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California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

(www.latimes.com)
412 points tafda | 1 comments | 26 Nov 24 16:53 UTC | HN request time: 0.248s | source
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niemandhier ◴[26 Nov 24 21:34 UTC] No.42250297[source]▶
My personal observation: It’s not gifted programs, it’s the environment. I work on a pretty good science campus in a smallish university town, lots of smart people and so on. There are a few products of gifted programs, but most people just meandered in.

What stands out though is that almost everybody has a story of slipping into a subculture where being smart was cool. The chess club, post soviet backyard hacker pad, Berlin maker space … I think what would help much more than school run gifted programs, would be more opportunities for interested kids to mingle an push each other forward.

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1. mesh ◴[26 Nov 24 22:28 UTC] No.42250790[source]▶
I grew up going through a gifted program (in the 80s) and it was the gifted program that was the subculture i fell into that really pushed me.

Before that I was isolated and flunking out. Maybe I would eventually have found my people, but at least for me the gifted program found me, and got me on the right path at an early enough age to matter.

Btw, this was in a region where intellectual capability and success was not as celebrated as it is in the Bay area.