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I have a young relative who was tracked into special education from early years. Finally, his educators gave him a standardized intelligence test. To their shoc

I have a young relative who was tracked into special education from early years. Finally, his educators gave him a standardized intelligence test. To their shock (and perhaps) horror, he came in in the top 1% for his age bracket. He is really, really intelligent. After this test, his guidance counselor sat him down and asked him how smart he thought he was. Answer, a morose and defeated "I'm stupid." Mind you, this answer came out of an 8-9 year old. After being told repeatedly that he was not good at school and that classes were too hard for him, he fully believed he was stupid. Once the adults around him stopped seeing a redneck country kid, once the adults recognized his poor school track record as a reflection of their biases and their poor performance he excelled. He is now captain of his high school robotics team. The team just won a position to compete in an international robotics competition in the next couple of weeks. Assuming they can raise the $30k to travel to Kentucky, ship their robots, find lodging, etc. It's a large fund raising amount for a non-Texas, non-football red state.

skj 9y ago
It's amazing how much expectations affect performance in children. It's why I scoff at those who present statistics saying insert-your-supposedly-inferior-group-here underperform compared to their favored "normal" group.
- noobhacker 9y ago
  What behavior do you think constitutes "treating children with high expectation"? I have high expectations for my teenage son, but it doesn't seem to matter as he often does not meet those expectations. I actually do not fault him for "failing" my expectations because I understand that he isn't yet properly motivated. If I were him, without the understanding I now have regarding the importance of habit, the need for deep learning, or the compounding interest of knowledge, etc., I wouldn't be motivated to meet those expectations either. It seems to me that the key to nurturing success is building motivation, rather than having high expectation. The former is much harder than the latter. Or perhaps I'm "having high expectation" in a wrong way, and would love to learn how to do it right.
  - aerophilic 9y ago
    For me, based on what I read, having high expectations is mainly about “seeing” someone as capable. Steven Covey talks about this in 7 habits with their child. If you inherently believe that a child can’t accomplish “x”. They feel and know that is the expectation. However, if you fundamentally “believe” they can do x, you are setting them up to accomplish x. But I must say, this is not something that can be faked. You have to genuinely believe the expectation. Kids are smart, and they will see through any fake beliefs you “think” you are imparting. It is important to value them for what they are, and inherently value how incredible they are.
nefitty 9y ago
I don't know how taboo this is on HN, but can you share a fundraising link? I'd like to help.
- rabboRubble 9y ago
  I was hesitant about blatantly asking for money myself with my post, so I didn't share a link. But since you asked, I am going ahead and sharing. I really appreciate it :) https://www.gofundme.com/the-vexrobotics-world-championships https://www.gofundme.com/the-vexrobotics-world-championships
- rabboRubble 9y ago
  Hey, not sure you are going to see this, but in case you do... my young relative's school has raised about 2/3rds the money towards their goal. I think they will be sending some part of the team and their robots. So thank you again for your help and generosity. They have 3 weeks left to fund raise, so whatever happens from here is gold.
stevenwoo 9y ago
I, too, was in both special education and after two years of that, in the first implementation of the gifted program (also used an IQ test to filter) in my school system back in the 80's as a child. Was kind of apprehensive after the first special education experience. This does nothing for kids who have potential and don't IQ test well as kids.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> I have a young relative who was tracked into special education from early years. Finally, his educators gave him a standardized intelligence test. It stuns me that people are tracked into special education without an assessment that included, at a minimum, an intelligence test. (I had public school teachers raise concerns that I should be in special ed in early years, was given an assessment that identified a speech impediment and a high IQ, was subsequently given a performance assessment that wasn't limited to be grade-level skills, and it was realized that I was performing well beyond grade level. So I was skipped ahead a grade and moved into the gifted program. And this was back in 1980. I thought that virtually as long as gifted education has existed it was widely recognized that gifted students frequently underperform other students when not challenged, and, similarly, I thought it was a fundamental concept of special education that it required individualized assessment of the particular needs and abilities of the student.
- whataretensors 9y ago
  I'm convinced society won't give IQ tests to kids out of cowardice. So instead we spend 13-20 years of school giving different forms of IQ tests tiptoeing around the concept. Taking a test requiring abstraction and pattern matching skills is all the same. It doesn't matter what the features are. The best you can do is also test memory.
- pvaldes 9y ago
  The problem is that an intelligence test can be a double edged sword. Cuts both ways. First because some of those tests were not really smart in retrospective: False positives tagged as stupid that maybe just had a bad day or did not understood the questions by cultural reasons. Some years after, unsurprisingly, there is not any correlation between the results of the test and the success of this men and women. And worse, because being tagged as a gifted guy can be a curse. Is an unforgivable sin in some societies. People will start acting resentful and treating you as if you were martian or a danger to them. Is really, really, annoying.
- rabboRubble 9y ago
  > It stuns me that people are tracked into special education without an assessment Probably should have described it as "remedial education", rather than special ed. I think the young man's troubles with educators was inherited from his Dad's issues, an early diagnosed case of ADHD before ADHD was the thing that it is now. With the family history and the small town phenomena of everybody knowing everybody's business, there were a lot of assumptions made about this young man.

skj 9y ago

It's amazing how much expectations affect performance in children. It's why I scoff at those who present statistics saying insert-your-supposedly-inferior-group-here underperform compared to their favored "normal" group.

noobhacker 9y ago
What behavior do you think constitutes "treating children with high expectation"? I have high expectations for my teenage son, but it doesn't seem to matter as he often does not meet those expectations. I actually do not fault him for "failing" my expectations because I understand that he isn't yet properly motivated. If I were him, without the understanding I now have regarding the importance of habit, the need for deep learning, or the compounding interest of knowledge, etc., I wouldn't be motivated to meet those expectations either. It seems to me that the key to nurturing success is building motivation, rather than having high expectation. The former is much harder than the latter. Or perhaps I'm "having high expectation" in a wrong way, and would love to learn how to do it right.
- aerophilic 9y ago
  For me, based on what I read, having high expectations is mainly about “seeing” someone as capable. Steven Covey talks about this in 7 habits with their child. If you inherently believe that a child can’t accomplish “x”. They feel and know that is the expectation. However, if you fundamentally “believe” they can do x, you are setting them up to accomplish x. But I must say, this is not something that can be faked. You have to genuinely believe the expectation. Kids are smart, and they will see through any fake beliefs you “think” you are imparting. It is important to value them for what they are, and inherently value how incredible they are.

nefitty 9y ago

I don't know how taboo this is on HN, but can you share a fundraising link? I'd like to help.

rabboRubble 9y ago
I was hesitant about blatantly asking for money myself with my post, so I didn't share a link. But since you asked, I am going ahead and sharing. I really appreciate it :) https://www.gofundme.com/the-vexrobotics-world-championships https://www.gofundme.com/the-vexrobotics-world-championships
rabboRubble 9y ago
Hey, not sure you are going to see this, but in case you do... my young relative's school has raised about 2/3rds the money towards their goal. I think they will be sending some part of the team and their robots. So thank you again for your help and generosity. They have 3 weeks left to fund raise, so whatever happens from here is gold.

stevenwoo 9y ago

I, too, was in both special education and after two years of that, in the first implementation of the gifted program (also used an IQ test to filter) in my school system back in the 80's as a child. Was kind of apprehensive after the first special education experience. This does nothing for kids who have potential and don't IQ test well as kids.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> I have a young relative who was tracked into special education from early years. Finally, his educators gave him a standardized intelligence test. It stuns me that people are tracked into special education without an assessment that included, at a minimum, an intelligence test. (I had public school teachers raise concerns that I should be in special ed in early years, was given an assessment that identified a speech impediment and a high IQ, was subsequently given a performance assessment that wasn't limited to be grade-level skills, and it was realized that I was performing well beyond grade level. So I was skipped ahead a grade and moved into the gifted program. And this was back in 1980. I thought that virtually as long as gifted education has existed it was widely recognized that gifted students frequently underperform other students when not challenged, and, similarly, I thought it was a fundamental concept of special education that it required individualized assessment of the particular needs and abilities of the student.

whataretensors 9y ago
I'm convinced society won't give IQ tests to kids out of cowardice. So instead we spend 13-20 years of school giving different forms of IQ tests tiptoeing around the concept. Taking a test requiring abstraction and pattern matching skills is all the same. It doesn't matter what the features are. The best you can do is also test memory.
pvaldes 9y ago
The problem is that an intelligence test can be a double edged sword. Cuts both ways. First because some of those tests were not really smart in retrospective: False positives tagged as stupid that maybe just had a bad day or did not understood the questions by cultural reasons. Some years after, unsurprisingly, there is not any correlation between the results of the test and the success of this men and women. And worse, because being tagged as a gifted guy can be a curse. Is an unforgivable sin in some societies. People will start acting resentful and treating you as if you were martian or a danger to them. Is really, really, annoying.
rabboRubble 9y ago
> It stuns me that people are tracked into special education without an assessment Probably should have described it as "remedial education", rather than special ed. I think the young man's troubles with educators was inherited from his Dad's issues, an early diagnosed case of ADHD before ADHD was the thing that it is now. With the family history and the small town phenomena of everybody knowing everybody's business, there were a lot of assumptions made about this young man.