3%! That’s absurd. I very much doubt the brightest, say 5-10% of the kids in that 3% think/learn the same way as the rest. Grouping them together will be detrimental to their development. Are we supposed to consider kids who get 97% on standardized tests geniuses? That probably is just about all kids attending top 20 colleges. If there are that many geniuses we don’t need a special ed for geniuses. All we need to do is to track or have multiple levels of the same courses. I think we demonstrate why there aren’t that many programs for geniuses and how difficult it would be to implement one. We can’t even agree who make up genius class let alone how to approach.
The top 3% are not classified as geniuses, just gifted. This is the definition used by the state of Oregon and, if I remember correctly, California. In Washington state, gifted school services only go to the top 2%. And they have Malcolm in the Middle schools in the Seattle area for those top 2%. Mostly, I think it’s about money.
Profoundly gifted students generally have IQ’s at 145 and up. I think “genius” is around 160.
There are a lot of misconceptions about gifted people. They often don’t perform at the top levels, for a variety of reasons, including social issues and learning disabilities. I read a blog today that correctly stated that for these kids, it’s not about performing, but rather an intrinsic need to learn.
I repeat what I posted earlier: The term genius has a multiplicity of definitions, just as the term gifted does.
Arguing over what those terms mean is doomed to be a pointless exercise.
@Agentninetynine California does not have a statewide gifted definition. Each district makes its own definition.
NY’s definition is so vague as to be basically useless: " the term ‘gifted pupils’ shall mean those pupils who show evidence of high performance capability and exceptional potential in areas such as general intellectual ability, special academic aptitude and outstanding ability in visual and performing arts. Such definition shall include those pupils who require educational programs or services beyond those normally provided by the regular school program in order to realize their full potential.” They do say you are supposed identify gifted kids, but there is no requirement to do anything for them.
I didn’t notice any major conclusions in this article. I saw a lot of experts with opinions and areas of further study.
Thanks @Ynotgo. Raised in California but couldn’t remember if it was state or district wide.
In NJ, there is a state mandate to cover 'advanced learners" (whatever the heck that is), but like many such mandates it is useless, because they don’t fund it nor do they really say who these kids are. One of the problems is people assume that gifted means kids who get straight A’s, do well academically, and that isn’t necessarily a good indication as others have pointed out, yet some programs use that as a determining factor. One of the real problems is how nebulous this all is, and there is a cottage industry in some places designed to get kids placed into gifted programs and the like, which is idiotic, given that this is supposed to be about something the kid naturally has.
The biggest problem is one that has been talked about at lot, you need methods to be able to identify these kids, but the reality is there is no surefire way to do it, IQ tests are one way, but they have problems, there are other assessment tests that often come under criticism, some school districts use a pattern of grades, others use teacher and faculty recommendations, no one had really come up with criteria that work and cannot be gamed or be biased in the wrong ways.
The other half of it is what is the goal of these programs? While it is great to laud people like Bill Gates or others who likely are gifted, it also puts forth the idea that somehow giftedness is about ‘product’, that it is about yield, producing a swarm of geniuses who will change the world, which is how we got into trouble with education in the first place, where we now have standardized tests lording over all because you can ‘measure the yield’. The point of this is to identify the kids with the potential, who are like this, and having education that works for them and allows them to find their own measure, whatever that is. The gifted kids lost along the way often appear to be random road kill so to speak, some of them are the kids who zone out in school, bored out of their minds, tired of teachers treating them like an irritant, so they coast and never really achieve; others are the kids who act out, then are called behavioral problems, many of them end up misdiagnosed as ADD/ADHD because of that, and long term studies also show these kids ending up with all kinds of problems down the road.
I am cynical enough, especially in this day and age of standardized testing taking over the world and packaging a product to get into a ‘good school’ and the like, that much will be done for these kids, if anything our education system has become less about bringing out the talents of the students and more towards creating 'useful citizens of the future".
I think we get caught up in the details too much about identifying students for the programs. I also think there is a wide range of abilities in the gifted range. It seems like having accelerated classes for students in the top 5% is reasonable. Schools should be accepting of different types of tests/ measurements that measure giftedness and not just try to stick with a simplified method because it is easier to implement. In other words, designating who meets the criteria for the gifted programs should be a process that asks school personnel to use their intelligence to evaluate each child.
Also, with the range of giftedness within that group, the schools should consider all alternatives that would supply an appropriate education for those at the extreme range (genius). My D had a separate higher ability classroom (for top 10%) in elementary school. They did move pretty quickly and it was geared towards the top 3-5% range. Those with lower IQs in the top 10% range had some difficulty keeping up. My D, who has always scored in the top 1%, was not challenged that much. However, it was certainly much better than being in a regular classroom with a pull-out program.
In middle school, there was very little difference between there higher ability language arts and social sciences courses than the regular classrooms. I think my D got 100% in every class. They did accelerate math classes.
Fast forward to high school. Her high school offers 25 AP classes. However, they prohibit any freshman from taking an AP class. All I asked was that they allow my D to take AP World- which was already offered, and they would not allow. The idea is the same education had to be offered to everyone. BTW- our state Board of Education has mandate/ law that says that gifted education is to be individualized according to the ability of the student. So, the district is breaking state laws.
I guess the way I see it is very simple. We have a publicly funded education system in the US. We are required to pay taxes to support this system. The system was set up to provide education to everyone. So, as a taxpayer, I have to ask WHY is it OK for the school to not provide an appropriate education for MY CHILD? The have laws in place to ensure appropriate education for special needs children. Why is it OK to not supply appropriate education for gifted students? I believe it is what I have paid for, so its what I should get. Is there an education law out there that says if your kid is very smart, we don’t have to educate them??? Basically, by not giving an appropriate education to your child, what they are saying is that the public school system is only going to educate your child up until the point where they are functioning at the level of a 9th grader.
I will simply note that given limited resources, it will never be the case that everyone will be able to feel that their one singular child is receiving perfectly tailored individualized instruction.
Now, we can debate on what the smallest acceptable group size is for (grouped) individuation, or the largest reasonable deviation from norms of instruction might be, but to expect perfect and relatively unbounded individuation for every student? Not actually possible, really.
It’s not in Oregon, where TAG is protected by statute. Several parents, including yours truly, filed a complaint with the state board of education, prompting an audit.
@musicprnt: I’ve never heard of these cottage industries that exist only to game the TAG system. How would this even be possible?
@dfbdfb True. I was not too upset that classes in the “Higher Ability Program” were not challenging her. I was actually grateful that they at least had something in place that was much better than the pull-out programs.
However, it was bureaucratic BS to not allow D to take AP World as a freshman. It was already offered at the high school. She was required to take a history/ social science class anyway- so why not put her at the appropriate class level? It would have cost them nothing to do this. I got the strong feeling that they did not want her to have an advantage over other students and that holding her back was much more important than giving her an education. BTW- she got a 100% in the “honors” history class.
@Agentninetynine :
In NYC , which has the typical problems that urban school districts have, lot of poor students, sub standard buildings, lack of resources, etc, there is a G and T program and some of them are well known. For example, there is the hunter college school (that Lin Manuel Miranda attended) for intellectually out there kids, programs like the anderson program on the upper west side and others (I am leaving out the high caliber high schools, like Stuyvesant, because most of what i am talking about is in the lower and middle schools, plus those schools are not necessarily a G and T program), and there are all kinds of coaching services and the like to get the kids into these programs (even though when you read the literature on these, they tell parents not to do that, which means, yep, parents are doing it). It shows part of the problem, that these programs rather than being seen as being something to help kids who have extra ordinary gifts to find themselves, turns into part of the prestige trail parents are trying to follow to get their kids into an elite college. I don’t know how well they actually work, I hope that for example Hunter’s selection method does screen out pre preparation, because it seems like they try to get to kids whose families don’t have the resources to do those kind of things.
As far as why the schools don’t do more for these kids, there are a lot of reasons. With limited resources, schools see this and can’t reconcile that against the needs of the other kids. Some schools have the attitude that there are no gifted kids, they all are, so it would be ridiculous to have such a program. Other parents when they here of this often have the reaction of ‘why are those kids more special than mine’, and will often go to the school board protesting a program for a few ‘elites’. I have told the story on here before, of the school district near me that several years ago dropped their G and T program, citing budget cuts, but then spent almost a million dollars putting field turf on the school football field…like, most high school football programs have maybe 20,25 players (this district did)…
musicprnt,
I really appreciate your thoughtfulness on this topic. Both of my kids are through college, so I don’t really spend much time here any more, but I have been following this thread. One thing that always strikes me in these discussions, and your raise this point well, is the presumption that “gifted” is code for “good in math” and “should do math”. It is an assumption that is rampant in the testing community as well in every day discussion. It is clearly evident in this thread. Both of my kids tested with IQ levels in the genius range (I say tested because I understand all too well the problems with testing for “giftedness” or genius), both qualified for CTY, etc. and both were good at math (they were smart kids!), but neither one of them had any interest in straight mathematics or science. They both took AP math classes, but only because that’s the path their small high school put them on. Every so often a guidance counselor would get a look at their test scores and try to push them into some “gifted” program that almost always meant “math” or “robotics” or “computers”. NONE of which my kids were interested in, but it was what the schools had to offer. Never once did some one offer them a class on medieval art or Latin American literature. My oldest always said “Math class is about the process, who wants to spend that much time doing the process?” One is now an architect,working in architectural theory, one is a writer/musician and they both use math all the time, but only as an underpinning. They also use their understanding of literature, anthropology, sociology,etc. everyday. (My one son insists that the most valuable things he ever learned were learned riding the bus home). The way I see it, a gifted program cannot fulfill the needs of gifted children as long as it has a structure that requires a certain output. If your children are truly that gifted, you can not stop them. They will learn, because that is what they do. We never counted on the school to educate our children in anything more then being a part of a larger society, which the school did a very good job of. But developing their talents and world view? We turned them loose on the world. They turned out pretty well.
You have to learn about sex somewhere. 
@lololu :
What a great post! You are correct that gifted programs are often predicated on it being about math and science, and in high school they can say “well, the kids can take an AP chem course or math course”. This idea that genius is about math and science to me goes back to the (not so great) roots of our education system, that the idea of school is to turn out a ‘product’. While genius has produced some amazing things, tangible products, what I wonder if teachers (excuse me ‘educators’ ) realize that the genius that turns those things out often does so in ways they and many people would consider a waste of time. While there is nothing wrong with a math or science class for someone who is out there, part of the problem is that the way they are taught, they are about a process, and often that process doesn’t exactly spur insight into new things. One of the things that drives teaches nuts with kids who are out there is they don’t think linearly, that they often take it out into left field as their muse determines, then come back with something totally different. Richard Feynman, who almost certainly was a genius, was known for going far and wide from his core of physics, and he said those investigations let him come back with a totally different perspective, because it let his mind wander. It wasn’t that he didn’t think science should be rigorous (you should have read his opinion of philosophers), but that the linear/process based way it was taught led to stagnation.
Unfortunately, even G and T teaching is often packaged, it kind of is like “throw in a couple of interesting lectures, do a couple of fun experiments, presto chango, you make a genious blah. There is a Saturday program at a local college that has more the right idea, they offer a lot of classes, but they don’t try to pigeonhole the kids, they have everything from doing magic, to building and flying rockets, to comic book artistry, to the stock market game, cryptography, and similar things. Kids choose what they want, and there is no structure to it in the sense of a track, and there is nothing that says 'at the end of X years, kids will be doing calculus, can trace the progressive decay of a radioactive particle over time into new particles and energy emisions”…I think the most important part is it allows kids to dream. Many of the G and T programs are just as regimented as regular classrooms, what they do is speed up the pace (which I am sure the parents love, showing how brilliant the kid is because they are doing trig in 7th grade), but it doesn’t recognize that simply because gifted kids often learn faster,that learning faster is what drives them.
The sad part is I don’t see it getting any better, the politicians and educators are worried about some stupid set of standardized tests that kids from regimented schools in foreign countries blow out as ‘proof’ they are better educated, rather than trying to think what education really is, especially for the kids that are out there. Not to mention we still have a cult of ‘average’ in this country, that proclaims the wisdom of the middle while looks at those out there away from the average as ‘suspect’.
I thing that part of the tendency to correlate gifted with math competency is that is more easily quantifiable than say facility with language or an artistic vision. For teachers who may not be on the same level as the kids they are working with (and let’s be honest, most teachers are not), it is easy to track progress with numbers. It is easy to see the progression from addition to algebra to calculus. It is much harder to track a child’s understanding of the complex themes of history or literature, art or music. One can see that they have facility, but that is not the same thing as having the artistic understanding. It also has to do, as you say with the cult of the average. Literature and art have come to be seen as things of the elite and therefore suspect.
I think part of the reason for the emphasis on mathematics is that life experience does not really factor into understanding mathematics. It can be grasped on its own basis. Music is somewhat similar, but less so. I think this is why one hears of “mathematical prodigies” and “musical prodigies,” but essentially never of a “literary prodigy” or “historian prodigy.”
When my spouse was in grad school in science, he shared a house with someone doing a Ph.D. in history. They talked about the differences in their fields. One prominent difference was that at 25, a scientist could be publishing work that was nationally competitive, while that would be extraordinarily rare for an historian. The historian said that it was hard for younger people to compete on an even basis with a 50-year-old historian, because of the accumulated experience.
I think that young people can be gifted with empathy, sensitivity to language, and literary feeling, in a way that deepens their understanding of literature, but that really understanding literature takes a kind of maturity that is not purely intellectual.
One of the kindergartners in QMP’s class was reading “Little Women.” While I don’t doubt the ability to string the words together and follow the plot, it just doesn’t seem like a sensible choice for any 5-year-old, no matter how gifted.
Why?
Maybe this example gives a hint as to why math ability is overemphasized in measuring “giftedness.” One of my kid’s classmates was able to figure out the square root of 3 digit numbers in his head when he was in kindergarten. Nobody tried to stop him from doing this. Nobody claimed it was “unsuitable.” His grandfather, an engineer, recognized his math ability and taught him a lot of concepts that most 5 year olds have never been exposed to.
If someone else tried to teach a 5 year old how to play some complicated musical composition and succeeded, someone might say the child’s playing lacked maturity, but it is unlikely anyone will say teaching him isn’t “sensible.”
But, let a child read a book intended for an older audience and someone is almost certainly going to say it is inappropriate. Why? Hey, I wouldn’t let a 5 year old read some books, but “Little Women” seems pretty harmless to me. I wouldn’t assign it for kindergartners, but if a kindergartener wanted to read it on her own and enjoyed doing so, I certainly wouldn’t try to stop her. I would not insist that she read a book which was “sensible” for a 5 year old
I’ll grant you that a 5 year old reading “Little Women” might not understand some of the themes. However, it might be a far more enjoyable experience for some 5 years olds than being forced to read “The Boxcar Children” or “Bread and Jam for Frances.” If the child genuinely enjoys reading the book, why stop her?
I am NOT a prodegy or a genius, but I read Little Women at a very young age, maybe age seven, maybe a little older. I skipped the parts that were “boring” (as defined by me, at that age) but understood the plot, and the characters. I know I didn’t understand anything about “The Pilgrims Progress”, and its relationship to the structure of the book, or the themes and religious meanings when I first read it. But I loved the characters and the plot.