School for the Gifted, and Only the Gifted

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/education/19gifted.html

by tokenadult • 17 years ago

12 22 17 years ago

lzimm6• 17 years ago

Whenever I see this kinda stuff, I start thinking about a link that I believe got posted here a while back about education in Finland. I don't remember where it was, so I can't share it as part of this discussion, but what really stuck out to me about the whole thing is summarized by asking:

Do students get a better education by being surrounded by genius peers and mentors? Or is it better to forget about the distraction that competition for seating creates (ie: limited University seats, and other various competitive factors that we have between students in North America, starting a very early level), and instead, relax that whole thing so that students can REALLY learn by teaching their less advanced peers, thereby allowing teachers to leverage the smarter kids in the room to normalize the average at a much higher level, which is exactly what happens in Finland.

The other part of the equation, of course, stems from the fact that classes in Finland are capable of swallowing harder material because the peer-tutoring thing creates a much higher base level competence, which, in turn, can understand more challenging material. That whole thing disappears when your base level competence has an IQ north of 140 to start with.

(forgive grammarz plz, head spinning, can't be bothered to proof read)

catzaa• 17 years ago

> (ie: limited University seats, and other various competitive factors that we have between students in North America, starting a very early level),

The USA has a much better university system than Finland (or any country in Europe). So they must do something right.

> smarter kids in the room to normalize the average at a much higher level, which is exactly what happens in Finland.

The USA does a lot better than most countries with mathematics achievement. See here: http://nces.ed.gov/timss/table07_1.asp#f2

Notably excellent results are Russia. Unfortunately Finland isn't on that list - but I doubt that the performance will be better.

I personally don't think that having peer tutoring will help - it will only hold back the competent and hard working. Peer tutoring sounds (IMHO) too much like some Outcomes Based Education ideal/pipedream.

lzimm6• 17 years ago

Different stats tell different stories, your results clearly surfaced a different conclusion than what my quick google turned up when I was trying to find the original article I was looking for:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Finland

"In the OECD's international assessment of student performance, PISA, Finland has consistently been among the highest scorers worldwide; in 2006 Finnish 15-year-olds came first in science and second in mathematics and reading literacy, in 2003 Finnish came first in reading literacy, mathematics, and science, while placing second in problem solving. In tertiary education, the World Economic Forum ranks Finland #1 in the world in enrollment and quality and #2 in maths and science education."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/education/4073753.stm

BEST MEAN SCORES: MATHS Hong Kong-China: 550 Finland: 544 South Korea: 542 Netherlands: 538 Liechtenstein: 536 Source: OECD PISA 2003 data

BEST MEAN SCORES: READING Finland: 543 South Korea: 534 Canada: 528 Australia: 525 Liechtenstein: 525

BEST MEAN SCORES: SCIENCE Finland: 548 Japan: 548 Hong Kong-China: 539 South Korea: 538 Liechtenstein: 525 Australia: 525 Macao-China: 525

wtallis5• 17 years ago

I've suffered through the "have the smart kids help teach the dumb kids" thing in American schools. I've come to the conclusion that it is too easy to screw up to be a workable large-scale policy. In my classes, it degenerated to the point where my assignments were no better than busy work, and I had nothing more to learn from picking up the teacher's slack by tutoring other students. (Teaching can be a great way to learn, but it can only get you so far.) In the end, I dealt with the problem by leaving the public school system entirely, so that it wouldn't get in the way of me learning new things.

In order for an educational environment to be stimulating for a gifted student, there has to be a critical mass of people who can learn and converse on the level of the gifted student. One teacher with other students to tend to is woefully inadequate. Having two or three other gifted students in your class still isn't enough. In my experience, there has to be a cohort of at least 6-8 gifted students before ideas begin to flow and an actual academic community forms. Once your group is that big, there really have to be at least some dedicated lectures that progress at their pace or at a greater depth than for the general student population, and the coursework needs to be adjusted accordingly.

It isn't necessary to completely segregate school populations, but there is ample evidence that for certain subjects (most notably, math), the difference in ability is too great to be handled by a single class without leaving behind a significant portion of the students.

lzimm6• 17 years ago

I guess that was the other half of the story I forgot to include. Apparently kids in Finland don't resent reading and developing basic competency nearly as much as kids in North America do. As the norm, they read by choice instead of coercion.

That said, I guess the major difference is that the thing that was holding the kids back there really was just an inability to click with the material instead of what could almost look like a straight aversion to learning, which is what I found with a lot of my peers. And in situations like that, where you're working with people to see how things can fit their existing mental frameworks, I think is where the peer tutoring can really help, not just because its more about helping things fall into place, but because it grows how you look at the problem at the same time.

But regardless, its all hazy at this point. I just remember it being an interesting read: struck me as a nice parallel to cashflow normalization (getting the bulk of your revenue in november, december and january doesn't help much in making monthly interest payments unless you can smooth your earnings out to give you money to play with all year round, and thus take on higher debt to finance an even bigger revenue fall next season)

altie• 17 years ago

There also aren't that many things to do with your life once you're out of school that don't involve the bottom half of the bell curve. Being able to work with a wide range of people is a huge asset to anyone.

Intellectually bright kids who struggle socially are often told that it'll be better once they get to the next level: don't worry so much about grade school, it'll get better once you get to middle school. Don't worry so much about high school, it'll be better once you're in college. And the greater freedom at each level does help, but no one will ever tell you that the politicking, the popularity contests and the pettiness don't go away at all in the working world. Figuring that stuff out at a young age with less severe consequences for mistakes is the best thing a kid can do for their long term success.

RevRal• 17 years ago

I was a jackass child. Too arrogant for my own good.

I remember figuring out how to go from the number one, to a hundred, before knowing the names of the numbers. This was before I set foot in a school. I was ahead of the game before I was ever in the game.

I could have benefited from a school for the gifted, but my dad was having a lot of medical problems, so we couldn't afford anything. So I have a lot of resentment towards the education system.

It became a game, where I would figure out how much I could slack off and still get an A in a class. Senior year in HS, I didn't show up for an entire month, and there were no repercussions.

Our whole education system is pathetic. Access to the internet has humbled me quite a lot, but I see a lot of young people with the same problems that I had.

Hmm, I guess I'm still pretty ticked off.

jacoblyles• 17 years ago

Incentives matter. Whether a school district educates well or poorly, it will still get its annual budget increase from the state assembly.

hristov• 17 years ago

I have a brilliant business plan. Parents give me 30k per year per child and in exchange I will say that their kids are gifted.

Dilpil• 17 years ago

Did anyone else notice "About 1 in 5 (3,231) scored in the 90th percentile or higher, qualifying them for neighborhood-based gifted programs, and 9 percent (1,345) made the 97th percentile"?

wtallis5• 17 years ago

So? There's a selection bias in who attempts to qualify for gifted programs, and the quoted percentiles are relative to the general population. These kinds of tests aren't re-normed with every administration. The magnitude of this selection bias doesn't seem at all surprising.

School for the Gifted, and Only the Gifted

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