3 ms·

Except for the kids who'd be ahead in everything - they'd still have a stigma... I suspect uniform testing at 'grade level' becomes harder to use for compariso

Except for the kids who'd be ahead in everything - they'd still have a stigma... I suspect uniform testing at 'grade level' becomes harder to use for comparisons against other schools.

erikpukinskis 10y ago
If there's a kid who is ahead at everything, the material is not diverse enough. To some extent competence is a zero-sum game. The likelihood that a student is operating at above-typical levels in sports, art, math, and journalism seems small to me. The early experiences that lead to advanced performance in each of those fields are dramatically different. The only way I would expect to see that is if the school was tailoring all of those subjects to a certain kind of student. Which, admittedly, is common. But I'm talking about a more universal advancement system where Art 12 really is for level-12 artists, not level-12 math students who want to do something that resembles art, and be graded on effort. The nice thing about such a system is you wouldn't have to cater Art-12 to advanced level history students just to keep their GPAs up. Those students could stay in Art 4, and get their A there, while the Art-12 students were subject to the higher standard that really only they could handle. You could expect them to spend 20 hours a week in the studio, which would be unreasonable for a student carrying a full coursework burden in another field. And you could even put that burden on 10-year-olds who were ready for it, of which there are some.
- zhemao 10y ago
  Art and sports are generally electives in US public schools. It is entirely possible (and in fact very likely) for a student to be ahead in all academic subjects, especially at the lower grade levels when there's not much specialization yet. Probably not equally advanced. But at the very least, a student who is far ahead in math and science is probably also well above average in reading comprehension.
  - mgkimsal 10y ago
    Thank you - that's what I was thinking, but you said it better than I could. I was pushed ahead a grade, and as a result, was always a year or two behind everyone else physically, so, almost by definition, I was always "behind" in gym/phys-ed classes, but there wasn't much I could do about that. Looking back, I was normal/average for my age, but not for my 'grade', and had a tough time with that.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > If there's a kid who is ahead at everything, the material is not diverse enough. Or, you know, the kid is just more competent. All people may be created morally equal, but they aren't created equal in competence, even in some kind of "advantages in one area are balanced by deficits in others" way. > To some extent competence is a zero-sum game. No, its not. (Also, being zero-sum is absolutely binary -- either a thing is zero-sum or its not. It can't be zero-sum "to some extent". It can have tradeoffs to some extent and not be zero-sum, which is the nearest it can get to that.) > The likelihood that a student is operating at above-typical levels in sports, art, math, and journalism seems small to me. Yes, students that are above grade level across the board areas will be less common than those that are above grade level in a narrower domain. (Competence is generally a product of innate factors and effort, and even though the innate factors are correlated across disciplines -- general intelligence applies to most, and correlates with talents in others -- effort may or may not be.)
  - erikpukinskis 10y ago
    I appreciate your different perspective on the matter. One quibble: > either a thing is zero-sum or its not. A game can have both a zero sum component and an unbounded component. Only one person can win the presidency, but everyone who runs can get a reputation boost. Learning how to shoot free throws might improve your saxophone playing, but 8 hours a day in the practice room could take away from your knowledge of literature.
- peter303 10y ago
  I was mostly self-educated because schools were too slow. I read nearly the entire non-fiction area of the library in pre-internet days. I dissembled and reassembled most of the objects in my environment. With the internet now the avenues of self-education are greater. Got me into MIT.
- clock_tower 10y ago
  > above-typical levels in sports, art, math, and journalism I think the term for students like that is "Ivy material" -- or at least, it used to be.

Except for the kids who'd be ahead in everything - they'd still have a stigma... I suspect uniform testing at 'grade level' becomes harder to use for comparisons against other schools.

erikpukinskis 10y ago

If there's a kid who is ahead at everything, the material is not diverse enough. To some extent competence is a zero-sum game. The likelihood that a student is operating at above-typical levels in sports, art, math, and journalism seems small to me. The early experiences that lead to advanced performance in each of those fields are dramatically different. The only way I would expect to see that is if the school was tailoring all of those subjects to a certain kind of student. Which, admittedly, is common. But I'm talking about a more universal advancement system where Art 12 really is for level-12 artists, not level-12 math students who want to do something that resembles art, and be graded on effort. The nice thing about such a system is you wouldn't have to cater Art-12 to advanced level history students just to keep their GPAs up. Those students could stay in Art 4, and get their A there, while the Art-12 students were subject to the higher standard that really only they could handle. You could expect them to spend 20 hours a week in the studio, which would be unreasonable for a student carrying a full coursework burden in another field. And you could even put that burden on 10-year-olds who were ready for it, of which there are some.

zhemao 10y ago
Art and sports are generally electives in US public schools. It is entirely possible (and in fact very likely) for a student to be ahead in all academic subjects, especially at the lower grade levels when there's not much specialization yet. Probably not equally advanced. But at the very least, a student who is far ahead in math and science is probably also well above average in reading comprehension.
- mgkimsal 10y ago
  Thank you - that's what I was thinking, but you said it better than I could. I was pushed ahead a grade, and as a result, was always a year or two behind everyone else physically, so, almost by definition, I was always "behind" in gym/phys-ed classes, but there wasn't much I could do about that. Looking back, I was normal/average for my age, but not for my 'grade', and had a tough time with that.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> If there's a kid who is ahead at everything, the material is not diverse enough. Or, you know, the kid is just more competent. All people may be created morally equal, but they aren't created equal in competence, even in some kind of "advantages in one area are balanced by deficits in others" way. > To some extent competence is a zero-sum game. No, its not. (Also, being zero-sum is absolutely binary -- either a thing is zero-sum or its not. It can't be zero-sum "to some extent". It can have tradeoffs to some extent and not be zero-sum, which is the nearest it can get to that.) > The likelihood that a student is operating at above-typical levels in sports, art, math, and journalism seems small to me. Yes, students that are above grade level across the board areas will be less common than those that are above grade level in a narrower domain. (Competence is generally a product of innate factors and effort, and even though the innate factors are correlated across disciplines -- general intelligence applies to most, and correlates with talents in others -- effort may or may not be.)
- erikpukinskis 10y ago
  I appreciate your different perspective on the matter. One quibble: > either a thing is zero-sum or its not. A game can have both a zero sum component and an unbounded component. Only one person can win the presidency, but everyone who runs can get a reputation boost. Learning how to shoot free throws might improve your saxophone playing, but 8 hours a day in the practice room could take away from your knowledge of literature.
peter303 10y ago
I was mostly self-educated because schools were too slow. I read nearly the entire non-fiction area of the library in pre-internet days. I dissembled and reassembled most of the objects in my environment. With the internet now the avenues of self-education are greater. Got me into MIT.
clock_tower 10y ago
> above-typical levels in sports, art, math, and journalism I think the term for students like that is "Ivy material" -- or at least, it used to be.