Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums THINKING BIG About Gifted Education Proposal: NASA Academy of the Physical Sciences

I have invited outsiders to this forum thread from The New York Times online ROOM FOR DEBATE and from DISCOVER online Blogs/80beats:
http://community.nytimes.com/commen...ying-a-gifted-child/?permid=19#comment19
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/8...hematician-doesnt-need-your-prize-money/

Steven A. Sylwester

The edits changing "computer programming" to "computer science" have all been done.

Steven A. Sylwester

Perhaps this thread will be allowed to die now.

lucounu,

What is your problem?

I tried to figure that out for myself, and I found this:
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....58/Some_testing_questions.html#Post77358

Ten years from now, you will not be worrying about your 5-year-old son as he is about to enter kindergarten, you will be worrying about your 15-year-old son as he is about to enter his sophomore year in high school. The year 2020 might seem like an eternity away to you because your son has only been around for five years now, but today will seem like just yesterday when the summer of 2020 suddenly becomes the present. My once 5-year-olds are now 21 and 23.

If it is too much for you to consider my NAPS proposal right now, then do not bother yourself with it. Find the kindergarten threads in the Gifted Issues Discussion Forum and involve yourself there. This thread will get along fine without you, but you are welcome to come back if it ever matters to you what options will be available for your son during his high school years.

Steven A. Sylwester

Lucounou mentioned his son's love of art, flair for imaginative storytelling, "fantastic verbal linguistic ability," and reasoning and argumentation ability. Math is just one of his skills, and not necessarily the strongest one. It's not at all clear that the NAPS proposal would be a good match for him.

This whole thread strikes me as a bit ironic. On the one hand, you bemoan the fact that people in the mainstream educational establishment aren't likely to be geniuses themselves, and so don't really "get" gifted children. On the other hand, your proposal seems to be based on the idea that our most intelligent and capable young people should be channeled into studying math and the physical sciences. Maybe it would be of greater benefit to our society if a good chunk of them became teachers, psychologists, and even (though it makes me cringe to say it ) politicians and lawyers.

LighthouseKeeper is right. From the sounds of it, I'm not sure that when he is a teenager that my son would be interested in NAPS, let alone that he would be well-suited ability-wise for the program. So far he seems to be able to soak up whatever he likes (including math) at a fast clip, but I haven't had him tested, and I understand testing can be inaccurate at his age. Although I have a feeling he will be a very highly effective person, I have no way of predicting specifically what he'll be like.

But that doesn't mean I can't have an opinion on what I've read here. This thread seems to be used for extremely long-winded promotion of your idea, blogs, etc., Steven Sylwester. I'm not trying to attack you personally, but you post novella-length answers in response to criticism, often ranging far afield from your topic. You've essentially acknowledged that your use of the NASA name is not approved by anyone. You get quite argumentative when people make good points in response to you. You seem to be... highly focused on using this space to promote your idea at all costs.

I just think everyone here has said all they can usefully say about the NAPS proposal, and that your first post from today was a transparent "bump" to the top of the heap in the hopes that someone would notice all the words you've written here. I am sorry if you took offense, but I really think this thread should be allowed to sink down in the list of threads if there's no genuine new content to add.

I am genuinely sorry for offending you-- and I felt that you might take offense, based on things previously written here-- but I still think it's a bit in poor taste to bump a thread for no real reason, to promote one's self or cause. I will say that you seem to be genuinely interested in seeing this NAPS thing through. I will reserve open judgment on whether that is likely to happen, and I won't post here again.

Sorry for not letting this thread die - it came up when I was on vacation, and I didn't see it until now.

There are only 18 states that don't already have at least one (and in many cases, multiple) public, highly selective, math and science high schools. They have PhD instructors, provide college-level instruction, and have a range of courses that far exceeds what you're proprosing.

The Oklahoma program, for instance, admits 70-80 students per year for the entire state, so is more-selective than you propose. It's a boarding school, and you're proposing a day school. But because of the way the 4-year universities are distributed in the state, even were there 3 of them, a significant portion of the potential students couldn't attend without a boarding option.

I don't see your proposal as filling an unmet need. Sorry.

LighthouseKeeper,

Yes, you are correct in observing the irony � much more than you can possibly know. I am the very last person who should ever design the NAPS program and be its champion, because I have a whole lifetime of hostility that I battle against at every turn. But I am doing it all at this point because no one else has yet done it � and it needs to be done!

To understand it all is to understand two things: 1) the concept of triage, and 2) the painful realities of necessary compromise.

Unless NAPS can be fashioned as an innocuous parasite that lives off the good graces of public research universities, it will never happen. The NAPS program has to have such an invisible presence that the "Why do this?" question easily gives way to the "Why not do this?" question. There is no good reason to "not" do NAPS in my opinion, but people tie themselves in knots over the "Why do this?" question.

My take is that the vast majority of Americans will dismiss and even openly shun any ongoing displays of intellectual brilliance, because such displays diminish their own self-worth � and these are the same people who stand in loud praise and enthusiastic ovation for all displays of athletic brilliance. It is crazy, but that is the political reality NAPS is up against. Even in this forum, I sense there are those who are willing to sell some gifted young people short who are not gifted in the same way as their own child(ren). It breaks my heart, but it strengthens my resolve, too.

Personally, I would throw out the term "gifted" altogether if I could, because it confuses the thinking of too many people. "Gifted" is so nice and so precious a term to so many proud parents who then so deeply insult the sensibilities of so many wannabe parents whose children are so ordinary that the only thing that results from it all is seething hatred. And I can understand that response, even though that response is entirely wrong in every respect. The "gifted" children are not to blame, yet they are the ones broadsided by the ensuing hatred in too many cases. How else can you explain the battle in this? Why else would society freely choose to deny extraordinary educational opportunities to those young people who are fully capable of doing the work?

NAPS is designed to serve the needs of only a small group of young people who are simply different than the rest of us. Truly, they are birth-defected: both blessed and cursed by a circumstance beyond their control. For damn sure, if we force them into being mediocre like the rest of us � even for just the while of high school � we will likely succeed in torturing at least some of them for their entire lives thereafter. Some people finally give up, including some intellectually brilliant people who become crippled by a lack of opportunity at a very early time in their lives. It is beyond sad.

So I accept the irony, and force myself to go beyond it. Triage and compromise � somehow, make it happen.

Steven A. Sylwester

AlexsMom,

How old is Alex?

Who pays the room and board costs at the boarding schools? The state or the parents?

I seriously considered sending my own children away to distant boarding schools on several occasions, but I decided against it. And I have no regrets about that. My family history includes the sending away of children to distant boarding schools during the high school years, and so I know there is a lasting price to pay in making that decision.

Home is special � as are loving parents who care deeply for their children. The trade-off in sending children away to boarding schools is extreme, even if it is sometimes necessary. Personally, I do not like the boarding school model.

I differ with you on another level, too. In the NAPS model, capable young people quickly find the confidence to compete intellectually in the real world by being students in the classrooms of public research universities. That is significantly different than the boarding school model in which high school students remain exclusively with other high school students throughout their high school years. NAPS creates a small high school identity that does foster same-age peer groups, but it also opens the door to a confidence building experience that would not be duplicated in a boarding school setting in my opinion.

My oldest daughter took an intensive 2nd Year Japanese language course at the University of Oregon during the summer that she turned 12. She had skipped sixth grade, and the university language course occurred during the summer after her seventh grade year. The language course taught the usual year-long three-term "2nd Year Japanese" sequence during the one summer term, so the class met for four-and-one-half hours everyday Monday through Friday for nine weeks. Classes started at 8:00 AM and went to 2:00 PM with a lunch break. For the first few days, my wife and/or I met our daughter for lunch, but after that she was on her own. We discovered later that our daughter sometimes walked downtown during her lunch break (at least ten blocks away one-way), and that sometimes she went to the university student center's video arcade room. In any case, we did not interfere with her choices. She received "A" grades throughout the summer and earned 15 university credits, and she also became very self-confident and mature in her judgments and in her ability to interact socially with others. I doubt the same outcome would have resulted in a boarding school environment in which all of her classmates would have been her same age.

My youngest daughter had a similar experience when she took two terms of 4th Year Japanese at the University of Oregon when she was a high school freshman.

NAPS would certainly serve the needs of more young people than the Oklahoma boarding school you describe. True, NAPS does not offer a dormitory option, but that does not bother me. I propose 150 NAPS sites as a starting point, but it could grow from there if it is wildly successful. In the end, every public research university in the U.S. could host a NAPS site. Why not?

Steven A. Sylwester

In my state, the state does.


Personally, I don't disagree with you with respect to boarding schools.

But because those boarding schools already exist, and exist primarily in the same location (public research universities) that you propose to house day schools, and do essentially the same thing you propose to do, I don't see this as a winner.

But you know, if you can convince NASA that they've got $61 million of excess funding, and that the best use of that excess funding is running high schools, more power to you.