philobiblius

"A very ingenious statement of the case is made by Dr. Bird T. Baldwin. Children, says Dr. Baldwin, have five ages, -

1. A chronological age,
2. A physical age,
3. A mental age,
4. A moral age,
5. A school age.

Two children, born on the same day, have the same age in years. One is bound to grow faster than the other in some physical respect. Therefore the two children have different physical ages, or rates of development. In the same way they have differing mental and moral ages. The school age, a resultant of the first three, is a record of progress in school. Even when children are born on the same day, the chances they will grow physically, mentally, and morally at exactly the same rate, and will make exactly the same progress in school, are remote indeed. School children are, therefore, inevitably different."

The New Education: A Review Of Progressive Educational Movements Of The Day
Scott Nearing, 1915

"A fourteen-year-old boy was recently examined. He had been expelled from one school and was in great danger of having the same experience at another. When examined it was found that his intelligence was three years ahead of his age; and during all his school life he had been in grades and had been given work that was far too easy for him, so that he developed a contempt for the work assigned and incidentally for the teachers and school authorities who assigned it. This is likely to be the effect of failing to care for these children in accordance with their needs."
~H. H. Goddard, 1924 (in The Child, His Nature and His Needs)

The following is from the Annual Report (#18) of the Board of Education, Saint Louis Missouri, in 1872 - including the Superintendent's discussion of their high school's system of promotion.

This is the first of two excerpts from the Annual Report. This is focused on the evils of the standard promotion system - which was not yet standard in most of the country, but which was becoming increasingly so. With no further delay, the words of Dr. W. T. Harris:

"The High School course is divided into four classes, the work laid down for each occupying one year in its accomplishment. (See Appendix, p. xcv.) The fact that each High School class is expected to begin its work in September and complete it in June, indicates at once the condition of things that I have already alluded to in this report. Such a course of study is "nailed to the calendar," and its progress is rigid and determined by the lapse of time, and not by the progress of the pupil. If a pupil is sick and unable to attend school for ten weeks, he finds, on his return, that there is no class just ready to admit him. The class which he left is now ten weeks in advance of him, and to make up this work and at the same time to do the regular work of the class is too difficult. If it were possible, it would prove a superiority of individual work over work in a class.

"The pupil is probably obliged to enter the next class below, but this class is thirty weeks behind his present acquirements, and his ten weeks' sickness has thus cost him a year's progress. On entering the lower class, however, he finds himself going over familiar ground, and gets careless in his work. By the time his present class arrive at the work from which he was broken off by sickness the previous year, he has acquired a loose habit of study, and is likely to fail on the first difficult study that he encounters. Two failures are pretty sure to complete his discouragement and cause him to leave school. Another case: A pupil, for some reason, is not quite able at the close of the year to pass the standard for admission to the next class, and is accordingly obliged to join the class below. He is set back just one year at once. He might have lacked five weeks' study or ten weeks' study—scarcely more than this—of completing the work of his class. But for this he is obliged to lose nearly a year more than was really necessary. It must be remembered that these are not isolated instances, but that the number of each class who ought to be separated, for one reason or other, from the part of the class that does the work of the grade thoroughly, is about one-third of the entire number. In order to avoid this evil of putting back pupils, there is a strong temptation to let them pass on at a low standard. The consequence of such a course is that each class is impeded in its work by the presence of a number who are not «qual to the performance of their tasks.

"These evils are not confined to the classes of the High School; they extend to the higher classes of the District Schools. Inasmuch as the examination for admission to the High School is to occur in June, the first grade's work of the District School must be completed at that time, and hence must be commenced in September of each year. This fact in turn influences the time of beginning and completing the work of the second grade. The tendency of all this is to produce a system of classification throughout the entire course of the District Schools similar to that in the High School. In this case classes would follow each other at intervals of a year, and the difficulty of properly assigning those who should be classified in grades between those established exists throughout the entire system. In many sections of the country—in Ohio and New York, for example—this very practice prevails. A promotion takes place once or twice a year, on occasion of a general written examination by the superintendent. Those who "pass" go on; those who fail fall back to the lower class or leave school altogether."

https://books.google.com/books?id=76deAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA664&dq=%22gifted+students%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiG7b6N8r_RAhWJ5iYKHWdLBHEQ6AEIJTAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Below are a pair of entries from the Report of the Committee on College Entrance Requirements of the Secondary School Committee of the National Education Association. While this was released in the summer of 1899, as noted above, it was developed during meetings held over 4 years by the joint committee (Secondary and College) which was appointed at the 1895 NEA annual meeting. The report, itself, starts on page 625 of the book.


Advanced Placement credit long before Advanced Placement tests were created.

VII. Resolved, That the colleges will aid the secondary schools by allowing credit toward a degree for work done in secondary schools, beyond the amount required for entrance, when equal in amount and thoroness to work done in the same subjects in college.

In many, and perhaps most, colleges the plan suggested in the above resolution is already in effect. Such recognition of school work by the colleges will tend to raise the estimation in which the school is held by the community. It will also directly assist the school in its natural effort to induce students to continue their studies in college, for if a student has, on finishing the school course, already one-third or a half year or more of work to his credit that may be counted toward a college degree, this fact constitutes a great incentive for going on with college work. Furthermore, it frequently happens that a student at the end of the last school year has one or two subjects to complete in order to finish the school course. This may happen for a variety of reasons, among which change of school and ill-health are most common. Should the student wish to go to college, two courses are open — either to enter college with conditions, or to remain an additional year in school so as to complete the course. But if the second alternative is adopted, the student, while making up deficiencies, can and should carry one or two additional studies, in order that the year's work may be complete. If these studies cannot be counted for college credit, there is temptation on the part of the student to do light work, and to take only the subjects required, with a tendency to acquire indolent habits of study. If the additional subjects above those required for completing the school course are accepted by the college toward a degree, a strong incentive is offered the student to do the best work possible, and the danger of falling into indolent habits is avoided. This college credit, furthermore, puts into the hands of the school principal one of his strongest arguments for inducing the pupil to remain an additional year at school, so that he may not enter college with conditions. It seems to the committee that there can be no question that the mutual interests of both school and college will be best subserved by making the class of conditioned students as small as possible.

---

Differential placement in college courses based on preparation:
VIII. Resolved, That for students who have met a definite requirement in any science, and who continue the subject in college, it seems to us desirable that there be provided a suitable sequel to the school course in continuation of the study; such students being in no case placed in the same class with beginners.

It seems to be a somewhat common practice among colleges to accept a subject for entrance, but not to give it credit after the student has been admitted. This is illustrated specifically by the case in which physics is accepted as an entrance requirement, but not required of all students. Student A comes to college and presents a year's good work in physics, done in a high school or academy, as one of his*entrance subjects. Student B has no physics, but presents something else, which is accepted as an entrance equivalent. In college, however, both A and B take precisely the same course in physics, one having had a year's work, with laboratory experiments, the other not having studied the subject at all. This practice is justified by the colleges on two grounds: (r) that the year's work in the high school really, after all, amounts to nothing, and (2) that it is impossible to make two different classes. The latter argument may be disregarded. In some cases it doubtless is true that the teaching force of the college does not permit the organization of two separate classes, and there is no argument with necessity. But the other argument, that the year's work in the high school is not of any value to the college, is refuted by the college itself, in two ways: (1) by accepting this year's work as of full value for entrance to the university, and (2) by allowing university credit for exactly the same sort of work in other subjects, as, for example, in Latin, French, or German. The student who offers French or German for admission to college is not put into the same college classes in either of those subjects with students who have not presented them for entrance, but is always put in an advanced class, and remains there until he has shown his unfitness. The practice of combining in the same college class students who have had previous high-school instruction and those who have not is most common in the sciences, and while physics has been specified above, all of the sciences that are accepted as entrance requirements share equally in this practice. The effect cannot be otherwise than disastrous upon science teaching in the high school, for if a student goes to college with a year's course in science and finds that work totally disregarded by the college authorities, he can but infer that the school work is without value. He is likely to send the report back to the school, and other students will be deterred from taking the course in science, knowing that they will have to do the work over again when they go to college later. The effect on the student himself who, having had a year's work in science, is required to go again over the same ground, to a large extent, alongside of students who have no previous knowledge of the subject, is most unfortunate. Experience totally disproves the argument that such work is in the nature of a thoro review and is, therefore, beneficial to the student. On the contrary, it is distasteful and tiresome. The student is likely to rely upon his previous knowledge and slight the work as much as possible. It frequently happens, therefore, that the student with the entrance-equipment attains no better rank in his class than his fellow who entered without previous knowledge. This does not show, as has been supposed, that the high school is of no value, but it conclusively proves that such repetition is destructive of interest and calculated to foster careless habits of work. The adjustment of college work to a wide range of elective entrance requirements certainly presents many difficulties, but it seems to the committee that, when the colleges have taken the step of offering this wide range of electives, they cannot well stop there, but are bound, so far as possible, to adjust the college work so that the students may not have to repeat in any branch work that has already been done, and presumably, by the college's own recognition of it, well done, in secondary schools.

"There is one department in this university which already sets unqualified excellence as its standard and which regularly produces conspicuous examples of the performance which a persistent effort to excel oneself can reach. We refer, of course, to our athletic department. Our athletic coaches offer us an example of Honors methods of teaching in action which we would do well to ponder. Is it too much to ask that we try to do as well by our best students as we do now by our best athletes? Is the maximum challenge of maximum ability an acceptable goal only in physical education, not in mental? We do not think so."

~Cornell (University) Honors Committee
as quoted in The Superior Student
Volume 3, Issue 2 - Page 15

This was presented in response to the question, "Does an Honors program create a second-class status for the rest of the students?"

"No properly conceived Honors program should have the effect of short-changing the general run of students. No either-or is involved here, but precisely the contrary; we are urging that we do our best for all students. We stress special attention to the superior student simply because his are the needs we are now farthest from meeting."

`ibid, page 16.

https://www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork/photos/a.102107073196735.4429.102099916530784/872765736130861/

This link is to the story of Nadia Lopez, the principal at Mott Hall Bridges Academy. She shared with her school, in the aftermath of the great good fortune that befell her and her school, that she had been ready to give up, to surrender, because she had lost faith in her kids and her program.

As you may well know by now, Vidal, who is one of her students, had his brief story (and face) was captured by Humans of New York and put out on the internet where anybody and everybody could read it --> and his life, her life, and the school's life have been irrevocably changed - more than $1,000,000 has come in, her faith in them is restored by his story, and all is well or, at least, looking pretty good right now.

So, why then is this labeled a tragedy?

There are so many more Mott Halls out there. So many more Nadia Lopez stories - people with a dream who pour their hearts and souls and blood and sweat and tears and whatever metaphor for lives you care to use, but whose student was not Vidal, was not on Humans of New York, and whose dreams are dying or have died.

We are not a meritocracy. We are not a place in which a dream and hard work is enough to ensure success. We are a place of crap shoots and luck. We are a giant lottery with people investing their beings in the belief that that will give them a good chance of winning when it gives them, at best, a poor chance.

---

It is worse than that, unfortunately. The dreams of our private educators who have made their way up from the bottom are smashed into pieces, but that is not the worst of it, by any means.

Our public schools are filled with teachers, almost all of whom mean well. Among them, our most passionate, most caring faculty are burning out just as Nadia has burned out. They, too, think "I felt like typing my resignation. 'I don’t think I can do it anymore. Because I don’t think my scholars care. And I don’t think they believe in themselves enough to care. I’m afraid they don’t think they’re good enough.'

And they think their administrations don't care enough. And they think their school boards do not care enough. And they think their state and federal legislators do not care enough. And it is hard to tell them they are wrong in the face of what we are doing to our teachers, our schools, and our students.

---

Some of you, reading this, may wonder what this has to do with gifted education, which is most often the theme of these posts.

We see the same things in gifted education that we see in the rest of the field of education, folks. We see tired, burned out people. We see institutions that have died because the people behind them grew too tired to move forward, while being also unable to find young firebrands to pick up the cause.

This state organization. That regional conference. This other unique group's newsletter and conference.

Some of them are thriving because they got lucky. No, not because they are good, but because they got lucky. Their founder did not get sick or lose all their money in a scam. Or a benefactor joined them and brought them back to life, like Mott Hall. Or any number of other pieces.

Yes, yes, you need to be able to take advantage of luck when it happens, but when it doesn't or when it is bad, then what? What is resilience to an institution that ran on a shoe string, when the shoe string breaks?

We are losing precious gifted institutions. College programs with both research and courses, as well as community outreach are going away either from defunding at the state (or province) level or because the leader died or moved along. City wide programs have gone away for much the same reason. It's not everywhere nor all at once. But in an area that ran annual events for decades, two out of three years there is no event and what used to be sponsorship from the state departments of education is gone, not just some of the sponsoring groups.

---

Please understand - what happened for Nadia Gomez is a wonderful thing for her school, her students, and her. Celebrate what has happened. But do not think it is a more deserving program than some of those that fall by the wayside, unnoticed in their passing. It is both deserving and lucky.

Do you have luck that you can lend to something you believe in?

I have touched upon the label war off and on for many years, here and elsewhere. I strongly favor keeping the word we have for children of high potential: gifted.

I do not say this because I like the word - I don't. Nor do I say it because I like labeling children - I don't. I say it because labeling seems to be the only way to get services and losing the label gifted seems likely to make getting those services no easier and likely harder.

This is what I wrote in 2007:
One of the most commonly mentioned drawbacks concerns what would happen if your child is labeled gifted by the school. Depending on the speaker at the time, you may end up with a conceited and unpleasant child, one who thinks that s/he is better than the others in class, a child who gets picked on and bullied for the label, or even a child who is doomed to failure due to the excessive pressure placed on the child’s shoulders.

I have to admit, your child may be conceited. Your child may think s/he is better than the others in class. Your child may get picked on or be bullied. And your child may suffer from the feeling of excessive pressure on his or her shoulders.

None of this is particularly connected to the use of the term gifted by the schools.

Conceit: If you consistently know more than others around you, can answer questions they cannot, read books that they find too difficult, or use words that they do not understand, then there is a distinct chance that you may become conceited.

Better: When the teacher shows your work off, telling everybody to follow your example, when you are chosen for competitions, when you are the only student designated to tutor others during class, then you may well find yourself believing that you are the best student in the class.

Bullied: Should other kids notice that you talk funny, dress funny, act funny, look funny, or anything else different from them, then there is a clear possibility that you will be bullied. If you are used by other kids’ parents as an example, they may well resent you and bullying may follow.

Pressured: How you see the world and its troubles, and what you perceive as a response to those problems can cause some pressure. The belief that you need to do something about it will put pressure on your shoulders every time.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the gifted label causes none of that. Children have been conceited since before the word gifted came into the language. Similarly, they have been singled out for their accomplishments when compared to classmates, been bullied for being different, and have felt huge pressure to change the world – all without ever being called gifted by the schools, their parents, or anybody else.
********

As is my wont, I wish to harken back to history - to the period in which Guy Montrose Whipple led our field from one term to another:

First,what number of children in an ordinary school system can be termed supernormal children? Evidently the answer to this question must be: it depends on what you mean by "supernormal." I prefer not to use the term "supernormal" at all.In the minds of many persons the term "supernormal" carries a vague implication also of the abnormal. To be supernormal means that you are somehow outside the realm of the normal (outside of the healthy or desirable). A supernormal child is a freak, a child prodigy, an unwholesome hydrocephalic creature, an anemic, hothouse product whose youthful precocity is no whit more striking than his subsequent decline into mediocrity, if not into eccentricity or downright insanity. But the "gifted children"(which appears to be a better designation) of whom we are speaking are wholesome, competent children with sound bodies, lively ambitions -- whose future, when properly trained, only fulfills the promise of early years. (9/11/1920)

The modern Chinese still use "supernormal," with some claims that it does not touch on the nature vs. nurture debate. We clearly don't use that term, or at least not when it comes to children.

What other words might we use, if not "gifted" or "supernormal?"

"Exceptional" and "Special" are in use already. "Genius" is both wrong and worse than gifted. "Superior" doesn't seem to cut it. "Highly intelligent" might work for some purposes, but in a world of Multiple Intelligences or even Marland's 1972 definition of gifted, there would seem to be far more to the term "gifted" than intelligence of any height includes.

"Academically advanced" suffers from that problem and also precludes the inclusion of underachievers - while "academically advanced underachiever" makes sense to me, I suspect I am in the minority.

What do you think of "precocious?" If kids hate the gifted label (and some do), how do you suppose they will like "precocious?" Clever, smart, brilliant... none of those would be any more accepted, yet none of them covers the ground fully.

Superman!? Maybe not.

High potential.

I could live with that - it is wordier, but in some ways clearer.

But... imagine the reception the "High Potential Students" program would get from parents - "Are you saying my child does not have high potential?!"

This, then, is the crux of the matter.

We need a term that is not domain specific, but which can be applied to individual domains.

We need a term that is inclusive of non-academic realms.

We need a non-contentious term. (Not happening!)

I suggest we try the word "gifted."

This blog is part of the Hoagies’ Gifted Education Page inaugural Blog Hop on The “G” Word (“Gifted”). To read more blogs in this hop, visit this Blog Hop at www.hoagiesgifted.org/blog_hop_the_g_word.htm


*************
Some links to my prior entries somewhat on the topic:
http://philobiblius.dreamwidth.org/1634.html
http://philobiblius.dreamwidth.org/5861.html
http://philobiblius.dreamwidth.org/7199.html
http://philobiblius.dreamwidth.org/7439.html
http://philobiblius.dreamwidth.org/9742.html

"Vast sums are yearly squandered to no purpose. If the books selected consist of extracts and compilations, wholly unsuited to the capacity of children - if the house is cold or crowded, inconvenient and uncomfortable - and especially if given over to the management of an incompetent teacher, the school becomes a scene of anarchy and confusion, and all is waste-the young mind becomes disgusted with books and schools and teachers, and hates learning forever after.

...

"The entire premises... should be an enchanting spot, sheltered alike from the cold blasts of winder, and the summer's scorching sun; a place of love, of kindness and good will; and not a place of whips, consternation, despotism and terror."

J. D. Pierce, Sup't of Schools, Michigan, December, 1836 (Senate Document 7)
from
Journal of the Senate of the State of Michigan, January, 1837.

(also from System of Public Instruction and Primary School Law of Michigan (Document No. 6)
Prepared by Francis W. Sherman, Superintendent of Public Instruction, 1852)

More from the 1968 report to President Johnson on "Gifted Persons."

"These twin requirements of increasing instructional speed and quantity without decreasing quality have generated new administrative arrangements and stimulated an educational technology that can aid the development of programs for gifted students. The newer administrative arrangements -- better methods for apportioning students, teachers, and the talents of both -- include:

1. Nongraded classes: This term does not imply that students receive no grades for performance. Rather, it recognizes that a student might be capable of performing at the sixth grade level in mathematics and science, at the fifth-grade level in social sciences, and at the eighth-grade in English. Nongraded classes permit students to move among the grade levels for each area of study, rather than taking all classes at one level. Some schools -- those in the Pittsburgh area, for example -- have experimented with cooperative arrangements involving schools at different levels (for example, junior and senior high schools), and a number of colleges permit outstanding high school students to enroll in college courses while completing high school requirements.*

2. Team teaching: ... Team teaching, in short, enables each teacher to do what he or she is best at, and gives all students the best instruction that the staff can provide in each subject.

3. Individually prescribed instruction: ... IPI, in essence, allows students to choose their own assignments each day in consultation with the teachers, permits each to work alone on that assignment, and then checks the student's performance to diagnose any learning problems he may have and gauge his readiness to undertake more difficult work. Each student moves at his own pace in each subject, working as fast as he can, as far as he can. Carefully planned curricular materials, including film-slides and recordings as well as printed matter, perform much of the routine instructional work, freeing teachers to provide help to those students who need it, and freeing students from the necessity of listening to group lectures they do not need.

4. Flexible scheduling: There is no intrinsic reason why each class period should last 50 minutes, but -- with the exception of occasional two-hour laboratory periods -- most classes do, whether in English or algebra or playing the oboe. By recognizing that some units of learning can profitably be taught in less time than others, and by structuring the class day in varying multiples of 20 minutes, say, flexible scheduling permits the student to spend more or less time on each subject as appropriate.

5. Self-directed learning or independent study: Long used by good teachers as a means of relieving exceptional students from unnecessary repetition, this approach is particularly appropriate in small schools where special programs for the talented are not feasible. It can also be used in larger schools where a relatively few students have such unusual abilities or talents that they do not fit anywhere in the regular or special programs. Some of the more innovative schools -- Nova High School in Fort Lauderdale, for example -- have built their whole program around some combination of independent study and nongradedness.

6. Resource centers: These provide facilities and equipment for enabling gifted students, individually or in groups, to carry on activities appropriate for their talent development. Such a center may serve students from a single school or from a whole group of schools.

Each of these methods recognizes that (1) students differ in their rates of learning, even though they may be the same age and share the same classroom; (2) a uniform rate of class progression based on the learning ability of the majority can bore fast learners and frustrate slow learners; and (3) children -- even young ones -- have a genuine appetite for learning which can be stimulated by offering each the precise kind and amount of knowledge he is ready to consume. Continuing this chef's analogy,we might say that administrative arrangements such as those outlined above permit a school to offer a daily smorgasbord of learning in place of the same menu for everybody.

*Meeting the Needs of the Able Student Through Provisions for Flexible Progressions, C.M. Lindvall with the collaboration of J. Steele Gow,Jr., and Francis J. Rifugiato. A report of the Regional Commission on Educational Coordination and the Coordinated Education Center. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1962.

"No greater foe to the genuine equality of opportunity which our educational, as our political system, implies, can be found than the belief that equality can be attained by ignoring or denying diversity of gifts or by submerging all elevations in the vast ocean of the commonplace.
...
"The supreme test of a teacher's efficiency is not how well he has awakened sluggish minds, or how far he has led the capable, or what excellencies he has discovered, but how few he has "failed." Reward for, or even recognition of, high achievement in any line save athletics is singularly lacking.
...
"Soon we shall hear that college itself has been appropriated by the aspiring crowd and the inspiring dictum shall go forth that human society owes every child a college education.
...
"It is undoubtedly true, as we are continually being reminded, that the public schools as they stand, do not produce the citizenship needed for the work ahead of the country.' But in all fairness, how can they be expected to when the whole tendency of teaching and of administration is toward the minimizing of distinctions by virtue of which alone special efficiency of any sort is possible?"

~ Frank P. Whitney,
Equality and the Schools in Education, Vol. 33, No. 2 (October, 1912)