4 ms·

It depends on where the pressure is places. If the pressure is placed on kids, sure. If it's placed on schools, that's not toxic. The school system in most of t

by cpkpad 10y ago

It depends on where the pressure is places. If the pressure is placed on kids, sure. If it's placed on schools, that's not toxic. The school system in most of the US works under an attitude that the smart kids will do okay, and don't need anything extra. Even gifted and talented programs are fading fast. The truth is those school system are toxic, abusive torture to someone smart. There were plenty of smart kids I knew -- some smarter than me -- who got horrible grades going through one of these school. Many of them did not, in any real sense, succeed. Imagine being placed in a room, today, and forced to listen to lectures on what you already know, and be given menial make-work tasks, like adding big numbers and copying letters, and doing that for hours each day. Some people are resilient enough to survive that. Others get pretty broken by it.

DanBC 10y ago
> Even gifted and talented programs are fading fast. What's the evidence that G&T programmes achieve better academic or life outcomes?
- luxpir 10y ago
  Isn't that the premise of the study? Sidenote: I read the SciAm article last week, not this one yet.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- nitrogen 10y ago
  Even if life outcomes are the same, if G&T programs make those kids happier while in school, the programs are worth keeping.
- tbihl 10y ago
  Where's your study proving the opposite? Or is your proposal to do absolutely nothing without a study first telling you to? G&T programs try to utilize the diversity of students, rather than just ignoring it or trying to will it away. In a world where things actually have to function prior to the conducting of infinite studies, that makes a lot of intuitive sense.
- eachro 10y ago
  I don't have any evidence about this, but the most compelling argument I've heard is optionality.
- nikdaheratik 10y ago
  The programs can be good or a complete waste depending on how they are ran. The study referred to in the article pointed out that children do better in the short and long run if they are given extra opportunities to learn more on their own. That's the entire purpose of these programs to begin with, really. The same way as other Special Education programs which may or may not be well ran, but often do more for the students in them than letting them try and teach themselves.
mnsc 10y ago
Curious to how a school wold work on not wasting talent without putting pressure the talented kid. "Oh, we have prepared a special curriculum for you because you are gifted and hired these teacher to give you room to fulfill your potential and not waste it. No pressure though, if you want to waste your potential and become medioker, just say the word and we will throw away the investment we have made in you!"
- douche 10y ago
  I don't think you have to go so far as big investments in extra teachers and curriculum to serve gifted children. Just get out of the way and let them work ahead, or get their busy-work done fast and read on their own. Don't waste their time, and turn school into a prison that they have to shuffle through for eight hours a day, bored to tears.
  - mnsc 10y ago
    The original comment was "The school system in most of the US works under an attitude that the smart kids will do okay, and don't need anything extra. Even gifted and talented programs are fading fast." If they need something extra, like programs for talented and gifted children, that's an investment. A child that is assigned to a "Program for Talented and Gifted Children" will feel pressure to not let that talent/gift go to waste. Your solution is to do nothing extra for them, just let them idle away in the library reading random books. Not a guarantee that they wont waste their time/talent by their own doing. While cheap, I don't think it would be very effective.
    - douche 10y ago
      My argument is that most of the school systems work hard to retard and beat down students that are smarter than the average bear, or cripple their growth by forcing them to do unpaid labor as defacto teacher's aides. It would be nice to provide resources at a higher level, but that higher level material is beyond the capability of most of the people that are employed as teachers anyway, so the best, most economical result is to stop actively getting in the way of students that need to go faster than what the lowest-common-denominator can handle, and just let them.
wolfgke 10y ago
> Some people are resilient enough to survive that. Others get pretty broken by it. And the third kind (full disclosure: I was of this kind) get very rebellious and were multiple times in strong danger of being expelled from school (not because of bad marks). I still hated school and love to ask the inconvenient question: Who is the more evil person: The kid who does a school rampage or the politician whose decision not to drop lawcompulsory school attendance (in Germany for example home schooling is disallowed) leads to suicides of schoolchildren. Both people clearly leave traces of dead people.
- icebraining 10y ago
  Reminds me of the dialogue is Yes, Prime Minister: - Education in this country is a disaster. We're supposed to prepare children for work. Most of the time they're bored stiff. - I should've thought that being bored stiff was an excellent preparation for work. - The school leaving age was raised to 16, but they're learning less. - We didn't raise it so they'd learn more! We raised it to keep teenagers off the job market and hold down unemployment figures. OTOH, would allowing home schooling really solve suicides by schoolchildren? Seems like if a parent is worried enough about their kid's mental health to home school them, they'd do so even if they have to move country (especially nowadays, when you can live and work in different EU countries easily). Isn't it more a matter of the adults around not perceiving the problem?
  - AstralStorm 10y ago
    The dialogue is the unspoken truth. The age limit was actually instated to prevent kids from working damaging factory or repetitive jobs. There are much fewer of those nowadays.
eli_gottlieb 10y ago
>The truth is those school system are toxic, abusive torture to someone smart. Nah, they're toxic, abusive torture to pretty much everyone.

by cpkpad 10y ago

DanBC 10y ago

> Even gifted and talented programs are fading fast. What's the evidence that G&T programmes achieve better academic or life outcomes?

luxpir 10y ago
Isn't that the premise of the study? Sidenote: I read the SciAm article last week, not this one yet.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
nitrogen 10y ago
Even if life outcomes are the same, if G&T programs make those kids happier while in school, the programs are worth keeping.
tbihl 10y ago
Where's your study proving the opposite? Or is your proposal to do absolutely nothing without a study first telling you to? G&T programs try to utilize the diversity of students, rather than just ignoring it or trying to will it away. In a world where things actually have to function prior to the conducting of infinite studies, that makes a lot of intuitive sense.
eachro 10y ago
I don't have any evidence about this, but the most compelling argument I've heard is optionality.
nikdaheratik 10y ago
The programs can be good or a complete waste depending on how they are ran. The study referred to in the article pointed out that children do better in the short and long run if they are given extra opportunities to learn more on their own. That's the entire purpose of these programs to begin with, really. The same way as other Special Education programs which may or may not be well ran, but often do more for the students in them than letting them try and teach themselves.

mnsc 10y ago

Curious to how a school wold work on not wasting talent without putting pressure the talented kid. "Oh, we have prepared a special curriculum for you because you are gifted and hired these teacher to give you room to fulfill your potential and not waste it. No pressure though, if you want to waste your potential and become medioker, just say the word and we will throw away the investment we have made in you!"

douche 10y ago
I don't think you have to go so far as big investments in extra teachers and curriculum to serve gifted children. Just get out of the way and let them work ahead, or get their busy-work done fast and read on their own. Don't waste their time, and turn school into a prison that they have to shuffle through for eight hours a day, bored to tears.
- mnsc 10y ago
  The original comment was "The school system in most of the US works under an attitude that the smart kids will do okay, and don't need anything extra. Even gifted and talented programs are fading fast." If they need something extra, like programs for talented and gifted children, that's an investment. A child that is assigned to a "Program for Talented and Gifted Children" will feel pressure to not let that talent/gift go to waste. Your solution is to do nothing extra for them, just let them idle away in the library reading random books. Not a guarantee that they wont waste their time/talent by their own doing. While cheap, I don't think it would be very effective.
  - douche 10y ago
    My argument is that most of the school systems work hard to retard and beat down students that are smarter than the average bear, or cripple their growth by forcing them to do unpaid labor as defacto teacher's aides. It would be nice to provide resources at a higher level, but that higher level material is beyond the capability of most of the people that are employed as teachers anyway, so the best, most economical result is to stop actively getting in the way of students that need to go faster than what the lowest-common-denominator can handle, and just let them.

wolfgke 10y ago

> Some people are resilient enough to survive that. Others get pretty broken by it. And the third kind (full disclosure: I was of this kind) get very rebellious and were multiple times in strong danger of being expelled from school (not because of bad marks). I still hated school and love to ask the inconvenient question: Who is the more evil person: The kid who does a school rampage or the politician whose decision not to drop lawcompulsory school attendance (in Germany for example home schooling is disallowed) leads to suicides of schoolchildren. Both people clearly leave traces of dead people.

icebraining 10y ago
Reminds me of the dialogue is Yes, Prime Minister: - Education in this country is a disaster. We're supposed to prepare children for work. Most of the time they're bored stiff. - I should've thought that being bored stiff was an excellent preparation for work. - The school leaving age was raised to 16, but they're learning less. - We didn't raise it so they'd learn more! We raised it to keep teenagers off the job market and hold down unemployment figures. OTOH, would allowing home schooling really solve suicides by schoolchildren? Seems like if a parent is worried enough about their kid's mental health to home school them, they'd do so even if they have to move country (especially nowadays, when you can live and work in different EU countries easily). Isn't it more a matter of the adults around not perceiving the problem?
- AstralStorm 10y ago
  The dialogue is the unspoken truth. The age limit was actually instated to prevent kids from working damaging factory or repetitive jobs. There are much fewer of those nowadays.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago

>The truth is those school system are toxic, abusive torture to someone smart. Nah, they're toxic, abusive torture to pretty much everyone.