"Failing Our Geniuses" (Time magazine article)

tokenadult · 08-17-2007, 11:20 AM

The current issue of Time magazine includes an article,

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,...653653,00.html

"Failing Our Geniuses," profiling some gifted students and how school issues prompted them to move across the country to go to a special high school for gifted students.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Time magazine

those who write education policy in the U.S. have worried most about kids at the bottom, stragglers of impoverished means or IQs. But surprisingly, gifted students drop out at the same rates as nongifted kids--about 5% of both populations leave school early. Later in life, according to the scholarly Handbook of Gifted Education, up to one-fifth of dropouts test in the gifted range.

Would you move across country to find a better fit for high school?

SDMS12 · 08-17-2007, 11:35 AM

To answer your question, No.
Does anyone know a website where you could take an IQ test?

ali153 · 08-17-2007, 11:39 AM

The tickle.com always advertises, but I it (and any other online site) is accurate. For a true test, you can see a psychologist, or maybe check out the MENSA chapter in your area?

tokenadult · 08-17-2007, 12:47 PM

You wouldn't want to trust an IQ test that you can take online, because it has never been validated, most likely. You'd want to take any IQ test, even one professionally administered in the industry-standard manner, with a grain of salt.

http://learninfreedom.org/iqbooks.html

AznN3rd · 08-17-2007, 04:30 PM

The problem with geniuses is that they are such anomalies in society that they can never get along with their peers. In today's global culture, they would have a hard time thriving with their superior abilities as almost all vocations require groupwork or teamwork of some sort.

tokenadult · 08-17-2007, 06:58 PM

What if geniuses get practice working with one another as part of their early education?

AznN3rd · 08-17-2007, 07:06 PM

There are only a handful of geniuses in the entire world. With all the national and religious tensions it's next to impossible to coordinate such an effort.

tokenadult · 08-18-2007, 12:27 AM

Well, yes, one problem with the word "genius" is that its technical meaning (as certain psychologists use the word) is narrow and refers to a very rarely found kind of person, while the commonplace meaning is just "very smart person," which has rather different implications. But how about this question: wouldn't it be better to let the learners who find school lessons the easiest have an opportunity to do more challenging things in school, in the company of other learners who are looking for more challenge?

Johnson181 · 08-18-2007, 01:10 AM

Quote:

What if geniuses get practice working with one another as part of their early education?

Thought to ponder- what if that would prohibit them from ever testing at the "genius" level? I don't think we know enough about the nature vs. nurture argument to fully say.
(Although the genome project could refute that in the next few years... anyone know the projected time for when chromosome 2 is supposed to be fully mapped?)

JBVirtuoso · 08-19-2007, 12:52 PM

There is a lot of truth about failing smart students in general. My school won't even let 8th graders take Algebra 1 anymore because they don't want to have to have a Calculus class. I'm glad I got that opportunity while it lasted. It's really sad if you think about it.

EarlySenioritis · 08-19-2007, 01:53 PM

Yep it's not only the genius' they are failing, in general a smart kid in a high school will find a regular class easy because regular has become remedial and the bar keeps going lower.

TheRisenLilith · 08-19-2007, 02:37 PM

To note the IQ issue: I really wouldn't put a huge emphasis on IQ numbers. Take myself, for instance. I was tested as a kid (just like Annalisse Brasil), and my IQ was supposedly 143. Whoa, big whopping deal.

Well, I don't feel any smarter than other people. I think I think (wow, great syntax) more than most kids my age, but today's culture doesn't encourage thinking that much, so it's not their fault. (However, I do like to pretend that there is a budding genius inside me, but I have to go study for a standardized test instead)

Anyway, I do think that if the public educational system would stop pouring homework and busywork on all of us, and actually let us LEARN, then we wouldn't be failing our geniuses. In fact, we wouldn't be failing our children either.

Phight · 08-19-2007, 02:46 PM

I feel the same that you do in regards to the busywork. I don't ever really feel like I'm learning at school; more like I'm "learning" what's on the next test, and I don't retain it very much. It's boring a repetitve and once you learn the pattern the amount of thought put in to the work decreases by a LOT.

And the sad thing is that when teachers try to introduce discussions to into the class, most people don't even take part. They sleep.

Which of course leads to more busywork because that's all people respond to.

mj93 · 08-19-2007, 03:07 PM

Quote:

What if geniuses get practice working with one another as part of their early education?

Early education .. so does that mean pre-k? It would be hard to identify geniuses at such a young age, unless there was a mandatory IQ test for all pre-kindergarteners.

They didn't classify me as 'gifted' until 4th grade--I was a quiet kid.

tokenadult · 08-19-2007, 04:15 PM

Oh, I meant primary and secondary education (education one receives before the age of majority) when I was using the term "early education" there. Thanks for reminding me that many readers will interpret the term "early education" as "prekindergarten education."

I asked, because I can't think of any rationale to RESTRICT the access of bright learners to as many other bright learners as there are in their community. I think society would end up with more adult "geniuses" in the best and most restrictive sense of that word if every learner were encouraged to set higher standards and the most able learners were allowed to interact with one another while growing up.