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>Not having an gifted program is like having wrestling matches without weight classes. It's no fun and no good (for anyone). Agree. My company had a Diversity

>Not having an gifted program is like having wrestling matches without weight classes. It's no fun and no good (for anyone). Agree. My company had a Diversity and Inclusion series, and the one thing that resonated most with me was the concept of Equity vs. Equality. It was accompanied by a picture of two kids trying to watch a ballgame over a fence, where one kid could not quite see over the fence and the other was far too short. In the part labelled "Equality", each kid has a 6" tall box to stand on. They get the same things, but the result is that the too-short kid still can't see the game, and the taller kid simply gets a better view. For the part labled "Equity", the tall kid gets a 2" box and the short kid gets an 8" box, resulting in each having an equal view. Now, that's a pretty simplistic presentation, but does highlight that simply giving every person the same thing is not a solution. Needs will vary across the population, and that's what we should be targeting.

Yoofie 6y ago
I happen to know the image you are talking about. Luckily I saved it when I first saw it somewhere. https://imgur.com/a/dlo0Y2k https://imgur.com/a/dlo0Y2k
- ntsplnkv2 6y ago
  God is that a bad image. "Helping others means cutting off your own leg" isn't really something I can get behind.
  - paleotrope 6y ago
    It's the Harrison Bergeron solution.
- adonovan 6y ago
  In case it's not obvious, this is a cynical parody of the original cartoon.
lurquer 6y ago
The same should apply for the baseball game they are watching. The less able players should get 4 strikes, the better players maybe 2. Correct? I’m familiar with the illustration you referred to. It’s sad how so few miss the fact that the kids are trying to watch a Competition! And, if the rules were as set forth above, the game wouldn’t be worth watching in the first place.
- alach11 6y ago
  We're talking about schools here, right? It's not a zero sum game like baseball.
  - rsj_hn 6y ago
    No, the issue is not zero sum but the trade off of equity versus equality of opportunity. * In your class are 30 kids, one of which screams and interrupts the the teacher. Do you kick the bad actor out so the other 29 kids can learn, or do you keep the bad actor in so that no one can learn? * In your class are 10 slow kids and 10 fast kids. Does the teacher go at a slow pace so that everyone learns the same amount or does the teacher go at a pace so that the fast kids learn the most and the slow kids are frustrated by things being over their heads? The problem is that we have too many blank slate utopians who believe it is the respnsibility of teachers to ensure that everyone leaves school with the same knowledge, and simply don't recognize that different students have different abilities and tempers and different suitability for learning. This fanatical belief, to which they cling despite all evidence, is absolutely devastating for our educational system and causes it to be grossly inefficient: * We do not have a trade school system in the US because we hate "tracking", or the idea that some kids should go into a more academically focused track and others should go into a less academic/more hands on track. Thus everyone goes to a school that is chartered as college prep which just means that there are no good college prep schools and there are no good vocational schools. It sucks at both tasks, but at least everyone gets to pretend that they have the same possibilities at college as everyone else. Thus we have a shortage of skilled craftsmen and vocational work, which then forces businesses to import these even as more of the native population slides into poverty while immigrants, who were spared the US secondary educational system, do well. * Given that there are wide and persistent academic differences between groups, yet the teachers have convinced themselves that differences can only be the result of lack of funding or racism, accelerated classes are being cancelled all across the country and testing regimes that show differences are being cancelled as well, which leads to more misallocation of resources as students are not routed to the education appropriate to them and then universities lack reliable information to make admissions decisions. Thus university education in the US is extremely inefficient as they must do remedial courses to catch up what students should have learned in high school. This inefficiency creates a shortage of high skilled workers, which again forces the businesses to import them as more of the native population slides into poverty while immigrants who attended more rational tertiary regimes do well. * the idea that "everyone can be X if they just try hard enough" leads to enormous self-loathing on the part of students who are being lied to and forced to participate in classes not suited to them, all so teachers and administrators can cling to these utopian delusions. At the same time the notion that "everyone can be X if they try hard enough" is a mockery to gifted students who are intentionally denied the chance to maximize their potential because educators don't approve of their race or would rather eliminate gifted programs entirely than have their illusions of equity shattered.
refurb 6y ago
That analogy infers that everyone ends up at the same place (i.e. seeing the ball game). In reality, everyone won't get to the same place unless you raise the bottom and lower the top. What we should be aiming for is removing barriers. Let people reach their own potential - which won't be the same across everyone.
- yellowapple 6y ago
  Which is indeed what a "corrected" version of that analogy does: making the final outcome the replacement of the wooden fence with a chain link fence. (And then there's the satirical "capitalist" "solution" where the stadium owner builds a taller fence and scolds the kids as freeloaders)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Yoofie 6y ago

I happen to know the image you are talking about. Luckily I saved it when I first saw it somewhere. https://imgur.com/a/dlo0Y2k https://imgur.com/a/dlo0Y2k

ntsplnkv2 6y ago
God is that a bad image. "Helping others means cutting off your own leg" isn't really something I can get behind.
- paleotrope 6y ago
  It's the Harrison Bergeron solution.
adonovan 6y ago
In case it's not obvious, this is a cynical parody of the original cartoon.

lurquer 6y ago

The same should apply for the baseball game they are watching. The less able players should get 4 strikes, the better players maybe 2. Correct? I’m familiar with the illustration you referred to. It’s sad how so few miss the fact that the kids are trying to watch a Competition! And, if the rules were as set forth above, the game wouldn’t be worth watching in the first place.

alach11 6y ago
We're talking about schools here, right? It's not a zero sum game like baseball.
- rsj_hn 6y ago
  No, the issue is not zero sum but the trade off of equity versus equality of opportunity. * In your class are 30 kids, one of which screams and interrupts the the teacher. Do you kick the bad actor out so the other 29 kids can learn, or do you keep the bad actor in so that no one can learn? * In your class are 10 slow kids and 10 fast kids. Does the teacher go at a slow pace so that everyone learns the same amount or does the teacher go at a pace so that the fast kids learn the most and the slow kids are frustrated by things being over their heads? The problem is that we have too many blank slate utopians who believe it is the respnsibility of teachers to ensure that everyone leaves school with the same knowledge, and simply don't recognize that different students have different abilities and tempers and different suitability for learning. This fanatical belief, to which they cling despite all evidence, is absolutely devastating for our educational system and causes it to be grossly inefficient: * We do not have a trade school system in the US because we hate "tracking", or the idea that some kids should go into a more academically focused track and others should go into a less academic/more hands on track. Thus everyone goes to a school that is chartered as college prep which just means that there are no good college prep schools and there are no good vocational schools. It sucks at both tasks, but at least everyone gets to pretend that they have the same possibilities at college as everyone else. Thus we have a shortage of skilled craftsmen and vocational work, which then forces businesses to import these even as more of the native population slides into poverty while immigrants, who were spared the US secondary educational system, do well. * Given that there are wide and persistent academic differences between groups, yet the teachers have convinced themselves that differences can only be the result of lack of funding or racism, accelerated classes are being cancelled all across the country and testing regimes that show differences are being cancelled as well, which leads to more misallocation of resources as students are not routed to the education appropriate to them and then universities lack reliable information to make admissions decisions. Thus university education in the US is extremely inefficient as they must do remedial courses to catch up what students should have learned in high school. This inefficiency creates a shortage of high skilled workers, which again forces the businesses to import them as more of the native population slides into poverty while immigrants who attended more rational tertiary regimes do well. * the idea that "everyone can be X if they just try hard enough" leads to enormous self-loathing on the part of students who are being lied to and forced to participate in classes not suited to them, all so teachers and administrators can cling to these utopian delusions. At the same time the notion that "everyone can be X if they try hard enough" is a mockery to gifted students who are intentionally denied the chance to maximize their potential because educators don't approve of their race or would rather eliminate gifted programs entirely than have their illusions of equity shattered.

refurb 6y ago

That analogy infers that everyone ends up at the same place (i.e. seeing the ball game). In reality, everyone won't get to the same place unless you raise the bottom and lower the top. What we should be aiming for is removing barriers. Let people reach their own potential - which won't be the same across everyone.

yellowapple 6y ago
Which is indeed what a "corrected" version of that analogy does: making the final outcome the replacement of the wooden fence with a chain link fence. (And then there's the satirical "capitalist" "solution" where the stadium owner builds a taller fence and scolds the kids as freeloaders)

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]