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There is „gifted“ children and then there are gifted children. To give you an example there are more than a million university students in Germany but only roug

There is „gifted“ children and then there are gifted children. To give you an example there are more than a million university students in Germany but only roughly 5000 are supported by the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes. You just won’t find enough students with 3 sigma deviation in a typical high school. What is more a typical teacher won’t be able to support them in any meaningful way because they quickly run out of things to teach them. Students like that are best supported individually by extracurricular activities and direct contact with PhD and Professors, as well as participation in competitions.) I agree with your general point that normal education could be made much more interesting as well. Although it would partially defeat the purpose of education to not prepare students for the boredom and rigid schedule of ordinary work early on.

chosenbreed37 8y ago
> I agree with your general point that normal education could be made much more interesting as well. Although it would partially defeat the purpose of education to not prepare students for the boredom and rigid schedule of ordinary work early on. I think you're right about the need to support the specially gifted kids and that generally means treating them differently as you suggest. However I think there is scope for altering the current system to make it more interesting for the rest of the kids and possibly stir up/inspire/awaken whatever more limited "giftedness" they might have. If the aim is solely to prepare kids for the the boredom and rigidity of ordinary work I'd say we're not getting value for money. This is particularly so in places high percentage of people graduating with Bachelors or even Masters degrees.
avip 8y ago
There's no point in designing schools for "three sigma". Schools should be designed to push the median upwards. "Three sigmas" should be homeschooled, any sufficiently large system will only inhibit them.
- neffy 8y ago
  "Three sigmas" and above aren't distributed only in the population of people capable of home schooling very bright children.
  - JoeAltmaier 8y ago
    Funny thing though - home schooling so easily beats the institutional kind, you don't have to be very good at it to school very bright children. Further, if the teacher at school with their class of 30 did nothing but tutor the students, each student would get 10 minutes (in a 5-hour school day). You as a parent can beat that the 1st 11 minutes of your home-school day. That leaves you hours of the day for moving ahead of the classroom.
- jdietrich 8y ago
  >"Three sigmas" should be homeschooled, any sufficiently large system will only inhibit them. Many (most) parents don't have the resources to do that. If we don't make adequate provisions for the exceptionally gifted, we're squandering a lot of valuable talent. Nobody would tolerate a child with an IQ of 55 being made to sit in a mainstream classroom, because it's obvious that they wouldn't get anything vaguely resembling an education; we should be equally outraged about a child with an IQ of 145 in that mainstream classroom.
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  You’ll have enough gifted students in any reasonably sized metro area to fill a special school. That’s what should be done, IMO.
ascar 8y ago
Doesn't even have to be 3 sigma. Even in a "tiered" secondary school system like in Germany (students are split up to three different levels of school after elementary, about 50% in the highest tier), you maybe have a handful of 2 sigma students per regular year of around 100-150 students per school. Getting bored and actually having worse grades for these students is a real thing. Especially in classes that need effort and not intellect. On the other hand, forcing intellectual challenging activities (like solving math puzzles, playing chess or building robots) isn't fun for a lot of people that do not like to challenge their brain for fun. Personally my school grades skyrocketed from slightly above average to the 95% percentile in the last two school years, which was at the same time as I was allowed to participate in a junior student program and was spending one day per week at campus instead of school. I wasn't doing more for school, based on attendance actually less, I was just more inclined to listen and interested in learning, while I was being challenged by my university lectures (basic algorithms, data structures, databases and data modeling).
- mcv 8y ago
  My son (9 years old) goes to a special school one day per week. Another day he's in the school's own gifted program. He has to do the regular 5 day school week in the remaining three days. This seems to be working quite well.

chosenbreed37 8y ago

> I agree with your general point that normal education could be made much more interesting as well. Although it would partially defeat the purpose of education to not prepare students for the boredom and rigid schedule of ordinary work early on. I think you're right about the need to support the specially gifted kids and that generally means treating them differently as you suggest. However I think there is scope for altering the current system to make it more interesting for the rest of the kids and possibly stir up/inspire/awaken whatever more limited "giftedness" they might have. If the aim is solely to prepare kids for the the boredom and rigidity of ordinary work I'd say we're not getting value for money. This is particularly so in places high percentage of people graduating with Bachelors or even Masters degrees.

avip 8y ago

There's no point in designing schools for "three sigma". Schools should be designed to push the median upwards. "Three sigmas" should be homeschooled, any sufficiently large system will only inhibit them.

neffy 8y ago
"Three sigmas" and above aren't distributed only in the population of people capable of home schooling very bright children.
- JoeAltmaier 8y ago
  Funny thing though - home schooling so easily beats the institutional kind, you don't have to be very good at it to school very bright children. Further, if the teacher at school with their class of 30 did nothing but tutor the students, each student would get 10 minutes (in a 5-hour school day). You as a parent can beat that the 1st 11 minutes of your home-school day. That leaves you hours of the day for moving ahead of the classroom.
jdietrich 8y ago
>"Three sigmas" should be homeschooled, any sufficiently large system will only inhibit them. Many (most) parents don't have the resources to do that. If we don't make adequate provisions for the exceptionally gifted, we're squandering a lot of valuable talent. Nobody would tolerate a child with an IQ of 55 being made to sit in a mainstream classroom, because it's obvious that they wouldn't get anything vaguely resembling an education; we should be equally outraged about a child with an IQ of 145 in that mainstream classroom.
toasterlovin 8y ago
You’ll have enough gifted students in any reasonably sized metro area to fill a special school. That’s what should be done, IMO.

ascar 8y ago

Doesn't even have to be 3 sigma. Even in a "tiered" secondary school system like in Germany (students are split up to three different levels of school after elementary, about 50% in the highest tier), you maybe have a handful of 2 sigma students per regular year of around 100-150 students per school. Getting bored and actually having worse grades for these students is a real thing. Especially in classes that need effort and not intellect. On the other hand, forcing intellectual challenging activities (like solving math puzzles, playing chess or building robots) isn't fun for a lot of people that do not like to challenge their brain for fun. Personally my school grades skyrocketed from slightly above average to the 95% percentile in the last two school years, which was at the same time as I was allowed to participate in a junior student program and was spending one day per week at campus instead of school. I wasn't doing more for school, based on attendance actually less, I was just more inclined to listen and interested in learning, while I was being challenged by my university lectures (basic algorithms, data structures, databases and data modeling).

mcv 8y ago
My son (9 years old) goes to a special school one day per week. Another day he's in the school's own gifted program. He has to do the regular 5 day school week in the remaining three days. This seems to be working quite well.