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Comment by Planktonne | Hacker News Reader

"Gifted" is an expectation rather than a diagnosis.

We're not good at objectively measuring potential. We're definitely not good enough to make a lifelong judgement based on a cursory examination. Children grow, and change an awful lot - any such judgement is premature.

Identification of gifted children is unavoidably filtered through cultural/societal/personal bias & baggage. The 'best' case scenario here is that it only entrenches existing inequality, but in practice it both does that and causes a lot of dissatisfaction amongst former 'gifted' children like the author.

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The point of labeling kids as "gifted" is to try and give instruction appropriate to the level of intelligence and preparation of different children. Getting rid of this means exacerbating the issues the author presents: being in an 8th grade classroom where teaching algebra has been banned because it's too advanced for the least common denominator is a recipe for even greater lack of challenge. If a student goes through school without being challenged, they're much more likely to run into the issues the author discusses.

It's not that the label is perfect or that we have a perfect way to measure who's "gifted" and who's not, but an intelligence test coupled with subjective teacher evaluations is the best way we do have to identify which tracks are appropriate for which children.

I said this before. We need a linear system where kids learn at their own pace, with online tools and in-person tutoring and assistance when necessary. With the incredible amount of online learning and online forums, I don’t think we need structured grades anymore.

In-person tutoring is expensive.

One of my old colleague's son went to a Montessori school, which was based in a similar "no grade levels" philosophy like GP mentioned.

They apparently smashed through the regular curriculum fairly quickly, then allowed the kids to pursue something that interested them. His son in particular learned how to produce music, and he was actually pretty bloody good at it for a kid.

At no point did they actually need 1:1 tutoring to ram education down the kids' throat; given a little bit of free reign the kids would gladly learn things on their own.

My local school district spends $22k per student per year, even before you account for capex on buildings and the like.

You can buy a lot of tutoring for $22k.

If you get ten parents in a pod, then a good teacher could make bank.

The kind of teacher that could fully corral and educate 10 children on all subjects would probably be under earning at $220k, especially if they had to pay business tax on that income.

That's a praiseworthy intention, but I don't believe it works in practice, and I really don't believe that any current process for selecting 'gifted' children is effective. I'd also draw a stark line between 'gifted' programs and what you describe

> but an intelligence test coupled with subjective teacher evaluations is the best way we do have to identify which tracks are appropriate for which children.

I'd call the above streaming or setting, and it's definitely valuable/effective. However, it doesn't need to be tethered to any system that focuses on labelling students. 'This is the stream you are currently in' is a very, very different idea to 'this is who you are', particularly for a child.

> being in an 8th grade classroom where teaching algebra has been banned because it's too advanced

This is definitely a problem, but I think it's best solved in other ways, rather than a poorly-supported regressive policy.

Gifted & talented programs often have positive intentions, but every implementation I've ever seen or heard of just reinforces existing systems without actually having a positive impact.

Your third paragraph does not follow. So what if programs don’t elevate all possible gifted children?

And, we do have evidence that we can identify high potential students early. Please look into Duke TIP and similar programs that involve administering the SAT to middle schoolers. High scorers are significantly more likely to earn advanced degrees and create intellectual property such as patents.

It's not that programs don't elevate all possible gifted children. It's that their definition of 'gifted' is not reliable, and it's likely to be conflating 'gifted' with 'advantaged'. Are you actually identifying gifted children, or just well-fed ones with supportive parents who have the same cultural background as you?

Duke's TIP program (and similar) don't limit themselves to just identification of gifted children.

> Duke has a long history of providing opportunities for talented middle and high school students to gain exposure to rigorous academic coursework and to communities of talented peers. Many of these opportunities were facilitated by Duke TIP, which was established in 1980 and provided valuable academic enrichment opportunities for several generations of pre-college students. Duke Youth Programs has also provided a range of engaging summer programs for more than 20 years. [1]

Again, that's not rigorously identifying gifted children so much as it is asserting that some children are gifted and then doing a lot of work to ensure that they get better advantages/opportunities than others. We don't have anything like enough evidence to claim that they are successful in their identification, or that the students would have achieved similarly on their own.

[1] https://tip.duke.edu/

> ensure that they get better advantages/opportunities than others

Gifted kids don't even need "better advantages" -- just either give them appropriate level material, or at least don't force them to do inappropriate material.

They used to let kids skip grades. Nothing "better" than anyone else, just the exact same thing earlier. Recognizing their actual abilities rather than declaring that their abilities are determined by age.

>They used to let kids skip grades. Nothing "better" than anyone else, just the exact same thing earlier. Recognizing their actual abilities rather than declaring that their abilities are determined by age.

From what I understand, a big part of why this is discouraged now is because kids that are ready academically aren't necessarily ready socially - especially considering they'd be breaking into a new group.

That's the standard line. Don't let it be a thought-terminating cliche though. There's no solution to the problem there.

Maybe question the idea of strict social segregation of children by age, social segregation of children by academic status, etc.

>Are you actually identifying gifted children, or just well-fed ones with supportive parents who have the same cultural background as you?

In all seriousness, why should this matter?

If a kid hypothetically couldn't handle a "gifted" workload were they to come from a bad family, that shouldn't stop them from being given opportunities.

Similarly, if a kid is failing academically because their parents mock their achievements, is that something the school can fix?

Either the kids can work at that higher level or they can't. I don't see the point of dragging down kids who could achieve more because others have bad home lives.

Distinguishing gifted from non gifted children with coaching is relatively easy by just leaving the sphere of things that might have been cristalized into children and observing the fluid intelligence.

I seem to remember qualifying for TIP and then not doing it because my parents thought it'd be too expensive. So it's unclear how aggressive that helping was.

> So what if programs don’t elevate all possible gifted children?

Well, that depends on who is being excluded and why. If the process is run by human selection, politics are inevitably involved. Assuming there is a positive net outcome for selected students, there is even more pressure to 'lobby' and 'influence' the decision.

Also, if the number of slots is small, but the cutoff isn't in line with percentiles of children in the population, there could potentially be more children on the cusp that aren't selected than those that were selected. This could mean that the assumed net positive effect of 'elevating' the small group is outweighed by a net negative effect of not elevating those on the edge, even though they were arbitrarily cut off.

Those are just a few reasons.

In the schools "Gifted" is variously defined as things like "IQ test > 130" or "3 std dev in academic performance above local school peer group".

This is a bit different from "child prodigies" in music, sports, and other skills.

Yes, people expect great success from people who show extraordinary talent.

Yes, nature and nurtue are impossible to fully untangle.

Yes, visible natural talent can be smothered, and hidden natural talent can be uncovered.

In the US, the gifted program began with the intent of identifying kids that would help beat the Soviets. It later became another rat race.

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