She's only eleven and she already thinks that school is a waste of time despite achieving great results.
There is a lot wrong with the education system in the UK.
Stanford University EPGY is a good online program for gifted children, even as young as your daughter. The math program is good; there is even a music program. http://epgy.stanford.edu/courses/math/ The advantage of the Stanford courses is that they are designed for teaching advanced topics to youngsters.
In California high schoolers and even gifted elementary school children can take courses at the junior colleges. There are special courses for elementary age children, but those in high school take regular level college level courses. Maybe such programs exist in the UK.
A good outside program can provide the motivation to put up with the rest of the crap. Then all you have to do is convince the authorities to exempt her from advanced arithmetic because she is taking calculus.
I don't know. The above statement makes me think the problem isn't the schools but the world that comes after. Our schools may be based on "an industrial era" but the reality is so are most jobs. Accountants have to follow strict rules, as do lawyers, doctors, etc...
Given that, and the fact that I still see a problem in how your daughter is treated, I think the answer is not in changing our current schools as much as it is in profiling kids and tailoring a new enviornment for those it doesn't work for. We need a way to determine whose strengths are creative and whose are methodical and then design an education program for the creative while leaving the current one in place for the methodical.
I disagree with you whole-heartedly. Certainly everyone has the capacity for some level of creativity, but I think the type that we're talking about here is the same sort of gift that artists have.
Similarly to how some people are simply born with a genetic predisposition towards athletics, some people are born with the same sort of genetic predisposition towards mathematics.
The idea that everyone has got the same abilities is exactly the problem that we're talking about here. Some people ARE born with an advantage (or have one nurtured into them), and those people need to be allowed to excel, not held back because of those around them.
Doesn't that contradict the rest of your statement?
I agree with what you're saying, but I think all people can excel, most just don't have the drive/desire to (or they used to, but lost it). It seems we label people as "gifted" when they are simply interested in learning...
Yes, it does. I shouldn't have written that. I did because I was hoping to quell any "nature vs. nurture" debates.
My argument assumes nature, then goes on to argue that those born with an advantage shouldn't be forced to suppress it due to some sort of self-defeating attempt to make children succeed.
My point (sorry, I'm rambling) is that I don't want to debate nature vs. nurture, I want to debate the idea that kids that aren't excelling in a field should be encouraged to regardless of their natural talents.
There are a lot of them. You could be informing yourself. But instead, you are just making it up as you go.
Creativity is a universal human trait. And it's one that has been extensively studied - and, with the exception of extremely edge case individuals (e.g. Isaac Newton), your theory above has been disproven.
Heh, I still remember being told off for something similar 14ish years ago...
How many resources should they apply to the top 2% of children?
Resources spend on the cleverest kids will probably provide a bigger return on investmant than for other kids, so about 5%
I know that's horribly utilitarian of me but I'm just being pragmatic.