Treating Students as Gifted Yields Impressive Academic Results, Study Finds

http://today.duke.edu/2011/03/darity.html

by tokenadult • 15 years ago

141 69 15 years ago

today.duke.edu

sc68cal2• 15 years ago

There is a good quote that is always passed around in education circles: "The soft bigotry of low expectations"

Educators that have low expectations for certain students will not challenge them and hold them accountable for their work and studies. The student will pick up on this fact. It's a self-fulfilling prophesy.

I'm glad that they are beginning to quantify this piece of common wisdom. Perhaps this will break the bad habits and mindsets of some educators out there.

tempire• 15 years ago

Indeed; anyone with children knows how impressionable they are. I have to wonder how many educators are parents themselves.

sc68cal2• 15 years ago

That's a great question. My experience is that you have to REALLY like kids in order to be an educator. Most teachers are female and young, with in steady relationships and planned to have kids (at least at Temple University where I went to school).

I wasn't crazy about kids and ended up changing my major to CS. Which is why I'm here! ;)

lionelhutz• 15 years ago

Exactly, you take one group and label them "gifted" and tell them how wonderful they are and how they all are and going to become doctors, engineers, lawyers, and accountants. Then you take the other group and tell them they're "sufficient" and "average".

No wonder the kids who are gifted are going to excel--they have confidence. The "average" kids have already had their dreams crushed. No more art/photography, jazz band, advanced chemistry or computer labs for you! Now all your electives are college readiness programs and that suck the fun out of learning.

I remember honors chemistry at my high school was allowed to do experiments, but regular chemistry wasn't. No wonder the kids in honors chemistry liked chemistry more and were excited to learn. I remember watching my chem teacher taking pure sodium and dropping it in water and watching it explode. The other class had to read out of a textbook.

Daniel_Newby6• 15 years ago

No wonder the kids who are gifted are going to excel--they have confidence. The "average" kids have already had their dreams crushed.

This hypothesis has been tested and refuted. When identical twins are separated at birth and adopted by different families, they often have wildly different environments. Some go to good schools, some to bad. Some go to families that nurture academic achievement, some to sports families. Nonetheless, the achievement level of one twin is predicted mostly by that of the other twin, not by the adoptive environment. The underlying cause appears to be general intelligence, as measured by IQ.

The effect holds even for highly intelligent people who are diverted from the university track. They simply direct their achievements in other directions.

matwood• 15 years ago

Educators that have low expectations for certain students will not challenge them and hold them accountable for their work and studies.

I found this true even as a student in the 'gifted and talented' program through high school and most of middle school. It wasn't until college (and even then only math/science/cs classes) where I was really challenged.

jerf• 15 years ago

I suspect quite strongly that what we today call "gifted" is really about what the average child should reach, and I don't care to even guess at what the true upper end of truly gifted individuals could attain in a teaching environment that is actually properly designed, rather than being handed down from on high by our 19th century betters.

kbatten• 15 years ago

It seems to me that the word "gifted" has been diluted to mean "meets expectations."

pbhjpbhj• 15 years ago

>Educators that have low expectations for certain students will not challenge them and hold them accountable for their work and studies. The student will pick up on this fact. It's a self-fulfilling prophesy.

// There's research I've read about here showing that having high expectation worsened exam results. That is if a person was shown that they were good then they performed worse on a subsequent test. If the subject was told that they had tried hard and achieved (in proportion to their effort? can't recall exactly) then they tried hard again.

This appears to contradict the info given here (though it's not a diametric opposition) and contradicts your statement that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I'm up far too early (no sleep yet, 2½ hours til children are up) but if no one digs it out I'll look for the research. It's had an effect on how I attempt to encourage my kids and on my perception of "praise" too.

Shenglong2• 15 years ago

Being a gifted student is no great feat in today's education system. This article is a perfect example of poor information. Just because you manage a 5-10% increase in the number of gifted students (which is arbitrarily defined), does not mean you get any sort of increase in the quality of the top students.

Some students are simply smarter than others - and I don't think that's a point anyone can argue. Some debate on different types of learning, and specialized subjects, but from my experience, the gifted students do well in every subject (music/arts an exception). By having more gifted students in a class, it is absolutely inevitable that more time will be spent teaching certain subjects, more clarification will be required, and material will probably need to be dumbed down at least a bit.

While this can create an increase in the pure number of students who reach a certain level, it is unfair to the actually gifted students who require an absolute top level of stimulation.

We've seen that economic communism doesn't work, and I'd bet an arm and a leg that intellectual communism doesn't work either.

msg2• 15 years ago

What is bad about giving all kids the "gifted" classroom? It's obviously better than the regular classroom when you look at outcomes, that's what the study says.

I didn't see a word about defining gifted down or watering down the school experience of the "real" gifted students.

I don't think your super stimulative genius level classroom actually exists...

balloot2• 15 years ago

It's not bad to give all kids the "gifted" classroom. It's just impossible. There's not enough "gifted" resources to go around. It's a zero sum game at some level - to give "gifted" education to someone you have to take it away from someone else.

SlyShy• 15 years ago

I didn't downvote you, but I'm not certain you really understand the results presented. This operates just like labeling theory. If teachers stopped treating kids as dumb kids and boring them with idiotic busy work, then those kids wouldn't feel so bored and demotivated at school. There's a huge detrimental effect to any student's learning when they feel that the teacher has a low opinion of them. Why should they work their butts off to try to earn the respect of a teacher when the teacher has had their mind made up about the kid from day one? I've had friends who were labeled "slackers" try to work hard and reverse the label only to be accused of cheating when their test scores were no longer in line with the teacher's expectation of them.

Most teachers have no awareness of how the petty status games they play in their classrooms deeply impact the performance of their students. Many teachers also don't understand that if they can't communicate an enthusiasm for the subject, then they've failed as educators.

Shenglong2• 15 years ago

I understand the concept behind this, and I understand your argument as well. The reasoning, I think, is pretty simple.

Let me try to better explain what I'm trying to say, as a series of steps:

1. Teachers start treating everyone as smart

2. To treat everyone as gifted, more challenging material has to be introduced.

3. As a result of increased motivation/whatever, the size of the gifted student pool doubles. 80% of the class is still not at a gifted level.

4. No Child Left Behind, morality, failing students, angry parents come into play, and educators are forced to answer questions about the other 80%.

5. Two problems are now in play: First, there is the failing 80%. Second, of the 20% of gifted students, 10% is smarter than the other 10%.

6. Because there can be no tier separation of students (gifted/not gifted), material must be taught the same way, and the same material must be taught (otherwise, discrimination?)

7. Educators have a decision to make: Teach dull material that suits the last 10% and 80%, or teach engaging material that suits the top 10%, but is difficult for the second 10%, and near impossible for the 80%.

8. Choice A results in the top 10% of students losing out on an education, and Choice B results in 80% of the class failing.

9. I hate to bring this up for a very liberal and optimistic audience but: the 20-80 rule is very prevalent in society. It's inevitable that the top 10% will probably account for a good 50% or so of the nation's GDP and innovation when they're older (no, I have no evidence, but it makes sense).

Are you beginning to see my point? I went on a first-date last night, and compared my high school experience (didn't learn a thing, wasn't told about SATs, people were stabbed, no AP/IB) with my date's high school (UTS in Toronto... 2 entrance exams to get in, contests and opportunities made available, etc). I'll tell you now, that I feel like I missed out on a lot of opportunity. By changing education to this model, you'll find more people who feel that way (maybe not as extreme).

PS. My education was so bad, in fact, that by the time I took my SAT II subject tests, I know I needed 800s and I hadn't learned 70% of the material in Math II, Physics, or Chemistry. I bought books, and for the first time in high school, I actually studied.

disgruntledphd• 15 years ago

This is not news.

This idea, in fact, has been around since the mid 1960's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_Effect Well done to Duke for replicating and publicising it though, as it never seemed to percolate into practice.

MarkMc• 15 years ago

There's a great book called Teaching As Leadership which devotes a full chapter to the effect of expectations on a student's performance.

My Kindle reader for Mac won't let me copy and paste, but the following extract from the book is so good that I will type it out:

---------------

While the self-fulfilling prophecy of high expectations is well established by research, in our experience, the most compelling evidence of this idea's power comes from the many testimonials we receive from strong teachers. Crystal Brakke, for example, is a teacher who in her first year teaching eighth grade in Henderson, North Carolina, took her students from almost 70% failing the state literacy assessment to over 80 percent passing it. Ms Brakke shares how her high expectations helped change the academic trajectory of one particularly challenging student.

"The Wilson," the self-appointed nickname of a young man named Scott, was a living legend at Henderson Middle School. He was nearly sixteen years old and had already spent three years at the middle school. The crowds would part in the hallways for him. He ruled the school, and he knew it. He also knew that, probably quite realistically, he would be promoted to high school no matter what he did this school year - we just couldn't keep him in middle school another year. So my second-period class quickly became his personal playground...and I realised that if I didn't do something soon, the year would be lost for both him and the other twenty students I needed to teach...Scott wasn't ready for high school - he was reading at a fifth-grade level.

So I got together with the other teachers on my team, who were facing their own struggles with Scott, and we came up with a plan that was supported by both Scott's grandmother (his guardian) and his older brother, Richard, whom he idolised. We called him into a team meeting, and he sauntered in, ready for whatever we could give him - in-school suspension, after-school detention. He'd seen it all before. Instead, I told him that is schedule had changed: he would now be coming to my class first period and working with the cluster of "gifted and talented" students in that class. Honestly, you could see the color draining from his face. I explained that I realised what the problem was - that it wasn't him; it was me. I wasn't teaching him what he needed; wasn't teaching to his level and expecting from him what I knew he was capable of doing. That's when he just flat out called me "crazy".

But the next day, Scott came to my first-period class. He sat down, and didn't say a word for the next ninety minutes. That's when I knew we were on to something. I can tell you for certain that progress came slowly, very slowly. Some days I had to fight just for him to keep his head up, but then one day, he brought a pen and pencil to class. I almost cried, I was so executed. Another day, he raised his hand to answer a question. He had started participating, and that was the end of behaviour problems with "The Wilson".

By January, he was just another kid in my class and was sharing insights into "Romeo and Juliet" that made my jaw drop. My favourite memory from that year came when one of the seventh-grade teachers approached me after a staff meeting, asking, "What are you doing up there with Scott Wilson?". It turns out "The Wilson" had made a visit to the seventh-grade hallway to chat with some of his old teachers and let them know that we had finally figured it out: he's gifted.

bermanoid4• 15 years ago

Crystal Brakke, for example, is a teacher who in her first year teaching eighth grade in Henderson, North Carolina, took her students from almost 70% failing the state literacy assessment to over 80 percent passing it.

A good teacher can certainly work wonders with students. But it's never as simple as making one change in a vacuum; when I read the anecdote that you've presented, it's pretty clear to me that we're dealing with a good teacher. Even if she's young, she's clearly attentive to the students, and she's smart enough to tailor her approach to best fit what she sees from them.

That's a pretty good sign that she's an exceptional teacher overall - it's a level of attention that you don't often see in schools (it's also one that fades with age, but that's another matter). I'm skeptical that the one technique she happens to credit this particular success to is a silver bullet that would help all students, especially those whose teachers are nowhere near as bright or caring.

Further, having spent some time in the trenches, I'd say a large part of this student's achievement gains are simply due to the fact that he was put in a room with better students, so he was uncomfortable and he fell in line with the way they behaved and acted in the class. That's easy to do for one student, but it's not a trick that scales.

Show me that a simple change in expectations can get an overpacked classroom of 35 disinterested, loud, and sometimes violent C-level students to step up their game and care about Romeo and Juliet (esp. when a sizable percentage of the class can't read at all), and I'll be impressed...

klbarry2• 15 years ago

Change the environment, change the person. It can be done en masse, though it's not as east. The reason the KIPP schools work, even though they take children randomly from extremely substandard environments, is that they completely control most aspects of the students lives. The school itself enforces a discipline that spreads like a contagion through the children from the start. In addition, they keep the kids there from 7 AM till 5-6 PM, before they go home, and for the most part keeps them in summer as well. So you can recreate this effect, but you need complete control from the top down, at least at the start.

FrojoS2• 15 years ago

I really love Amazon and the Kindle but is THIS the future?

I too had to type things from my kindle to send quotes to friends. Though, never that long. Thanks for the effort!

boredguy82• 15 years ago

Print screen, upload to Google Docs, convert to text.

Works wonders for long passages.

hboon• 15 years ago

I would never have read about such a story if you haven't shared. Going to get the book. Also sent a teaching friend a link to this. So a big thank you for typing this out and sharing it.

moeffju• 15 years ago

While there is no direct Copy/Paste on Kindle, if you just highlight the text and save it as a clipping, it will show up in a plaintext file called "My Clippings" (or similar, I don't have my Kindle there to check) in the filesystem root of your Kindle.

ak217• 15 years ago

Treating students as gifted requires extra resources. Which comes back to the basic notion of getting what you pay for.

On the other hand, this economics doesn't work that well in American public schools. They are crippled by teachers' unions which deny performance-based compensation, and funding is seriously skewed toward athletics (though I think in most schools that's funded more by the parents' direct contributions).

anamax• 15 years ago

> funding is seriously skewed toward athletics (though I think in most schools that's funded more by the parents' direct contributions).

(1) How are we measuring "seriously skewed"? Sure the football stadium may have just been remodelled, but how much did that cost relative to other things? (Note that a huge fraction of "school spending" doesn't make it to the school.)

(2) When someone pointed out that he (Babe Ruth) made more than the US president, Ruth replied "I know, but I had a better year than (President Herbert) Hoover."

My point is that the parents may be responding to better performance. I agree that education can be more valuable, but that doesn't imply that spending more is always a good idea. Good money after bad, ROI and all that.

dolinsky2• 15 years ago

Along side the findings reaffirmed in this study, I think it's prudent to mention the impact that language can have on a child's confidence. Specifically, the work done by Carol Dweck [1] and her colleagues have shown just how influential language can be in setting a fixed-mindset vs a growth-mindset in children.

In short, praise effort, not intelligence.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Dweck

bermanoid4• 15 years ago

In short, praise effort, not intelligence.

Intelligence is vastly overrated and widely misunderstood.

By which I mean, it's not a fixed quantity that an individual has no control over; it is not the same thing as natural aptitude. And responses like "Great job, even though you did poorly on that math test you studied really hard!" are not helpful if you actually want someone to get better. [Note: I'm not saying that "Bad Timmy, you clearly suck at math and I'm giving you an F!" is any better, though unfortunately belief in that false dichotomy is pretty common in the world of education]

When someone "intelligent" gets a bad grade on a math test despite having studied hard, they realize that something is wrong with the way they studied. Or that they have a deficiency in earlier material that they need to correct. Or that they need to sleep more before the test. Etc. They never accept that they didn't work hard enough (they did!), and they never accept that they're not smart enough (they are!) - they assume that they somehow worked wrong, and they set about fixing that problem.

When someone "unintelligent" gets a bad grade on a test, they chalk it up to the fact that they're not very good at math, but hey, they tried hard, and that's what's important, right?

That's not what's important. Learning to work hard is not a worthy goal on its own if you don't learn to work better at the same time (or at least it's not the most worthy goal). This is as true in programming as it is anywhere.

Now, when it comes to child psychology and keeping a child engaged, maybe you're right and it's better to praise effort. But that should not come at the expense of praising intelligence; "intelligence" is the end product of many years of effort directed at the process of learning and thinking, not something that's doled out of a box at birth. Unfortunately it's something that we've never really learned to effectively teach, which is a shame.

[Edit: I'm also not claiming that there's no natural difference in smarts that does come "for free" at birth, there is absolutely some sort of Bell curve happening there, and some people are destined to be at the high and low ends of it, for sure. But my point is that the way the people at the top handle failure is vastly different from the way people at the bottom handle it, in that they're never satisfied with mere effort.]

dolinsky2• 15 years ago

The quote 'praise effort, not intelligence' isn't mine, though I probably should have used the word ability instead of intelligence. It's been born out of the numerous scientific studies done that continually show that by saying to a child 'I am very proud of the effort you put forth on X' as opposed to saying 'You're so smart! You studied hard and got a B instead of a C!' you are placing the emphasis on something the child has control over (their effort), over something which is innate (their natural ability).

I agree with you that learning to work hard is not a worthy goal on its own, but the praise effort vs ability debate isn't about encouraging a child to work hard but simply to praise them on what they have control over (their effort) vs their innate abilities.

This idea of praising effort vs ability has been discussed previously here, so instead of repeating it I'll just link to it :)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2237874

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2562632

zamfi• 15 years ago

Hmm. Your point is valid, but does not contradict Dweck's version of "praise effort, not intelligence".

Dweck's main point is to avoid praising in such a way that it makes kids believe that they're naturally good at something. For example, don't say "You got 100% on that test? You're so good at math!" because that causes kids to believe that they're intrinsically good at math, and that they don't need to continue working at it. The result is that these kids shy away from learning new math, because whenever they encounter math they don't "intrinsically" understand, it violates their "I'm good at math" worldview and makes them feel stupid.

Instead, she suggests praising good results with phrases like "See? You worked hard to solve the problem, and you did it!" - because this encourages the obvious desired behavior that kids see themselves as able to solve problems if they work at them. These kids relish challenges because challenges give them opportunities to validate their worldview - that they're good at figuring out how to solve problems - by solving them.

The aspect of "Learning to work hard is not a worthy goal on its own if you don't learn to work better at the same time" is clearly there, because it's the good results that are praised in both cases. It's just a question of how you praise those good results: don't make the kid think that intelligence is intrinsic - but instead make them think that it can and must be worked at.

(And Dweck doesn't suggest praising poor results, as you suggest with your example "Great job, even though you did poorly on that math test you studied really hard!")

Hope this helps clear things up.

aik2• 15 years ago

You clearly see intelligence as malleable, which is great. The problem is many people don't (they view it as fixed), and Dweck's studies show that praising intelligence enforces this view. Dweck talks about good number of consequences of having this belief -- to name a few: encourages associating academic performance with self-worth (aka having contingent self-worth), focusing on grades and living up to expectations instead of learning and growing, avoiding challenging situations, shallow learning, lower achievement, and anxiety/tension and potentially depression.

There's a fine line, and the goal is having teachers that understand how to properly act in order to influence students to take on the proper mindsets (having a belief in malleable intelligence as one).

Daniel_Newby6• 15 years ago

No, actually. When a gifted kid has been praised for their intelligence, it is common for them to generalize a failure into a shameful personal defect: they have let everyone down by failing to live up to their Potential. (And with that high IQ they can generalize very well indeed.) This can result into fear and crippling risk aversion, or conversely manic overachievement.

... "intelligence" is the end product of many years of effort directed at the process of learning and thinking, not something that's doled out of a box at birth.

This is crystallized intelligence, specialized knowledge that can be applied to specialized problems. It is indeed the result of long, dedicated study and practice. However it is built on a foundation of fluid intelligence (IQ) which mostly is doled out of a box at birth.

Learning to work hard is not a worthy goal on its own if you don't learn to work better at the same time ... This is as true in programming as it is anywhere.

I think that "work hard" in this context was meant to mean you should depersonalize failure, so that you don't stop working because of shame or worry.

scelerat• 15 years ago

The corollary is that just because you went through a gifted program and were a high-achiever doesn't mean you're necessarily smarter or better than anyone else. You just had more help along the way.

Vivtek• 15 years ago

Jesus.

Educating students works. Film at 11.

If schools had the resources to give everybody a tailored gifted program, then yeah, America might not suck. Unfortunately, we have other priorities.

keithnoizu• 15 years ago

How is this news? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect

balloot2• 15 years ago

This study doesn't tell us anything we didn't know. Yes, when you give kids the best instructors and best resources, they do better.

The "success" in this study is that regular kids in a regular class end with 10% of kids testing for gifted, and regular kids in a "gifted" class show 15-20%. That simply is not that impressive or surprising.

The problem is that good instructors and resources are limited. And while those things would help anyone, you maximize their value by giving them to the kids on the gifted track. We, as a country, would be worse off if we didn't do this because we would be letting the truly talented go to waste in the name of "fairness."

scott_s2• 15 years ago

http://lesswrong.com/lw/im/hindsight_devalues_science/

gwern• 15 years ago

There's nothing hindsight about this. We can make confident predictions: whatever this is, it will prove to be of very limited use or none at all. Why am I so confident? Because like with boosting IQ, researchers keep trying, and they keep failing. Their repeated failures tell us a lot about the probability the next study will succeed...

Education is full of big gains promoted to anyone who will listen as the answer to this or that gap - like this one! - which turn out to be flukes (p=0.05 means you just need to keep trying...), statistical or data gaming (what does it really mean to have some specially treated kids reclassified into the gifted program? are the people choosing for the gifted program even blinded as to which kids they are expected to choose and vindicate this expensive program?) and Goodhart's law, regression to the mean or 'fade out', and outright fraud.

like Head Start; there are benefits - and then they fade away: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Head_Start_Pr... or http://edlibertywatch.org/2011/03/studies-on-effectiveness-o... Suppose this study had been conducted in this http://www.ajc.com/news/investigation-into-aps-cheating-1001... recently exposed nest of crime?

rcfox• 15 years ago

As someone who went through "gifted" class for a while, I disagree.

Those who are generally considered "gifted" tend to be good at one or a few things. However, each person is likely to be good at a different thing than someone else, so grouping all of these people into the same class can sometimes be pretty pointless.

If you want to maximize the utility of "gifted" students' time in class, you need to give them challenging (but possible) tasks, and then leave them alone.

Put the good teachers in charge of the average-but-gritty[0] students.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grit_(personality_trait)

Darmani• 15 years ago

I initially did terribly in school. I often refused to do assignments or did them in a smart-alecky way, acted out violently, and became one of the principal's most frequent visitors.

In second grade, I entered the school's gifted program, and my academics improved greatly. Was it because of the quality of the instruction? No; it primarily consisted of hanging out with a few of the smarter kids in my year, playing computer games, and occasionally learning the names of Roman gods.

Of course, my problems did not disappear either; I still did not fit in with the kids who surrounded me over 90% of the time. It was not until I left my school district for a magnet program that my problems began to disappear and I began to develop ambition (and it still took some time to adjust).

I expect a lot of people will try to interpret these results to say that kids are smart because they went through a gifted program. For me, that's not what happened.3

noduerme• 15 years ago

There's a corollary too, which the University failed to study (but should've)...which is that if you treat people like infants and feed them fox news garbage 24/7, they act like idiots and society collapses. Go figure.

jeggers52• 15 years ago

I observed something similar with dyslexia. A friend of mine is dyslexic. However he was only told that he was dyslexic a few months ago. Before he was told, he could read fine, and was quite good maths. Almost immediately after he was diagnosed, he started stumbling over words, and skipping sentences; he also dropped down to the 2nd last maths class from the 2 highest.

It's v. unscientific I know but it's an interesting observation all the same.

tsellon• 15 years ago

Just to offer a counter anecdote, a friend of mine had the opposite experience. She'd struggled all through school, until her dyslexia was diagnosed, and she could be taught compensation strategies. After that, she was much more successful.

jeggers52• 15 years ago

Weird. Guess it's completely dependent on the person's personality then.

temphn3• 15 years ago

Highly implausible "study". In reality unintelligent kids in gifted classes do very poorly. This is not about hope, it's about convincing kids who would be perfectly happy as mechanics to go into debt quixotically pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering.

If true, every company could turn their employees into geniuses by telling them they were. No need for genes, slogans will do the trick.

In other words, more of the same neo-Lysenkoism that was behind "No Child Left Behind". Lysenko maintained that rye could become wheat if people just wanted it enough. In its pop manifestation today, Gladwell similarly maintains that ten thousand hours of training can turn anyone into an expert on anything.

HN readers nod at such articles and then ignore them in real life, hiring the super smart regardless of prior experience.

scotty792• 15 years ago

> If true, every company could turn their employees into geniuses by telling them they were.

Only if they were hiring children.

temphn3• 15 years ago

It's always funny to see this kind of selective deference accorded to biology. Though there is no mention of an adult control group in this "study", I guess we are to extrapolate that one group (children) has neurological advantages over another (adults), even as we are enjoined from noting even the possibility of similar neurological differences between any other two groups (such as 20 year old programmers and 40 year old programmers...or geniuses and neurotypicals).

Hard to predict when and how a true egalitarian will allow for biological constraints on their ambitions.

kstenerud• 15 years ago

All I know is that I was so deathly bored in school that I stopped showing up. It got so bad that they threatened to expel me despite my protestations that I was maintaining high grades without even showing up to class, and getting scholarships.

Would I have excelled in a "gifted" program? Probably, provided the material wasn't so trivial, dull, and repetitive. Would everyone benefit from a significantly increased difficulty? I'm not so sure.

Holding students to a high standard, and taking time to engage with them such that you earn their respect will of course raise student performance. However, applying the word "gifted" en masse simply dilutes the earlier meaning of the word.

schiptsov• 15 years ago

I used to call it The Naive Psychology - people are trying to isolate some barely observable phenomena and then prove that it is correct (very scientific approach) forgetting that an isolated phenomena is mere creation of the mind. ^_^

These "results" also depends of:

  Animated or depressive mood of teachers (private schools vs. ghetto schools).
  Conditions of classrooms (illumination, cleanness, colors of walls, furniture).
  The dress of the teachers.
  Male/female students ratio.
  Location of the school (suburbs vs. city).
  Noise level (traffic outside, etc).
  Weather (season) and time of day (morning/evening classes).

to name a few.

btw, It is much more important to emphasize the harmful effect of the parent's violence, childhood abuses and other negative feedback which is just a mirror image of observed phenomena known for centuries.

jasonkester• 15 years ago

Maybe the definitions of "Gifted" and "Gifted Program" have changed a bit in the last 30 years, but this definitely would not have worked on the program I was in.

Back then, there was one gifted classroom per grade for the entire school district, and the kids in it were just plain smart. Little 9 year old me, fresh off being hands down the smartest second grader at Audubon Elementary School, was now just about the dumbest kid in class. I could hang with Math, but the reading and writing they were doing in that 3rd grade classroom put me squarely in the remedial group.

Having regular kids in that classroom would have been pure torture for them, and a drain on the rest of the class. Hell, I was a drain on the class at times, and I'd just scored in the 99th percentile on my entrance exams.

I think it's still probably a good idea to split off kids based on ability. This article seems to be more about giving good teachers to everybody, which is certainly a good idea. It just doesn't have any relevance in a discussion about gifted education.

aik2• 15 years ago

I think this study is being misunderstood here. Giftedness in most cases isn't something you either have or don't. Often it's a result of a better intellectually stimulating environment when growing up. Students of the same age that grew up in less stimulating environments will naturally be behind in a number of areas due to having less developed (or less extensive) neural structures in the areas of background knowledge, mental models, and other various mental procedures. In a lot of cases I believe these students can catch up, but placing them in even less stimulating environments will not accomplish this, and rather widen the gap.

Secondly and in addition, a major part of this study is about the effects various influences have on an individuals' intelligence theories and motivation -- effects of expectations, stereotypes, and also teacher behavior in class. Plenty of studies have shown how various external influences have a massive effect on a students' achievement due to the theory on intelligence they form from these influences.

So I agree giving good teachers to everybody is the solution, however there are definitely other environmental factors involved that complicate the issue. For one, breaking up students into gifted/non-gifted categories adds yet another stereotype that could potentially be harmful to both the non-gifted and gifted students.

I believe the solution would encompass having teachers that understand how these influences affect students, which will give them the capability to structure their classes and their instruction in such a way to dissipate any damage these influences can make, and instead turn them into catalysts for growth.

onan_barbarian• 15 years ago

I've seen this result before. I think it's generally under-emphasized as it calls into question the justice* of setting aside resources for 'gifted' students if said resources also improve the outcomes for average students.

The rather sad, obvious truth here is that _everyone_ could benefit from better teaching - not just the kids with known issues at the top and the bottom.

Note "resources" != "money thrown at the problem". There are plenty of expensive interventions that don't work.

* this will probably provoke the usual hysterical stuff from the self-proclaimed HN geniuses that were terribly bored in school (unlike everyone else, who was, I suppose, riveted).

Treating Students as Gifted Yields Impressive Academic Results, Study Finds

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