If you’ve availed yourself to educating yourself about nutrition AND you have adjusted your priorities so that healthier food takes the place of other expenditures and you still can’t afford healthy options, then let’s talk. If you buy soda instead of drinking water that comes free from a tap and you’re complaining about lack of healthy food accessibility, you’re not taking sufficient responsibility to improve your and your family’s health.
Also a lot of kids on the other end of "special needs" don't get the support they "need" and just get pushed through the system. 35% of high school seniors are reading at or above proficiency levels.
But even in that case, the argument isn't that "let's not add more G&T programs, those kids are doing fine", it's "let's remove G&T programs because we don't like the demographic makeup of the class".
I'll also add that we don't think that way about other groups. People in wheelchairs don't "need" to go to a concert, but most people still believe things like Americans with Disabilities Act is important. So I don't know why gifted children are different. We know what to do with them. Let them flourish, they will be better off, happier and more productive members of society.
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Living/us-students-reading-math-s...
The novelty of applying the label differently, is refreshing to me.
> Gifted kids don't need special attention to get through school and life the same way the intellectually impaired do.
Need is being used subjectively here, but this is effectively a repeated sentiment.
As a gifted child, I was stunted by both public school and family (my father has literally apologized to me). It took me until my 20s to start my career, which was delayed by at least a half-decade. I am willing to consider that a different approach is worth trying, to achieve a different result. Maybe this will result in a better system and I think it's worth the benefit of the doubt.
It is certainly an alternative to other approaches that are popular in some areas, like banning books that mention trans individuals.
Gifted kids don't need special attention to get
through school and life the same way the intellectually
impaired do.
I sometimes struggled in regular classes as a young kid, because it was so painfully boring to move at the same, slower speed as the other kids. It was like trying to watch a movie at 0.25x speed. I wasn't just "not reaching my potential", I was missing out on chunks of learning. I almost don't know what the counterargument is: we... shouldn't match education to a child's learning speed and other needs?
(And for the record, I wasn't crazy gifted in terms of IQ. More like top X%, not top 0.X%)
The ability to thrive and work with others who don't know as much about $FIELD as you do is, of course, an incredibly valuable life skill. Both socially and professionally. Whether you're a plumber or doctor or cashier then you by definition know more about your job than others. But I absolutely don't think forcing young kids to sit through learning at 0.25x or 0.5x or 0.75x their "natural" speed is the way to do it.
Isn't the Wozniak anecdote a counter argument? If a gifted kid is so bored they drop out or adopt anti-social behaviors, that's a problem.
Personal anecdote... when I was in 7th grade, the school trialed a math program where some of the GT students and some of the slow learners were placed in the same class. The class had an aide. But, at the end of the year, the GT students had effectively learned nothing - the teacher and aide spent 100% of their time getting the failing students closer to par, at the expense of everybody else.
Point being, there are ways to support GT students without completing disbanding GT programs. When I was in elementary school, that was a few hours per week of enrichment (pull us out of the main class periodically for extra instruction). Maybe there are reasons that doesn't work, but certainly my memory of that time is positive. It wasn't until middle school that we had fully separate "honors" classes (and then high school had AP).
It's not like such situations never occur in adult life. I often find myself in work meetings where colleague A explains something to a group of 10 people to get everybody on the same page, and there are often one or two folks who already know this stuff and are obviously uncomfortable for those 10 min of intro. Clearly, they never learned how to deal with such a situation.
since some parts of class they were then bored.
Well, you learn to deal with it
I'm highly doubtful that forcing young kids to be bored (by making them progress/learn slowly, when they could be learning more) is the best way to do it.
Was there no reading because it was academically poor or was it kind of an "alternative" learning environment ala Montessori?
(I don't know Montessori's specific ways of teaching reading)
If this is really about equality then we would be strengthening these programs because gifted kids from wealthy families will continue to have access to accelerated education. It’s the poor and middle class who are losing out.
Given the extreme levels of segregation in certain parts of the country (NYC for example has fewer than 5 percent of Black and Latino kindergartners in G&T programs, but higher enrollment for Black and Latino students in third grade) school systems like that one should seriously consider pivoting to prioritizing equality over G&T funding.
Why does it happen?
Until the 90s, they'd base G&T admission based on IQ. Now it's based on whether your family can afford a quality Pre-K. They thought my little brother was a savant as he could read on the first day of kindergarten -- my little sister taught him to read. (He is a very smart dude!)
I was in a well-regarded gifted program in the 80s in a NYC public school. The main distinction was that I was essentially trained to interpret short narratives with time incentives in a standardized test setting. It worked out for me through high school, as that skill allows me to coast through tests and blow off most of the work. Reality bit in college, where you were expected to actually read the book. :)
Forcing children who aren't normal to be normal is child abuse, and your comment is an attempt to perpetuate the kind of abuse that I was subjected to.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twice_exceptional
----
In response to OP's link, my suggestion to primary schools would be to scrap the G/T programs, and instead focus on reducing class-sizes. You should also remove any students from classrooms whom routinely distract from others' learning. Give those timesinks a broom, instead.
There are only like 4 actual accelerated learning programs out of the hundreds in NYC's "G&T".
I was a student of public Texas ISDs, and briefly taught in Tennessee, so "public school" is an entirely different definition/beast than NYC's [probably better] education systems.
src: attended public schools in G/T programs (IMHO: "normal" and "G/T" kids benefit from being taught together, in smaller classrooms)
src2: attended college on a full teaching scholarship (am no longer teaching) — "taught"[1] the classes with behavior problems
[1] Babysat; I was made the bad kids teacher because I was a tall footballer that didn't take shit from physically abusive bullies. I never beat a kid up (although many friends have, deservedly) but definitely restrained a few.
A good idea but not practically possible in any district, unfortunately.
I'm obviously exaggerating, but it's not purely good to remove "distracting elements".
Might very well be the bored gifted ones...
src: I was a bored gifted one; only swept the floors long enough to want to change my behavior(s). I was also once a teacher for children with behavior issues.
Generally this is a response to a massive teacher shortage in the US, which is likely caused by low pay relative to the sheer amount of work and angst that teachers have to put up with (from both parents and students).
If the US were truly a society that valued education, teachers would be some of the highest paid professionals in the country... but teacher salaries have actually been declining relative to the average, and like many positions haven't been keeping up with the rate of inflation either. This is in addition to the long-known fact that many teachers end up buying their own supplies.
You can't do this without getting sued (at least in Massachusetts). Source: my wife is a long-time elementary school teacher and my daughter works as a one-on-one aide while she is getting her teaching degree.
I don't want to start of flamewar but the current "push in" model created by educational bureaucrats creates a classroom environment that caters to the "timesinks". When you have a good chunk of the class on IEPs (individual education plans) that must be followed by law the "high flyers" (gifted kids) mostly get ignored due to time pressure.
Add socialization problems caused by COVID and reduced attention spans due to devices and chaos is always eminent. The stories I hear about daily classroom behavior would have blown my mind as a kid growing up in the 70s/80s.
I just wish that gifted kids could get the same access to IEPs that the other tail of the curve gets. However, when you base your educational outcomes on high stakes testing it is just natural to ignore the outliers above the mean and focus on the ones below it.
Again, I don't want to start a flamewar. Everyone has the right to an education.
It wasn't until I was flunking out of medical school that I realized the truth to your statement. I never learned how to learn (my 90's public school's version of G/T was to let a small group of higher-IQ children do whatever they want, including nothing).
I feel that smaller class sizes would encourage smart-but-bored students to behave better (i.e. not be the class clown I was), out of fear of social isolation. In larger classes, it becomes more difficult for a single teacher (+aides) to impart learning habits upon ALL students.
This is true but doesn't answer the fundamental question of whether meritocracy results in a fair, healthy society. I think this is a nuanced issue with reasonable arguments on both sides, but the author simply assumes the answer is yes without actually addressing the question.
People focus on the second part of the phrase, but the first part explicitly states we should strive to work up our individual ability and potential. Denying that is an entirely new concept that likely never existed prior to the last 50 years or so.
You may be confusing it with "equality of outcomes"?
The actual question is whether smart people should receive a disproportionate amount of a finite resource, like education. This imbalance creates a potential runaway effect in which one group grows ever more successful at the expense of other groups.
Incompetentocracy?
Randomocracy?
Celebritocracy?
Nepotocracy?
We're not going back to aristocracy (which essentially was nepotocracy). So what do you have that's better than meritocracy? What's wrong with letting the more talented be the ones who run things?
White is I imagine somewhat distributed across the board. Now Asian, does that imply broad distribution or is it mostly Chinese?
Because the benefit of one is the disadvantage of somebody else. Same coin, different side.
(That's not my argument, but I believe it is the argument on which this is based.)
> This is one of the few mainstream policies I can’t understand from the other side
A more even society may be a goal. Scandinavia in the 80s did a lot of that, left high performers in school hanging. For good or worse.
https://www.amazon.com/Twice-Exceptional-Supporting-Educatin...
Mamdani says he would phase out NYC gifted program for early grades
Here in Spain one of the far-left politicians was found to be sending both of his children to private school while preaching this enforced equality for the rest of us.
Really? Why is everything called "radical" nowadays? The "radical left" who want healthcare for everybody, the "radical right" who oppose immigration. Radical egalitarianism? Really? Because they don't want to fund programs for gifted kids? You may not like it (I myself am ambivalent and the best solution is likely in the middle), but it's not "radical".
It's radical because goes against all evidence, experience, and common sense - it is ideology taken to a puritanical extreme. There is no more extreme position one can take.
We both went to university, but he barely got accepted and nearly dropped out. I think I did a lot better at university because I was already accustomed to needing to study.
Many years later I learned that there have been studies about this "praise for effort versus praise for intelligence" dynamic.
> I’ve never seen a satisfying explanation for why a supposedly unjust system, one assumed to disadvantage certain groups, would “accidentally” advantage Asians, often above native-born white students.
Many immigrant groups have, on average, a higher socioeconomic status than native-born Americans. Even Black African immigrants tend to be more affluent than the mean of the white American population, because immigrating is expensive and it selects for wealth. My family are middle-class in North American, but they immigrated from South America, where were distinctly better-off than the average.
Affluence has much more explanatory power than merit, especially in the absence of any mechanism for the supposed racial merit which the author of this newsletter seems to be ascribing to the Asian population.
austin-cheney•2h ago
This reminds me of conversations between the two ends of the Dunning-Kruger spectrum. In DK low performing people tend to vastly over-estimate their capabilities because their frame of reference is exceedingly narrow. High performers tend to under estimate their capabilities because in their vast experience they have forgotten a great many things that are either unnecessary or things that have become like muscle memory.
The conversations are interesting because the high performers tend to be more humble, more confident, and less arrogant while the low performers tend to be the opposite. That is extremely interesting because of what is not said in the conversation. For the low performers everything tends to be literal to the spoken word and everything else becomes an assumption localized to their personal perspective. For the high performers the negative space in a conversation is just words in a different form that the low performers actively broadcast in complete ignorance. This remains true for both children and adults.
incognito124•1h ago
cardanome•1h ago
Where is that take even coming from? Communication styles are very cultural. Japanese is very subtext-heavy while German is very direct. Are Japanese people more intelligent than German people?
Furthermore it depends on how your brain is wired. Autistic people prefer direct communication while allistic (that means non-autistic) people rely more on context.
Personally, I prefer people that are more direct. People that read crap into stuff that was never said grind my gears so much. It creates so much unnecessary drama.
The claim that one form of communication is same sign of being a "high performer" is completely insane.
austin-cheney•34m ago
When your social intelligence is high enough you realize everybody is always direct because communication is multidimensional. Honest only occurs when the words, vocalization, and body language are all in unison. Even then honesty only matters so much if the substance of content is inaccurate or invalid. Since you brought up autism, most people attempt to mask their emotions in times of discomfort. Masking is a form of dishonesty and people who are good a communication see it as such.
As a counter example watch North Korea ambassadors speak at the UN. They are emotionless in their answers and its extremely unnatural. They do that intentionally, because no answer is ultimately safe and the greatest threat to their security comes from defiance to their own nation.
As to your last statement high performance generally describes some utility, like a test score or job skill. Strong communication skills are generally described as an aptitude as opposed to a utility.
cardanome•14m ago
Masking is autistic people adjusting their communication style so they are more acceptable to allistic people while neglecting their own needs.
For example many autistic people show emotions differently. They can default to a flatter tone of voice or show less microexpressions in the face i.e a flatter affect. (Just to be clear, it does not mean they have less emotions. Just because someone expresses emotions differently does not mean they have more or less. Again, they could be for example extremely happy but you would read them as withdrawn and disinterested.)
Much of autistic masking can be micromanaging these things. Tone of voice, face expressions, body language.
,And here comes the kicker: High-Masking autistic people are read as MORE honest and authentic by allistic people. Yes more honest no less. Because they show behavior that is you would say is more "in unison" from the point of view of an allistic person.
It is the same effect when people think they are good at spotting a liar. There are studies that show they are worse or close to random chance. Flipping a coin is as reliable as "listening to your gut".
People that think they are good at communication are the worst because they don't realize how full of shit they are. You can't know how another person feels, they can only tell you. I guess we are back to dunning kruger. Oh, the irony.
JohnBooty•11m ago
Still, there are a lot of things that can go unsaid when people have a shared, high, expertise level.
For example, if I'm onboarding a junior engineer, I'm going to have to literally explain a lot of things. From basic compsci concepts to setting up a text editor and local development environment to getting them up to speed on the language we use.
These are things that largely would not need to be communicated to a more senior developer.
JohnBooty•16m ago
But to my knowledge in America most gifted programs are not some kind of total segregation and I don't see a lot of people arguing for that either. In my experience in US public schools the "gifted" classes were like maybe 1/4 of our total classroom time.
Likewise with developmentally-challenged kids. Most programs have an emphasis on varying levels of integration with the other kids. In some schools, the special-ed kids are in "regular" classrooms but have their own semi-dedicated assistants.
(Example: 1 teacher, 20 kids, plus 1 special-ed assistant and 3-4 special ed kids)