Smart Kids: Why Do Schools Stigmatize “Gifted Children”?
28th November 2010
My theory is, that teachers typically come from the left side of the Bell Curve, and smart kids make them feel inferior and threatened. I’ve run across more than a few of those in my time.
And, of course, there’s the Keillor Syndrom: Modern ‘progressives’ are committed to the worldview in which ‘the children are all above average’, so to single some out as ‘gifted’ constitutes DISCRIMINATION of an particularly invidious kind.
The standard, “one-size-fits-all” philosophy of public education has always troubled me.
And rightly so. This is the classic ‘factory school’ in which batch-processed kids are passed along the assembly line like so many cartons of eggs, based on the theory that kids of roughly the same age will have roughly the same cranial abilities — a notion that’s laughable on its face … except that everybody forgets to laugh.
The Globe Life polls on Gifted Education ( Nov. 11 and Nov. 15, 2010) were totally contradictory. After a story on the social costs to kids of “Gifted” programs, some 56% of the 2,284 respondents opposed “segregation” of gifted kids. Yet, if given the option, most parents would put their kids in such programs anyway. When asked “Would you put your child in a gifted program?,” some 73% of the 765 respondents replied in the affirmative.
Not really contradictory. When people are asked about airy generalities, they provide the socially-acceptable response. When it comes to their own interests, however, it’s All About Me. This is why rich people who are strident in their calls for ‘increasing taxes on the rich’ don’t send all their Extra Money to the government voluntarily.
Stepping back with a wider lens, highly motivated, academically inclined students look a lot different. Seeking more from your local public school and demanding better can be difficult –and can be easily dismissed as reflecting the “elitist” attitude of the privileged classes.
And we see this in Politically Correct California, where left-wing Crustian parents loudly denounce segregation and the Oppression Of People Of Color and then fight tooth and nail to keep their own kids out of schools that have any substantial number of black or latino kids.