7 ms·

Gifted children are special needs children

66 points by bko 1y ago

austin-cheney 1y ago
This talk about high performers and low performers needing focused environments to perform gets me thinking about the scenario of putting them together. I know this is not what the article is suggesting, but the thought is still there. This reminds me of conversations between the two ends of the Dunning-Kruger spectrum. In DK low performing people tend to vastly over-estimate their capabilities because their frame of reference is exceedingly narrow. High performers tend to under estimate their capabilities because in their vast experience they have forgotten a great many things that are either unnecessary or things that have become like muscle memory. The conversations are interesting because the high performers tend to be more humble, more confident, and less arrogant while the low performers tend to be the opposite. That is extremely interesting because of what is not said in the conversation. For the low performers everything tends to be literal to the spoken word and everything else becomes an assumption localized to their personal perspective. For the high performers the negative space in a conversation is just words in a different form that the low performers actively broadcast in complete ignorance. This remains true for both children and adults.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- incognito124 1y ago
  While interesting in itself, I don't see how both groups would benefit from such an arrangement
- cardanome 1y ago
  Do you consider yourself one of those people for those " the negative space in a conversation is just words in a different form"? Where is that take even coming from? Communication styles are very cultural. Japanese is very subtext-heavy while German is very direct. Are Japanese people more intelligent than German people? Furthermore it depends on how your brain is wired. Autistic people prefer direct communication while allistic (that means non-autistic) people rely more on context. Personally, I prefer people that are more direct. People that read crap into stuff that was never said grind my gears so much. It creates so much unnecessary drama. The claim that one form of communication is same sign of being a "high performer" is completely insane.
  - austin-cheney 1y ago
    > Personally, I prefer people that are more direct. When your social intelligence is high enough you realize everybody is always direct because communication is multidimensional. Honest only occurs when the words, vocalization, and body language are all in unison. Even then honesty only matters so much if the substance of content is inaccurate or invalid. Since you brought up autism, most people attempt to mask their emotions in times of discomfort. Masking is a form of dishonesty and people who are good a communication see it as such. As a counter example watch North Korea ambassadors speak at the UN. They are emotionless in their answers and its extremely unnatural. They do that intentionally, because no answer is ultimately safe and the greatest threat to their security comes from defiance to their own nation. As to your last statement high performance generally describes some utility, like a test score or job skill. Strong communication skills are generally described as an aptitude as opposed to a utility.
    - cardanome 1y ago
      > Masking is a form of dishonesty and people who are good a communication see it as such. Masking is autistic people adjusting their communication style so they are more acceptable to allistic people while neglecting their own needs. For example many autistic people show emotions differently. They can default to a flatter tone of voice or show less microexpressions in the face i.e a flatter affect. (Just to be clear, it does not mean they have less emotions. Just because someone expresses emotions differently does not mean they have more or less. Again, they could be for example extremely happy but you would read them as withdrawn and disinterested.) Much of autistic masking can be micromanaging these things. Tone of voice, face expressions, body language. ,And here comes the kicker: High-Masking autistic people are read as MORE honest and authentic by allistic people. Yes more honest no less. Because they show behavior that is you would say is more "in unison" from the point of view of an allistic person. It is the same effect when people think they are good at spotting a liar. There are studies that show they are worse or close to random chance. Flipping a coin is as reliable as "listening to your gut". People that think they are good at communication are the worst because they don't realize how full of shit they are. You can't know how another person feels, they can only tell you. I guess we are back to dunning kruger. Oh, the irony.
- JohnBooty 1y ago
  This talk about high performers and low performers needing focused environments to perform gets me thinking about the scenario of putting them together. Well, hold up. I think that some large school districts in major cities have magnet schools for gifted kids. But to my knowledge in America most gifted programs are not some kind of total segregation and I don't see a lot of people arguing for that either. In my experience in US public schools the "gifted" classes were like maybe 1/4 of our total classroom time. Likewise with developmentally-challenged kids. Most programs have an emphasis on varying levels of integration with the other kids. In some schools, the special-ed kids are in "regular" classrooms but have their own semi-dedicated assistants. (Example: 1 teacher, 20 kids, plus 1 special-ed assistant and 3-4 special ed kids)
  - austin-cheney 1y ago
    My wife works in a large public school system with academically disabled children. That school system, and it appears so in various degrees in neighboring school systems, that children with extreme academic performance disabilities are well separated from the general population, because they need more dedicated resources and if they are mixed into the general student population will consume a disproportionate amount of resources as to become a distraction. Super high achieving students, likewise, have special needs. They don't necessary require as much assistance as the students at the low end of the spectrum but they do require more dedicated resources. This is part because they move fast enough academically to consume educational material faster than general education can fill their needs. It isn't that the education material needs to be more challenging, but that it must also be replenished at a much faster rate. I have noticed these same sorts of trends during my software career as well. The low performers are bored because they have trouble with the standard tasks. If they are recoverable through coaching then its not a problem, but otherwise they can become a huge drag on the team. This is also true of high performers. High performers tend to get bored and distracted and have higher availability than there peers. Many of these high performers tend to do things they aren't supposed to, like contributing to competing open source or taking outside jobs, just to stay occupied.
Y_Y 1y ago
But that's a different meaning of "need" to what's normally used. Gifted kids don't need special attention to get through school and life the same way the intellectually impaired do. It's much better in the sense, that if they will survive and probably not even cause a fuss if you treat them like the lowest common denominator. It's worse in the sense that you're unlikely to get a strong signal, but without special treatment they'll perform much worse than their potential (personal and economic) and are likely to end up with a psychological disorder. But that's not as bad as people who'll get in trouble with medical or legal issues, so it's not top of mind for legislators, educators , and caregivers. (References available on request)
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- Simulacra 1y ago
  Good, clean, healthy food cost a lot of money. It cost more to buy a container of spinach, than it does to make cheeseburger macaroni. It cost more to buy products like Amy's, which supposedly have less highly processed ingredients, than it is to buy a can of Progresso. You're not wrong, but the healthy food companies are maximizing their profit, and riding on the healthy label and should be seen as contributing to the problem. This is putting healthier foods beyond the reach of the average person. Whole Foods is a classic example.
  - andsoitis 1y ago
    The average person absolutely can avail themselves to healthier options than they currently consume. Blaming the environment and forgetting that people have agency is very cynical. If you’ve availed yourself to educating yourself about nutrition AND you have adjusted your priorities so that healthier food takes the place of other expenditures and you still can’t afford healthy options, then let’s talk. If you buy soda instead of drinking water that comes free from a tap and you’re complaining about lack of healthy food accessibility, you’re not taking sufficient responsibility to improve your and your family’s health.
  - blackjack_ 1y ago
paxys 1y ago
It's crazy to me that there is so much pushback to ending a program for "gifted" kindergarteners. I'd say it's great for 4-5 year olds to be able to do...normal children things rather than have their lives ruined by their helicopter "my child is special" parents.
- surfmike 1y ago
  If Kindergarten were just play based schooling then I’d agree with you. But there is an academic component, for example learning to read, and students abilities can be radically different.
  - teiferer 1y ago
    You don't need kindergarten to teach reading. Mine didn't and I did fine. (Obtained a Ph.D. degree later in life.)
    - forgotoldacc 1y ago
      My parents taught me diddly squat, so I was glad my kindergarten teacher taught me how to read. That's half the reason kids are in kindergarten.
      - teiferer 1y ago
        Maybe it's because I'm old and things are different now, but back in the day, first year of primary school was when everybody learned to read. Some kids already knew some (incl. me), and that didn't necessarily make life easier for them since some parts of class they were then bored. Well, you learn to deal with it. It's not like such situations never occur in adult life. I often find myself in work meetings where colleague A explains something to a group of 10 people to get everybody on the same page, and there are often one or two folks who already know this stuff and are obviously uncomfortable for those 10 min of intro. Clearly, they never learned how to deal with such a situation.
        1y ago
ProllyInfamous 1y ago
Greetings fellow travelers [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twice_exceptional https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twice_exceptional ---- In response to OP's link, my suggestion to primary schools would be to scrap the G/T programs, and instead focus on reducing class-sizes. You should also remove any students from classrooms whom routinely distract from others' learning. Give those timesinks a broom, instead.
- rKarpinski 1y ago
  You basically just described what the NYC "G&T" program is. All it is smaller class sizes and less disruptive students. There are only like 4 actual accelerated learning programs out of the hundreds in NYC's "G&T".
  - ProllyInfamous 1y ago
    What percentage of NYC's students are in these programs? I was a student of public Texas ISDs, and briefly taught in Tennessee, so "public school" is an entirely different definition/beast than NYC's [probably better] education systems.
- energy123 1y ago
  Why does scrapping G/T programs have anything to do with reducing class sizes? You can do both at the same time, there is no reason to believe they are competing ideas.
  - pavel_lishin 1y ago
    They are very much competing for funding; reducing class sizes necessarily means hiring more teachers, which requires more budget.
  - ProllyInfamous 1y ago
    Yes, you can accomplish both programs. However, the limitation has to do with funding constraints. src: attended public schools in G/T programs (IMHO: "normal" and "G/T" kids benefit from being taught together, in smaller classrooms) src2: attended college on a full teaching scholarship (am no longer teaching) — "taught"[1] the classes with behavior problems [1] Babysat; I was made the bad kids teacher because I was a tall footballer that didn't take shit from physically abusive bullies. I never beat a kid up (although many friends have, deservedly) but definitely restrained a few.
munchler 1y ago
> the G&T system selects, however imperfectly, for merit and effort. This is true but doesn't answer the fundamental question of whether meritocracy results in a fair, healthy society. I think this is a nuanced issue with reasonable arguments on both sides, but the author simply assumes the answer is yes without actually addressing the question.
- bko 1y ago
  I don't know where this extreme egalitarian belief that it's bad to let smart people excel is coming from. How is it not healthy? Even Marxism, an extremely egalitarian system of belief has a phrase "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." People focus on the second part of the phrase, but the first part explicitly states we should strive to work up our individual ability and potential. Denying that is an entirely new concept that likely never existed prior to the last 50 years or so.
  - liveoneggs 1y ago
    it comes from valuing "Equity"
    - danaris 1y ago
      ....no, pretty much by definition, "equity" means giving everyone what they need to do well. You may be confusing it with "equality of outcomes"?
      - sickofparadox 1y ago
        In education, the effects of striving for equity in the US have amounted to a ridiculous level of Harrison Bergeroning within the public school system, which is partially responsible for the collapse in trust in schools.
      - liveoneggs 1y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_equity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_equity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantive_equality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantive_equality it's the 'E' in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity,_equity,_and_inclusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity,_equity,_and_inclusi...
beepbooptheory 1y ago
Doesn't this all kind of hinge on the idea that these programs indeed serve these kids? Maybe things are different now, but growing up in public school, GT was kind of seen as a joke and ultimately arbritrary. I think I lost my chance to get in because of my lack of cursive skills. We would compare assignments and laugh at the sameness, sometimes even lesser challenge, of the "gifted" classes. The only thing that really mattered back then was the standardized tests.
kragen 1y ago
For anyone else who is puzzled about why anyone could oppose such programs, I suggest reading https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Bergeron_djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Berge... (better version: https://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html https://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html)
throwhuppla 1y ago
“White or Asian” White is I imagine somewhat distributed across the board. Now Asian, does that imply broad distribution or is it mostly Chinese?
- reliabilityguy 1y ago
  Why does it matter?
teiferer 1y ago
> Even if you’re a blank slater who believes ability is evenly distributed, and a pure egalitarian who sees any demographic imbalance as injustice, even then, why destroy programs that benefit some children? Because the benefit of one is the disadvantage of somebody else. Same coin, different side. (That's not my argument, but I believe it is the argument on which this is based.) > This is one of the few mainstream policies I can’t understand from the other side A more even society may be a goal. Scandinavia in the 80s did a lot of that, left high performers in school hanging. For good or worse.
alsetmusic 1y ago
I dated someone who earned a psych degree while we were together. Her specific focus was on gifted kids. She described it as a pathology. She considered it something to be managed.
- a_red_horse 1y ago
  Do you know of any notable people in the industry or even articles or papers regarding this interpretation?
  - ProllyInfamous 1y ago
    It's only a subset of "gifted" children, but (e.g.): https://www.amazon.com/Twice-Exceptional-Supporting-Educating-Difficulties/dp/0190645474/ https://www.amazon.com/Twice-Exceptional-Supporting-Educatin...
ChrisArchitect 1y ago
Related: Mamdani says he would phase out NYC gifted program for early grades https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45452374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45452374
Zigurd 1y ago
Two wrongs don't make a dilemma or a binary choice. Fixing the lack of preparedness and inappropriate pedagogy for all students will help all students. G&T students are the easiest problem, especially if self-paced learning were the norm. Then deploy more of the human resources to the hard problems.
schnitzelstoat 1y ago
For some reason, radical egalitarianism seems to have taken hold across the West and separating children by ability is frowned upon. Here in Spain one of the far-left politicians was found to be sending both of his children to private school while preaching this enforced equality for the rest of us.
- teiferer 1y ago
  > radical Really? Why is everything called "radical" nowadays? The "radical left" who want healthcare for everybody, the "radical right" who oppose immigration. Radical egalitarianism? Really? Because they don't want to fund programs for gifted kids? You may not like it (I myself am ambivalent and the best solution is likely in the middle), but it's not "radical".
  - jlawson 1y ago
    The belief that every child has the same natural ability is as radical. It's radical because goes against all evidence, experience, and common sense - it is ideology taken to a puritanical extreme. There is no more extreme position one can take.
    - teiferer 1y ago
      Though I don't think that's the argument. Even those advocating for the end of the program for gifted kids don't believe that all children have the same natural ability. Maybe some of them do, but the main arguments are different and are not actually that "radical". And even if that was the argument, the term was used in the context of "radical egalitarianism". So, the argument doesn't automatically transfer to such a radical variety of "egalitarianism" in society as a whole if it focuses on a single aspect. There are two levels of quite extreme exaggeration here, calling the end of a particular school program "radical egalitarianism". Which words should we use if an actual radical proposal comes along?
      - jlawson 1y ago
        Ending all school programs that separate children by ability is the most radically egalitarian position possible, even in theory. There is no more extreme position one can take. Given that, there's nothing else to save the word for. This is the limit; the max. So if radical refers to anything at all, it refers to this.
mobilene 1y ago
I entered middle school in 1979, at which time I was slotted into available "advanced" classes. This was as close to a G&T program as we had. It changed my game. Not because of the knowledge imparted, but because (a) I was with other kids who wanted to learn and were willing to work, and (b) I was largely removed from the disruptions I had increasingly experienced from kids who didn't want to be there. At last, I could relax and just do school. It didn't make school a paradise, but it sure removed the worst of what was problematic for me about it. Freed from most of the nonsense, I was in a better head space and was able to do well.
- PaulKeeble 1y ago
  A lesson runs at the pace of the slowest students, and those slowest students don't want to learn and actively disrupt the class and everyone else. We tolerate this far too much its damaging to the other 20-30 children in the same lessons and moving them to their own classes would have a much bigger average impact than picking the brightest for special lessons. Ideally we would do both so people could go closer to their pace.
  - jjj123 1y ago
    > and those slowest students don't want to learn This is not a fair assumption and is what leads to kids in remedial classes not getting a decent education. Kids can be genuinely disruptive or not care, or they can care but struggle with the material, those are orthogonal traits. I don’t disagree that the lesson goes at the pace of the slowest students, but those slow students deserve a disruption-free classroom too, even if it moves slower than the advanced class.
  - foogazi 1y ago
    > and those slowest students don't want to learn and actively disrupt the class and everyone else. Disrupting the class is something that can be proven But I’m not sure about them not wanting to learn - maybe they end up not learning but how can you attribute it to a want ?
- burnt-resistor 1y ago
ryeats 1y ago
Gifted programs aren't perfect, simply holding students accountable regardless of gifted status would be better. However skin color seems like the dumbest metric to use to hold these programs accountable and has little to do with students test scores so it's highly doubtful that managing your school based on that is going to have a positive outcome.
thebigspacefuck 1y ago
I am so against this. I taught myself to read at 4 and taught myself up to 5th grade math in the first grade. They basically let us do whatever we wanted in that class and it was great. Then second grade onward was structured and so incredibly boring as I waited years to finally get back to the math I knew how to do in grade 1. Then I got into algebra and it was another snooze fest going at the pace of everyone else. I was deep into drugs before I got to something interesting like multi dimensional Calculus and it was only due to my severe misbehavior and my parents catching me before I OD’ed on benzos that I became lucid in the last couple of months of class to pick it up. Finally got my shit together in college and got a masters in EE, but man I feel like I wasted so much potential if I could have only gone my speed. And to be clear, I was in a G&T program after 6th grade but it was too little too late. In first grade my best friend was Asian and we worked on math together and geeked out about cool science shit, that’s what I wish I could have done the whole time. I was in a small town where there were few of us, but I imagine NYC could be an amazing place to create a space for gifted learning.
OnionBlender 1y ago
My brother was identified as "gifted" and I was identified as having a "learning disability". He got pulled out of class to work with other gifted kids on special projects (like computer programming in the 90s). I got pulled out of science class to be taught remedial grammar and receive one-on-one help with math. This made me feel like I was dumber than the other kids and that I had to study hard to compensate. Meanwhile, my brother had everyone telling him how smart and gifted he is. We both went to university, but he barely got accepted and nearly dropped out. I think I did a lot better at university because I was already accustomed to needing to study. Many years later I learned that there have been studies about this "praise for effort versus praise for intelligence" dynamic.
bccdee 1y ago
The primary reason I was admitted into my local gifted program was because my parents and teachers pushed to get me into it. At age 6, I scored a high enough IQ to get in, but my family had to pay to have the test administered privately. The makeup of my cohort was mostly white and Asian, but they were also distinctly middle-to-upper-middle-class, with a high density of stay-at-home mothers (like my own) who were active in the school board and knew how to push the right buttons to get their kids into special programs. > I’ve never seen a satisfying explanation for why a supposedly unjust system, one assumed to disadvantage certain groups, would “accidentally” advantage Asians, often above native-born white students. Many immigrant groups have, on average, a higher socioeconomic status than native-born Americans. Even Black African immigrants tend to be more affluent than the mean of the white American population, because immigrating is expensive and it selects for wealth. My family are middle-class in North American, but they immigrated from South America, where were distinctly better-off than the average. Affluence has much more explanatory power than merit, especially in the absence of any mechanism for the supposed racial merit which the author of this newsletter seems to be ascribing to the Asian population.
- lostmsu 1y ago
  Your anecdote does not support your own conclusion, because it is very possible that affluence was obtained by parent's merit, and merit is highly hereditable.
  - bccdee 1y ago
    > merit is highly hereditable That's a foolish statement on its face. "Merit" quantifies whether someone deserves something, and it depends both on the deserved thing and the rubric for judgment. Some forms of merit are fairly heritable (basketball skill) and others aren't (trivia knowledge). My grandparents didn't make money by passing admission exams for the grade 1 gifted program.
    - lostmsu 1y ago
      > quantifies whether someone deserves something That's one definition of the term, but this subthread is talking about the other ones. > Superior quality or worth; excellence > Demonstrated ability or achievement These are highly hereditable. > My grandparents didn't make money by passing admission exams for the grade 1 gifted program. It does not matter for the discussion. The point being discussed is whether skills or wealth came first, and heritability of skills indicate the first option. There's no data, including your grandparents, that would indicate the second one.
em-bee 1y ago
i find it disappointing that whenever this issue comes up, the obvious solution is being ignored: montessori. it solves both problems: integrating a diversity of children and allowing children to learn according their capacity and interest. because each child gets to learn at their own pace, from the gifted all the way to intellectually disabled, all in the same class. (the term disabled feels wrong, but i am not sure what the correct term here is, i picked this one from wikipedia) ironically, but in line with the title, maria montessori developed that curriculum specifically for disabled/special needs children. turns out what is good for special needs children also works for normal children. and it would not be expensive. training a montessori kindergarten teacher takes one year. you don't even need a full degree, or it could easily be included in a degree curriculum.
- greygoo222 1y ago
  I went to a Montessori kindergarten and I still got sent to a psychologist for acting out because I wasn't challenged enough. What I needed was a more rigorous curriculum and peers that were on the same level.
  - em-bee 1y ago
    then your teachers weren't trained well enough. unfortunately montessori is not a protected term, so any school can call themselves montessori, whether they actually do the montessori curriculum or a half assed version of it or none at all.
    - greygoo222 1y ago
      This sounds like a No True Scotsman. What's the evidence that "real" Montessori does work well for children of all academic levels, when placed in the same class?
bloppe 1y ago
This is the political horseshoe coming together. The right wing thinks browns are stealing jobs from whites by simply existing. The left wing thinks whites are stealing jobs from browns by getting a better education, and want to abolish that opportunity. So both sides have decided on a remedy that actually makes everybody worse off, but in different ways. Can't wait to pick that poison
silexia 1y ago
Destroying gifted programs is an insidious form of socialism. Socialism seeks to take from those who work hard and give to those who do not. Socialism inevitably collapses into dictatorship. That is the end goal of those who push it (other than fools who believe in an impossible utopia that ignores human nature). Destroying gifted programs is just another attempt to make everyone poor and under government control.
- DamonHD 1y ago
  Socialism is building freeways and armies through socialised costs for a common good.

66 points by bko 1y ago

This talk about high performers and low performers needing focused environments to perform gets me thinking about the scenario of putting them together. I know this is not what the article is suggesting, but the thought is still there. This reminds me of conversations between the two ends of the Dunning-Kruger spectrum. In DK low performing people tend to vastly over-estimate their capabilities because their frame of reference is exceedingly narrow. High performers tend to under estimate their capabilities because in their vast experience they have forgotten a great many things that are either unnecessary or things that have become like muscle memory. The conversations are interesting because the high performers tend to be more humble, more confident, and less arrogant while the low performers tend to be the opposite. That is extremely interesting because of what is not said in the conversation. For the low performers everything tends to be literal to the spoken word and everything else becomes an assumption localized to their personal perspective. For the high performers the negative space in a conversation is just words in a different form that the low performers actively broadcast in complete ignorance. This remains true for both children and adults.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
incognito124 1y ago
While interesting in itself, I don't see how both groups would benefit from such an arrangement
cardanome 1y ago
Do you consider yourself one of those people for those " the negative space in a conversation is just words in a different form"? Where is that take even coming from? Communication styles are very cultural. Japanese is very subtext-heavy while German is very direct. Are Japanese people more intelligent than German people? Furthermore it depends on how your brain is wired. Autistic people prefer direct communication while allistic (that means non-autistic) people rely more on context. Personally, I prefer people that are more direct. People that read crap into stuff that was never said grind my gears so much. It creates so much unnecessary drama. The claim that one form of communication is same sign of being a "high performer" is completely insane.
- austin-cheney 1y ago
  > Personally, I prefer people that are more direct. When your social intelligence is high enough you realize everybody is always direct because communication is multidimensional. Honest only occurs when the words, vocalization, and body language are all in unison. Even then honesty only matters so much if the substance of content is inaccurate or invalid. Since you brought up autism, most people attempt to mask their emotions in times of discomfort. Masking is a form of dishonesty and people who are good a communication see it as such. As a counter example watch North Korea ambassadors speak at the UN. They are emotionless in their answers and its extremely unnatural. They do that intentionally, because no answer is ultimately safe and the greatest threat to their security comes from defiance to their own nation. As to your last statement high performance generally describes some utility, like a test score or job skill. Strong communication skills are generally described as an aptitude as opposed to a utility.
  - cardanome 1y ago
    > Masking is a form of dishonesty and people who are good a communication see it as such. Masking is autistic people adjusting their communication style so they are more acceptable to allistic people while neglecting their own needs. For example many autistic people show emotions differently. They can default to a flatter tone of voice or show less microexpressions in the face i.e a flatter affect. (Just to be clear, it does not mean they have less emotions. Just because someone expresses emotions differently does not mean they have more or less. Again, they could be for example extremely happy but you would read them as withdrawn and disinterested.) Much of autistic masking can be micromanaging these things. Tone of voice, face expressions, body language. ,And here comes the kicker: High-Masking autistic people are read as MORE honest and authentic by allistic people. Yes more honest no less. Because they show behavior that is you would say is more "in unison" from the point of view of an allistic person. It is the same effect when people think they are good at spotting a liar. There are studies that show they are worse or close to random chance. Flipping a coin is as reliable as "listening to your gut". People that think they are good at communication are the worst because they don't realize how full of shit they are. You can't know how another person feels, they can only tell you. I guess we are back to dunning kruger. Oh, the irony.
JohnBooty 1y ago
This talk about high performers and low performers needing focused environments to perform gets me thinking about the scenario of putting them together. Well, hold up. I think that some large school districts in major cities have magnet schools for gifted kids. But to my knowledge in America most gifted programs are not some kind of total segregation and I don't see a lot of people arguing for that either. In my experience in US public schools the "gifted" classes were like maybe 1/4 of our total classroom time. Likewise with developmentally-challenged kids. Most programs have an emphasis on varying levels of integration with the other kids. In some schools, the special-ed kids are in "regular" classrooms but have their own semi-dedicated assistants. (Example: 1 teacher, 20 kids, plus 1 special-ed assistant and 3-4 special ed kids)
- austin-cheney 1y ago
  My wife works in a large public school system with academically disabled children. That school system, and it appears so in various degrees in neighboring school systems, that children with extreme academic performance disabilities are well separated from the general population, because they need more dedicated resources and if they are mixed into the general student population will consume a disproportionate amount of resources as to become a distraction. Super high achieving students, likewise, have special needs. They don't necessary require as much assistance as the students at the low end of the spectrum but they do require more dedicated resources. This is part because they move fast enough academically to consume educational material faster than general education can fill their needs. It isn't that the education material needs to be more challenging, but that it must also be replenished at a much faster rate. I have noticed these same sorts of trends during my software career as well. The low performers are bored because they have trouble with the standard tasks. If they are recoverable through coaching then its not a problem, but otherwise they can become a huge drag on the team. This is also true of high performers. High performers tend to get bored and distracted and have higher availability than there peers. Many of these high performers tend to do things they aren't supposed to, like contributing to competing open source or taking outside jobs, just to stay occupied.

Y_Y 1y ago

But that's a different meaning of "need" to what's normally used. Gifted kids don't need special attention to get through school and life the same way the intellectually impaired do. It's much better in the sense, that if they will survive and probably not even cause a fuss if you treat them like the lowest common denominator. It's worse in the sense that you're unlikely to get a strong signal, but without special treatment they'll perform much worse than their potential (personal and economic) and are likely to end up with a psychological disorder. But that's not as bad as people who'll get in trouble with medical or legal issues, so it's not top of mind for legislators, educators , and caregivers. (References available on request)

deleted 1y ago
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Simulacra 1y ago
Good, clean, healthy food cost a lot of money. It cost more to buy a container of spinach, than it does to make cheeseburger macaroni. It cost more to buy products like Amy's, which supposedly have less highly processed ingredients, than it is to buy a can of Progresso. You're not wrong, but the healthy food companies are maximizing their profit, and riding on the healthy label and should be seen as contributing to the problem. This is putting healthier foods beyond the reach of the average person. Whole Foods is a classic example.
- andsoitis 1y ago
  The average person absolutely can avail themselves to healthier options than they currently consume. Blaming the environment and forgetting that people have agency is very cynical. If you’ve availed yourself to educating yourself about nutrition AND you have adjusted your priorities so that healthier food takes the place of other expenditures and you still can’t afford healthy options, then let’s talk. If you buy soda instead of drinking water that comes free from a tap and you’re complaining about lack of healthy food accessibility, you’re not taking sufficient responsibility to improve your and your family’s health.
- blackjack_ 1y ago

paxys 1y ago

It's crazy to me that there is so much pushback to ending a program for "gifted" kindergarteners. I'd say it's great for 4-5 year olds to be able to do...normal children things rather than have their lives ruined by their helicopter "my child is special" parents.

surfmike 1y ago
If Kindergarten were just play based schooling then I’d agree with you. But there is an academic component, for example learning to read, and students abilities can be radically different.
- teiferer 1y ago
  You don't need kindergarten to teach reading. Mine didn't and I did fine. (Obtained a Ph.D. degree later in life.)
  - forgotoldacc 1y ago
    My parents taught me diddly squat, so I was glad my kindergarten teacher taught me how to read. That's half the reason kids are in kindergarten.
    - teiferer 1y ago
      Maybe it's because I'm old and things are different now, but back in the day, first year of primary school was when everybody learned to read. Some kids already knew some (incl. me), and that didn't necessarily make life easier for them since some parts of class they were then bored. Well, you learn to deal with it. It's not like such situations never occur in adult life. I often find myself in work meetings where colleague A explains something to a group of 10 people to get everybody on the same page, and there are often one or two folks who already know this stuff and are obviously uncomfortable for those 10 min of intro. Clearly, they never learned how to deal with such a situation.
      - 1y ago

ProllyInfamous 1y ago

Greetings fellow travelers [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twice_exceptional https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twice_exceptional ---- In response to OP's link, my suggestion to primary schools would be to scrap the G/T programs, and instead focus on reducing class-sizes. You should also remove any students from classrooms whom routinely distract from others' learning. Give those timesinks a broom, instead.

rKarpinski 1y ago
You basically just described what the NYC "G&T" program is. All it is smaller class sizes and less disruptive students. There are only like 4 actual accelerated learning programs out of the hundreds in NYC's "G&T".
- ProllyInfamous 1y ago
  What percentage of NYC's students are in these programs? I was a student of public Texas ISDs, and briefly taught in Tennessee, so "public school" is an entirely different definition/beast than NYC's [probably better] education systems.
energy123 1y ago
Why does scrapping G/T programs have anything to do with reducing class sizes? You can do both at the same time, there is no reason to believe they are competing ideas.
- pavel_lishin 1y ago
  They are very much competing for funding; reducing class sizes necessarily means hiring more teachers, which requires more budget.
- ProllyInfamous 1y ago
  Yes, you can accomplish both programs. However, the limitation has to do with funding constraints. src: attended public schools in G/T programs (IMHO: "normal" and "G/T" kids benefit from being taught together, in smaller classrooms) src2: attended college on a full teaching scholarship (am no longer teaching) — "taught"[1] the classes with behavior problems [1] Babysat; I was made the bad kids teacher because I was a tall footballer that didn't take shit from physically abusive bullies. I never beat a kid up (although many friends have, deservedly) but definitely restrained a few.

munchler 1y ago

> the G&T system selects, however imperfectly, for merit and effort. This is true but doesn't answer the fundamental question of whether meritocracy results in a fair, healthy society. I think this is a nuanced issue with reasonable arguments on both sides, but the author simply assumes the answer is yes without actually addressing the question.

bko 1y ago
I don't know where this extreme egalitarian belief that it's bad to let smart people excel is coming from. How is it not healthy? Even Marxism, an extremely egalitarian system of belief has a phrase "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." People focus on the second part of the phrase, but the first part explicitly states we should strive to work up our individual ability and potential. Denying that is an entirely new concept that likely never existed prior to the last 50 years or so.
- liveoneggs 1y ago
  it comes from valuing "Equity"
  - danaris 1y ago
    ....no, pretty much by definition, "equity" means giving everyone what they need to do well. You may be confusing it with "equality of outcomes"?
    - sickofparadox 1y ago
      In education, the effects of striving for equity in the US have amounted to a ridiculous level of Harrison Bergeroning within the public school system, which is partially responsible for the collapse in trust in schools.
    - liveoneggs 1y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_equity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_equity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantive_equality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantive_equality it's the 'E' in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity,_equity,_and_inclusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity,_equity,_and_inclusi...

beepbooptheory 1y ago

Doesn't this all kind of hinge on the idea that these programs indeed serve these kids? Maybe things are different now, but growing up in public school, GT was kind of seen as a joke and ultimately arbritrary. I think I lost my chance to get in because of my lack of cursive skills. We would compare assignments and laugh at the sameness, sometimes even lesser challenge, of the "gifted" classes. The only thing that really mattered back then was the standardized tests.

kragen 1y ago

For anyone else who is puzzled about why anyone could oppose such programs, I suggest reading https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Bergeron_djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Berge... (better version: https://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html https://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html)

throwhuppla 1y ago

“White or Asian” White is I imagine somewhat distributed across the board. Now Asian, does that imply broad distribution or is it mostly Chinese?

reliabilityguy 1y ago
Why does it matter?

teiferer 1y ago

> Even if you’re a blank slater who believes ability is evenly distributed, and a pure egalitarian who sees any demographic imbalance as injustice, even then, why destroy programs that benefit some children? Because the benefit of one is the disadvantage of somebody else. Same coin, different side. (That's not my argument, but I believe it is the argument on which this is based.) > This is one of the few mainstream policies I can’t understand from the other side A more even society may be a goal. Scandinavia in the 80s did a lot of that, left high performers in school hanging. For good or worse.

alsetmusic 1y ago

I dated someone who earned a psych degree while we were together. Her specific focus was on gifted kids. She described it as a pathology. She considered it something to be managed.

a_red_horse 1y ago
Do you know of any notable people in the industry or even articles or papers regarding this interpretation?
- ProllyInfamous 1y ago
  It's only a subset of "gifted" children, but (e.g.): https://www.amazon.com/Twice-Exceptional-Supporting-Educating-Difficulties/dp/0190645474/ https://www.amazon.com/Twice-Exceptional-Supporting-Educatin...

ChrisArchitect 1y ago

Related: Mamdani says he would phase out NYC gifted program for early grades https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45452374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45452374

Zigurd 1y ago

Two wrongs don't make a dilemma or a binary choice. Fixing the lack of preparedness and inappropriate pedagogy for all students will help all students. G&T students are the easiest problem, especially if self-paced learning were the norm. Then deploy more of the human resources to the hard problems.

schnitzelstoat 1y ago

For some reason, radical egalitarianism seems to have taken hold across the West and separating children by ability is frowned upon. Here in Spain one of the far-left politicians was found to be sending both of his children to private school while preaching this enforced equality for the rest of us.

teiferer 1y ago
> radical Really? Why is everything called "radical" nowadays? The "radical left" who want healthcare for everybody, the "radical right" who oppose immigration. Radical egalitarianism? Really? Because they don't want to fund programs for gifted kids? You may not like it (I myself am ambivalent and the best solution is likely in the middle), but it's not "radical".
- jlawson 1y ago
  The belief that every child has the same natural ability is as radical. It's radical because goes against all evidence, experience, and common sense - it is ideology taken to a puritanical extreme. There is no more extreme position one can take.
  - teiferer 1y ago
    Though I don't think that's the argument. Even those advocating for the end of the program for gifted kids don't believe that all children have the same natural ability. Maybe some of them do, but the main arguments are different and are not actually that "radical". And even if that was the argument, the term was used in the context of "radical egalitarianism". So, the argument doesn't automatically transfer to such a radical variety of "egalitarianism" in society as a whole if it focuses on a single aspect. There are two levels of quite extreme exaggeration here, calling the end of a particular school program "radical egalitarianism". Which words should we use if an actual radical proposal comes along?
    - jlawson 1y ago
      Ending all school programs that separate children by ability is the most radically egalitarian position possible, even in theory. There is no more extreme position one can take. Given that, there's nothing else to save the word for. This is the limit; the max. So if radical refers to anything at all, it refers to this.

mobilene 1y ago

I entered middle school in 1979, at which time I was slotted into available "advanced" classes. This was as close to a G&T program as we had. It changed my game. Not because of the knowledge imparted, but because (a) I was with other kids who wanted to learn and were willing to work, and (b) I was largely removed from the disruptions I had increasingly experienced from kids who didn't want to be there. At last, I could relax and just do school. It didn't make school a paradise, but it sure removed the worst of what was problematic for me about it. Freed from most of the nonsense, I was in a better head space and was able to do well.

PaulKeeble 1y ago
A lesson runs at the pace of the slowest students, and those slowest students don't want to learn and actively disrupt the class and everyone else. We tolerate this far too much its damaging to the other 20-30 children in the same lessons and moving them to their own classes would have a much bigger average impact than picking the brightest for special lessons. Ideally we would do both so people could go closer to their pace.
- jjj123 1y ago
  > and those slowest students don't want to learn This is not a fair assumption and is what leads to kids in remedial classes not getting a decent education. Kids can be genuinely disruptive or not care, or they can care but struggle with the material, those are orthogonal traits. I don’t disagree that the lesson goes at the pace of the slowest students, but those slow students deserve a disruption-free classroom too, even if it moves slower than the advanced class.
- foogazi 1y ago
  > and those slowest students don't want to learn and actively disrupt the class and everyone else. Disrupting the class is something that can be proven But I’m not sure about them not wanting to learn - maybe they end up not learning but how can you attribute it to a want ?
burnt-resistor 1y ago

ryeats 1y ago

Gifted programs aren't perfect, simply holding students accountable regardless of gifted status would be better. However skin color seems like the dumbest metric to use to hold these programs accountable and has little to do with students test scores so it's highly doubtful that managing your school based on that is going to have a positive outcome.

thebigspacefuck 1y ago

I am so against this. I taught myself to read at 4 and taught myself up to 5th grade math in the first grade. They basically let us do whatever we wanted in that class and it was great. Then second grade onward was structured and so incredibly boring as I waited years to finally get back to the math I knew how to do in grade 1. Then I got into algebra and it was another snooze fest going at the pace of everyone else. I was deep into drugs before I got to something interesting like multi dimensional Calculus and it was only due to my severe misbehavior and my parents catching me before I OD’ed on benzos that I became lucid in the last couple of months of class to pick it up. Finally got my shit together in college and got a masters in EE, but man I feel like I wasted so much potential if I could have only gone my speed. And to be clear, I was in a G&T program after 6th grade but it was too little too late. In first grade my best friend was Asian and we worked on math together and geeked out about cool science shit, that’s what I wish I could have done the whole time. I was in a small town where there were few of us, but I imagine NYC could be an amazing place to create a space for gifted learning.

OnionBlender 1y ago

My brother was identified as "gifted" and I was identified as having a "learning disability". He got pulled out of class to work with other gifted kids on special projects (like computer programming in the 90s). I got pulled out of science class to be taught remedial grammar and receive one-on-one help with math. This made me feel like I was dumber than the other kids and that I had to study hard to compensate. Meanwhile, my brother had everyone telling him how smart and gifted he is. We both went to university, but he barely got accepted and nearly dropped out. I think I did a lot better at university because I was already accustomed to needing to study. Many years later I learned that there have been studies about this "praise for effort versus praise for intelligence" dynamic.

bccdee 1y ago

The primary reason I was admitted into my local gifted program was because my parents and teachers pushed to get me into it. At age 6, I scored a high enough IQ to get in, but my family had to pay to have the test administered privately. The makeup of my cohort was mostly white and Asian, but they were also distinctly middle-to-upper-middle-class, with a high density of stay-at-home mothers (like my own) who were active in the school board and knew how to push the right buttons to get their kids into special programs. > I’ve never seen a satisfying explanation for why a supposedly unjust system, one assumed to disadvantage certain groups, would “accidentally” advantage Asians, often above native-born white students. Many immigrant groups have, on average, a higher socioeconomic status than native-born Americans. Even Black African immigrants tend to be more affluent than the mean of the white American population, because immigrating is expensive and it selects for wealth. My family are middle-class in North American, but they immigrated from South America, where were distinctly better-off than the average. Affluence has much more explanatory power than merit, especially in the absence of any mechanism for the supposed racial merit which the author of this newsletter seems to be ascribing to the Asian population.

lostmsu 1y ago
Your anecdote does not support your own conclusion, because it is very possible that affluence was obtained by parent's merit, and merit is highly hereditable.
- bccdee 1y ago
  > merit is highly hereditable That's a foolish statement on its face. "Merit" quantifies whether someone deserves something, and it depends both on the deserved thing and the rubric for judgment. Some forms of merit are fairly heritable (basketball skill) and others aren't (trivia knowledge). My grandparents didn't make money by passing admission exams for the grade 1 gifted program.
  - lostmsu 1y ago
    > quantifies whether someone deserves something That's one definition of the term, but this subthread is talking about the other ones. > Superior quality or worth; excellence > Demonstrated ability or achievement These are highly hereditable. > My grandparents didn't make money by passing admission exams for the grade 1 gifted program. It does not matter for the discussion. The point being discussed is whether skills or wealth came first, and heritability of skills indicate the first option. There's no data, including your grandparents, that would indicate the second one.

em-bee 1y ago

i find it disappointing that whenever this issue comes up, the obvious solution is being ignored: montessori. it solves both problems: integrating a diversity of children and allowing children to learn according their capacity and interest. because each child gets to learn at their own pace, from the gifted all the way to intellectually disabled, all in the same class. (the term disabled feels wrong, but i am not sure what the correct term here is, i picked this one from wikipedia) ironically, but in line with the title, maria montessori developed that curriculum specifically for disabled/special needs children. turns out what is good for special needs children also works for normal children. and it would not be expensive. training a montessori kindergarten teacher takes one year. you don't even need a full degree, or it could easily be included in a degree curriculum.

greygoo222 1y ago
I went to a Montessori kindergarten and I still got sent to a psychologist for acting out because I wasn't challenged enough. What I needed was a more rigorous curriculum and peers that were on the same level.
- em-bee 1y ago
  then your teachers weren't trained well enough. unfortunately montessori is not a protected term, so any school can call themselves montessori, whether they actually do the montessori curriculum or a half assed version of it or none at all.
  - greygoo222 1y ago
    This sounds like a No True Scotsman. What's the evidence that "real" Montessori does work well for children of all academic levels, when placed in the same class?

bloppe 1y ago

This is the political horseshoe coming together. The right wing thinks browns are stealing jobs from whites by simply existing. The left wing thinks whites are stealing jobs from browns by getting a better education, and want to abolish that opportunity. So both sides have decided on a remedy that actually makes everybody worse off, but in different ways. Can't wait to pick that poison

silexia 1y ago

Destroying gifted programs is an insidious form of socialism. Socialism seeks to take from those who work hard and give to those who do not. Socialism inevitably collapses into dictatorship. That is the end goal of those who push it (other than fools who believe in an impossible utopia that ignores human nature). Destroying gifted programs is just another attempt to make everyone poor and under government control.

DamonHD 1y ago
Socialism is building freeways and armies through socialised costs for a common good.