Scores of readers are sounding off on this topic. One writes:
I think that Frances Woolley entirely misses the point of gifted and talented programs, which is not to increase achievement. The tests that children take to qualify for the program already identify children with the ability for high achievement. So it does not surprise me that so-called “enrichment” or “G&T” programs do not improve achievement, since kids are already prone to scoring highly no matter what. What these programs do is give focus and challenge to kids who may not be receiving this in general education classes.
I, myself, am the product of gifted and talented classes.
I began these classes in 5th grade, circa 1974. Throughout my 3rd and 4th grade years, I was developing into a problematic kid. I refused to go to school without a fight every morning. Although all my teachers could see that I was doing very well with the actual class work, I was finishing too quickly and becoming a nuisance to the rest of the class. I acted out. I pretended to be sick so that I could go home. I was a general problem. I told people that I hated, Hated, HATED school. I was even beginning to act out away from school.
My teachers recognized this all-too-common psychology for kids like me. I was tested and moved to a new school and began G&T classes. I was suddenly happy. I was interested in school again. I couldn’t wait to go to class. It was the best thing of my young life – even though my mother drove me 15 minutes to a friend’s house where I caught a school bus that took another 30-40 minutes to get me to school. Moving to these classes that challenged me again saved me and my parents from many, many hard days.
Another writes:
By definition, these programs are for the high-achievers. The measure should be how much worse the gifted kids would do if they were not in gifted programs. Not just academically, but in general.
I was in gifted programs and absolutely loved them. They offered a challenge, yes, but also an environment in which I could let my freak flag fly – and being Really Smart is definitely a variety of freak. I didn't have to self-edit and try to keep from seeming like too much of a smarty-pants; everyone was a smarty-pants, and we gleefully tried to out smarty-pants each other. Some of my lifelong best friends were people I met in the gifted programs.
Another:
Outside of the yuppie environs McArdle talks about, we live in a culture where academic acheivement is actually frowned on by peers. I went to a nice, suburban school in Nebraska and I was literally beaten up for getting a high score on a test, made fun of constantly for reading, ostracized both for being smart and for trying to do well in class. I know sharp kids who deliberately didn't try in school and never learned anything because they didn't want to be bullied. Other kids just never saw the value of wasting their time doing busy work to acheive some external approval (grades, test scores) when they could be doing more interesting stuff (sequencing DNA, writing songs and plays, and sadly, for some, drugs). The chances I had to meet other kids like me in an environment of inquiry and openness was a godsend, a sign that not only was I not alone, but that whatever I had going on might have some value.
Once or twice a year there were special (and optional) all-day events dedicated to a specific topic for the G&T kids from all over the district. The summer after eighth grade, I went to a summer program at a local college where I had my first experience doing theatre, which is what I'm still doing nearly twenty years later. This gets at the heart of what I loved about the progams: the freedom to follow whatever I was interested in, rigor and real-world information, being surrounded by engaged and interesting peers, and being taught by someone who is knowledgable and empathetic.
It is possible that the way some of these programs are run or how they select students is faulty, but honestly, the idea that these programs might be useless as a concept, just a kind of parent status badge is infuriating.
Another:
I'm from a small Texas town where the easiest way to have interaction with your peers was to play sports. I wasn't a gifted athlete, but gathering a few times a week with kids from a variety of social and economic groups to solve puzzles, work on research projects, write short stories, play chess, and have conversations that many of my friends in other capacities weren't interested in having, thrilled me beyond words. Though most of us had an easy time in school, I think what was lovely about the G&T program is that it was just learning for learning's sake. And we were rewarded on our ability to be creative, challenge authority, and think outside the box, rather than regurgitate information.
Another:
I was priviledged to be a student in an outstanding G/T program in suburban Buffalo public school district in the '80s. We put on an abridged Shakespeare play in 4th grade, wrote computer programs in BASIC and LOGO, and in 5th grade presented a year-long research project about a world problem in front of an audience of peers and parents. Back in the regular classroom, reading and math were almost unbearably boring. Without G/T, I would have hated school – with G/T, I loved it.
It has always seemed to me that when people speak against gifted education, they are presuming that because gifted kids can already meet their grade level expectations, it is a waste of resources to try to teach and challenge them further. Yet, the purpose of education should be for all students to be challenged and to learn and grow. I don't see how a nation that declines to invest in its best and brightest can expect those same best and brightest to magically transform into the leaders of the 21st century.
(YouTube user LaaDida3 has basically uploaded the entire series of "Freaks And Geeks" – view the dozens of clips here.)
The Dish 