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Are you saying you agree? It seems bordering on absurd to me. Why can't it be true that not every child has gifts? Isn't the point of being exceptional having q

Are you saying you agree? It seems bordering on absurd to me. Why can't it be true that not every child has gifts? Isn't the point of being exceptional having qualities that set you apart from most people? Are there no exceptional children? Adults? In regards to identifying, I fail to see how IQ tests are racially biased, even if the results are not perfectly representative of racial diversity. Do you?

bcrosby95 5y ago
You know what is absurd? How about the idea that you should segment children at a young age, before they are anywhere close to fully developed mentally, emotionally, or physically, and publicly label some as "gifted" and some as "normal". What could possibly go wrong? Dumbest fucking idea ever.
- mbrodersen 5y ago
  I was a year ahead in math as a kid and was bored out of my skull with the slow pace of teaching. Being able to join a class of likeminded kids would have been brilliant.
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  The only part of that which is dumb is the ill-advised label, which can easily be changed. Everything else makes sense. Borderline intellectually disabled people and Terence Tao-level prodigies should not be in the same class. That is the dumbest fucking idea ever.
- jlawson 5y ago
  It's a simple recognition of an observable and predictive reality - that some people are much more intellectually capable than others. Do you disagree that this is a fact? Recognizing reality and adapting to it is the opposite of dumb. The label could change but it wouldn't make much difference except for politically.
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  - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
    Those people are one in a million. The vast majority of "gifted" programs will never encounter a single child like that in the history of their school.
    - CamperBob2 5y ago
      Those people are one in a million. And the cost to society when even one of them falls short of their potential is incalculable. Most people really don't end up mattering that much. If we can identify the ones that will matter, and do so far enough in advance, it's impossible to argue that we won't be better off for having done so.
      - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
        If they can't get ahead because a public school didn't give them an extra workbook to mess with, then they don't have anything remotely resembling "incalculable" potential. I'm not saying we shouldn't treat prodigies differently. I'm saying that 99.99% of these "gifted" kids aren't anything like prodigies and that the money aimed at them is better off spent elsewhere.
        CamperBob2 5y ago
        I'm saying that 99.99% of these "gifted" kids aren't anything like prodigies and that the money aimed at them is better off spent elsewhere. An unprovable assertion if there ever was one.
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- ModernMech 5y ago
  This is actually one of the central points of the book "Mindstorms" by Seymour Papert, who invented the Logo programming language. He contended that the early sorting of children into good/bad at math is a self-fulfilling prophecy. That children who are told they are good at math seek out math, while those who are told they are bad at math actively avoid it. And you can see this effect decades later. My wife was told she was bad at math at a young age, and despite getting As in algebra and trig, and an A in physics, she still thinks she's bad at math. Even after objectively measuring that she performs within the top 10% of her peers at a particular subject, she still thinks she's bad at it. That's how bad this is for children. The irony here is that I first learned the Logo language in one of these enrichment programs.
  - mbrodersen 5y ago
    Papert is/was wrong. I was a year ahead in math in school and taught myself machine programming when I was 11. Nobody encouraged me to do this. Quite the opposite. Other kids did everything they could to discourage it and nobody understood what programming was and why it was useful to learn. That didn’t stop me at all.
    - ModernMech 5y ago
      I'm glad you persevered, but I don't think your experience means he was wrong. It just means it's not a universal truth that applies literally to everyone, which I don't think he ever suggested. He wasn't really talking about people like you and me who are highly motivated to learn this subject. He was more talking about people who had no idea about the field being discouraged before they even had a chance to find that spark.
      - mbrodersen 5y ago
        Fair enough. There is another theory that basically says that you get interested in what you are good at. The feeling of mastery gives you the motivation to get even better. That seems to be a better fit for my experience. But of course YMMV.
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  I mean, we already segment children at similar ages based on physical/athletic capability. It's very clear to sports coaches that not every child is capable of developing into an internationally competitive athlete. Why doesn't the same apply to the thinking parts of our meat exactly?
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  - handrous 5y ago
    Hell, with some sports and arts if you haven't already been doing it at least a year by age 7 and live (or move to) somewhere with one of a handful of teachers/coaches who are top-tier at teaching young beginners, and have parents able and willing to pay for lessons from them while you're still very young, you're never going to be truly great no matter how hard you try if you try to break into it starting at, say, age 14. It's my understanding that tennis and playing violin are both more-or-less like this, for instance. Gymnastics and some kinds of dance, too, I think. Like, if your kid's 10 and they aren't already damn serious about some of these things, you can just cross those possibilities off their list for the future. Probably any sport or art in which people tend to peak very young (early 20s), or that have opportunities available for young participants that will effectively lock them out of further high-level advancement if they miss them (because you're expected to have done those if you're "serious"), are like that.
- cutemonster 5y ago
  There are kids age 7 that are brighter than grown ups age 47. And those kids can get bored when they are forced to practice the alphabet when they write short stories already, and such things. Imagine someone forcing you to sit at a desk and practice spelling of basic English words? And they can lose faith in school. And also it can be harder for them to find friends, when their thoughts and interests are a lot more grown up than their classmates. It can be frustrating and lonely for them.
- paulpauper 5y ago
  Umm...IQ scores tend to be stable throughout life, and ability early in life is predictive of ability later in school. Kids who are slow in kindergarten, with few exceptions, do not go on to be whizzes in the 5th grade. Also, it's not like gifted programs are only limited to kindergartners.
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  - greenail 5y ago
    Not just IQ: "A study from the University of Minnesota, recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), found that conscientiousness — a family of personality traits that combines being disciplined, focused, tenacious, organized and responsible — is the personality trait that best predicts work-related success across the board in life. This includes everything from performing well at work, to managing work-life balance, to being successful in training and learning, and even leading a happier life." https://twin-cities.umn.edu/news-events/conscientiousness-top-personality-predictor-positive-career-and-work-related-outcomes#:~:text=A%20study%20from%20the%20University,that%20best%20predicts%20work%2Drelated https://twin-cities.umn.edu/news-events/conscientiousness-to...
ModernMech 5y ago
I was in one of these programs and here's how it worked. We all went into the cafeteria around 3rd grade and took a test like the SAT. Then we were evaluated individually in areas of math and pattern recognition. Those who scored the highest got out of Reading every week and instead went to an enrichment class where we learned miscellaneous "enriching" things like Shakespeare, architecture, programming, history of art etc. The problem with this model is twofold: 1. First it ostracizes the ones in that enrichment class, and demotivates children left behind. It also causes rifts and resentment among friend groups. Every day the other children see Sam and Sally leave class and go to a "special kid room", and this turns into jealousy and bullying. The kids in the enrichment class feel bad for being there, and the kids not in the enrichment class feel bad for not being there. We learned a whole lot, but I think this model could have been implemented such that we could still have learned those things without the associated social costs. 2. It's not a great selection mechanism. For example, they passed over some of my friends who, in my experience, are way smarter than me. Why? Well one had slight dyslexia, but he was a math genius. Another is a music and art genius, but she wasn't great at numbers. So we have people who would have benefitted from these programs, arguably both have a very high IQ, and yet this whole process left them feeling "less than". They had to sit in boring, sad reading class while us "enrichment" kids were putting on a production of Macbeth. If that's the kind of thing we were doing, why wasn't my artist friend invited? Because she couldn't do algebra in 3rd grade? So if there's so much social pressure, resentment, bullying, and the selection method isn't even that great anyway.... then what are these programs for? Can't we come up with a better model that enriches all kids? Instead of asking some magic sorting hat and trusting it's selecting the best students? Anyway, that was my experience decades ago... maybe things are different now. Obviously I have no idea what's going on with 3rd grade social dynamics these days.
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  It certainly seems like the program you attended was poorly implemented. I was sent to a gifted program full time with other gifted peers collected from around the region. I was still often ahead of the class, and couldn't imagine how miserable I would have been if I was forced to learn at a regular pace. Yes I agree we should be wary of setting up Lord of the Flies in our schools, but that doesn't mean that we should ignore the existence of children like Bluejay[1]. > Can't we come up with a better model that enriches all kids? I think the basic answer is "no". Past a certain pace/complexity many children will simply be unable to keep up and retain information. We should strive to rid ourselves of the modern delusion that since everyone is equal morally, they must all be equally capable and have equal potential. 1. https://www.cbsnews.com/video/bluejay/ https://www.cbsnews.com/video/bluejay/
hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
There is a great, and true, line from a very old Simpson's episode [1] about how early childhood "sorting" can have an outsized impact on someone's life. And there is plenty of other evidence (e.g. see Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers) that a lot of arbitrary differences are just magnified by this early childhood sorting. The argument against the name "gifted and talented" isn't that some children have gifts that are different from others, it's that the sole arbiter of whether a child is "gifted", as if it were something anointed by Jesus, is not that they did well on some standardized test in kindergarten. I definitely agree with the author, something like "accelerated learning" is a much better name 1. https://youtu.be/O2f_MlZtjuY?t=9 https://youtu.be/O2f_MlZtjuY?t=9
- allturtles 5y ago
  At the end of that episode, after being tracked into a genius school due to cheating on his intelligence test, Bart confesses that he's "just a regular dumb kid," and begs to go back to regular school. So I'm not sure it's making the point you intend. But as much as I love the Simpsons, I'm not sure of its value as evidence in a policy discussion either way.
  - chongli 5y ago
    I think you’re actually in agreement with the GP. The quote: “Now I don’t want you to worry, class, these tests will have no effect on your grades. They merely determine your future social status and success, if any.” — Mrs. Krabappel As you pointed out, Bart admits to cheating and gets sent back to his ordinary class. The GP’s point is that these tests merely determine who will be admitted to the “gifted and talented” classes, not who will succeed in them, and the Simpson’s episode bears that out. If there were a more accurate way of predicting success in gifted classes then we should use that instead of standardized test scores.
    - allturtles 5y ago
      I don't want to get into a whole thing over this Simpsons episode, which I think everyone agrees is moot, but he fails in the new class because he cheated and used someone else's score, not because the scores (absent cheating) aren't predictive of success.
strgcmc 5y ago
"Gifted programs" are not objectively perfect tests of gifted-ness. They select for some fairly specific mix of traits/skills that a school district has chosen to call "gifted"; then, if you don't pass this arbitrary test, well then you are considered "not gifted." But this is wrong wrong wrong, so wrong that it's almost a trivial logical fallacy: just because most dogs have 4 legs, doesn't mean that all 4-legged animals are dogs, nor that a dog with 3 legs stops being a dog. Testing for "dog-ness" by counting 4 legs, is wrong. Likewise, just because a school district designs an arbitrary test of "gifted-ness", doesn't mean that all children who pass it are gifted, nor that children who don't pass it have no gifts. These tests cannot possibly capture the full range of human gifts. You are arguing a strawman that the person you replied to never stated. Yes exceptional people exist, this was never under debate and that poster did not claim otherwise. But "gifted" programs do not perfectly identify all exceptional people across all dimensions of exceptionality with universal perfect accuracy. Replacing "gifted" programs with accelerated learning programs could achieve the same goal of offering advanced learning for SOME exceptional students, without going through the fundamentally flawed and oversimplified binary sorting process that inaccurately labels all students as either "gifted" or "not gifted".
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  You're arguing that tests for intellectual ability aren't perfect, and they're therefore useless. This is a bad argument.
  - politician 5y ago
    It's the same argument as for eliminating TAG programs: that no one should be accelerated because not everyone is accelerated. This seems like a distressingly common construction. Is it a logical fallacy? Does it have a name?
    - EEBio 5y ago
      False dillema or false dichotomy.[0] These arguments are built on the apparent either-or black-and-white setup, while in the reality, a range of possibilities exists. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
camel_Snake 5y ago
Not the parent poster, but I'd say every child (and adult!) has gifts - every child is exceptional - just maybe not in an academic context, of course. I find the labeling of 'gifted' connotes a certainly quality that isn't necessarily intrinsic among students who would find accelerated learning environments beneficial. And that's what it is, if you are speaking from an equity-based standpoint - an effort to ensure that each student has access to a learning environment that meets their potential. In regards to racial biases towards IQ tests, it isn't necessary for the tests themselves to have racial bias. These tests aren't given out to all students, they must be recommended for it by their teachers. Maybe certain teachers would display less bias in a 'this student seems bored by the lessons' line-of-thinking versus 'this student seems gifted'. I have no idea about that part.
- mbrodersen 5y ago
  The vast majority of people have zero outstanding skills or talent. It’s just a fact. A tiny minority of people are the ones that produce the art/products/music/tech/politics/… that actually move humanity forward. Unless you lower your expectations of what it means to be “gifted” so low that it has no useful meaning.
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  > but I'd say every child (and adult!) has gifts - every child is exceptional Isn't this basically nonsense? Are you sure every child is exceptional in some way? How do you know? Have you measured? How would you react to a perfectly ordinary, unremarkable child? Would your worldview just collapse? What does the word "exceptional" mean to you? > quality that isn't necessarily intrinsic Why does the intrinsicness of the property matter? > learning environment that meets their potential How would you label people who have high potential? What about low potential? Now, in the interest of clarity and simplicity, what single word would you use to label each category? > aren't given out to all students, they must be recommended for it by their teachers To my knowledge they are given out to all students at a particular grade/age - YMMV. If teachers must select students then clearly teacher bias would be a factor.
asoneth 5y ago
> I fail to see how IQ tests are racially biased While there are some concerns that have been raised about bias within the tests themselves[1], in my experience the concern about testing among actual educators is usually that the tests are pitched as objectively "measuring intelligence" when in reality they measure a confluence of factors. Intelligence is certainly a major factor but external factors such as having a stable home with quiet times that are conducive to studying, good nutrition, good role models, and good teachers play a major role as well. There have been controversial attempts to control for those factors, for example by including information about the test takers socioeconomic status, but for the most part "intelligence tests" do not attempt to control for external variables. So it's impossible to tell how much of the delta in scores between two individuals reflects actual differences in their intelligence compared to differences in their environment and starting conditions. The risk of tracking students solely based on such tests is that you end up compounding the existing penalties of having a bad environment. Don't get me wrong, I think testing has an important role to play, but we should be honest and stop pretending that these are "intelligence tests". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence#Test_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence#Test_bia...
- N1H1L 5y ago
  Also something like the presence of lead in your drinking water has strong, demonstrated effects on IQ for example. Some of the poorest communities in the US by the way have some of the highest lead contents in their water supplies BTW.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > the tests are pitched as objectively "measuring intelligence" when in reality they measure a confluence of factors. "The first practical intelligence test was developed between 1905 and 1908 by Alfred Binet in France for school placement of children. Binet warned that results from his test should not be assumed to measure innate intelligence or used to label individuals permanently." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence#Early_IQ_testing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence#Early_IQ...
- thegrimmest 5y ago
dragonwriter 5y ago
> I fail to see how IQ tests are racially biased IQ is environmentally malleable; particularly relevant to this, nutrition near the time of the test is relevant, and this is strongly associated with socioeconomic status, even moreso before children enter school where meal programs exist as a levelling force. Processes like NY once-and-done test at 4 years old maximize the disparities produced this way (later start or multiple chance programs that test in school mitigate some of that disparity.)
- greenail 5y ago
  but the IQ test still isn't racially biased. You are just pointing out that there are multiple influences on IQ and multiple mitigations to mitigate the environmental factors.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > but the IQ test still isn't racially biased. The gifted program selection process making use of the test is racially biased, and there is limited (though some) ability to mitigate that while still using the test. Whether the test is racially biased in some abstract sense detached from the context of use is irrelevant.
    - greenail 5y ago
      Can you provide a source to support that claim that doesn't rely solely on racial disparity demographics that is based on a modern and recent gifted/talented (in the last 10 years)? I'm honestly interested. My local school based their ideas behind removing G&T on some arguably statically flawed meta studies by John Hattie.
belorn 5y ago
Viewing IQ as accelerated learning is a pretty good model on how to perceive gifted programs. Two cars can have different accelerations and engines, but which one can travel furthest will still depend on the environment. In addition, faster accelerated has its own associated risks. All cars are still unique and can still be admired as acceleration isn't everything in life. Gifted and talented programs are one type of solution when fast learning children in combination with a somewhat supporting environment create a situation where they do no longer fit in the regular system, having to artificial slow down their own learning and development as a person. Racial disparities in this context is likely caused by a difference in supporting environments occurring much earlier in the childs life.

bcrosby95 5y ago

You know what is absurd? How about the idea that you should segment children at a young age, before they are anywhere close to fully developed mentally, emotionally, or physically, and publicly label some as "gifted" and some as "normal". What could possibly go wrong? Dumbest fucking idea ever.

mbrodersen 5y ago
I was a year ahead in math as a kid and was bored out of my skull with the slow pace of teaching. Being able to join a class of likeminded kids would have been brilliant.
fighterpilot 5y ago
The only part of that which is dumb is the ill-advised label, which can easily be changed. Everything else makes sense. Borderline intellectually disabled people and Terence Tao-level prodigies should not be in the same class. That is the dumbest fucking idea ever.
jlawson 5y ago
It's a simple recognition of an observable and predictive reality - that some people are much more intellectually capable than others. Do you disagree that this is a fact? Recognizing reality and adapting to it is the opposite of dumb. The label could change but it wouldn't make much difference except for politically.
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- MisterBastahrd 5y ago
  Those people are one in a million. The vast majority of "gifted" programs will never encounter a single child like that in the history of their school.
  - CamperBob2 5y ago
    Those people are one in a million. And the cost to society when even one of them falls short of their potential is incalculable. Most people really don't end up mattering that much. If we can identify the ones that will matter, and do so far enough in advance, it's impossible to argue that we won't be better off for having done so.
    - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
      If they can't get ahead because a public school didn't give them an extra workbook to mess with, then they don't have anything remotely resembling "incalculable" potential. I'm not saying we shouldn't treat prodigies differently. I'm saying that 99.99% of these "gifted" kids aren't anything like prodigies and that the money aimed at them is better off spent elsewhere.
      - CamperBob2 5y ago
        I'm saying that 99.99% of these "gifted" kids aren't anything like prodigies and that the money aimed at them is better off spent elsewhere. An unprovable assertion if there ever was one.
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ModernMech 5y ago
This is actually one of the central points of the book "Mindstorms" by Seymour Papert, who invented the Logo programming language. He contended that the early sorting of children into good/bad at math is a self-fulfilling prophecy. That children who are told they are good at math seek out math, while those who are told they are bad at math actively avoid it. And you can see this effect decades later. My wife was told she was bad at math at a young age, and despite getting As in algebra and trig, and an A in physics, she still thinks she's bad at math. Even after objectively measuring that she performs within the top 10% of her peers at a particular subject, she still thinks she's bad at it. That's how bad this is for children. The irony here is that I first learned the Logo language in one of these enrichment programs.
- mbrodersen 5y ago
  Papert is/was wrong. I was a year ahead in math in school and taught myself machine programming when I was 11. Nobody encouraged me to do this. Quite the opposite. Other kids did everything they could to discourage it and nobody understood what programming was and why it was useful to learn. That didn’t stop me at all.
  - ModernMech 5y ago
    I'm glad you persevered, but I don't think your experience means he was wrong. It just means it's not a universal truth that applies literally to everyone, which I don't think he ever suggested. He wasn't really talking about people like you and me who are highly motivated to learn this subject. He was more talking about people who had no idea about the field being discouraged before they even had a chance to find that spark.
    - mbrodersen 5y ago
      Fair enough. There is another theory that basically says that you get interested in what you are good at. The feeling of mastery gives you the motivation to get even better. That seems to be a better fit for my experience. But of course YMMV.
thegrimmest 5y ago
I mean, we already segment children at similar ages based on physical/athletic capability. It's very clear to sports coaches that not every child is capable of developing into an internationally competitive athlete. Why doesn't the same apply to the thinking parts of our meat exactly?
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- handrous 5y ago
  Hell, with some sports and arts if you haven't already been doing it at least a year by age 7 and live (or move to) somewhere with one of a handful of teachers/coaches who are top-tier at teaching young beginners, and have parents able and willing to pay for lessons from them while you're still very young, you're never going to be truly great no matter how hard you try if you try to break into it starting at, say, age 14. It's my understanding that tennis and playing violin are both more-or-less like this, for instance. Gymnastics and some kinds of dance, too, I think. Like, if your kid's 10 and they aren't already damn serious about some of these things, you can just cross those possibilities off their list for the future. Probably any sport or art in which people tend to peak very young (early 20s), or that have opportunities available for young participants that will effectively lock them out of further high-level advancement if they miss them (because you're expected to have done those if you're "serious"), are like that.
cutemonster 5y ago
There are kids age 7 that are brighter than grown ups age 47. And those kids can get bored when they are forced to practice the alphabet when they write short stories already, and such things. Imagine someone forcing you to sit at a desk and practice spelling of basic English words? And they can lose faith in school. And also it can be harder for them to find friends, when their thoughts and interests are a lot more grown up than their classmates. It can be frustrating and lonely for them.
paulpauper 5y ago
Umm...IQ scores tend to be stable throughout life, and ability early in life is predictive of ability later in school. Kids who are slow in kindergarten, with few exceptions, do not go on to be whizzes in the 5th grade. Also, it's not like gifted programs are only limited to kindergartners.
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- greenail 5y ago
  Not just IQ: "A study from the University of Minnesota, recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), found that conscientiousness — a family of personality traits that combines being disciplined, focused, tenacious, organized and responsible — is the personality trait that best predicts work-related success across the board in life. This includes everything from performing well at work, to managing work-life balance, to being successful in training and learning, and even leading a happier life." https://twin-cities.umn.edu/news-events/conscientiousness-top-personality-predictor-positive-career-and-work-related-outcomes#:~:text=A%20study%20from%20the%20University,that%20best%20predicts%20work%2Drelated https://twin-cities.umn.edu/news-events/conscientiousness-to...

ModernMech 5y ago

I was in one of these programs and here's how it worked. We all went into the cafeteria around 3rd grade and took a test like the SAT. Then we were evaluated individually in areas of math and pattern recognition. Those who scored the highest got out of Reading every week and instead went to an enrichment class where we learned miscellaneous "enriching" things like Shakespeare, architecture, programming, history of art etc. The problem with this model is twofold: 1. First it ostracizes the ones in that enrichment class, and demotivates children left behind. It also causes rifts and resentment among friend groups. Every day the other children see Sam and Sally leave class and go to a "special kid room", and this turns into jealousy and bullying. The kids in the enrichment class feel bad for being there, and the kids not in the enrichment class feel bad for not being there. We learned a whole lot, but I think this model could have been implemented such that we could still have learned those things without the associated social costs. 2. It's not a great selection mechanism. For example, they passed over some of my friends who, in my experience, are way smarter than me. Why? Well one had slight dyslexia, but he was a math genius. Another is a music and art genius, but she wasn't great at numbers. So we have people who would have benefitted from these programs, arguably both have a very high IQ, and yet this whole process left them feeling "less than". They had to sit in boring, sad reading class while us "enrichment" kids were putting on a production of Macbeth. If that's the kind of thing we were doing, why wasn't my artist friend invited? Because she couldn't do algebra in 3rd grade? So if there's so much social pressure, resentment, bullying, and the selection method isn't even that great anyway.... then what are these programs for? Can't we come up with a better model that enriches all kids? Instead of asking some magic sorting hat and trusting it's selecting the best students? Anyway, that was my experience decades ago... maybe things are different now. Obviously I have no idea what's going on with 3rd grade social dynamics these days.

thegrimmest 5y ago
It certainly seems like the program you attended was poorly implemented. I was sent to a gifted program full time with other gifted peers collected from around the region. I was still often ahead of the class, and couldn't imagine how miserable I would have been if I was forced to learn at a regular pace. Yes I agree we should be wary of setting up Lord of the Flies in our schools, but that doesn't mean that we should ignore the existence of children like Bluejay[1]. > Can't we come up with a better model that enriches all kids? I think the basic answer is "no". Past a certain pace/complexity many children will simply be unable to keep up and retain information. We should strive to rid ourselves of the modern delusion that since everyone is equal morally, they must all be equally capable and have equal potential. 1. https://www.cbsnews.com/video/bluejay/ https://www.cbsnews.com/video/bluejay/

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago

There is a great, and true, line from a very old Simpson's episode [1] about how early childhood "sorting" can have an outsized impact on someone's life. And there is plenty of other evidence (e.g. see Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers) that a lot of arbitrary differences are just magnified by this early childhood sorting. The argument against the name "gifted and talented" isn't that some children have gifts that are different from others, it's that the sole arbiter of whether a child is "gifted", as if it were something anointed by Jesus, is not that they did well on some standardized test in kindergarten. I definitely agree with the author, something like "accelerated learning" is a much better name 1. https://youtu.be/O2f_MlZtjuY?t=9 https://youtu.be/O2f_MlZtjuY?t=9

allturtles 5y ago
At the end of that episode, after being tracked into a genius school due to cheating on his intelligence test, Bart confesses that he's "just a regular dumb kid," and begs to go back to regular school. So I'm not sure it's making the point you intend. But as much as I love the Simpsons, I'm not sure of its value as evidence in a policy discussion either way.
- chongli 5y ago
  I think you’re actually in agreement with the GP. The quote: “Now I don’t want you to worry, class, these tests will have no effect on your grades. They merely determine your future social status and success, if any.” — Mrs. Krabappel As you pointed out, Bart admits to cheating and gets sent back to his ordinary class. The GP’s point is that these tests merely determine who will be admitted to the “gifted and talented” classes, not who will succeed in them, and the Simpson’s episode bears that out. If there were a more accurate way of predicting success in gifted classes then we should use that instead of standardized test scores.
  - allturtles 5y ago
    I don't want to get into a whole thing over this Simpsons episode, which I think everyone agrees is moot, but he fails in the new class because he cheated and used someone else's score, not because the scores (absent cheating) aren't predictive of success.

strgcmc 5y ago

"Gifted programs" are not objectively perfect tests of gifted-ness. They select for some fairly specific mix of traits/skills that a school district has chosen to call "gifted"; then, if you don't pass this arbitrary test, well then you are considered "not gifted." But this is wrong wrong wrong, so wrong that it's almost a trivial logical fallacy: just because most dogs have 4 legs, doesn't mean that all 4-legged animals are dogs, nor that a dog with 3 legs stops being a dog. Testing for "dog-ness" by counting 4 legs, is wrong. Likewise, just because a school district designs an arbitrary test of "gifted-ness", doesn't mean that all children who pass it are gifted, nor that children who don't pass it have no gifts. These tests cannot possibly capture the full range of human gifts. You are arguing a strawman that the person you replied to never stated. Yes exceptional people exist, this was never under debate and that poster did not claim otherwise. But "gifted" programs do not perfectly identify all exceptional people across all dimensions of exceptionality with universal perfect accuracy. Replacing "gifted" programs with accelerated learning programs could achieve the same goal of offering advanced learning for SOME exceptional students, without going through the fundamentally flawed and oversimplified binary sorting process that inaccurately labels all students as either "gifted" or "not gifted".

fighterpilot 5y ago
You're arguing that tests for intellectual ability aren't perfect, and they're therefore useless. This is a bad argument.
- politician 5y ago
  It's the same argument as for eliminating TAG programs: that no one should be accelerated because not everyone is accelerated. This seems like a distressingly common construction. Is it a logical fallacy? Does it have a name?
  - EEBio 5y ago
    False dillema or false dichotomy.[0] These arguments are built on the apparent either-or black-and-white setup, while in the reality, a range of possibilities exists. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

camel_Snake 5y ago

Not the parent poster, but I'd say every child (and adult!) has gifts - every child is exceptional - just maybe not in an academic context, of course. I find the labeling of 'gifted' connotes a certainly quality that isn't necessarily intrinsic among students who would find accelerated learning environments beneficial. And that's what it is, if you are speaking from an equity-based standpoint - an effort to ensure that each student has access to a learning environment that meets their potential. In regards to racial biases towards IQ tests, it isn't necessary for the tests themselves to have racial bias. These tests aren't given out to all students, they must be recommended for it by their teachers. Maybe certain teachers would display less bias in a 'this student seems bored by the lessons' line-of-thinking versus 'this student seems gifted'. I have no idea about that part.

mbrodersen 5y ago
The vast majority of people have zero outstanding skills or talent. It’s just a fact. A tiny minority of people are the ones that produce the art/products/music/tech/politics/… that actually move humanity forward. Unless you lower your expectations of what it means to be “gifted” so low that it has no useful meaning.
thegrimmest 5y ago
> but I'd say every child (and adult!) has gifts - every child is exceptional Isn't this basically nonsense? Are you sure every child is exceptional in some way? How do you know? Have you measured? How would you react to a perfectly ordinary, unremarkable child? Would your worldview just collapse? What does the word "exceptional" mean to you? > quality that isn't necessarily intrinsic Why does the intrinsicness of the property matter? > learning environment that meets their potential How would you label people who have high potential? What about low potential? Now, in the interest of clarity and simplicity, what single word would you use to label each category? > aren't given out to all students, they must be recommended for it by their teachers To my knowledge they are given out to all students at a particular grade/age - YMMV. If teachers must select students then clearly teacher bias would be a factor.

asoneth 5y ago

> I fail to see how IQ tests are racially biased While there are some concerns that have been raised about bias within the tests themselves[1], in my experience the concern about testing among actual educators is usually that the tests are pitched as objectively "measuring intelligence" when in reality they measure a confluence of factors. Intelligence is certainly a major factor but external factors such as having a stable home with quiet times that are conducive to studying, good nutrition, good role models, and good teachers play a major role as well. There have been controversial attempts to control for those factors, for example by including information about the test takers socioeconomic status, but for the most part "intelligence tests" do not attempt to control for external variables. So it's impossible to tell how much of the delta in scores between two individuals reflects actual differences in their intelligence compared to differences in their environment and starting conditions. The risk of tracking students solely based on such tests is that you end up compounding the existing penalties of having a bad environment. Don't get me wrong, I think testing has an important role to play, but we should be honest and stop pretending that these are "intelligence tests". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence#Test_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence#Test_bia...

N1H1L 5y ago
Also something like the presence of lead in your drinking water has strong, demonstrated effects on IQ for example. Some of the poorest communities in the US by the way have some of the highest lead contents in their water supplies BTW.
908B64B197 5y ago
> the tests are pitched as objectively "measuring intelligence" when in reality they measure a confluence of factors. "The first practical intelligence test was developed between 1905 and 1908 by Alfred Binet in France for school placement of children. Binet warned that results from his test should not be assumed to measure innate intelligence or used to label individuals permanently." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence#Early_IQ_testing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence#Early_IQ...
thegrimmest 5y ago

dragonwriter 5y ago

> I fail to see how IQ tests are racially biased IQ is environmentally malleable; particularly relevant to this, nutrition near the time of the test is relevant, and this is strongly associated with socioeconomic status, even moreso before children enter school where meal programs exist as a levelling force. Processes like NY once-and-done test at 4 years old maximize the disparities produced this way (later start or multiple chance programs that test in school mitigate some of that disparity.)

greenail 5y ago
but the IQ test still isn't racially biased. You are just pointing out that there are multiple influences on IQ and multiple mitigations to mitigate the environmental factors.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > but the IQ test still isn't racially biased. The gifted program selection process making use of the test is racially biased, and there is limited (though some) ability to mitigate that while still using the test. Whether the test is racially biased in some abstract sense detached from the context of use is irrelevant.
  - greenail 5y ago
    Can you provide a source to support that claim that doesn't rely solely on racial disparity demographics that is based on a modern and recent gifted/talented (in the last 10 years)? I'm honestly interested. My local school based their ideas behind removing G&T on some arguably statically flawed meta studies by John Hattie.

belorn 5y ago

Viewing IQ as accelerated learning is a pretty good model on how to perceive gifted programs. Two cars can have different accelerations and engines, but which one can travel furthest will still depend on the environment. In addition, faster accelerated has its own associated risks. All cars are still unique and can still be admired as acceleration isn't everything in life. Gifted and talented programs are one type of solution when fast learning children in combination with a somewhat supporting environment create a situation where they do no longer fit in the regular system, having to artificial slow down their own learning and development as a person. Racial disparities in this context is likely caused by a difference in supporting environments occurring much earlier in the childs life.