(I am so glad that things have changed. In 1963, when I was labeled a "gifted student" things were not great. I took part in one of the first studies on this. Half the chosen went to live in dorms at university at 15, the rest stayed in local schools with added support. Guess which cohort succeeded? Yep not mine. University at 15 fucked me up.)
Meeting the Needs and Potentials of High-Ability, High-Performing, and Gifted Students via Differentiation.
@disk4mat
You bet it ain’t.
It does great harm.
For years afterward I was a complete dickhead. When everyone around you tells you you’re the smartest kid they ever met. You tend to believe them.
Not good.
I hear you. I think that applies to sports too.
Neighbourhood
kids here who stayed in the community did well.
It is the socialization part of being a kid that is important.
I know the parents were grateful they kept their kids close.
Kindred spirit!
Skipped grade one, did math with the grade sixes in two and three, and got beaten/bullied at recess by them.
Also got placed a year early in gifted programming, and was bullied there too (half because of my age, half because of my self-evident poverty compared to the other kids).
I do not ever recommend depriving children of vital peer group socialization and emotional growth.
Thankful for the person you are now, Corlin, but sorry to hear about parts of the journey.
Let me be honest, even today I can mansplain, and condescend, with the worst of them. Humility takes constant vigilance. One reason I live in the forest, to remind me I am not all that.
This is the challenge of Plato's Cave. The short version ends with coming out of the cave and deepening in worldly knowledge. But the overall argument of the allegory is that what makes a leader out of a man is being sent *back in*, knowing however much more one does about the world, and learning to live well among people who still believe in shadows, and who simply cannot process all the knowledge that you've gained.
An essential friction for any learnèd life.
Thanks.
It’s strange to say. But I am exactly who I am today, as a result of who I was then.
@MLClark @corlin
My dad got skipped and got bullied for being younger. I was never identified as anything but "not fulfilling potential" until I took my PSATs, but I can tell you, I got bullied all along anyway. I didn't fit in. I would have liked to have had some peers interested in nerdy stuff like I was.
I’m very that you had that experience. You were let down.
It has been interesting all the different theories of dealing with the highly capable thru the years.
It was very difficult to navigate, especially as parents.
Our twins could have gone the early university route but all of us, and adamantly them, said why in the world would they want that.
And guess what—they did great.
The trouble with all pedagogical theory, is one does not fit all. We all learn uniquely. We all have different social needs and skils. No one system works well. But at least we now know now what doesn't work well. And that a plus.
So true.
I felt fortunate that we were in a situation that we had choices with our sons. Sometimes we had to convince others that we did have choices, but overall worked out.
And way improved over my education.
But in the end all of it brought us to this point in time. And that is a good place. 💖
@corlin Interesting. There was no gifted program at my school. They didn’t even allow students to skip grades.
I was in a gifted program for one year, in fourth grade, and it was the best year I ever had in school.
They cancelled it because it made dumb kids' parents mad to have their children deprived of bullying targets or something.
@mcfate @misslovelymess @corlin
Went to an experimental school let us progress at our own pace. Was a blast. The 2 years untetheredmade all the rest of the normal curriculums a breeze.
The programs my kids participated in were crap.
@damselfly59 They started the new math when my son was in school. He already struggles with math, so helping him with his homework caused so much frustration.
Him: I need to do this division.
Me: Here’s how you do long division.
Him: I can’t do it that way.
Me: But you still get the same answer.
Him: But I can’t do it that way.
Me: Just show your work, they can’t not accept it.
Him: 😡
Me: 😡 😢
@misslovelymess I am learning new math now. I get the frustration. I always have to ask him to explain how he was taught first. But now that I know it... it is a better way to think of numbers that supports algebra when they get there.
But initially...wtf...@mcfate @corlin
@damselfly59 I was too stubborn to see the merits of new math.
@misslovelymess😂 I had many fs to give before capitulating @mcfate @corlin
@misslovelymess
Well yes, in the ‘60s almost no schools had them. And that term was not used. I was identified by an IQ Test. And then picked up for this first of a kind study.
@corlin @misslovelymess true. in HS we had what was called honors classes. today's comparison would be AP.
IQ test, 🤣 , yeah i remember my score from 5th grade. said i was a moron.
however, this moron ended up in all those honors classes.
and not because i applied myself to class work either. school was boring for me.
@annamousse @corlin @misslovelymess just remember, IQ tests are specifically designed to show white male socio-economic standing, not actual intelligence
@redenigma @annamousse @misslovelymess
Yep.
My dad told me this just before I took the damn test. The second time, with a grad school proctor, sitting beside me. He was not impressed at all with my score. But the School administration freaked out.
And well shit I got a complete free ride, and got an undergrad degree at 19.
I am well aware of my privilege.
@misslovelymess @corlin same with me. no gifted, no AP, no grade skipping. the fact i was reading & understab\nding college level texts at age 4 meant i went through 13 years (k-12) of incredibly boring hell... i was told college would be more challenging. that was also a lie.
@redenigma I just loved learning. It didn’t matter, I was never bored. If I win the lottery, I’ll collect degrees.
@misslovelymess @corlin i loved learning. i actually told my 2nd grade teacher in MA that school was a waste of my time & i only attended because it made my parents happy. i would have been better off to be simply left at a library every morning... (that teacher used to punish me for being ahead of the rest of the class). she made me hate school to the point i puked every school day morning until i graduated high school.
@redenigma I found elementary school to be particularly brutal. My second grade teacher pulled my hair for talking too much. And there was a long line of unfortunate events, and then I went into the social lion’s den of 8th grade.
I didn’t puke, but when I was in adolescence, I slept all weekend anytime I was home. I slept for three days in a row on a regular basis. My parents thought it was how teenagers behaved.
I was clinically depressed.
@corlin
Yeah, being labelled "gifted" and a genius in middle school during the 80s just put me in the "higher" track classes, and then I went to college at 16.
There was no sense that gifted kids need extra support. Just expectations that we'd do more.
A video I recently watched on the subject used the metaphor of building a house. The gifted kid is capable of building a bigger, fancier house--but to do so they need more time and materials.
forever grateful to my folks. school wanted to bump me a bunch of grades when i was very young; they didn't do it, because they were concerned i'd never keep up socially.
@northernbassist @tyghebright @corlin
Absolutely need extra support.
And as parents we did everything we could to give the kids a childhood that recognized that.
I will say that, for me, going to college early was wonderful. I didn't relate to people my age at all, and had no close friends my own age.
I did enter a special program at USC that was interdisciplinary, and included a lot of other young people a year or two older than myself.
That part did work for me.
But not getting any support in middle and high school, while being expected to outperform my peers, was lousy.
Actually, I was kind of like that. I really enjoyed university while I was studying or in class. What, I could not deal with with all the social crap.
The difference socially between the average 16 year old and the average 22 year old was a chasm I could not cross.
@corlin @tyghebright Yeah, I don't think anyone could have bridged that social gap. Especially unusually bright kids like yourselves really need specialized support for their combination of maturity and intelligence IMO.
@tyghebright @corlin in the 80s being gifted meant no support, you were just expected to do everything better then anyone else because you were smart. Nm the fact that you might be having a hard time keeping up with the workload. Burnout is real.
@corlin They let me finish all my HS classes early because I was so bored, then I spent a year in HS doing band 6 hours, gym, and senior English because I wasn’t 18.
During my junior and senior years I took required classes (american government, etc) in the morning and college classes in the afternoon (the early entry program at NMU allowed us to start when we were 17).
@yogapaddlerun @corlin
I left school after my junior year. I had fulfilled all my credits and didn't want to sit hours in study hall for a semester to get my diploma.
I never got one. After college and grad school, no one seemed to care.
@MelissaHDavis @yogapaddlerun
This sort of happened to me.
After college, I got accepted to a couple of graduate schools, but took a year off to travel around.
During that time, I took a job in a print shop and they asked me for my high school diploma, which I never got. Writing to my high school I found out that I was never issued one because, I went off to college.
So after some phone calls I got them to send me a fake one.
It worked.
@corlin @MelissaHDavis Thanks for sharing. I didn’t know you could do college without HS diploma! Were your parents supportive of leaving home before 18?
@corlin
I have this discussion with someone who has a child they claim is gifted.
I don't think sending kids away from their community or family is a good thing.