Gifted Program Cut, Not Diverse Enough

[grampster]

I believe if the first couple years of school concentrated on teaching kids the ability to read and to understand what they are reading, the rest of their education would be a slam dunk.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

Grampster you are a heretic.
Dead right but a blasphemous purveyor of truth and logic.

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[Tallpine]

I believe if the first couple years of school concentrated on teaching kids the ability to read and to understand what they are reading, the rest of their education would be a slam dunk.

Yeah, we taught our girls to read well and early and they pretty much educated themselves.

[HankB]

. . . I was invited several times to join advanced placement programs and did them for a little while (while I was still an idiot impressionable kid from kindergarten through about 3rd grade), but bailed on them when I decided I didn't like the additional mandatory classwork on top of the standard course homework . . .

I went to a Catholic grammar school, and for a time they discussed a "gifted" program, when I was in about the 5th grade. They made it sound so rosy, telling us we'd get to take material as fast as we could learn it. BUT . . . when I asked whether or not we'd get to graduate sooner, assuming we learned the material - they got really upset. And they got REALLY angry with me when I asked why we should work so much harder for no reward. (No, you won't convince a young kid that "learning is it's own reward" when you're just demanding he work harder & faster than other kids while still holding him back in grade.) They "compromised" by segregating the kids - unofficially - into "smart" and "average" classrooms.

As for the original post regarding NYC axing its gifted program - I remember it was the NYC school system that told parents they should STOP their children from watching the then-new show, Sesame Street, since kids who watched it began school knowing too much. And years later, they told parents to keep their kids away from computers, since these newfangled machines gave kids with computer access an unfair advantage over other kids, which was considered a bad thing.

The schools in NYC appear to have a longstanding institutional bias against excellence.

[Boomhauer]

I believe if the first couple years of school concentrated on teaching kids the ability to read and to understand what they are reading, the rest of their education would be a slam dunk.

If you teach a kid those two things then they can educate themselves.

Can't have that *expletive deleted*it happening. No, we have to ensure that kids only become barely literate with no critical thinking skills and only teach them enough to pass a standardized test.