Why there's no such thing as a Gifted child?
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Anonymous
Agree! They don’t remotely end up in the same pot. Everyone is not the same. Where does this idea come from anyway? |
Anonymous
I bet you if a study is done, the results would show that AAP or not is not a significant variable on who end up better off in the long run. I bet you the variable is negligible AAP vs regular HS class. It would really surprise me if the results of such study came out that 90% of APP kids earn 500K a year, and kids on regular track earn 50K per year on average. I think it all end up the same percentage. Some kids in regular HS end up earning a ton, and some kids from AAP end up being drunks. So, yeah, what evidence do you have that they don't end up "in the similar spot" down the long road of life? |
Anonymous
Please give me some evidence as to where they all end up by the age of 40. |
Anonymous
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A little explanation:
1. It's part of modern child-centric philosophy that school should adapt to the child, not the opposite. Each child has their own strengths and weaknesses and to maximize their potential, it would be ideal to customize academic training for each. This is what rich people did with their children in previous centuries, with tutors and governesses at home, so the concept itself isn't new. The application to group education is, and of course... 2. There are practical obstacles to customization in schools, since funds are lacking and there's only so much a teacher can be burdened with. 3. So right now every school system in the US is struggling to come up with a plan to differentiate learning without breaking the bank or killing teachers. It's hard. 4. Other countries don't have this problem because they don't have the funds. I have observed and studied various education systems in the world, and the ones with the highest global test scores invest in rigorous teaching for the majority block, leaving out the extremes who may be gifted, learning disabled, or both. Extremes are hard to teach and cost more money per head. This ensures that the majority of students will come out of school with marketable skills and career prospects, or the potential for success in higher education and more financial rewards. Atypical students are left to flounder. 5. Since I have a child who is both gifted and learning disabled, I am very happy to live in the USA, where his needs are accommodated by his public school, for free. In our home country, he would be left to struggle. I am aware that his education is costing the taxpayer much more than the average student's education. The potential reward is that the USA will gain a productive adult through investing in him, instead of risking paying more down the road in food stamps or other services. This is what a truly wealthy country can do for its citizens. |
Anonymous
Seriously. I was that bored child. I ended up with a PhD in Organic Chemistry and a law degree. I work on high stakes patent litigation. I need a challege or I get bored. Fortunately I found a career that requires exceptional verbal skills, analytical skills, and technical skills. My daughter was just identified for the gifted program. I'm so glad that they cluster gifted kids in our district (we're not AAP). She deserves to have peers who challenge her. |
Anonymous
| The title seems misleading. The article is talking about how being identified as "gifted" in early childhood isn't the best predictor of adult success and a lot of factors besides raw intellience go into sucess. |
Anonymous
What a bleak view of success. |
Anonymous
Duh. Most people’s children end up somewhat like their parents. There’s always the exception that proves the rule. But I’m sorry if your kid wasn’t selected. I’m sure your DC will be the exception. |
Anonymous
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Gifted programs in US are needed because schools material is thought to the middle to lower end so the brightest kids are truly going bananas without adequate challenge. Also most of them just have different style of learning and the regular teachers for the obvious reason can not cater towards them adequately because the rest of the class would suffer. Those kids are like cram machines so they need to be fed constantly and with reasonable challenge attached. If a regular teacher would try to do that it would stretch the teacher beyond reason.
There are not that many truly gifted kids as in... kids who are not high achievers who are pushed by parents to cram cram cram to get good grades. Those are easy to manage, you just throw more things to memorize on them and they will be happily buys. The gifted bunch though is the ones that has inquisitive minds that is always questioning everything and digging deeper then they were asked and they need to bounce their minds of someone and that someone is a gifted ed teacher. This kind of behavior in regular class would be consider "disruptive". Whereas in gifted classes or centers it is the baseline behavior. The only thing that I don't like is the name. Gifted. I think that however this is somewhat adequate name it is not necessarily a good think to use it. First of all, every child has some gifts. They might not be in academics, it can be in sports, dance, art, music. This is not fair to call group of kids gifted, because it immediately implies that the rest of them is not. Perhaps there could be better name to express it. However there is still need to differentiate those kids for their sakes from high achievers. Calling kids gifted messes up their ego, their parents attitudes and creates some antagonism within the rest of the population. It is hard to imagine why anyone would pick this term as this term alone seems very divisive and emotionally discriminative but someone had something in mind. It is a word that sets people against each other right of the bet. It is a word that makes people believe that this is what they want and can get for their child. A spot in a gifted center or class believing that giftedness is achievable. No it is not, academic advanced kid is achievable, but you can not create giftedness in any child, not even the most academically advanced because this is not what it is about. High achieving kids are kids who's mind follow the track, like a train, and given stuff to study, they will stay on those tracks and just push forward. Gifted kid has no tracks,. His mind works in all directions and the learning style is such so is the teaching style need to be. But please lets finally find different name for this ability. Something that is not so divisive. |
Anonymous
As usual...no. Gifted is an IQ above 130. Profoundly gifted is over 145. Neither is prodigy. A prodigy is someone who as a young child performs a certain thing at an adult level. Btw the IQ tests used on kids don’t go up to 200 and haven’t in years. The WISC goes up to about 155 I believe. A 130 IQ is 2 in 100. Hardly amazing. A 145 IQ is 1 in a 1000. 115 is above average. |
Anonymous
So confident! Gifted is often considered above 120. Some schools choose 120 for a cutoff, others choose 130. No, those aren't prodigies. |
Anonymous
| Torturing your kids because you want to brag about it. Truly a sign of bad parenting. |
Anonymous
2 in 100 is pretty amazing and, statistically speaking, still pretty rare. Honestly, I think we would all be better off if we figured out a way to accept our kids for who they are and helped them meet their individual challenges. A kid who is bored in school needs to be challenged. That kid could be bored because of a high native intelligence or because they are motivated to learn even if they are "only" above average. That child's individual needs still need to be met. The way you go about meeting those needs might be different. I don't think the issue is with AAP itself, I think the issue is with how services are delivered throughout the county. Different schools have different programs. Even schools that have the same program administer those programs differently. It makes some parents feel like they need to push a kid into AAP who could very well be better served in a level III program that is well run. |
Anonymous
It is possible to teach high achieving kids to be more inquisitive and creative. They often benefit from being in class with gifted students. You may not make them into a kid who naturally thinks that way, but working on their problem solving skills is often a better use of their time than having them memorize more and more material. |
Anonymous
But, what a realistic view. |