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The 1 in a million are either screwed over worse than you were, or are recognized early and perennially challenged to further their development. > In the US, y

The 1 in a million are either screwed over worse than you were, or are recognized early and perennially challenged to further their development. > In the US, you don't get sorted like that until about age 18 when you're already having a lot of defining experiences. Programs for regular and exceptionally gifted students do exist in the US, but this varies state-to-state and district-to-district. The best "reform" I've thought of to address almost everything you've mentioned is to teach kids, early on, about failure. That it isn't the end of the world, what they can do to try to identify it happening, and how they can recover from it. Though like anything else this has to be done in moderation, as people who keep failing eventually give up entirely.

garbagecoder 3y ago
GATE programs are underfunded and to the extent they exist they only make it worse most of the time because they basically are telling you: you are elite! and in your school you probably are, but you're usually still in the same school. Most of the time it's just pull outs. Also, I wasn't screwed over. I live a charmed existence that I am thankful for every day. (= eta: 100% agree we need to teach kids about failure. I understand the concerns about too much, but right now I don't think they are exposed to enough.
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago
  College instead of high school is a nice alternative in some states. There are some magnet schools for highly gifted or aptitudinally talented students, including an online one: https://www.davidsongifted.org/the-davidson-academy/ https://www.davidsongifted.org/the-davidson-academy/ But yeah, the situation for regularly gifted students is often as you say. And any school program that truly held them to higher standards would also end up penalizing them with lower grades that would make them look non-competitive to highly selective universities. > but right now I don't think they are exposed to enough. Except those in the bottom 25%. They are human too, and deserve a good, well-tailored education.
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    Actually, in my college dorm we had a guy who was only 16 who'd been accelerated. I wouldn't exactly say he was "bullied," but he didn't have a very easy time of it.
    - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
      Someone who isn't a legal adult shouldn't be dorming with legal adults. That was a bad setup.
- 8note 3y ago
  Up there on good childhood choices was being accepted to the gate program, and not wanting to do it
  - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
    For me it was a bad choice to only take one year of community college in lieu of high school, instead of two. And being mainstreamed in math at the beginning of middle school instead of accelerated a year was particularly painful. Anecdotes are plentiful.
AlbertCory 3y ago
True story: one of my neighbors went to University of Chicago High School ("Uni High" as it's called). It was (and probably still is) a school for the extremely gifted. (I suppose they have some Reverse Imposters there, too, but I wouldn't know /s ) My dad was against my going there; I wouldn't be able to talk to ordinary people if I was only ever around those "gifted" kids. I suppose there's something to that; I cited this article: https://theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite-education/ https://theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite... by a guy who didn't know what to say to the plumber standing in his kitchen, whereas I'd much rather be around people like that than the Reverse Imposters.
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago
  Acceleration (universal or subject-specific grade skipping) can help with this. It challenges the gifted student appropriately while still allowing them to socialize with regular people. Naively it might seem that this could lead to bullying, but from what I read it tends to work really well. The older students aren't threatened by the prodigy.
  - macintux 3y ago
    I took geometry as a freshman in a class full of juniors and seniors. The bullying was frequent, and the teacher strategically refused to show up on time so I had to either wait around outside the classroom like a coward or go in and be hazed.
    - garbagecoder 3y ago
      I skipped mid 3rd to mid 4th. I wasn't really that much younger, but it was not good. It wasn't just that they were bigger or whatever, but at that age what you're going through is still pretty tightly coupled to your age. I didn't feel normalish until well into high school. I don't recommend it. I recommend letting kids accelerate, but right now the consensus seems to be accelerate most people who need it at 9th grade, not 7th, and definitely not before. As with most of these things the consensus goes back and forth, but that squares with my lived experience.

garbagecoder 3y ago

GATE programs are underfunded and to the extent they exist they only make it worse most of the time because they basically are telling you: you are elite! and in your school you probably are, but you're usually still in the same school. Most of the time it's just pull outs. Also, I wasn't screwed over. I live a charmed existence that I am thankful for every day. (= eta: 100% agree we need to teach kids about failure. I understand the concerns about too much, but right now I don't think they are exposed to enough.

anonymouskimmer 3y ago
College instead of high school is a nice alternative in some states. There are some magnet schools for highly gifted or aptitudinally talented students, including an online one: https://www.davidsongifted.org/the-davidson-academy/ https://www.davidsongifted.org/the-davidson-academy/ But yeah, the situation for regularly gifted students is often as you say. And any school program that truly held them to higher standards would also end up penalizing them with lower grades that would make them look non-competitive to highly selective universities. > but right now I don't think they are exposed to enough. Except those in the bottom 25%. They are human too, and deserve a good, well-tailored education.
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  Actually, in my college dorm we had a guy who was only 16 who'd been accelerated. I wouldn't exactly say he was "bullied," but he didn't have a very easy time of it.
  - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
    Someone who isn't a legal adult shouldn't be dorming with legal adults. That was a bad setup.
8note 3y ago
Up there on good childhood choices was being accepted to the gate program, and not wanting to do it
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago
  For me it was a bad choice to only take one year of community college in lieu of high school, instead of two. And being mainstreamed in math at the beginning of middle school instead of accelerated a year was particularly painful. Anecdotes are plentiful.

AlbertCory 3y ago

True story: one of my neighbors went to University of Chicago High School ("Uni High" as it's called). It was (and probably still is) a school for the extremely gifted. (I suppose they have some Reverse Imposters there, too, but I wouldn't know /s ) My dad was against my going there; I wouldn't be able to talk to ordinary people if I was only ever around those "gifted" kids. I suppose there's something to that; I cited this article: https://theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite-education/ https://theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite... by a guy who didn't know what to say to the plumber standing in his kitchen, whereas I'd much rather be around people like that than the Reverse Imposters.

anonymouskimmer 3y ago
Acceleration (universal or subject-specific grade skipping) can help with this. It challenges the gifted student appropriately while still allowing them to socialize with regular people. Naively it might seem that this could lead to bullying, but from what I read it tends to work really well. The older students aren't threatened by the prodigy.
- macintux 3y ago
  I took geometry as a freshman in a class full of juniors and seniors. The bullying was frequent, and the teacher strategically refused to show up on time so I had to either wait around outside the classroom like a coward or go in and be hazed.
  - garbagecoder 3y ago
    I skipped mid 3rd to mid 4th. I wasn't really that much younger, but it was not good. It wasn't just that they were bigger or whatever, but at that age what you're going through is still pretty tightly coupled to your age. I didn't feel normalish until well into high school. I don't recommend it. I recommend letting kids accelerate, but right now the consensus seems to be accelerate most people who need it at 9th grade, not 7th, and definitely not before. As with most of these things the consensus goes back and forth, but that squares with my lived experience.