Gifted children

[pippin_999]

 Shaun wrote:
>>>>>Actually, this is the primary problem with Gould's book - it 
gives the impression that  this occurred far more often that it did. 
Gould identified a problem that was quite rare and frowned upon 
by most of the people using tests and presented it as a 
 dominant characteristic<<<<

I have not read Gould's book but my father was a physician in the 
U.S. Navy during World War II. He told me with great anger how 
the  intelligence tests for the military had deliberately been 
designed so that Blacks would score lower, to keep them from 
qualifying for special training. He spoke as one having first hand 
knowledge of this. It may have been only a few bigots who were 
responsible, but this testing had massive influence because it 
was done on such a huge population.

I think it is probably very difficult to take an objective view of 
intelligence testing if your experience is that it has been abused 
in this manner.

Shaun said:
Put "gifted" children  together so they have each other to talk to?
> 
> The last is actually the best solution, according to dozens of 
studies and years of  research. Grouping gifted children together 
and then educating them based on that  grouping works 
incredibly well if it is done while they are young enough.
> 
> If it's done while they are young enough, other kids don't 
realise what is happening,  and so the resentment issue doesn't 
arise<<<

Not my experience I'm afraid. ---

 Needless to say, my parents did not want me tested for 
giftedness. The school district did it any way, but my parents 
refused to put me in the gifted program.  The classroom teacher 
said something like, "I wish I could put you in this group," when 
they were lining up the kids for the special program. I had just 
flunked a test, so I concluded she meant I hadn't made the cut.  
I'm troubled by your saying that if testing is done early enough 
the kids won't know what's going on. True enough, I *didn't* 
understand, I learned just enough to get the wrong idea. <g>
But even at age 6 or 7, everybody knew who the smart kids were, 
and what the testing was for.

  I skipped third grade, then got put in the accelerated program at 
6th, (new principal) and thought it must be a mistake. I felt really 
pressured at having to do so much more work all of a sudden, 
especially since I  *knew* I wasn't smart. Eventually I decided to 
study art as a means of escaping from academics. I am very 
glad I did it, but that  is probably not what the gifted program was 
trying to accomplish with me. <g> (Admittedly it didn't have a fair 
chance)

Maybe I don't understand the statistic you used, but 
the average primary school size in the United States is 644 
pupils--if that 1 in 5000 comes along, you can bet the teachers 
are going to have a hard time keeping it to themselves, 
professional secrecy be damned. I have never taken any kind of 
intelligence testing where there wasn't a whisper, whisper after 
it. (I don't know my IQ though)

Also, if the profoundly gifted child is 1 in 5000, it would seem that 
only very large cities would have enough of these children to put 
in a program especially for them, while in the ordinary gifted 
program for the 1 in 50 they would still be out of place. That's 
certainly the way I felt in the gifted program.


Pippin