5 ms·

reject the idea that some children are naturally gifted I could see an argument that there aren't significantly high numbers of genetically gifted children. H

by causi 5y ago

reject the idea that some children are naturally gifted I could see an argument that there aren't significantly high numbers of genetically gifted children. However, I don't think you can make that argument without recognizing the fact that children's home lives and home cultures have enormous impact on their potential, effects you can't undue with special teacher guidelines. The child who goes home and spends four hours studying quietly is going to demolish in every academic way the child who goes home and listens to his parents cursing at each other and the child who goes home and watches TV for four hours.

wccrawford 5y ago
OTOH, when I was a kid, I never did homework at home and I always got straight As in math and science. I was just naturally good at those subjects and was able to not only listen to the lecture in class and learn, but also do my homework for that same day in that same time period. And I retained the knowledge for the quizzes and tests, too. If that isn't "naturally gifted" I don't know what is. I definitely watched other students struggle to maintain a B average with lots of studying and effort. I suffered in other subjects, and others excelled at them with little effort. They were the naturally gifted ones there. It was a constant source of stress to me that they would treat everyone the same when it came to those subjects, to the point that in 6th grade, when reviewing multiplication tables that I'd learned years before, I refused to do my homework. I ended up with an F that semester in math because I was so good at it. Luckily they moved on to harder subjects in the next semester and my grades returned.
- bllguo 5y ago
  rejecting natural aptitude is ridiculous for sure. It needs to be recognized but it also does not necessarily need to be segregated. People learn from being around smart peers. The important thing imo is to hold _all_ students to a higher bar so that concepts like multiplication tables are drilled in the same year they are taught, not being reviewed in 6th grade
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    The slower students slow down the faster students, the disruptive students disrupt the less disruptive students. This is why there are accelerated classes, to allow each student to reach their potential, as well as why disruptive students need to be removed from the classroom. If you are morally outraged by accelerated classes because they don't have your preferred racial mix, then that's fine, but understand it means that the faster students have their potential held back. If that's an acceptable price for equality of outcomes, then at least say that and don't pretend that somehow you can have your cake and eat it -- that faster students benefit from being taught slower paced material, and that well-behaved students benefit from being in a class with disruptive students, or that math education is improved when calculus and other challenging topics are removed. That's just doublespeak. Have whatever values you want to have, but don't fool yourself into thinking there isn't a price, and that faster or well-behaved students aren't the ones paying the price. What will happen is that wealthy students will pay for extra tutors or private school, and we will be back to a less meritocratic system in which you need to be both rich and smart in order to get the good education, as the state is now focused on making sure the best students don't learn too much to upset the ideals of "equality". This the logical endgame for a state that believes Harrison Bergeron is a utopian work.
    - bllguo 5y ago
      I believed what you said for a long time and still kind of do. But this is how our system has operated for a long time and we see today the effects on our society. Some high performers, but many many people who lack even basic principles of mathematics. Do you think this is okay, or should things change? Is it okay to "sacrifice" some potential to raise the floor for everyone else? (I don't even think that a "sacrifice" is necessarily involved, and there's always self-study - the route all the _truly_ gifted prodigies of history take - but let's operate under that assumption) I think dismissing the whole concept out of hand is just as dogmatic as the caricatured liberal views you seem to have assumed I hold. There are education systems in the world, like in East Asia, that follow these principles, so I think they are worth exploring. This is a weakly held position for me.
      - 5y ago
- fatnoah 5y ago
  I had a healthy and stable home life, but also parents who pretty much left me to my own devices when it came to school work. In elementary school, I mostly did my homework and never, ever studied for a test. In high school, I did about 50% of my homework and probably studied for a grand total of 3-4 tests over that four years. All the while, I aced tests with nearly straight As. In school (elementary school especially), I'd finish tests and other work well before other students, would be bored as they asked questions with "easy" answers, etc. When I got to college, I had zero healthy study habits, and got a good six months of getting my ass kicked until I sorted things out. It wasn't until then that I actually felt challenged and engaged. Until then, I expected to get As and didn't have to work for it. Once in college, where I was challenged, EARNING As was so satisfying. I still remember the feeling of accomplishment of getting As in two chemistry classes, which was a subject I didn't like and I had to work HARD for those grades.
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
Is "naturally gifted" the new "self-made man"? It seems so obviously self-refuting that I can't believe people use it without irony. Can anyone name anyone who is naturally gifted at anything that didn't get taught and learn a million different things (not all of which they were good at) in order to get to the point where they could display their "natural gift"? I say we take anyone's kid who they claim is naturally gifted and dump them on a deserted island shortly after birth and we'll see exactly how well they get on with their natural gifts. Maybe we'll come back in 16 years and they'll be doing calculus, speaking three languages fluently and playing the saxophone, but I doubt it. After all, we wouldn't want them held back by the decades of parental care and schooling that we give to the normies who need to like, learn stuff from books and be fed for years and other such crutches for the feeble-minded lesser beings.
- ergot_vacation 5y ago
  What on earth are you talking about? Yes, obviously in order to make an apple pie you must first create the universe. In order to be gifted you must first be born, have a basic level of food and shelter, be mostly free of disease and so on. That's not a relevant point of discussion here. We're discussing a case where all things are equal. "But all things aren't equal!" You scream. "Those evil white people grew up in the lap of luxury while the poor, repressed minorities had a life of scraping, miserable poverty!" First, this isn't always true. There are poor white people and middle-class (or even rich) minorities, and to suggest that every minority is hopelessly disadvantaged because they all grew up in the ghetto is its own kind of racism. But second, this is a separate discussion. To answer the question "Are some people naturally gifted?" you have to adjust the other variables to equal first in order to tease out the answer to that specific question. Having discovered that yes, indeed they are, you can then conclude that this CONTINUES TO BE THE CASE in situations where "privilege" is not equal. The fact that some people are handicapped or helped by their economic or racial background does not magically erase the fact that they are ALSO helped or held back by their innate intelligence, and tendency to understand or not understand specific concepts. Some people are smarter than other people, in a way that has nothing to do with economics or racism, but is purely biological luck. In direct contradiction to your assertion, THIS is self-evident, in the same way that "Things fall to the earth when dropped". and "Eventually, everyone dies" are. To deny this is to deny basic, readily-observable and reproducible reality, in a way that suggests either disingenuousness or mental illness. Everyone is not equal, never has been, and never will be. It is an inherent property of the randomness of nature that some members of a species end up with abilities superior to others, completely independent of economics, race, social class, or any other human construction. Stop pushing this inane Harrison Bergeron gibberish.

by causi 5y ago

wccrawford 5y ago

OTOH, when I was a kid, I never did homework at home and I always got straight As in math and science. I was just naturally good at those subjects and was able to not only listen to the lecture in class and learn, but also do my homework for that same day in that same time period. And I retained the knowledge for the quizzes and tests, too. If that isn't "naturally gifted" I don't know what is. I definitely watched other students struggle to maintain a B average with lots of studying and effort. I suffered in other subjects, and others excelled at them with little effort. They were the naturally gifted ones there. It was a constant source of stress to me that they would treat everyone the same when it came to those subjects, to the point that in 6th grade, when reviewing multiplication tables that I'd learned years before, I refused to do my homework. I ended up with an F that semester in math because I was so good at it. Luckily they moved on to harder subjects in the next semester and my grades returned.

bllguo 5y ago
rejecting natural aptitude is ridiculous for sure. It needs to be recognized but it also does not necessarily need to be segregated. People learn from being around smart peers. The important thing imo is to hold _all_ students to a higher bar so that concepts like multiplication tables are drilled in the same year they are taught, not being reviewed in 6th grade
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  The slower students slow down the faster students, the disruptive students disrupt the less disruptive students. This is why there are accelerated classes, to allow each student to reach their potential, as well as why disruptive students need to be removed from the classroom. If you are morally outraged by accelerated classes because they don't have your preferred racial mix, then that's fine, but understand it means that the faster students have their potential held back. If that's an acceptable price for equality of outcomes, then at least say that and don't pretend that somehow you can have your cake and eat it -- that faster students benefit from being taught slower paced material, and that well-behaved students benefit from being in a class with disruptive students, or that math education is improved when calculus and other challenging topics are removed. That's just doublespeak. Have whatever values you want to have, but don't fool yourself into thinking there isn't a price, and that faster or well-behaved students aren't the ones paying the price. What will happen is that wealthy students will pay for extra tutors or private school, and we will be back to a less meritocratic system in which you need to be both rich and smart in order to get the good education, as the state is now focused on making sure the best students don't learn too much to upset the ideals of "equality". This the logical endgame for a state that believes Harrison Bergeron is a utopian work.
  - bllguo 5y ago
    I believed what you said for a long time and still kind of do. But this is how our system has operated for a long time and we see today the effects on our society. Some high performers, but many many people who lack even basic principles of mathematics. Do you think this is okay, or should things change? Is it okay to "sacrifice" some potential to raise the floor for everyone else? (I don't even think that a "sacrifice" is necessarily involved, and there's always self-study - the route all the _truly_ gifted prodigies of history take - but let's operate under that assumption) I think dismissing the whole concept out of hand is just as dogmatic as the caricatured liberal views you seem to have assumed I hold. There are education systems in the world, like in East Asia, that follow these principles, so I think they are worth exploring. This is a weakly held position for me.
    - 5y ago
fatnoah 5y ago
I had a healthy and stable home life, but also parents who pretty much left me to my own devices when it came to school work. In elementary school, I mostly did my homework and never, ever studied for a test. In high school, I did about 50% of my homework and probably studied for a grand total of 3-4 tests over that four years. All the while, I aced tests with nearly straight As. In school (elementary school especially), I'd finish tests and other work well before other students, would be bored as they asked questions with "easy" answers, etc. When I got to college, I had zero healthy study habits, and got a good six months of getting my ass kicked until I sorted things out. It wasn't until then that I actually felt challenged and engaged. Until then, I expected to get As and didn't have to work for it. Once in college, where I was challenged, EARNING As was so satisfying. I still remember the feeling of accomplishment of getting As in two chemistry classes, which was a subject I didn't like and I had to work HARD for those grades.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

Is "naturally gifted" the new "self-made man"? It seems so obviously self-refuting that I can't believe people use it without irony. Can anyone name anyone who is naturally gifted at anything that didn't get taught and learn a million different things (not all of which they were good at) in order to get to the point where they could display their "natural gift"? I say we take anyone's kid who they claim is naturally gifted and dump them on a deserted island shortly after birth and we'll see exactly how well they get on with their natural gifts. Maybe we'll come back in 16 years and they'll be doing calculus, speaking three languages fluently and playing the saxophone, but I doubt it. After all, we wouldn't want them held back by the decades of parental care and schooling that we give to the normies who need to like, learn stuff from books and be fed for years and other such crutches for the feeble-minded lesser beings.

ergot_vacation 5y ago
What on earth are you talking about? Yes, obviously in order to make an apple pie you must first create the universe. In order to be gifted you must first be born, have a basic level of food and shelter, be mostly free of disease and so on. That's not a relevant point of discussion here. We're discussing a case where all things are equal. "But all things aren't equal!" You scream. "Those evil white people grew up in the lap of luxury while the poor, repressed minorities had a life of scraping, miserable poverty!" First, this isn't always true. There are poor white people and middle-class (or even rich) minorities, and to suggest that every minority is hopelessly disadvantaged because they all grew up in the ghetto is its own kind of racism. But second, this is a separate discussion. To answer the question "Are some people naturally gifted?" you have to adjust the other variables to equal first in order to tease out the answer to that specific question. Having discovered that yes, indeed they are, you can then conclude that this CONTINUES TO BE THE CASE in situations where "privilege" is not equal. The fact that some people are handicapped or helped by their economic or racial background does not magically erase the fact that they are ALSO helped or held back by their innate intelligence, and tendency to understand or not understand specific concepts. Some people are smarter than other people, in a way that has nothing to do with economics or racism, but is purely biological luck. In direct contradiction to your assertion, THIS is self-evident, in the same way that "Things fall to the earth when dropped". and "Eventually, everyone dies" are. To deny this is to deny basic, readily-observable and reproducible reality, in a way that suggests either disingenuousness or mental illness. Everyone is not equal, never has been, and never will be. It is an inherent property of the randomness of nature that some members of a species end up with abilities superior to others, completely independent of economics, race, social class, or any other human construction. Stop pushing this inane Harrison Bergeron gibberish.