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I wasn't even referring to myself. Another poster said that at his school, people were angry at athletes for taking spots away from others. I explained why that is, and explained why it's not unique to athletes. I had a full academic scholarship for college, and I know others who did not have a scholarship were angry if they for whatever reason felt they were more deserving of a scholarship than I was.
I can't say as I'm surprised, really. Scholarships are quite valuable and prestigious.
Time for personal attacks, eh? Most people post on CD because they like to discuss issues. I will point out that in my post you quoted I did not mention my husband. What's wrong with pointing out my district's policies? Is Colorado not a part of American society?
Pointing out that your posts are full of hasty generalization and non sequitur fallacies is not a personal attack.
There have been a lot of questions and I'll probably miss some since so many pages flew by today. But here goes.
How do I define "gifted?" I am using gifted in the same manger that Joe Sixpack on the street uses the term. It's not the exact, specific definition used academically. I don't mean specifically those in gifted programs because not all schools test for it, nor have gifted programs. And in fact they don't have to be gifted in pure terms for members of society to consider them so; all they have to be is significantly different from the typical student. In the old days, they would be the A students compared to the C & D students, though with grade inflation today, that's not so much a distinguishing mark. The key is to not get hung up on the technical definition, but to understand how Joe Sixpack is thinking about it.
The manner of definition applies to gifted athletes. They don't have to be NFL caliber, but enough better than their peers to be the local star. Because that's the population the local person on the street is comparing to, the neighbor's kid or the other kids on the team or in class. Folks are getting way to technical and specific here and missing the point. It's not about Sheldon Cooper vs Tony Romo; it's the local "brain" compared to the local star player.
Also, to make sure we're on the same page, I didn't say the schools hated gifted students (though it does seem some teachers do) but that schools don't support them well. What I did say is society as a whole gives a lot more support and adulation to good athletes than good students. I am kind of surprised at the number of people here who claim not to have noticed it given how widespread it this mindset is in our society. Enough so that it has spawned movies (Revenge of the Nerds comes to mind); characters such as Sheldon; even bumper stickers ("My kid beat up your honor student" -- you really haven't seen that one?); or even the stereotype discussed on this thread that smart students somehow aren't socially adept.
Because it's the sense that the American society values athletics more than academics. Consider the lengths UNC went to too ensure athletes met academic requirements with fake classes. An extreme example, but still it happened. Or consider this. Joe Jr signs to play baseball at the local community college vs Jane Jr gets a full ride scholarship to a top university. Which makes the local paper? And which is actually the bigger story? Who get's pats on the back and adulation for how hard he worked vs who really work her tail off?
That's what this is about -- how society views academics vs athletics.
And let's see, the question about class officers. In my school they were the popular kids, not the brains. Though honestly there were a couple of girls who were actually pretty smart but played up the dumb girl routine and intentionally get bad grades in order to be popular.
^^Presumably you wrote the title which says "Why do we HATE gifted students . . ."
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I am kind of surprised at the number of people here who claim not to have noticed it given how widespread it this mindset is in our society.
Maybe because "it" is not so widespread. My local paper does a story on signing day about local students who have signed to play a sport for a D1/D2 college. One story per year. Yes, they report on some of the local high school sports, mostly football, boy's basketball and some boy's soccer. Most other sports are barely covered. Usually there is a story about a state championship in the other sports, if that. The Denver Post does a very short article once a week about the male and female high school athletes of the week.
Re: academics, our local paper has a schools page every Sunday that reports on events/activities in the local schools. In addition, other school news is reported as it happens-science fair; plays (middle and high school); concerts, national history competition, etc. I recently posted a headline article about an engineering competition that some local students won. This in the middle of July! They also report on students who have made the dean's list at their colleges.
Quote:
Joe Jr signs to play baseball at the local community college vs Jane Jr gets a full ride scholarship to a top university. Which makes the local paper? And which is actually the bigger story? Who get's pats on the back and adulation for how hard he worked vs who really work her tail off?
I think I more or less answered that. BTW, that's the general baseball process, to start at a CC.
"My kid beat up your honor student" was a response to bumper stickers that say "My child is an honor student at XYZ Junior High".
The athletes were not the class officers. And as a parent of daughters and a female myself, I find your comments about girls playing dumb extremely offensive. That wasn't even going on back at my high school in the 1960s.
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 07-19-2018 at 09:10 PM..
^^Presumably you wrote the title which says "Why do we HATE gifted students . . ."
....
Yes. Your point? I mean that was the question being asked.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katarina Witt
Maybe because "it" is not so widespread. ..
I do believe I explained that --- for something that is "not so widespread" it seems to be a standard punch line in movies, TV shows, comics, etc. Articles have been written about it. But for some reason the fact that I put it into a specific question of "why?" seems to bother a lot of folks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katarina Witt
... My local paper does a story on signing day about local students who have signed to play a sport for a D1/D2 college. One story per year. Yes, they report on some of the local high school sports, mostly football, boy's basketball and some boy's soccer. Most other sports are barely covered. Usually there is a story about a state championship in the other sports, if that. The Denver Post does a very short article once a week about the male and female high school athletes of the week.
Re: academics, our local paper has a schools page every Sunday that reports on events/activities in the local schools. In addition, other school news is reported as it happens-science fair; plays (middle and high school); concerts, national history competition, etc. I recently posted a headline article about an engineering competition that some local students won. This in the middle of July! They also report on students who have made the dean's list at their colleges.
...
Because your local paper does it only once doesn't mean others it doesn't happen. And I could say my local paper posts every single one. With pictures. Some on the front page with a full spread in the sports section. Meanwhile kids on the dean's list get relegated to the back section between the obits and the classified. And between us that would be two samples of one. But spread out more around the country and the total will begin shifting toward more athletic coverage than academic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katarina Witt
I think I more or less answered that. BTW, that's the general baseball process, to start at a CC.
....
Baseball players go to the minors. And it's irrelevant to the point. Could have easily said soccer or football or basketball or softball. All of which have been covered. I just picked baseball because it was the most recent. The point being signing to play at the local CC isn't that big a deal compared to signing to play or a full scholarship at a D1 school. Yet the athlete going to the CC gets more coverage than the academic going to Yale or Stanford (and for the record, my kid isn't going to Yale or Stanford).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katarina Witt
"My kid beat up your honor student" was a response to bumper stickers that say "My child is an honor student at XYZ Junior High"...
.
And the point for that bumper sticker was to poke fun at the honor student and parents. So why is that? The fact there is such a response points back to my main point that you keep saying isn't out there that we as a nation have a problem with academically smart kids.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katarina Witt
.
The athletes were not the class officers. And as a parent of daughters, I find your comments about girls playing dumb extremely offensive. That wasn't even going on back at my high school in the 1960s.
What part do you find offensive? That they did it or that I pointed it out? Did I say anywhere that it was right? No. The fact is they did it. And it's not uncommon for girls to hide their intelligence to fit in.
I think it again points to views in our society about intelligence somehow being a negative. I'm a big advocate for women in STEM and this is one of the hurdles we have found girls face in choosing non stereotypical fields to study. The whole middle school and high school clique thing is a powerful force and girls will do just about anything to fit in, including appearing dumb. You should be offended such a thing goes on in schools because it hinders a whole segment of society.
"My kid beat up your honor student" was a response to bumper stickers that say "My child is an honor student at XYZ Junior High".
Quote:
Originally Posted by tnff
And the point for that bumper sticker was to poke fun at the honor student and parents. So why is that? The fact there is such a response points back to my main point that you keep saying isn't out there that we as a nation have a problem with academically smart kids.
The funniest bumper stickers are the ones that say "My kid beat up your cheerleader" or "My kid beat up your star high school quarterback" or even just the basic version of "My kid beat up your child athlete." I mean, those are hilarious, amirite?
Location: Was Midvalley Oregon; Now Eastside Seattle area
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Personally, I would just assume that people didn't know that our's is/was/oughta/could've "gifted". The saying of the higher you are, the harder you fall, could be very true and which we wish never to find out. It's embarrassing to say that the newspaper got the school wrong; DS wasn't accepted to MIT. He will be attending CMU. Then we get the stare and the question, "where is that?"
Moral: don't believe everything in the newspaper, now internet .
Skipping may have been a bad idea for you. Totally get that. But, with all due respect, it sounds like you are just now learning about the gifted population and so you can't really speak to what might work for all of them. That is a big general statement you're saying here and it simply is not true across the board. It's a bad idea in many cases, for many kids, but absolutely not for all. For some kids, there is just no other way to get them through school, unless you want them miserably bored out of their minds for several years.
I am the parent of a child who was classified as gifted. He went on to breeze through an Ivy League college, medical school, residency, and fellowship. In elementary school the last thing he want was to be treated differently. He would not have wanted to skip grades and he didn't wanted to be pulled out of his elementary classes for gifted learning.
What the more intelligent students have always done in school when they are ahead of the other students is to read. I was not gifted but would finish assignments much faster than the other students. I read everything I could get my hands on. The school was limited in available books and I was forced to read encyclopedias. Today, you can pick out the smarter kids because of the books they are reading for pleasure or they pull out a Kindle.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tnff
There have been a lot of questions and I'll probably miss some since so many pages flew by today. But here goes.
How do I define "gifted?" I am using gifted in the same manger that Joe Sixpack on the street uses the term. It's not the exact, specific definition used academically. I don't mean specifically those in gifted programs because not all schools test for it, nor have gifted programs. And in fact they don't have to be gifted in pure terms for members of society to consider them so; all they have to be is significantly different from the typical student. In the old days, they would be the A students compared to the C & D students, though with grade inflation today, that's not so much a distinguishing mark. The key is to not get hung up on the technical definition, but to understand how Joe Sixpack is thinking about it.
The manner of definition applies to gifted athletes. They don't have to be NFL caliber, but enough better than their peers to be the local star. Because that's the population the local person on the street is comparing to, the neighbor's kid or the other kids on the team or in class. Folks are getting way to technical and specific here and missing the point. It's not about Sheldon Cooper vs Tony Romo; it's the local "brain" compared to the local star player.
The definition of gifted has been the problem throughout this thread. I don't think there is a Joe Sixpack on the street definition of gifted. Some people have responded by talking about above average students while others have responded with the academic definition, which is very limited in the number of students who it applies.
I don't think I have ever heard the term, "gifted," used in reference to sports. Parents tend to think that if there child is anywhere above average in intelligence or athletic ability, then there child should be in a gifted program in school, and be the starting point guard and shortstop, so they on the path to a D-I scholarship.
Did you know one peer in that very specific situation, or multiple peers? (Sounds like one.)
I was talking about multiple people, hence the use of the word "peers" in the plural, rather than the singular "peer".
Quote:
And again, that is one example. It does not carry over into all situations. People in this thread seem to have trouble with that -- picking one personal example and holding it up as the authoritative truth for everyone. If that's the case, then I get to say that definitely acceleration works for everyone, because I actually started my senior year of college at 20 and it was nothing but a fantastic thing for me. No social issues and it gave me such a solid leg up on my career, my retirement savings, etc. compared to some who graduated at 23.
I'm just saying that while some of these things are true for you or one person you know or knew, that does not mean they are true for absolutely everyone.
You have a valid point. But when somebody is in elementary school and skips a grade, you have no way of knowing whether or not it will cause social problems later on.
Keep in mind that I was talking about people in their proper grade who had birthdays late in the year. I wasn't even talking about people who skipped grades. I would think that skipping grades would be even harder.
Because it's the sense that the American society values athletics more than academics. Consider the lengths UNC went to too ensure athletes met academic requirements with fake classes. An extreme example, but still it happened. Or consider this. Joe Jr signs to play baseball at the local community college vs Jane Jr gets a full ride scholarship to a top university. Which makes the local paper? And which is actually the bigger story? Who get's pats on the back and adulation for how hard he worked vs who really work her tail off?
That's what this is about -- how society views academics vs athletics.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katarina Witt
Maybe because "it" is not so widespread. My local paper does a story on signing day about local students who have signed to play a sport for a D1/D2 college. One story per year. Yes, they report on some of the local high school sports, mostly football, boy's basketball and some boy's soccer. Most other sports are barely covered. Usually there is a story about a state championship in the other sports, if that. The Denver Post does a very short article once a week about the male and female high school athletes of the week.
Re: academics, our local paper has a schools page every Sunday that reports on events/activities in the local schools. In addition, other school news is reported as it happens-science fair; plays (middle and high school); concerts, national history competition, etc. I recently posted a headline article about an engineering competition that some local students won. This in the middle of July! They also report on students who have made the dean's list at their colleges.
My experience is much more similar to tnff's experience. The papers here focus a lot on sports and completely ignore academics.
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