Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion MDC & gifted hostility

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 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.

Yep, I've read it... It's an interesting read and I think it is pretty applicable here. Although I do have to say Smolin is a bit biased because of the whole war between String Theory and Loop Quantum Gravity. ;-)

Hi Val, sounds like an interesting book, I just question the idea that there was a time where more 'creative' types with way out ideas have been/will be more well accepted...
does the book go that far?

True!

I think that there are many parents out there who find their personal self esteem by comparing their children to others. It is this type of parent who mucks up the water for the rest of us. They push their kids and love to play the one-up game.

We go to one of the best schools in our area so I see many of this type of parents. Once they found that my child was in the gifted program they wanted to know what math level she was on and how she scored on testing so they could compare their child's score to mine.
I just smile and say we did good and change the subject. I don't need to know what everyone else scored to be happy about my DD's results.

According to Smolin, the creative types were more tolerated until around 30-ish years ago. He wrote that there were always a few creative types banging around universities until then, but that their numbers have been progressively diminishing.

The main problem is that creative types can't publish 2 or 3 or more papers per year. So if you compare them to the master-craftsmen-types after 5 or even 10 years, the latter group will look much better. But he argued that if you leave the creative types alone, their contributions will eventually match or exceed those of the master craftsmen. A problem today is that everyone has to have grants coming in all the time, and you can't get grants if you don't publish a lot and so....

That said, he also cited Einstein's case and reminded the reader that he was working in the patent office because he couldn't get an academic job. But he also provided evidence that the climate was less hostile to the creative types back then.

Val

Before our youngest was born, DH and I would say "None of that academic stuff for our kids before they start school! Kids should be doing finger painting and playing and stuff like that up until they're 5!"

Fast forward through time: our 3 1/2 year old toddled up one day and looked at us with his big eyes and said, "Can you teach me to wead? I want to leawn how to wead." Turned out he already knew the sounds the letters make, what vowels were, etc. etc.

So we started reforming our opinions pretty quickly after that.

Val

I've never joined MDC, but have followed the PTGC forum for some time. I've been stunned by the tone of those who felt the PTGC was elitist... and was even more surprised by the reaction of the Mods. They seem to be making the changes without any complaints from regular PTGC participants.

That behavior is one of the main reasons I've long preferred this site. It's not an elitist issue in any respect, but simply a question of comfort & familiarity.

Too bad for them if they "shun" the GT community like that. Imagine the uproar if they all of a sudden decided to toss out the SN or "lactivism" forums. The fireworks would be impressive.

As it stands, any thread that dares to question the PTGC forum decision(s) is promptly closed from comments. Sad, very sad.

Many thanks again for this community and the spirited debates that flourish without any wounded egos!

I may not have been as clear as I could have been: he actually thinks very highly of master craftsmen. The top tier of this group are people who are brilliant at something technical (such as mathematics) and who are able to focus like crazy on an idea and and use their abilities to really really carry it through.

He describes the creative types as being able to peer into the darkness and pull fantastic new ideas out of it.

The MC aren't always so great with the creative stuff and the Seers aren't always so great at the technical stuff. This is why he argues that both groups are absolutely essential. They can be suspicious of each other because they're so different, but the system has trouble when only one group dominates (which he argues is the case now in theoretical physics).

Val

Just wanted to say I'm going to back to re-read this thread. I'm glad I found out where you guys have been hanging out since the plug was temporarily pulled. What I can't figure out is why they had to turn off the forum while they figure things out. How long does it take to figure things out and ask people not to comment about the changes specifically until they do. Why close the forum?

I didn't think there was any big deal myself. Maybe there were a few questions about is my baby/toddler gifted. I thought we were all pretty darn tolerant of those types of posts. If it didn't bug us, why should it bug anyone else?

I am frustrated and a little offended that they are making a big deal out of something so small.

Oh, by the way, I'm Miss Information over there and I have a new username.

Hi Sciencemama, welcome!