Gifted kids don't need special attention to get
through school and life the same way the intellectually
impaired do.
This is very false in my experience.
I sometimes struggled in regular classes as a young kid, because it was so painfully boring to move at the same, slower speed as the other kids. It was like trying to watch a movie at 0.25x speed. I wasn't just "not reaching my potential", I was missing out on chunks of learning. I almost don't know what the counterargument is: we... shouldn't match education to a child's learning speed and other needs?
(And for the record, I wasn't crazy gifted in terms of IQ. More like top X%, not top 0.X%)
The ability to thrive and work with others who don't know as much about $FIELD as you do is, of course, an incredibly valuable life skill. Both socially and professionally. Whether you're a plumber or doctor or cashier then you by definition know more about your job than others. But I absolutely don't think forcing young kids to sit through learning at 0.25x or 0.5x or 0.75x their "natural" speed is the way to do it.
The worst thing about this is that these kids often get prescribed mind altering medication to have them sit still in class, just because we don't feel comfortable accepting that natural ability exists.
For what it's worth, I think my experience was similar to yours. That's why I'm drilling down on the definition of "need". I agree qwth what you say, my only point was that gifted students have a different, less urgent, kind of "need". Hence, as a mayter of institutional dynamics, we have the inadequate systems we have (for the gifted at least).
That's why I'm drilling down on the definition of "need"
I like this train of thought. It leads to another great question or drilldown. If we're going to talk about needs we need to talk about it in relation to a goal. Is the goal...
1. To raise all childrens' education to some sort of minimally acceptable bar? (like the equivalent of a GED here in the USA)
2. To get as many kids as possible as close to their individual educational potential as possible, for humanistic and/or societal reasons?
3. Something else?
If it's the first option, then gifted children probably do not have a "need" as urgent as developmentally-challenged kids. If it's the second option, I think that gifted children do have an equally urgent need.
The second option is admittedly loftier, and to be frank, the first option aligns more closely with the way most laws function. But god damn, I think we really should be aiming for the second option.
Strictly agree with your question.. i think it's similar to, and at the same level of importance as, the classic trilemma of criminal justice: prevention, rehabilitation, or revenge.
I sometimes struggled in regular classes as a young kid, because it was so painfully boring to move at the same, slower speed as the other kids. It was like trying to watch a movie at 0.25x speed. I wasn't just "not reaching my potential", I was missing out on chunks of learning. I almost don't know what the counterargument is: we... shouldn't match education to a child's learning speed and other needs?
(And for the record, I wasn't crazy gifted in terms of IQ. More like top X%, not top 0.X%)
The ability to thrive and work with others who don't know as much about $FIELD as you do is, of course, an incredibly valuable life skill. Both socially and professionally. Whether you're a plumber or doctor or cashier then you by definition know more about your job than others. But I absolutely don't think forcing young kids to sit through learning at 0.25x or 0.5x or 0.75x their "natural" speed is the way to do it.