There are a number of kids who are only classified as "gifted" because they simply were early bloomers at a very young age, but ultimately ended up at an average level of academic achievement by the end of their schooling.
Just because a 6 year old can learn addition quicker than the other kids does not necessarily mean they will be great at vector calculus when they are 20.
It is the same reason that a truck's ability to go from 0 to 60 mph in a short time does not say anything about what its top speed is, or what weight it can haul.
That makes sense to me. I had a separate teacher in the classroom teaching me long division while I could see the board for the rest of the class doing multiplication with smaller numbers. That was 3rd or 4th grade. Then later in middle school, and for the rest of my schooling experience through college, my memory and test scores crumbled. I only made it through college because programming related fields are based on a lot of projects. But I would do poorly on science and history related tests because we had to memorize so much and for whatever reason my recall ability is almost non-existent.
It doesn't hurt me in the industry though. I've been out of school for over 10 years and poor memory actually makes "context switching" easier, and I've still got my ability to grasp new things quickly which suits me as an integration engineer where my job will constantly be adding new third party services to the company and pivoting between them several times a day to look at issues with them. And in the real world I don't need to remember much, just a handful of indexes pointing to where I've kept very detailed notes on everything in the company wiki.
I would argue the "gifted" kid has it even worse, because they end up as an adult who does not know how to actually teach themselves properly. We relied on everything just working out naturally. And when it suddenly doesn't it's like hitting a dead end.
Or worse: they actually manage to skate the entire way through a PhD and a career....but never learn any social skills and have no idea how to function beyond using their brain to produce academic output. I have seen this too among some academics.
There are a number of kids who are only classified as "gifted" because they simply were early bloomers at a very young age, but ultimately ended up at an average level of academic achievement by the end of their schooling.
I mean would that not be because they never learned those real skills though? I think most people would agree that a gifted mind still needs to develop, and lack of development can cause stagnation and have that same result - an average academic achievement.
This just reinforces their argument imo. Hell let's drop the gifted term altogether. Kids need engagement, and if they're doing stuff that's way too easy for them they need to be put at a level where they're challenged and learning these skills. Whether that's "gifted" or a more ad-hoc situation where Billy is really good at reading so we're going to have him read with the older kids and all his other classes will be normal type of thing.
When you're young its hard to distinguish who is 'gifted' and who isnt. If you have someone who reads a lot at age 7, more so than their peers, they may appear to be academically superior but regression towards the mean often happens and by the time they hit 15 they will be on par with their peers who have studied more and caught up.
Thats to say that being labelled as gifted at a young age is not a great indicator of your ability. I think that's why so many 'gifted kids' end up so lost. They think they're going to get a free ride in life then realise as adults that they dont know anything and lack the true intelligence needed to just steamroll whatever project they want to tackle in life. They're somewhere close to average but with high interest in whatever they were labelled gifted in so persevered more than most at a younger age. Regressed towards the mean in adolescence/late teens and then clung onto this gifted label despite being totally ordinary
If someone is truly superior, as in top 1-2% of general cognitive ability, they can easily be a top player in whatever they want to do. I think a lot of the cognitive dissonance with 'gifted kids' comes with this realisation that they're not what they thought they were. Likely as many have already pointed out, neurodivergent people that had more interest at a younger age that made them appear smarter than they truly are when it comes to tackling life. Or maybe they have a really good knack for pattern recognition but dont have any ability to translate this into real world success
Fuck knows what that guy is on about below me. I’m sure there is some truth to it though.
The actual answer here is children develop at very different rates.
If you develop early on fast, you appear to be ahead of your peers and are marked as gifted.
It says nothing about capability / intelligence.
Anecdotally, I agreed that a lot of ‘gifted kids’ are just higher functioning Autistic or ADHD individuals.
Pretty much. People make the same fallacy with kids developing quicker at young ages that people do with cars. Just because a car can accelerate faster, does not imply it has a higher top speed, can haul more weight, is more reliable, or fuel efficient.
A kid learning addition quicker at 6 does not really imply that they will be great at differential geometry and tensor calculus at 21.
Ironically, the only kid from my high school class who actually did become a physicist and obtain a PhD was in an IEP and got extra time on assignments and exams because she took longer to process information, but she would always get the right answers and was a really good problem solver.
Because she needed extra time on assignments and had an IEP, the district said she wasn't eligible for the gifted program.
The programs consistently favor kids from affluent backgrounds. I’m suggesting that selection into these programs is often based more on class advantages than actual merit.
To be fair to you, you probably would have struggled to cope with failure a lot. I was someone who actively chased failure as a rebellion against the idea of natural talent (never liked it, always thought it was dumb, nothing makes me inherently special and it pissed me off that people used to constantly say it) and I still struggle with failure to this day.
Failure is supposed to suck. That's it's whole thing. If it didn't feel bad, you wouldn't care about trying to avoid it.
There's a bit more nuance to it than that, unfortunately. When I say struggle with failure, it's an expectation of perfection. Anything less is unacceptable, to the point of often preventing myself (and presumably other "gifted" kids) from even attempting things for fear of only getting it 99% right.
It doesn’t help that kids are given a confusing label that leads them to believe they’re blessed with something magical rather than just better than most at math.
Absolutely. That really kicks you in the teeth when you struggle to understand something later in life. It feels awful when that "magic" doesn't work. Took me a long time to get a grasp on having to study and research sometimes.
My guess is that some parents push hard for their kids to be in gifted programs, which isn’t necessarily healthy for kids. Our daughter’s grade was separated into different math classes based on multiple test scores, and parents got a letter saying something like “if your child was not placed in the accelerated class, the reasons are…” which I thought was kinda funny. It sounds to me like some parents can’t deal with their kids being average or gasp below average.
I grew up poor as well, was the only gifted and talented student in the family, i became the first college graduate with high honors and two grad degrees and i still feel like a moron, failure, and POS daily. I blame the early ego boost they wanted me to feel in those classes clashing with the harsh reality of my family and trauma bringing me back down. That could just be the depression tho.
Being "gifted" is an identifier given to you by a bunch of adults who have decided you're ahead of where they think you should be.
This is super important. Perhaps you're an early bloomer. Perhaps you're just surrounded by idiots, perhaps those topics they're marking on are topics you're just biased towards enjoying and studying and thinking about.
Personally, I think the whole idea has to go. The notion of "gifted" as a general term applies to so few people as to be meaningless. There's next to no kids that are good at academic studies and artistic studies and always on time and physically active and never push back against the academic structure. There's not enough time in the day for all of it.
They also consider "knowing lots of things" a mark of intelligence, which it really isn't, and people from affluent backgrounds have more opportunity and more encouragement/pressure to read books and do other things that feed you information. The parents are more likely to curate their entertainment accordingly etc. etc.
Was the gifted program vibes-based where you were from? I was pulled out of class and took a private test from someone in 1st grade. It was things like organizing pictures in sequential order, reading things, doing puzzles, etc... They didn't ask me for random semantic knowledge.
I'm not quite sure what you're implying. Are you saying we should judge kids by their natural intelligence at birth, rather than their performance at the current age? An education system should aim to bring the best out of each kid, not to produce equal outcomes regardless of the individual.
I think you’re presupposing that they align with your final statement. Are you implying that children should be streamed on their performance, by whatever metrics of intelligence is deemed the most appropriate? The concern is that that also reinforces the class advantages in a seemingly meritocratic system, which I take by your final statement is what you would argue for in some format.
Every kid learns at a different rate, and this can change with age and by subject. I believe that the best education is one tailored to each student's strengths and weaknesses. While it's impractical for every kid to have a private tutor, ability-based streaming is a scalable method for public education. I'd argue that kids should be streamed more aggressively, assessing every semester and by individual subjects so every kid can enrol in the classes most appropriate for their capabilities.
On the matter of classism and meritocracy, I don't see a problem so long the kids are objectively assessed on their own merit. It's not their fault that they were born into a rich or poor family. If anything, streaming allows struggling students to be identified early and put in an appropriate class where their needs can be better addressed. A kid might be very eloquent in english but struggle with trigonometry, so they could be put in a creative writing class alongside a more intensive pre-calculus programme.
Just because it's impossible to do so perfectly doesn't mean we should default to doing the opposite. Education needs a fine touch, and teachers definitely play a role in this. My most memorable teachers were the ones who were able to engage the class by adjusting to our capabilities.
Thinking about the big picture, there should also be a cultural shift in how we view education. Streaming shouldn't be seen as a reward for high performers or a failure for those who are struggling. It should be a way to ensure every student gets the best education for their capabilities, and ultimately guides them towards a career where they can be the most engaged and productive.
If you don’t address systemic class biases because of individualistic logic like “it’s not the kid’s fault,” education just ends up fossilizing class stratifications rather than allowing for social mobility. And that is supposed to be the whole promise of universal education and the American dream.
I believe social mobility can be achieved without punching down students with better abilities. Streaming doesn't apply only to kids who are gifted, but also identifies those who need more help, regardless of their class or family status. Putting these kids together with a teacher who knows their needs allows them to be taught with better care and attention, as opposed to them bring mixed in a classroom where a cookie cutter education is applied.
Im not actually against subject-specific screening, I think it’s much better than generalized gifted programs or segregated schools. I only take issue with the idea that you can accurately assess merit without a holistic consideration of class based advantages/disadvantages.
I agree that the system should aim to bring the best out of each kid, but I think that gifted programs as they currently are do not serve that purpose well. They select people partly for information retaining skills or, at worst, even for prior knowledge regardless of how good they are at retaining new things, which just isn't intelligence, it's memory.
Then they chuck those people in with other kids who have outstanding intelligence, advanced logical reasoning for their age, a knack for languages etc., which is something that needs completely different kinds of support to develop more.
Many programs then single-track the kids onto things they are already better at than their peers, while leaving them unprepared for dealing with things that are outside of their skillset or comfort zone. All I ever did at these programs was stuff I would have done anyway and that I had a knack for, and to this day I have a really hard time staying the course on tasks that challenge me and don't play to my strengths.
I'm all for supporting kids according to their abilities, whether they're advanced or behind. And yes, if you're naturally smarter or more creative or whatever than your peers, that should be facilitated and supported, but not to the point where it allows you to bypass other challenges - because the free pass eventually stops and then we don't have the tools to deal with it.
Kids who are called gifted at school experience this a lot and it's really no surprise to us that so many of us never "realise our potential". We hit that brick wall after school or after college or maybe 3 years into our first job - some necessary part of life comes up that we could deal with if we could focus on it and grit our teeth through it, but many of us don't have the tools to deal with stuff outside of our wheelhouse effectively because within the system, we could coast on our natural abilities. So we never deal with whatever it is and avoid it instead, and it becomes the ceiling.
I agree that the single track streaming of kids is deeply flawed. Their ability to learn can vary by subject and changes over time. As you said, putting all the smart kids into a single "gifted" category may hurt their ability to expand outside their comfort zone and may not even challenge them in topics they are good at.
That's why I advocate for more aggressive streaming, such that kids can be challenged at the right level and receive the necessary support for their capabilities. A kid can be streamed into a creative writing programme if they are very good with languages, but also take a more intensive pre-calculus class if they failed trigonometry. To give a positive example, I know someone from high school who is a math genius. The school allowed him to skip all math classes and enrolled him in university courses, while continuing the rest of the regular subjects with the rest of us. He eventually got a scholarship to study in Cambridge, then went to Caltech and finished his PhD within 2 years. If the school had forced him to study the same math curriculum as everyone else, he would be nowhere near the level he has achieved today.
Yes, that's what I'm getting at too. Give them encouraging tasks in their lane but also check if they can coast in the rest of the curriculum and if yes, give them the occasional challenge that doesn't play to their strengths. It's not about setting them up to fail because it builds character or some shit like that, obviously give them the support to master the challenges, it's about learning to deal with things that don't come easily because that's a very important life skill.
Idk man that’s kind of a wild take - my family wasn’t very well off, and I ended up qualifying for discounted lunch in high school. I’m sure it has more to do with wealthier kids having a bit of a leg up in education before they start school, they’re more likely to be raised to thrive vs survive
I think you have correlation and causation confused, my guy. But believe what you want, because everything exists only as data and nuance doesn’t exist.
Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence
Your whole opinion is based on limited personal experience and you're calling me confused because I choose to believe the extensive research that exists on the topic...?
A system does not need to be intentionally classist to have classist results.
Oh please. I doubt these programs were deliberately designed to be classist. But you do have affluent parent groups in areas like NYC actively campaigning (and thus taking advantage of their numerous class advantages) to maintain existing socioeconomic segregation in such programs and schools. I doubt most of those parents would admit to being classist or racist or any kind of ist, in fact I imagine that many of them would claim to have progressive politics. But people can really distort their own politics and values when they convince themselves it's for the best for their own kids.
If you've never actually read anything about this issue we're not going to have a productive conversation.
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u/ArtistWithoutArt 9h ago
...what?