To me, this is tantamount to saying that we shouldn’t give kids with disabilities the support services they need because we don’t want to make them feel ostracized. As someone who was involved in both gifted and regular classes all throughout my school years, depending on what the district I happened to live in offered, I can tell you that I was most frustrated and “ostracized” when I was put into a normal classroom, where other kids resented you if you showed the slightest sign of being a “smart kid”.

I grew much more intellectually and emotionally when I was surrounded by peers who were on my own level, or even given extra work. I also caused a lot less trouble– a lot of gifted kids end up having behavioural issues because they are so bored in their normal classrooms that they end up becoming a discipline issue for their teachers because they act out. If we celebrate intellectual stagnation and mediocrity, then that’s what we’ll end up with.. a generation of people afraid to use the brains their God gave them for fear of being looked at funny.

I agree with Knitty. The mentoring should be looked at as a bad thing. Also, I think schools should be more open to multi-age classrooms. Good for the advanced academically, good for those lagging academically — yet no one is left without social peers.

Jenny, from the moment I read this headline I was thinking of posting about Harrison Bergeron. I can’t believe some other nerd beat me to it.

I agree with jenny, its when mentoring is something that you’re not asked, but told to do, and when you’re an unpaid teacher’s aide, that it does harm.

When I was in elementary school, I read a few levels ahead, and the teacher would literally put me in the corner so she could “work with remedial students.” Disgusting. Boredom killed the public school experience for me, and I was in advanced classes and gifted programs (when available). Mentoring is all fine and dandy, but it does nothing to provide the stimulation of advanced class work that some kids need.

Well, Eric, you know what they say about the early nerd…er, bird. I read that story the first time in the library time-wasting exercise, but it was assigned reading the next year and a dude-who-missed-the-point teacher gave me a big fat lecture when I tried to make the comparison between it and the brave new No Child Left Behind plan…ah, memories

I spent my entire school career bored out of my mind. Sometimes I was conveniently quiet, either because I was so bored that I was mentally absent or because I got dirty looks/nasty comments/etc. from both teachers and classmates when I piped up. Other times I broke, unable to keep my mouth shut, inevitably getting in trouble for contradicting or correcting a teacher when they were imparting incorrect information to the students whose educations they were supposedly improving.

When I was four, having just started kindergarten and having made the mistake of demonstrating that I was a skilled reader and was well beyond alphabet drills, I got in trouble — as in punished — for being ahead of the class. That was my first of many repetitions of the same lesson throughout the next thirteen years of school: be at the same level as everyone else, or keep your bloody mouth shut. (Unfortunately for me, natural obstinance overwhelmed self-preservation, and I spend a lot of time over those thirteen years getting in trouble for not keeping my mouth shut about it.)

In a not uncommon result for gifted kids, I ended up a mediocre student. One, I was mind-numbingly bored; I mean bored beyond any possibility of adequate description. Two, if I excelled, I was penalized. So why set myself up to get burned? I got decent grades because I coasted through on test scores, but my almost pathological avoidance of homework was such that even today, years later, it’s still talked about even by extended family. School basically taught me to NOT be a good student or do my best, lest I suffer the consequences. It was terrible preparation for college, where teachers were interested in students actually learning and excelling rather than meeting test standards and maintaining the status quo.

The one year that it all finally felt a little better, that offered me some mental stimulation? That would be senior year, when I finally convinced administrators — who’d adamantly and condescendingly denied my queries and requests numerous times — to look at my test scores and put me in TAG. My family and I knew my scores and knew I should have been in TAG since the first test I’d taken back in grade school, but the schools wouldn’t listen. And when I had my final confrontation with them, when I asked them if there was something they were trying to hide by refusing to take 30 seconds to look at records that were filed ten feet away, they finally gave in, making no secret that they were doing so to put me in my place and prove me wrong. Even as they walked over to the filing cabinet, they were snidely informing me that test scores were reviewed and gifted students were identified and put into TAG and no one gets missed and I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was and blah blah blah. Then they looked at my file. I kid you not, the only thing either of them said to interrupt their suddenly uncomfortable silence was, “Oops.”

Suffice it to say that they immediately put me into TAG. Since the other students had all formed their bonds after years of having been in the system together, I never got the benefit of that peer support. Nonetheless, for the remainder of that one partial school year out of my entire school career, I was actually mentally and academically stimulated, interested in being at school, encouraged to participate and excel rather than keep my mouth shut and head down. It was a night-and-day shift. Had I been granted that experience from the moment I was first identified as gifted when I was four, my school career would likely have been very different. I might be able to look back and think of something, anything, that I actually learned in school rather than taught myself through books and independent research.

Had I not been a naturally obstinate, contradictory person, my overall school experience might well have turned me off of the love of learning instead of just turning me off of school. So, long story long, yes, I firmly believe in gifted programs, remedial programs, “average” programs, and whatever other steps can be taken to help kids learn at their own pace, whatever that might be. Forcing gifted kids to stagnate is just as unacceptable as leaving behind students at the other end of the spectrum. And yes, I feel firmly about that end of things, too, since my sister needed — and received without any argument — help with remedial reading. She got the help she needed, she didn’t have to fight for it, and we’re all eternally grateful for the help she received. As a student, I deserved the same consideration, as do all students, regardless of where they fall in the academic or intellectual or social spectrum.