tjr@ihnet.UUCP (01/30/84)
I wish to enter this discussion of school programs for "gifted" children
from another viewpoint - personal experience. In 1955, at Christmas,
I was moved from kindergarten to first grade, one year ahead of normal;
since then, I attended one grade ahead of the other kids my age.
THIS WAS GREAT! Even without it, I was usually bored stiff in school,
until I reached post-graduate studies at the University of Illinois.
The boredom of intelligent children in the public-school system cannot
be overestimated. Teachers have to run the classes for the "average"; they
run remedial sessions for the "slower", and usually let the "brighter" children
fend for themselves. The only teachers I remember are those that made some
effort to challenge me, by special assignments or suggestions for outside
reading or projects. Many teachers interpreted my boredom as indifference
or antagonism, which complicated the situation.
I believe that any effort to encourage school children to expand their
horizons or to really get out there and "think" MUST be encouraged.
Remember, the "best and brightest" will be the leaders of tomorrow,
we should try to help them, not constantly put impediments in their path.
To the parent that expressed concern that their child's program was not
effective, or was downright wrong: sure, every program must be evaluated
upon its own merits; but remember, YOU are NOT an eight-year-old (I doubt
that you enjoy finger-painting, why should you enjoy intellectual exercises
aimed at children?) - the program should be evaluated BY THE CHILDREN.
Yes, young children can be amazingly adult at times; they can also be
exasperatingly childish, God Bless 'Em.
The example given was that "pig:pork" was claimed to be 'the same
relationship' as "egg:chicken"; clearly they are not THE SAME (in some
sense), but there clearly are some aspects that are THE SAME (i.e.
one becomes the other). Taking such an example out of context can be very
misleading - what the teacher says and does with such an example is all
important. This could be a deliberate attempt to get the children to
examing what "the same" means, and not merely an exercise in relationships;
I don't know, I wasn't there. I think that this example could be brilliant,
with GREAT pedagogical potential - there are several other aspects of
"sameness" and "relationships" and "becoming" (etc.) that could be explored.
It all depends upon the teacher; if the children were encouraged to use this
as a springboard into other ideas, it seems to me to be EXACTLY what a
program for gifted children should be all about.
[Don't say that I am ascribing too much intelligence to children -
I distinctly remember an I.Q. test I took in 3rd-6th grade, containing
just such relationship questions. I had never seen such questions
before, and after a few minutes of figuring out just what was
being asked, I was amazed (and excited) at the breadth and
generality such relationships among relationships expressed.
Taking that TEST was a major LEARNING EXPERIENCE for me.]
In short, talk to your children about their schooling, and such programs -
they are people, too, and their evaluation is really the important one.
Tom Roberts
{ihnp4!}ihnet!tjrdave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (02/01/84)
Special classes for gifted children are definitely preferable to skipping
multiple grades, in my view. I skipped a bunch of grades in elementary
school, and wound up with a social problem in not being able to fit well
into a Grade 5 class at age 7.
I don't think picking the top 7% of the class, based on IQ tests, makes
any sense. It seems to me that only when you have kids who clearly
aren't getting anything out of the regular classes, because they're
already way above the teaching level, should you take them out (perhaps
for part of the day) and give them a special program. There may be
plenty of kids with high "IQs" who fit in fine into the regular program,
and I see no reason to disturb their education simply because we think
they're capable of "more".
Dave Sherman
Toronto
--
{allegra,cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo}!utcsrgv!davemason@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Mason) (02/01/84)
This discussion looks interesting, partly because the right answers are
far from obvious (to me at any rate):
1) arbitrarily streaming kids (particularly from an early age) seems
very counter-productive, it seriously limits those who don't
have the right stuff at the right time.
2) skipping grades involves sufficient social dislocation, and in many
cases solves so little of the original problem/boredom that it
is not obviously any better.
3) doing nothing seriously handicaps the potential of the best and the
brightest that we are becoming increasingly dependent on to solve
some of the world's problems, not to mention boring the hell out
of the poor kids.
In many ways, grade 3 was my best year: I made straight A's, was class
president, wrote letters to the local senator, convincing him to donate
apples from his farm so the class could sell them, organized and packaged
care packages, and sent them off. Obviously impressed, teachers and my
parents decided I should skip grade 4. Thereafter, I was always 6th in
my class, but only got A's in math & science, almost failed my first year of
university when I realized it was no better than high school, eventually
did it in 3 years instead of 4 because the boredom would be over earlier,
(little did I know what the working world was like!). I'm sure many
others on the net have similar stories, but my problem is: Should I
have skipped? Should I have skipped more? Would a separate stream have
helped? What if my parents hadn't been supportive? Hard questions all.
I think my preference would be the way it actually was, but I did get tired
of "Could do much better if he would try/apply himself", which might not have
been the case in another scenario. I look forward to the discussion!
--
{dalcs dciem garfield hcr musocs orcatech qucis rhodnius sask titan trigraph
ubc-vision utzoo watmath allegra cornell decvax decwrl ihnp4 uw-beaver}
!utcsrgv!mason Dave Mason, U. Toronto CSRGaeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent) (02/02/84)
Several people have mentioned having been bumped a grade or two ahead in school because they were gifted. I was a year ahead in the early years, then 2 years ahead after switching from 4th to 5th grade midyear. One little detail that no one thought of: While my intellectual development was ahead of my age, and so was my height (thus I was in the same height range as the kids 2 years older), my strength and coordination were, at best, normal for my age, i.e. 2 years less developed than my classmates. As a result, I always did rotten in Phys.Ed., and have to this day an abiding dislike of exercise for its own sake (though I usually commute to/from work via foot or bike power) and upper-body musculature which is unspectacular at best. In addition, I have had major self-image problems because I was so laughably inferior, physically, to other males--and this was back in the mid-60's, when machismo had not yet been discredited, and when a man's worth depended greatly on his physical abilities. The point: If you have gifted kids who are moved a grade or two ahead, rather than being put in special programs in their own grade, I strongly recommend that you try to arrange with school administrators that the kids take their physical education classes with kids of their own age, so that they will have a reasonable chance of doing comparably to the others in their P.E. classes. Otherwise you might end up with offspring as lopsided as I. -- Jeff Sargent/...pur-ee!pucc-h:aeq
peg@linus.UUCP (Margaret E. Craft) (02/02/84)
In the time and place that I was in grade/high school, there were no "gifted children's" classes - the only official option for kids who were bored because they'd already learned the stuff was to skip grades. That was NOT a viable option for me, since it would have made my siblings feel bad, and would have doubled us in the same grades, so my parents made an attempt to challenge me at home, to make up for the boredom at school. I also did lots of outside activities... And I put a lot on energy into teaching my fellow pupils, something I enjoyed and they did too... I'm a bit worried about all these new methods, since I'd assumed that my parents' way would do for my own child -- I wasn't aware that such programs were so wide-spread... I look forward to more discussions, since I may have to make decisions about this soon myself... Are we talking about public schools here??