Comment by sytelus
6 years ago
I doubt the value of gifted programs. All parents innately want their child to be "gifted" but they don't understand what this program really means. They basically just accelerate by full grade or two while raising the expectations for each kid to another level. This is unnecessary burden on kids with a high risk that they can lose confidence or even burn out at tender age not willing to learn anything any more. I think there are probably 1 in 1000 kids who are going to earn PhD by the age of 18. May be gifted program is great for them but for everyone else parents should probably actively avoid them.
> They basically just accelerate by full grade or two while raising the expectations for each kid to another level.
That's...not accurate. Gifted programs tend to increase the degree of personalization more than anything. Yes, most people who qualify for gifted programs at probably going to end up targeting at least a full grade up in each core curriculum area, but the programs don't do a straight bump.
> This is unnecessary burden on kids with a high risk that they can lose confidence or even burn out at tender age not willing to learn anything any more.
Gifted programs are actually targeted narrowly at a segment that is more at risk of burning out by being subjected to the unmodified mainstream curriculum.
> I think there are probably 1 in 1000 kids who are going to earn PhD by the age of 18.
There pretty clearly are not.
I was part of two programs. First from ages about 8 to 12 then another from age 13 to 15.
The program from 8-12 was what you described. Lots of random subject areas. Programming, history, chess, I learned how to build a mud brick hut (built a scale model and everything). Lots of self direction.
The program from 13 to 15 wasn't like that. It was more of a straight bump. We approximately did 2 years worth of core curriculum in one year and were then a year ahead for the remainder.
Unfortunately then at age 16 I and everyone else from that program re-entered the regular classrooms and had to do much of the same year's material again. It was really, really stupid.
My elementary school "GIFTED" program didn't attempt to teach us at a higher grade level at all. Instead it introduced us to different ideas and challenges that normal classes didn't cover. It was everything from an egg-drop contest to programming to creating slides for a report to adopting a manatee to solving "logic problems".
That's exactly what some kids need though. Forget about loaded terms like "gifted", some students just pick up the material more quickly and rapidly become bored to tears. Doesn't matter why- are they good at studying? Is the material presented in the way they learn best?- they need to be challenged.
Here is a data point for you. The high school dropout rate among kids with an IQ of 130+ is approximately 20 times the high school dropout rate among the general population.
Gifted programs reduce that.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gifted_At-Risk for more data points.
I was accelerated by two full grades in primary school when my parents realised that _not_ asking about gifted and talented support was going to cause me mental health issues.
My family and my school did _not_ raise their expectations of me unreasonably. I quite enjoyed the rest of my school life, where I performed quite well but I certainly did not have perfect grades or come top of every class. Didn't win the dux/valedictorian award in my graduating class of ~30 kids in my rural high school, that went to a regular non-accelerated classmate.
I don't regret it in the slightest.
What "mental health issues" you might have experienced? boredom? You were apparently comfortable working 2 grades above so I'd say you were good fit for those programs. Parents who push their kids in by doing massive prep might get different experience.
I can't really remember my state of mind clearly, I was a 6 year old when I started partial acceleration in reading and maths in Kindergarten, and a 9 year old when I was generally accelerated from Year 3 to Year 5. My family tells me that I made it very clear that I was unhappy at the time though - mostly the boredom.
Conversely, I know people who were recognised as gifted students but who weren't generally accelerated out of concern for their social skills or whatever, some of them ended up having problems later on and should probably have just been accelerated and pushed out to higher education faster. And I also know people who are pretty clearly gifted, but went through school in the normal fashion and were entirely happy with that, good for them.
I think the key thing is it has to be about the needs of the child, not the egos of the parents.
Anyway, point is - gifted programs are useful for the kids who need them. And as a rural kid with a limited selection of schools and little by way of gifted program resourcing, I'm glad for the handful of teachers who made my individualised educational plan happen regardless - their special ed programs need more support, not less.
How did you get along with your older peers? An age difference of two years is quite a lot in primary school.
It depends on the gifted program. I was in one in high school and rather enjoyed it, though it was a pretty wide range of "gifted" (top 10% of my age cohort). I wouldn't characterize my experience as raising the the grade, but rather by diving into different material alongside different people. The material was ostensibly advanced/sophisticated sure, but it was categorically different from what would be encountered in the higher grades at the same "level."
A friend of mine was in a much more rigorous gifted program (through Stanford) and I think it was the best thing that ever happened to him. He had a very poor home life but he's phenomenally brilliant (he's one of a specific handful of people I've personally met who I use that term for). All he really enjoyed doing from the time he was 12 was reading math and physics books. Going through the gifted program put him on a path that exercised his talents in a way that he found personally very fulfilling. He ended up finishing undergrad at Harvard before the age most kids become sophomores, and then completed a PhD from Harvard before the age most people even begin one.
Then he went on to work for the NSA and, later, a hedge fund. Those things probably look soulless to a lot of people, but he's very happy.
gifted programs in lower income areas are often the only path for decent class rooms that kids there will have.
The "standard" class rooms are often too interrupted, occasionally by violence. I once saw an 8th grader tackle the hell out of a large administrator. The 8th grader was giant too though.