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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

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.
- bzbarsky 5y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean by "those people", but the actual cutoff where you start having problems with people being extremely bored comes well before you hit one in a million; it's closer to one in a thousand, in my experience. Which means that the NYC public schools (the subject of this conversation, recall) have ~1000 kids like that right now. Now their various "gifted" programs do take more kids than that; the bar for such things is often at the 95th percentile, not the 99.9th.
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  There's a bell-curve isn't there? It's pretty hard to ignore the differences between people 4 standard deviations apart in IQ (70 vs 130). There are plenty of people in both categories. 1/100 is not that many.
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  Surprised I need to spell out what should be the obvious to an educated crowd, but intelligence is a spectrum with gradations of smart and gradations of stupid. The 90th percentile learns much faster than the 10th percentile and mixing them into the same class will handicap the 90th percentile, or leave the 10th percentile behind, or both.

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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.
bzbarsky 5y ago
I'm not sure what you mean by "those people", but the actual cutoff where you start having problems with people being extremely bored comes well before you hit one in a million; it's closer to one in a thousand, in my experience. Which means that the NYC public schools (the subject of this conversation, recall) have ~1000 kids like that right now. Now their various "gifted" programs do take more kids than that; the bar for such things is often at the 95th percentile, not the 99.9th.
thegrimmest 5y ago
There's a bell-curve isn't there? It's pretty hard to ignore the differences between people 4 standard deviations apart in IQ (70 vs 130). There are plenty of people in both categories. 1/100 is not that many.
fighterpilot 5y ago
Surprised I need to spell out what should be the obvious to an educated crowd, but intelligence is a spectrum with gradations of smart and gradations of stupid. The 90th percentile learns much faster than the 10th percentile and mixing them into the same class will handicap the 90th percentile, or leave the 10th percentile behind, or both.