In article ,
Ericka Kammerer wrote:
Beliavsky wrote:

Actually, research shows that gifted kids given appropriately
challenging environments--even when that means being placed in classes
of much older students--usually turn out fine. At the University of
New South Wales, Gross conducted a longitudinal study of 60
Australians who scored at least 160 on IQ tests beginning in the late
'80s.

Keep in mind, however, that what is true of kids
with 160+ IQs is not necessarily true of all gifted kids.
I think it's very important to meet the needs of gifted
kids; however, there are many possible ways to do that
and what is best for a student depends on many factors.
Even with the results cited above, radical acceleration
may only look good in comparison with mainstreaming.

I'm not knocking acceleration. It works for
some kids. However, I am very leery of this notion in
that it gives what looks like an easy and cheap way out
of meeting the needs of gifted kids. Need more than you
can get in your mainstream class? No problem--we'll just
shove you in with kids one, two, or more years older than
you. Well, maybe it beats the alternative, but I suspect
there are better alternatives available. I wouldn't trade
the program my kids are in for radical acceleration, no way,
no how, and I'd be mad as could be if they tried to tell me
that tossing them up a grade or two was an adequate solution.

For the profoundly gifted, the numbers are so small
that sometimes radical acceleration is the only option.
They're as far ahead of most other gifted kids as most
gifted kids are ahead of kids with average abilities.
At any given time, a school system may have so few of them
that they'd have a hard time creating a class of kids
with similar needs. I would never want to take acceleration
off the table as an option. My point is simply that I
don't think acceleration is the cure-all that some people
think it is...and sometimes the cynic in me sees it as
a bill of goods being sold to parents of gifted kids.

It is true of less gifted children, and even for those
who are merely bright. Children should be learning at
THEIR rates, not the rates of those who should not
consider any job requiring a real education; this is
at least 1/3 of the populace.

The average child should learn about 1/3 more, and better.
The "ordinarily gifted" child, even in one area, should be
doing strong college work in that area in his or her early
teens, and of course the profoundly gifted should do even
more. Holding back a child, even in ONE subject, should be
a serious crime, and those responsible should pay whatever
it takes to try to rectify that, together with a comparable
fine to weakening the contribution of that child to society.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste, and the educationists
keep devising better ways to waste minds.

We might well want to desocialize our schools; many children
would prefer to be as ignorant as their friends. We have
the resources to do so, and we should immediately use them
so our bright students can be in classes for them.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558