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I was tested as a kid and redirected into magnet schools and programs like CTY as a result. I remember my first day in the first magnet school and feeling like

by nugget 7y ago

I was tested as a kid and redirected into magnet schools and programs like CTY as a result. I remember my first day in the first magnet school and feeling like I had finally found a group of people "like me". I was 9 years old. I agree with a lot of what you said and especially about the importance of teaching resiliency. But I wouldn't discount the huge benefit to identifying certain outliers early and providing them with gifted education pathways outside of the mainstream.

toasterlovin 7y ago
> But I wouldn't discount the huge benefit to identifying certain outliers early and providing them with gifted education pathways outside of the mainstream. I think it's useful to substitute athletic talent for intellectual talent when thinking about this stuff. Does anybody discount the value of getting an athletically talented kid into a school with a good athletics program where they can be around peers and coaches who will enable them to be the best athlete they can be? Would anybody argue in favor of letting some kid with the athletic talent to try for the NBA flounder at whatever high school they happen to naturally feed into? I think the answers to those questions are obvious. And yet we regularly have people arguing that somehow the same principles don't apply to intellectual talent. It's ridiculous. Let the mental prodigies be with their peers. It hurts no one and does them lots of good.
- watwut 7y ago
  I would argue that, for two reasons. First, kids in those special programs often ends up with harmed bodies way too soon. There is a lot of pressure to perform, it is highly competitive and health is often the price. Only few get that prized career, others get nothing. Second, non-athletic education and interests get lost in the process. And again, most kids wont end with that career as there are only few slots and many competing kids.
  - toasterlovin 7y ago
    There really aren’t that many sports where you sacrifice your body to achieve a certain level of performance. And I think the academic neglect thing is overblown. You probably have college athletes in mind, but it’s useful to keep in mind that what appears to be academic neglect is probably often just non-intellectual athletes doing as well in college as they would have done had they not been athletes.
- Al-Khwarizmi 7y ago
  I had a high IQ at school so at some point I was flagged as gifted, and they proposed my parents that I should skip a course. They refused, and I'm very grateful that they did so. It's true that I was better at school than my peers, the pace of teaching was too slow for me and I got bored easily. But it was also true that in other aspects, especially social aspects, I wasn't more mature than my peers. And being smart and having different interests (say, computers, space or philosophy instead of football, etc.) doesn't exactly help socializing at school. I was always relatively unpopular (not marginalized, fortunately, as I did have my group of friends, but I did get my dose of demeaning from many others) and not very good in my advances with the opposite sex (when the age came to be interested in that). Altogether, I think my school years could be called rather OK (taking into account that, as mentioned, people with "nerd" interests tend to not be too well-liked). But if I had skipped a year, and I had been in class with people one year older, with more social maturity, with everyone knowing that I skipped course, the girls seeing me as too young to even think about considering... I think it would have been hell. I'm aware it's not exactly what you're talking about. You imply a specific school for gifted kids. Still, I think it wouldn't have been a good idea. When you finish school, or university, there's a point where you have to interact socially with "normal" people. Both at work and social life. I learned those interaction skills at school. I learned, for example, to fake interest when people talked about what I deemed to be trivial maters, like football, TV shows and the likes (or later, even to have some genuine interest and get off my high horse sometimes). I learned when I should switch off nerd mode (for example when trying to interact with the opposite sex, especially at the beginning) and when I could actually benefit from it. I think those skills were vital for my well-being. And I doubt I could have learned them equally well at a school where I weren't able to socialize with "normal" people.
  - waterhouse 7y ago
    A 20-year longitudinal study has traced the academic, social, and emotional development of 60 young Australians with IQs of 160 and above. Significant differences have been noted in the young people’s educational status and direction, life satisfaction, social relationships, and self-esteem as a function of the degree of academic acceleration their schools permitted them in childhood and adolescence. The considerable majority of young people who have been radically accelerated, or who accelerated by 2 years, report high degrees of life satisfaction, have taken research degrees at leading universities, have professional careers, and report facilitative social and love relationships. Young people of equal abilities who accelerated by only 1 year or who have not been permitted acceleration have tended to enter less academically rigorous college courses, report lower levels of life satisfaction, and in many cases, experience significant difficulties with socialization. Several did not graduate from college or high school. Without exception, these young people possess multiple talents; however, for some, the extent and direction of talent development has been dictated by their schools’ academic priorities or their teachers’ willingness or unwillingness to assist in the development of particular talent areas. You might find this study interesting. https://www.davidsongifted.org/search-database/entry/a10489 https://www.davidsongifted.org/search-database/entry/a10489

by nugget 7y ago

toasterlovin 7y ago

> But I wouldn't discount the huge benefit to identifying certain outliers early and providing them with gifted education pathways outside of the mainstream. I think it's useful to substitute athletic talent for intellectual talent when thinking about this stuff. Does anybody discount the value of getting an athletically talented kid into a school with a good athletics program where they can be around peers and coaches who will enable them to be the best athlete they can be? Would anybody argue in favor of letting some kid with the athletic talent to try for the NBA flounder at whatever high school they happen to naturally feed into? I think the answers to those questions are obvious. And yet we regularly have people arguing that somehow the same principles don't apply to intellectual talent. It's ridiculous. Let the mental prodigies be with their peers. It hurts no one and does them lots of good.

watwut 7y ago
I would argue that, for two reasons. First, kids in those special programs often ends up with harmed bodies way too soon. There is a lot of pressure to perform, it is highly competitive and health is often the price. Only few get that prized career, others get nothing. Second, non-athletic education and interests get lost in the process. And again, most kids wont end with that career as there are only few slots and many competing kids.
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  There really aren’t that many sports where you sacrifice your body to achieve a certain level of performance. And I think the academic neglect thing is overblown. You probably have college athletes in mind, but it’s useful to keep in mind that what appears to be academic neglect is probably often just non-intellectual athletes doing as well in college as they would have done had they not been athletes.
Al-Khwarizmi 7y ago
I had a high IQ at school so at some point I was flagged as gifted, and they proposed my parents that I should skip a course. They refused, and I'm very grateful that they did so. It's true that I was better at school than my peers, the pace of teaching was too slow for me and I got bored easily. But it was also true that in other aspects, especially social aspects, I wasn't more mature than my peers. And being smart and having different interests (say, computers, space or philosophy instead of football, etc.) doesn't exactly help socializing at school. I was always relatively unpopular (not marginalized, fortunately, as I did have my group of friends, but I did get my dose of demeaning from many others) and not very good in my advances with the opposite sex (when the age came to be interested in that). Altogether, I think my school years could be called rather OK (taking into account that, as mentioned, people with "nerd" interests tend to not be too well-liked). But if I had skipped a year, and I had been in class with people one year older, with more social maturity, with everyone knowing that I skipped course, the girls seeing me as too young to even think about considering... I think it would have been hell. I'm aware it's not exactly what you're talking about. You imply a specific school for gifted kids. Still, I think it wouldn't have been a good idea. When you finish school, or university, there's a point where you have to interact socially with "normal" people. Both at work and social life. I learned those interaction skills at school. I learned, for example, to fake interest when people talked about what I deemed to be trivial maters, like football, TV shows and the likes (or later, even to have some genuine interest and get off my high horse sometimes). I learned when I should switch off nerd mode (for example when trying to interact with the opposite sex, especially at the beginning) and when I could actually benefit from it. I think those skills were vital for my well-being. And I doubt I could have learned them equally well at a school where I weren't able to socialize with "normal" people.
- waterhouse 7y ago
  A 20-year longitudinal study has traced the academic, social, and emotional development of 60 young Australians with IQs of 160 and above. Significant differences have been noted in the young people’s educational status and direction, life satisfaction, social relationships, and self-esteem as a function of the degree of academic acceleration their schools permitted them in childhood and adolescence. The considerable majority of young people who have been radically accelerated, or who accelerated by 2 years, report high degrees of life satisfaction, have taken research degrees at leading universities, have professional careers, and report facilitative social and love relationships. Young people of equal abilities who accelerated by only 1 year or who have not been permitted acceleration have tended to enter less academically rigorous college courses, report lower levels of life satisfaction, and in many cases, experience significant difficulties with socialization. Several did not graduate from college or high school. Without exception, these young people possess multiple talents; however, for some, the extent and direction of talent development has been dictated by their schools’ academic priorities or their teachers’ willingness or unwillingness to assist in the development of particular talent areas. You might find this study interesting. https://www.davidsongifted.org/search-database/entry/a10489 https://www.davidsongifted.org/search-database/entry/a10489