Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums THINKING BIG About Gifted Education The poor neglected gifted child

I like that. Fair does always seem questionable when "-isms" are in play, as in ageism here.

Yup-- it's how colleges and universities have tended to approach the same problem for centuries, of course.

Each unto his own abilities and all that-- but don't make everything revolve around "achievable" for the median.




I have to say, this simply DOES NOT make sense to me.

Our society needs people who are capable of performing at "elite" levels intellectually as adults. It just does. Where the heck are they going to come from if we've elected to hobble them with mediocrity during their academically formative years, then?

From a societal perspective, it makes FAR more sense to me to be a little mercenary about where those tax $$ are going, and for which purposes. While it may not be a popular (or at least... PC ) statement, if I have just $10 to spend, and I'm presented with two students, one of whom is working four grades BELOW cohort and cannot seem to learn to read.... and the other of whom is working four grades ABOVE cohort and is ready for advanced mathematics/etc... my impulse is to give that funding where it is an investment for society, not just a momentary way of making myself feel awesome and charitable.

It's not that I'm against providing services at the level at which children are prepared to work-- because that is ultimately exactly what I'd like. It just seems to me that if "gifted" is a status thing with parents, maybe someone ought to point out to them that, conversely, should the parents of kids with profound intellectual disabilities then experience.... shame?? Because that is the logical extension there.

Make it all special ed outside of the central 2.5 sigma range, and maybe the status goes away. I don't know about the rest of you, but I really don't MIND if my daughter is in the "special education" population-- if her needs are being served academically, I'd ditch the GT label in a heartbeat.

IEP's make so much sense to me. Do it for both sides of the distribution.

Thank you, UM, for sharing the part of the article which you were responding to. I agree wholeheartedly.

Agreed!

But if you're illiterate and/or don't graduate from HS, you're much more likely to struggle in myriad ways and to require costly support from the state, including AFDC, etc and, unfortunately, possibly jail time, which is very, VERY expensive. Investing in helping kids who are struggling in school actually makes tons of economic sense in ways that are probably a lot more easily quantifiable than investing in the gifted.

HK, I think the phrase "willing to work" sums up my feelings. If the schools could reinforce the concept of being willing to work, reward doing your work, penalize or neglect students for not doing their work, whatever your ability is, it would teach the most important lesson a school should teach. That lesson could truly be differentiated and reach every student at their level. Instead (ime) they let smart students get away with not doing their work because "they're fine, they're smart" and they try to convince poor students to "try" harder to do their work. The school is the authority. They should make it clear that they expect children to do their work, support and teach, but set the standard that they expect ALL kids to do their work. Studiously doing your work should be the main take-away from spending your time going to school. Everything else, imo, is optional. Learning to work on learning should be the whole purpose of school. jmo, or what is school for?

True. But just because something is EASY to quantify doesn't mean that the more difficult calculation is automatically less important.

It's also true that (IMO) we're trying to get everyone to meet a benchmark that a fair number of those people probably CANNOT meet. The reasons are myriad, of course-- but some of those problems are mutable and some of them aren't. Until we start (as a society) teasing apart which problems can be fixed in that cohort, it seems an awful lot like throwing good money after bad.

I wish that I didn't feel so cynical about that. I really do.

@HK The use of the word "indecent" in the section you quoted really struck a negative chord for me. How sad that it seems obscene to this author to suggest that society should provide an appropriate education to a kid with exceptional ability.

I can see both points. Right now, this country invests next to nothing at the K-12 level for the education of its brightest students. And we invest hundreds of millions or billions into programs for "underserved" students. I agree completely that getting lower-performing students into good jobs is critical --- but the problem is a lot bigger than just education. Education is great, but what if you spend all that time in college and still end up serving lattes in Starbuck's because there aren't any jobs for you? This is reality for a lot of young people today, and they have student loans to pay off on their $10 plus glass-jar-tips. The loss of skilled and semi-skilled jobs in this country is a huge problem and no number of degrees in subjects like business, journalism, and liberal studies will change that.

IMO, the system is broken in almost every way (there are a very few bright spots), and things won't improve until we get serious as a nation about addressing this fact.

Both situations are social investment opportunities that can pay big dividends down the road. In the first situation, spending on that child to bring them up to a functional level means that child is likelier to grow up to be a functional adult, and self-sufficiency and contributing to society is always less costly than institutionalization.

I can make an argument that the "greatest generation" was also the overwhelmingly most invested-in generation (military experience, GI Bill, government-sponsored research, interstate system, Apollo program, etc.), which played a major role in making them so great.

So the better question is, why can't we come up with $20, and invest in both children?