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I know plenty of brilliant people who are now unemployed or severely underemployed (working minimum wage retail jobs despite having a college degree). Despite b

by a_c_s 12y ago

I know plenty of brilliant people who are now unemployed or severely underemployed (working minimum wage retail jobs despite having a college degree). Despite being academically gifted, they haven't found their way to careers that match their abilities. I haven't been able to put my finger on what exactly it is that causes these people to "get lost" on their way, but it is common enough that I think we need to be doing something differently with regards to gifted & talented education in the USA.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
Maybe a basic guaranteed income, so a physics PhD doesn't have to drive a bus to eat. Then they could, I don't know, work on physics!
- akmiller 12y ago
  Absolutely! We are way past the time, at least in the U.S., to not have a guaranteed basic income system of some type (that includes at least basic health care).
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
krigi 12y ago
I was once the person you describe, and I'm currently the person the parent comment describes (in a velvet coffin 100k+ job). One problem is that gifted programs (at least in public schools) are contrary to reality. If the gifted programs in your state are like the one I was enrolled in, then members had to have a 130+ IQ to be admitted. There is the rub. Upon exiting school you suddenly and jarringly discover that not everyone else in the world has a 130+ IQ like the people you spent the past 8-10 years with, and things get very slow. Even at places like Google and Facebook not everyone has a 130+ IQ. The world is a boring and unchallenging place when you're forced to go through it at school-zone speeds. Some people, like me, have severe difficulties adjusting to this deceleration. I was in gifted programs from first until tenth grade. However, after college (tech Ivy), I spent almost a decade in low-paying and unchallenging jobs while wracked with depression. Only a few years ago was I able to pull myself out of that hole. The solution is to disband gifted programs. The culture shock experienced by the members once the scaffolding is removed can be pretty severe. It's probably better to make the gifted kids understand that the other 96% of non-gifted people on earth with them are going to be around them all the time. They should learn to deal with it. If there's any gifted education, it should be outside of normal schooling.
- VLM 12y ago
  "The culture shock" I was also in a G+T program in the 80s and I'd say a major problem in young adult years is no one cares how smart you are, after 16 or so years of being told there's nothing more important than being smart. Much like your GPA, your IQ is pretty much irrelevant once you graduate. Workplace progress suddenly switches entirely over to who you know, who is your dad, who you impress, who you kiss up to, your golf game, etc.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    In other words, social skills. Maybe we can just add that to the curriculum? If a gifted child can attend to social cues and learn some beneficial behaviors (and they surely can), then the outcome could be much different?
    - krigi 12y ago
      You make it seem that gifted children lack social skills. We don't, however, you spend a lot of time with other gifted kids and types of behaviors that provide social currency in that circle may not do so in circles with non-gifted individuals. This is why I'd prefer gifted programs not exist. Artificially concentrating smart kids in a group and then scattering them into the world is pretty counterproductive. I mean, it makes the school district look good ("We have 120 high-IQ students in the county! Stellar exam scores! We're fantastic!"), and at the end of the day, that's all the matters. The school system doesn't care much what happens after the students have left it.
      - neilcrj 12y ago
        This is a function of how gifted kids learn social skills. Before adolescence, children primarily seek approval from parents and teachers. Gifted kids get this in abundance, and learn how to earn, as you put it, social currency with adults (at least those who value academics), which is not the same as how to earn social currency with their peers in adolescence and early adulthood. And of course, gifted students learn more quickly, and are reinforced more. It's a perfect environment for developing anti-social behaviors. For academic achievement, the majority of research backs up your thesis, and it isn't even a tradeoff, where you get better academics at the expense of worse socialization. Gifted programs don't work. It is far better to accelerate a student to a higher grade, even if it means putting students in classes with much older students (accelerating a gifted student is the most effective positive intervention that can be taken in K-12 education according to Hattie's recent review of meta-analyses, Visible Learning, and nothing else is close). It pushes them academically, and more often than not, helps them socialize, because they learn how older kids interact before internalizing too many abnormal frames and social habits.

by a_c_s 12y ago

JoeAltmaier 12y ago

Maybe a basic guaranteed income, so a physics PhD doesn't have to drive a bus to eat. Then they could, I don't know, work on physics!

akmiller 12y ago
Absolutely! We are way past the time, at least in the U.S., to not have a guaranteed basic income system of some type (that includes at least basic health care).

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

krigi 12y ago

I was once the person you describe, and I'm currently the person the parent comment describes (in a velvet coffin 100k+ job). One problem is that gifted programs (at least in public schools) are contrary to reality. If the gifted programs in your state are like the one I was enrolled in, then members had to have a 130+ IQ to be admitted. There is the rub. Upon exiting school you suddenly and jarringly discover that not everyone else in the world has a 130+ IQ like the people you spent the past 8-10 years with, and things get very slow. Even at places like Google and Facebook not everyone has a 130+ IQ. The world is a boring and unchallenging place when you're forced to go through it at school-zone speeds. Some people, like me, have severe difficulties adjusting to this deceleration. I was in gifted programs from first until tenth grade. However, after college (tech Ivy), I spent almost a decade in low-paying and unchallenging jobs while wracked with depression. Only a few years ago was I able to pull myself out of that hole. The solution is to disband gifted programs. The culture shock experienced by the members once the scaffolding is removed can be pretty severe. It's probably better to make the gifted kids understand that the other 96% of non-gifted people on earth with them are going to be around them all the time. They should learn to deal with it. If there's any gifted education, it should be outside of normal schooling.

VLM 12y ago
"The culture shock" I was also in a G+T program in the 80s and I'd say a major problem in young adult years is no one cares how smart you are, after 16 or so years of being told there's nothing more important than being smart. Much like your GPA, your IQ is pretty much irrelevant once you graduate. Workplace progress suddenly switches entirely over to who you know, who is your dad, who you impress, who you kiss up to, your golf game, etc.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  In other words, social skills. Maybe we can just add that to the curriculum? If a gifted child can attend to social cues and learn some beneficial behaviors (and they surely can), then the outcome could be much different?
  - krigi 12y ago
    You make it seem that gifted children lack social skills. We don't, however, you spend a lot of time with other gifted kids and types of behaviors that provide social currency in that circle may not do so in circles with non-gifted individuals. This is why I'd prefer gifted programs not exist. Artificially concentrating smart kids in a group and then scattering them into the world is pretty counterproductive. I mean, it makes the school district look good ("We have 120 high-IQ students in the county! Stellar exam scores! We're fantastic!"), and at the end of the day, that's all the matters. The school system doesn't care much what happens after the students have left it.
    - neilcrj 12y ago
      This is a function of how gifted kids learn social skills. Before adolescence, children primarily seek approval from parents and teachers. Gifted kids get this in abundance, and learn how to earn, as you put it, social currency with adults (at least those who value academics), which is not the same as how to earn social currency with their peers in adolescence and early adulthood. And of course, gifted students learn more quickly, and are reinforced more. It's a perfect environment for developing anti-social behaviors. For academic achievement, the majority of research backs up your thesis, and it isn't even a tradeoff, where you get better academics at the expense of worse socialization. Gifted programs don't work. It is far better to accelerate a student to a higher grade, even if it means putting students in classes with much older students (accelerating a gifted student is the most effective positive intervention that can be taken in K-12 education according to Hattie's recent review of meta-analyses, Visible Learning, and nothing else is close). It pushes them academically, and more often than not, helps them socialize, because they learn how older kids interact before internalizing too many abnormal frames and social habits.