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Yes.

(And also-- Val's post immediately above this one.)

Clearly I'm not expressing this very well. I'm tired of this "everyone is equally capable" mantra because I've seen how toxic it can become-- FOR EVERYONE INVOLVED. Not just for the "more" able (however you want to sort things) but also for those who are less so.

To be crystal clear-- I do NOT believe that IQ is a good way to determine who is permitted to access particular opportunities, classes, etc.

But ability sure ought to play some role at the higher levels.

It's very very obvious that "ability" exists to a greater or lesser degree (whatever you want to call it) when some persons have the ability to do, or even to do with EASE... what others simply cannot do at all.

Running a 4 minute mile, for example. Completing and fully understanding a 1000 page work in a couple of days. Writing a grant overnight. Completely mastering undergraduate integral calculus in two weeks.

All of those things would argue for ability in the "extraordinary" range, yes?

But those are things that often make others who lack those singular abilities rather uncomfortable-- particularly if they prefer (as most human beings do) to think of themselves as "considerably above average."

I don't think everyone is equally capable, of course.


This. That's what I mean.


No, I didn't have IQ scores, but I am not very competent in quantitative fields and they were. So, even though I am very high ability in some areas, it's not really enough. Anyway, I knew these kids. I'd grown up with them. I was probably the better writer, but they could easily master AP calc, etc, which I could not.

When I was in high school, I used to think that the kids who got As in certain classes that I got Bs in were smarter than me. Many years later, I discovered that they had something I didn't have at that time: study habits. I had no concept of sitting down with a math book every day for an hour or so and really thinking about stuff. I didn't need to, because I was getting Bs, which was fine in my teenage mind. At the end of the year, I'd spend some time cramming the weekend before the final, and would always get an A (if not the highest grade in the class) on it. I never really thought about why I could do that.

My point is that it's easy to assume that other people are "smart" based on achievement.

And honestly, if I'd been in a school full of other HG+ kids, I would have been clued into my capabilities at a much earlier age. Something that's been mostly left out of this thread (HK mentioned it, I think) is that when HG+ kids aren't stretched regularly, they have no idea of what they may be capable of.

It's super-frustrating for me that our schools have near-universal policies of allowing other kids to stretch while denying this opportunity to HG+ kids.

This reminds me of a story from when I was a kid. In 4th & 5th grade we had "optional" math workbooks that had different colors. We were allowed to work on these when we had free time, or bring them home. At least in my mind it was prestigious to be farther along in the books. One particular girl really impressed me because she worked through the entire sequence. She brought them home while I never found the time to work on them at home. The top book was supposed to be 8th grade work. Forward a few years and I was very surprised to find out that she was not one of the kids selected to take Algebra in 8th grade. It really surprised me, in my 10 year old mind she was a math genius.

CFK has a point. I think Val would say that the class wasn't hard enough, though, right? But at some point this is getting awfully theoretical. What's the person actually bringing to the table?

Now, when we are talking about a class being dumbed down you do have more of my attention. An AP class, for instance, ought to prepare one to do well on the AP exam. Calculus ought to teach calculus, not remediate. Etc. If the students can't meet the standards of the class, which should be easy to determine, they should not be in the class. On that we can agree. By the way, this happened to me in school. I was placed in algebra in 7th grade and was struggling, so I was removed and placed in the next level down, whch my parents and I agreed to. (I'm serious about my not being good at math!)

I still am not sure what public school education for the HG+ ought realistically and properly to look like if (as has been argued here many times) these kids also need full teacher instruction. I just don't see how it works. Again, it's not that I think this is especially fair. But what's the model?

My point is that learning with other kids of very high ability would have been more likely to create an environment where my thinking about the subject would have changed. ETA from UM's last post: I don't mean that the class should have been HARDER. Well, not in the sense of more homework or near-impossible problem sets. Back then, my math classes were pretty good in a straightforward, pedestrian way. I mean DIFFERENT. More big or old ideas. More new ways of looking at, say, how to do geometry or algebra. That kind of thing.

This was precisely what happened to me when I ended up a small liberal arts college where being bookish by choice and asking lots of probing questions were encouraged. Classes were small and many people on campus enjoyed talking about the big ideas of the day. Not everyone was HG+, but enough were that college was a good challenge for me. I had to learn to study (which was hard) but I found myself getting a lot out of what I was doing. Most importantly, the vast majority of the classes I took were aimed at very smart people, and you either kept up or got a bad grade/dropped the class.

You don't get that community experience with the hard-working types whose parents are driving them. Especially for these types, "hard working" and "passionate" don't necessarily go together. I certainly don't see much academic passion among the tiger cubs I've met.

Probably individual tutoring with a team of specialized staff.

Maybe very small group.

These are great achievements that should be recognized by any achievement-based program, right? If everyone works equally hard, then people with extraordinary abilities would easily achieve a lot more than someone with average ability. So looking at achievement, not potential, should make sense. In a regular classroom, ceilings would be a real issue. But if one looks beyond the classroom, and especially when one gets older, there should be lots of opportunities for achieving way beyond the boundary that a classroom teacher sets up. I think it makes sense to look at IQ when the kids are young, but as they get older the focus should shift to achievement.

I think we need a definition of "achievement" before we can actually talk in a meaningful way about this.

What I do know is my older ds7 is quite a different thinker (hg- hg+). In public school, he feels different. He leaps ahead in understanding concepts. He has lots of OEs. Although we live in a good district with a respectable unvi close by and lots of professionals; it isn't working for ds7. He's an outlier. And he wants to fit in, but doesn't. These kids NEED a cohort group to interact with. Mine does. I realize high school/ college will be a different can of worms. Just trying to get him in a comfort place so he can thrive.

I am mg. dh is closer to hg. However, I have mult family member (brother, father, gm) who are all eg or more by became narcissistic and dropped from society. Those hg+ people really NEED peers. It is agonizing for them to have no one who thinks at all like they do. It's isolating.

What is disturbing is the school questioning gifted at all. Esp because he is high achieving (for now). Something is not being understood by gifted certified teachers. They have the wrong characteristics in mind.

Everyone deserves appropriate education! Whatever that means.