I might have expected that ‘gifted’ programmes would do the opposite, by putting children in an environment where their natural talents are nothing special you force them to actually put in some effort.
Although I’ve never been in one myself, so I guess it depends on the atmosphere;if its all about giving them easy challenges and making them feel good about themselves then you have a point, if the emphasis is more about winning and rewarding those who stick out from the crowd even in that situation, then maybe not.
I am currently a college student in a gifted program, and was in them all through elementary, middle, and high school. My experience has been that it wasn’t rewarding easy challenges, quite the contrary. The teachers I’ve had have been thrilled at having students that actually can handle a complex problem. They’ve mostly liked the challenge we provided. Although, for a few of my years, I’ve had teachers that genuinely were not as intelligent as the average student in the classroom. They had more factual knowledge, but not the actual thinking skills. Those years were rough.
My only major complaint about those classes was that the problems, in many cases, weren’t challenging enough. The teachers would pick complex topics for us to untangle, but the problem solving process typically took around 30 seconds. We very seldom did anything that required thinking for minutes. Nothing “impossible”. And we totally could have done those.
I would include that can be done in 30 seconds in the category of ‘easy challenges’, even if it would be quite hard for most people. Easiness is relative.
I agree. I tried to avoid phrasing it as “hard”, instead going with “complex”. What we were doing would have been extremely difficult for a lot of other students I know, but weren’t very difficult for us.
Hmm. Probably less. Not because the classes I actually took genuinely taught me how to work hard, but because if I hadn’t been in those classes I would have been able to get by with even less effort.
Not just the atmosphere—the skill with which the gifted program is designed.
And some gifted programs are worse than what you imagined—they just pile busywork on the students.
Developing good gifted programs is a hard (or if you prefer, complex) problem. I’d start by surveyed students and graduates from gifted programs about the their take on the value of various parts of the programs.
I might have expected that ‘gifted’ programmes would do the opposite, by putting children in an environment where their natural talents are nothing special you force them to actually put in some effort.
Although I’ve never been in one myself, so I guess it depends on the atmosphere;if its all about giving them easy challenges and making them feel good about themselves then you have a point, if the emphasis is more about winning and rewarding those who stick out from the crowd even in that situation, then maybe not.
I am currently a college student in a gifted program, and was in them all through elementary, middle, and high school. My experience has been that it wasn’t rewarding easy challenges, quite the contrary. The teachers I’ve had have been thrilled at having students that actually can handle a complex problem. They’ve mostly liked the challenge we provided. Although, for a few of my years, I’ve had teachers that genuinely were not as intelligent as the average student in the classroom. They had more factual knowledge, but not the actual thinking skills. Those years were rough.
My only major complaint about those classes was that the problems, in many cases, weren’t challenging enough. The teachers would pick complex topics for us to untangle, but the problem solving process typically took around 30 seconds. We very seldom did anything that required thinking for minutes. Nothing “impossible”. And we totally could have done those.
I would include that can be done in 30 seconds in the category of ‘easy challenges’, even if it would be quite hard for most people. Easiness is relative.
I agree. I tried to avoid phrasing it as “hard”, instead going with “complex”. What we were doing would have been extremely difficult for a lot of other students I know, but weren’t very difficult for us.
Out of interest, do you have any idea whether you think you would be more or less hard-working had you not been in those classes?
Hmm. Probably less. Not because the classes I actually took genuinely taught me how to work hard, but because if I hadn’t been in those classes I would have been able to get by with even less effort.
Not just the atmosphere—the skill with which the gifted program is designed.
And some gifted programs are worse than what you imagined—they just pile busywork on the students.
Developing good gifted programs is a hard (or if you prefer, complex) problem. I’d start by surveyed students and graduates from gifted programs about the their take on the value of various parts of the programs.