Comment by bsder | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bsder | Hacker News Reader

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People talk about "holding back advanced students", but, in the real world, this never happens.

My father (a high school teacher for almost 4 decades) used to say: "I can't stop an advanced student even if I wanted to--sheer boredom will propel them to do something." For him, dealing with an advanced student was the easiest thing in the world and took practically no effort--a little extra work with a slight bit of focus and they're off and running. At that point, he could practically forget about them until they raised an interrupt.

My own personal experiences in school also reflect this. Most of my teachers forced me to turn in "normal" homework, pointed me at something more advanced, and let me at it while occasionally checking in on me or offering advice. Sure, they did this so that they could get me off their plate to focus on someone else. But, to be fair, what they had me doing is also the essence of learning--self-directed engagement with an unfamiliar knowledge base via intrinsic motivation.

And, to be fair, if your "advanced" student can't operate in that regime, are they really that "advanced" after all? Far too many parents think their children are "advanced" when they are merely a touch above average and really do fit inside the "standard" curriculum.

The real problem in high school is motivating average to below-average students who want to be anywhere but in class. Video games, hanging with friends/dates, vaping/CBD, etc. is way more compelling than anything having to do with school. Getting through to those students is difficult and has very little to do with the curriculum.

The biggest irony is that the same people who preach that there are intrinsic differences always seem to forget that concept when it comes time to hire and pay teachers. Funny that.

It comes from a real place of privilege to claim schools holding advanced students back never happens. To name one specific example with the most capable, Miraca Gross ran a longitudinal study with children scoring above 180 on IQ tests and found stark differences in motivation, satisfaction, and accomplishment depending on their level of academic acceleration[1]. (Terence Tao was “Adrian” in this study and was one of the models of successfully educating an advanced student). Kids might do something more with math out of sheer boredom, or they might just devote their energy to Pokemon instead—believe me, it’s not just the below average students who feel the urge towards everything else you mention.

Every student, no matter how capable, benefits dramatically from instruction tuned to their level and ability. Claiming advanced students will take care of themselves is an absolute failure in an instructor’s duty of care towards them, an excuse to make the teacher feel better about not having the time, interest, or knowledge to provide proper instruction. There is no merit to the notion.

[1] https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ746290.pdf

You are talking about a 4 sigma deviation. Really? Your objection to a curriculum is that it doesn't cater to the 1 in 50,000 child? A child that 90%+ of school districts will never see.

Sorry. That's not even close to being a valid argument.

> Every student, no matter how capable, benefits dramatically from instruction tuned to their level and ability.

Oh, I agree. And the research supports it. However, when you tally up the bill for 2 teachers per every 10 or fewer students to make that happen, suddenly everybody starts screaming and objecting.

And curriculum has no bearing on any of that.

Really, you’re objecting to rarity after the emphasis you presented? I went with 4 sigma because you claimed truly gifted kids would take care of themselves. As you note, you can’t get much more extreme than that. My point was to directly refute that specific claim of yours. The same principles absolutely apply for the one in a thousand, or one in a hundred, or one in twenty; they’re just proportionately less extreme for each.

>However, when you tally up the bill for 2 teachers per every 10 or fewer students to make that happen, suddenly everybody starts screaming and objecting.

If you want to hear screaming and objecting, try to suggest that teachers need to be competent and tested in the areas in which they teach. Yes, if we had an entirely different educational system with an intelligent, competent teacher for every 5 students instead of a semi-literate, incompetent teacher with 30 kids in every classroom, some of these "reforms" might make more sense. But that isn't what we are seeing. Advanced math and gifted programs are being eliminated with the same semi-literate, incompetent teacher still responsible for 30 kids. Only now the few bright kids and the few kids who work very hard to excel will have no opportunity to do so. They will sit at the back of the class and scroll on their phones while the barely competent teacher struggles to crawl through a remedial lesson that the dumbest 10 kids in class cannot master. But we'll have equity when all of them are handed the same worthless diploma after 12 years.

> The real problem in high school is motivating average to below-average students who want to be anywhere but in class.

And that is the real problem for parents looking for an "accelerated" track at school.

All they really want is a program that will challenge their kids and surround them with an equally motivated peer group that has a goal of getting into a selective university.

That is what drives private school enrollment, selecting public schools in areas with high property tax revenues, and accelerated tracks within public schools with lower socio-economic status.

> All they really want is a program that will challenge their kids and surround them with an equally motivated peer group that has a goal of getting into a selective university.

You have part of that right. What most parents want is a magic piece of paper that says "Good for one admission to Prestigious University." The achievement of their child and whether it brings down other students is irrelevant to them. The credential is everything.

We see this with AP (Advanced Placement) programs. Parents will sue the district to get their child put into the AP class (who almost always also has an ADHD exemption for extra time on all tests due to "anxiety")--who is completely unequipped for the class and then doesn't succeed in the class and scores a 1 on the AP exam afterward. This is practically a tautology because if the parents were actually engaged in their child's education, the child would already be in the AP class by credential.

This, of course, brings down the children who do belong in the AP class. But the parents don't care because now their child is punching above their weight in terms of credential.

This is the standard "Something ceases to be a good metric once it becomes known to be a metric."

Yes, parents do sue districts ... and win.

What does that say about the district?

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