[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Gifted children

[Shaun Hately]

>  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.

Yes - but Gould was a scientist. And more specifically, he was a specialist in 
(among other things) the history of science. As such, he had a responsibility to be 
objective.

There have been other objective and balanced works on these issues that exposed 
all the same practices that Gould did. But they did it without ignoring evidence, and 
without misrepresenting studies. Gould did both of those things in 'Mismeasure of 
Man'.
 
> 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. ---

Individual experience can always differ from the norm.
 
>  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.

Yes - and it sounds very likely the school made this happen, by lining kids up in the 
way they did, and expressing their views on who was in the program publically. Kids 
will obviously know if it's made to stand out like that.

> 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)

The thing is most of the time teachers won't know. The tests typically used in 
schools can't differentiate at this level (most tests used in schools work up to the 1 
in 30 level - but a kid at that level could be 1 in 30, or 1 in 500, or 1 in 1,000,000 - 
the test doesn't score high enough to tell.

Very few people need to know these scores. A typical teacher doesn't. If the scores 
are being discussed, there's a significant problem that needs to be addressed - just 
as if teachers were discussing HIV status with people who didn't need to know (it's 
about the same frequency). If it's happening, it's a problem in itself.
 
> 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.

Programs for PG kids aren't always practical because of the small population. That's 
certainly true. But quite often they are.

First of all, while it is true that PG kids are out of place in a 1 in 50 situation, they 
actually fit quite well into classes based on 1 in 500 students (and the 1 in 500 
students tend to benefit from their presence as well).

There are a bit over 47,000,000 school students in the United States (my figures are 
from 1999/2000 - so they may be a little out, but they'll be close).

A little over 31,000,000 are consolidated within the 500 largest districts. On 
average, these districts have around 62,000 students. That would indicate around 
124 kids at the 1 in 500 level in these districts on average.

To be practical any program really has to have at least 20 kids across the years of 
schooling.

The thing is, even if only the 500 largest districts could accomodate these kids, that 
would give 2/3rds (65.8%) of PG kids in the US potential access to something. 
That's not perfect - but it has a potential to be a lot better than nothing.

Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately |webpage: http://www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       |email: drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in
common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter
the facts to fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen
to be one of the facts that need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who:
The Face of Evil | Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia