All Kids Are Gifted, a Sports Metaphor

[Anonymous]

Your problem is that you are confusing GT with good average kids. That is what the current pushy parents have created.

So you think pushy parents are a 21st century phenomena that did not exist 1000 years ago! What's different?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you people not understand a Venn diagram or basic logic?

G&T kids only make up 3-5% of the student body and almost all of them will go on to college, and typically grad school and/or professional licensure, et cetera. Virtually all of them will make use of the AP/honors/enrichment classes to some degree or another, whether for subsequent college coursework, professionally, or otherwise.

Comparatively, the rest of the general school population won't. In DCPS the dropout rate is 40% who won't even finish high school. Of the remaining 60% in DCPS who do graduate, only a subset, and smaller percentage will go on to college.

But... those top 3 % do not end up in the top 3%. So......

Typically they do end up in the top percent not just by IQ but in grades and elsewhere as well. My experience has been that the kids that were in G&T were also valedictorian, et cetera - otherwise generally top in their classes and most got scholarships for college. One for example was also in the top 0.5% nationally on the PSAT and ended up getting a full scholarship to an Ivy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If IQ tests are supposedly rigged and culturally biased to benefit the white establishment and high-SES, how come it's disproportionately second-generation middle class Asians getting high scores?

I think it is because the immigrants from China and Southeast Asia that come to the US are not a whole slice of the pie they are a stratified part of the Asian community. The part that has been educated historically and/or values education as the road to advancement. You see the same thing among other immigrant populations that have higher percentages of their elite educated class immigrating. It depends on who is immigrating. It takes chutzpah to pick up and leave your home to move to a new place where the language and customs are completely different. There is some self selection going on.

[Anonymous]

Typically they do end up in the top percent not just by IQ but in grades and elsewhere as well. My experience has been that the kids that were in G&T were also valedictorian, et cetera - otherwise generally top in their classes and most got scholarships for college. One for example was also in the top 0.5% nationally on the PSAT and ended up getting a full scholarship to an Ivy.

This is anecdotal. Do you think only 3% should go to college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you people not understand a Venn diagram or basic logic?

G&T kids only make up 3-5% of the student body and almost all of them will go on to college, and typically grad school and/or professional licensure, et cetera. Virtually all of them will make use of the AP/honors/enrichment classes to some degree or another, whether for subsequent college coursework, professionally, or otherwise.

Comparatively, the rest of the general school population won't. In DCPS the dropout rate is 40% who won't even finish high school. Of the remaining 60% in DCPS who do graduate, only a subset, and smaller percentage will go on to college.

Basic logic would suggest not using DCPS as an example of "the general school population".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Typically they do end up in the top percent not just by IQ but in grades and elsewhere as well. My experience has been that the kids that were in G&T were also valedictorian, et cetera - otherwise generally top in their classes and most got scholarships for college. One for example was also in the top 0.5% nationally on the PSAT and ended up getting a full scholarship to an Ivy.

I'll put my anecdotes against yours: A lot of the "non-gifted" kids in my high school class have done as well or better in their careers than the "gifted" kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you people not understand a Venn diagram or basic logic?

G&T kids only make up 3-5% of the student body and almost all of them will go on to college, and typically grad school and/or professional licensure, et cetera. Virtually all of them will make use of the AP/honors/enrichment classes to some degree or another, whether for subsequent college coursework, professionally, or otherwise.

Comparatively, the rest of the general school population won't. In DCPS the dropout rate is 40% who won't even finish high school. Of the remaining 60% in DCPS who do graduate, only a subset, and smaller percentage will go on to college.

But... those top 3 % do not end up in the top 3%. So......

Typically they do end up in the top percent not just by IQ but in grades and elsewhere as well. My experience has been that the kids that were in G&T were also valedictorian, et cetera - otherwise generally top in their classes and most got scholarships for college. One for example was also in the top 0.5% nationally on the PSAT and ended up getting a full scholarship to an Ivy.

But then go on to be one of the messes in the working world. Often, unable to handle the fact they are mediocre.

[Anonymous]

Masses, not messes... But often messes fits too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Typically they do end up in the top percent not just by IQ but in grades and elsewhere as well. My experience has been that the kids that were in G&T were also valedictorian, et cetera - otherwise generally top in their classes and most got scholarships for college. One for example was also in the top 0.5% nationally on the PSAT and ended up getting a full scholarship to an Ivy.

I'll put my anecdotes against yours: A lot of the "non-gifted" kids in my high school class have done as well or better in their careers than the "gifted" kids.

Well, if the gifted kids in your high school had been better supported by the school and community (like the athletes, I presume), maybe they would have excelled at a much greater rate. The fact that you put quotes around the words gifted and non-gifted is further evidence of my point: many people are hostile, or at least very suspicious, of gifted people. I cannot imagine that you would use a similar qualifier to describe gifted athletes or musicians. The intellectually gifted are a threat to so many. The are called " scary smart" or something similar. No one seems similarly threatened by other types of superior talent. It's really a shame that the intellectually gifted are not better supported, and celebrated, in our society.

[Anonymous]

Not PP but most "gifted" athletes and musicians realize they are not going to have a career in those areas and don't beg the school for more support in those areas, they actually have to go private if they really want good arts and athletics. The parents provide those support and we do it because the kids enjoy it, not so they can "outdo" their peers.

Parents of "gifted" students also have to realize that in they are "gifted" at school does not always mean they are going to be Nobel peace prize winners.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Typically they do end up in the top percent not just by IQ but in grades and elsewhere as well. My experience has been that the kids that were in G&T were also valedictorian, et cetera - otherwise generally top in their classes and most got scholarships for college. One for example was also in the top 0.5% nationally on the PSAT and ended up getting a full scholarship to an Ivy.

I'll put my anecdotes against yours: A lot of the "non-gifted" kids in my high school class have done as well or better in their careers than the "gifted" kids.

Let's run through your scenario and look at some example numbers to delve into what the statistics would more typically look like and why your anecdotal information isn't really all that relevant - You are perfectly free to talk about the 10 non-gifted kids who went on to get their Ph.D., the 20 who ended up running a big successful business, et cetera, as compared to the 7 gifted kids who got their Ph.D. and the 12 who ended up running a big successful business but consider that maybe it's a class size of 600 where you are comparing the non-gifted population (97%, or 582 kids) where 10 out of 582 (or 1.7%) got Ph.Ds. and 20 out of 582 (or 3.4%) ended up running a big successful business as compared to the gifted population (3%, or just 18 kids) where 7 out of 18 (or 38%) got a Ph.D. and where 12 out of 18 (or 66%) ended up running a big successful business.

[Anonymous]

Wow, the hostility on this forum is unbelievable. Clearly some people are convinced that every kid is the same and that every kid is mediocre, and that it's all just about whiny parents and random and arbitrary labels. Tons of ridiculous presumptions and assumptions flying around from skeptics who I seriously doubt even know what they are talking about.

I'd wager that the loudmouths on this forum don't actually even have a real clue about which kids are or aren't in G&T programs and what their real success rates are and are just purely talking out of their asses.

[Anonymous]

The suggestion that no kids are above average and that G&T kids are actually just mediocre is simply ridiculous.

Let's explore it in other context - suppose we say the same thing about grades - that the kids in the honor roll are actually just mediocre and all kids do the same, and that A grades and honor roll are just a bogus label to satisfy whiny parents.

Similarly, sports programs are all bogus too, and all of the kids on the team are just there because of whiny parents, and in fact all of the kids are actually mediocre and with the same athletic performance, and that the competitions are all just phony and rigged and none of the kids are really any better at sports than any of the others. And, the professional sports teams and Olympians that come out of it are of course equally mediocre and Michael Jordan was no more talented than a 3 year old toddler or a 90 year old man with a walker because they are all equally mediocre.

Similarly, the kids in band playing instruments can't actually play instruments any better than the kids who don't play at all and we're all just pretending that what we hear is music when in fact it's all just random noise, none better than the next.

And then, when people get out into the world, the ones starting and running big successful businesses or the physicist creating high tech nanomaterials is no more skilled or knowledgeable than the guy who works the assembly line stamping widgets all day. Anybody could have done what Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Sergey Brin, Jeff Bezos, and other entrepreneurs did, easy peasy because we are all equally mediocre, nobody is extraordinary.

That all sounds quite ridiculous but it wouldn't be any different than what keeps being suggested of G&T. It's an incredibly skeptical, clueless and cynical view that slathers everything with a huge sloppy brush of drab gray mediocrity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Typically they do end up in the top percent not just by IQ but in grades and elsewhere as well. My experience has been that the kids that were in G&T were also valedictorian, et cetera - otherwise generally top in their classes and most got scholarships for college. One for example was also in the top 0.5% nationally on the PSAT and ended up getting a full scholarship to an Ivy.

I'll put my anecdotes against yours: A lot of the "non-gifted" kids in my high school class have done as well or better in their careers than the "gifted" kids.

Let's run through your scenario and look at some example numbers to delve into what the statistics would more typically look like and why your anecdotal information isn't really all that relevant - You are perfectly free to talk about the 10 non-gifted kids who went on to get their Ph.D., the 20 who ended up running a big successful business, et cetera, as compared to the 7 gifted kids who got their Ph.D. and the 12 who ended up running a big successful business but consider that maybe it's a class size of 600 where you are comparing the non-gifted population (97%, or 582 kids) where 10 out of 582 (or 1.7%) got Ph.Ds. and 20 out of 582 (or 3.4%) ended up running a big successful business as compared to the gifted population (3%, or just 18 kids) where 7 out of 18 (or 38%) got a Ph.D. and where 12 out of 18 (or 66%) ended up running a big successful business.

You're assuming it's binary. Either you're gifted (yay, you!), or you're non-gifted (pfft). It doesn't work that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The suggestion that no kids are above average and that G&T kids are actually just mediocre is simply ridiculous.

Yes, it is. Luckily nobody is saying that.