Report Finds Wide Disparities in Gifted Ed

[camping!]

Originally Posted by Sagran

The answer is the same for gifted as non-gifted.

But if you toss a gifted kid into an alternative school because he's immature and can't behave himself, you better be prepared to provide him an education at his academic level, not just warehouse him.

You misunderstand me ...... in this particular issue I don't care if it is gifted bullies or slow bullies they have no right to disrupt a classroom because of their immaturity issues. If they cannot control themselves in a classroom then perhaps they ought not be allowed in one. After all, gifted or slow all students deserve a quality education. And the immaturity of some should not be allowed to hinder that.

[Traderx]

Originally Posted by roysoldboy

The current attempt to make every kid feel like he is something, like giving every kid a trophy in a competition does so much harm to the lower ones but the progressive NEA can't see that and they influence legislators and all the new teachers.

Amen!

Seems everyone is afraid of creating halves and halve nots. Well, guess what? Life doesn't work that way. In real life there are winner's and loser's. What we should be doing is rasing the bar not lowering it.

[ray1945]

Originally Posted by Sagran

There is money for the best athletes to play at their highest level in varsity sports but no money for the smartest kids to be educated at their level.

We don't expect all kids to play sports at the same level. Why do we expect kids to learn at the same level? After all, the purpose of schools is education.

For the last 20 years of my 37 year career as a high school teacher, I made exactly this argument - over and over again, to no avail.

The current push in my former school district is for all students to take honors/AP/IB/Cambridge classes! Yes, ALL. The current thinking is that slower students will benefit from the exposure to higher level instruction and brighter students will benefit from the experience of helping those aforementioned slower students. Teachers (and some school-site administrators), of course, know that this philosophy is BS, but they are powerless to fight the PC downtown administration.

It has always been my belief that it is hard for anyone to soar with the eagles when he/she is mired in the muck with the turkeys....

[ray1945]

Originally Posted by roysoldboy

Now you will see me as arguing with you since I was a coach. I never did agree with most other coaches, in high schools, because I would have given up equipment money for the better students.

Now comes the bad part. Our high school activities association made us study some outcomes of sports and kids accomplishments and every time we did it we found that the athletes who were most involved were better students and when they weren't allowed to do their thing most of them got into trouble and didn't achieve in school. One year I had to keep track of how much out of school time kids used for all activities and sure enough, the athletes missed less school than any of the others.

Now back to educating bright kids. I always wondered about some of this. One of my basketball teams had 4 of the 5 starters with strong Ds ( I mean they deserved no more) while one had all As in my classes. Now most of them made better grades than that in other classes but I never eased up on a kid because he was an athlete. The worst part of that was that all of those kids went to college and made very good grades. Were they easier on them? Only one of them played in college and he was very good at basketball.

We need to quit worrying about math and science for all kids and worry about all subject areas for the bright kids separated from the rest that hold them back. I wonder if we can ever attain that kind of situation when we want all kids to have high self esteem above all. I don't think so.

Roy, I find it interesting that we agree on most of this post, yet on this forum (and others) you are often guilty of pointing to the "liberal intellectual elite" as the source of many of the problems that plague this country. You do realize that if you segregate based on intelligence, you will most certainly end up with an "intellectual elite" and they will almost certainly be "liberal." Be care what you lobby for!

[ray1945]

Originally Posted by roysoldboy

I taught too many years to believe that all the kids are above average. I was so sickened to watch slow and don't give a damn students holding good ones back but it just wasn't considered nice to split them up because you would destroy the psyche of the lesser ones.

The current attempt to make every kid feel like he is something, like giving every kid a trophy in a competition does so much harm to the lower ones but the progressive NEA can't see that and they influence legislators and all the new teachers.

There is no way that we shouldn't let the better ones go on ahead when they are capable of it. Class discussions with the smart kids go places the others can never go so they aren't allowed to go there.

We have to stop trying for equality in education because some just aren't qualified to go there.

Please cite a legitimate source that supports your allegation that the "progressive" NEA is influencing legislators and new teachers to hamper the progress of bright students.