much worse things would have been in school for me.

Instead of me not being allowed to go to the library because I was too young, I could be kept from the library because it would be "unethical."

If you really don't see the difference between Iriquois in the 1700s and American minorities in the 2000s, you should not be teaching. The Iriquois probably expected to live in their own communities and not to live and work with whites. American students of all races need to function in what you call the "dominant culture" in order to make a living. They need to learn standard written (and spoken) English, math, and science to the extent of their abilities.

Trust me, every single one of my 130 sixth graders in my extremely diverse social studies classes got the College-Is-Important speech from me last week. Which apparently triggered at least one, long College-Is-Important speech from a parent in the car.

At the same time, I was keenly aware that some of my students will never hear that speech from their parents lips. One of the parents on the school community council at a school where I used to work told me her son's teacher had suggested that the mom try reading for fun in the hopes that her son might pick it up, too.

But I didn't tell my students they have to go to college. That's not my place, and my own 6th grade teacher reminded me last week that college is not for everyone. I did back up my stance with a bunch of evidence, mostly charts and graphs about income. Then I showed them how education had opened doors for me in my own life and also showed them a recruiting video for my private, liberal arts alma mater.

Eventually, these kids will have to decide for themselves if they are going to college. Some of them will find financial and moral support for that endeavor in their families or their community. Some of them will return from college and find they have become outsiders in their own community, with no real place in their community, until some kid says he has to go to court and needs a cultural interpreter.

I grew up in rural, southern Appalachia. I qualify for Mensa, the DAR, and the Daughters of the Confederacy--if I ever decide I'm interested in such membership. I don't see that it's my place to tell people with a very different set of beliefs and experiences how they should live. I can give them the data to help them make a rational decision once I've built a relationship built on mutual respect. That's about all I can expect to do.

That, and teach my 'okole off!