As a follow up to the post last month about the NYC school system eliminating gifted programs: Since the science is showing that white and Asian kids are smarter than Hispanic and black kids, the science must be racist.
Why is this so? Because we know that everyone is the same. Equality, doncha know. This means that we should ignore any test results that do not agree with this basic premise. We can’t let the facts get in the way of our preconceived results.
Therefore, the only thing left to do is eliminate gifted and honors programs. There, we fixed the problem.
Let’s get one thing straight: After I was tested and found to have an IQ of 144, I was in a gifted program when I was a kid. I was always good at test taking. By the time I was in the sixth grade, standardized testing showed that I was reading at the same level as a college senior. I could read 300 words per minute with 85% comprehension.
A big deal was made of the fact that I was supposedly smarter than 98% of the population. It also sucked.
What all of that meant to me was that I was put into a class for gifted students one hour per day. It also meant that one of my other teachers, who happened to be black, led the class in making fun of me for being smart. I was constantly called out by the teacher with things like “I thought you were supposed to be gifted. You don’t seem smart to me.” The other kids would get in on it, and it made my sixth grade year hell.
I learned that the best defense was to act stupid. I began failing all of my classes, fighting, and getting in trouble. I got kicked out of school and wound up in a private school for a few years. I didn’t enjoy school again until I was in college.
As a result, when my own kids were in school, they were tested and found to also be intelligent. The school wanted to put them into gifted programs. I wouldn’t let them. They tried telling me that I was wrong, telling me that my kids would benefit from it. No, they wouldn’t.
To this day, I still wonder why a person who is talented at playing a sport is so revered, but a person who is talented at intellectual pursuits is so hated. I know what its like to be discriminated against, and putting a child in a gifted program shouldn’t be a punishment.
7 Comments
Therefore · November 3, 2021 at 7:03 am
My eldest son has a learning disability. He is also smart.
When he was in middle school he was on an IEP (Individual Education Plan). At one of the standard meetings we were planning his classes for the next year.
7 female staff or teachers, the male principal and me in this meeting. The lead educator starts with “Math is difficult so we are going to put him in the super easy math class”.
I was shocked, my son was excelling in math, he is good at math. It was the other courses he has problems with.
Being the ass I am I nodded along and then started talking about how hard math was and how hard college math was.
I got every single one of those female “educators” to admit that they had struggled with math in school and in college.
“Well math is easy for me and my son. Maybe you should create an IEP for my son and not yourselves?”
The education industry is full of broken promises. Unions that only have a goal of more money for themselves and students be damned.
I’m tired of hearing how a person is under paid while getting a good yearly salary while only working part time. Name a profession where they have more time off per year than educators.
Name a profession where there is no accepted objective measurement of performance. In my state it is illegal to say something negative about a teacher in a public meeting.
You can’t say Mrs Blue is doing a horrible job. In a school board meeting. You have to say “The sixth grade history teacher my child has is doing a horrible job” and even that can get you in trouble.
It takes over 4 years to get a teacher fired in my state. And look at the rubber class rooms in NYC, teachers so bad they cannot be allowed in a real classroom but which can’t be fired come to an administrative building and get paid to read the newspaper and play on their phones. And they still get paid for continuing education.
NYC says they closed the rubber classrooms, which they did, but they still have those paid teachers housed doing nothing because they can’t be fired.
The school system will spend huge amounts of money on programs for the show or stupid kids and nothing on the smart kids. I’ve been told in many occasions that it is beneficial to have the smart kids in the classroom. Yeah, because the smart kids help the slow kids.
And the schools never seem to want to protect those smart kids from being bullied. And they get bullied and teased by way to many kids and staff.
why · November 3, 2021 at 7:06 am
We ignore science at our own peril. (my explanation is for the benefit of readers, you already know the explanations)
IF I were to treat everyone the same, say for high blood pressure, then my patients would suffer and I would be a dumbass. Amlodipine (a calcium-channel blocker, CCB) works well in whites, but not as well as nifedipine (another CCB) in blacks.
Even the VA and DoD recognize the differences in ethnicities – check Sidebar 5, page 22 of this document — https://www.healthquality.va.gov/guidelines/CD/htn/VADoDHypertensionCPG508Corrected792020.pdf
Or the national guidelines, Figure 4 in Section 8 — https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.120.15026
But arguing with stupidity is a futile endeavor and I won’t argue. My job (in healthcare) is to give the patient the best information I can and provide options for them (I don’t discuss bad options). What they ultimately choose to do is totally up to them, and I remind them of same.
ChuckInBama · November 3, 2021 at 10:42 am
It seems modern man is no different from his ancestors of the middle ages. People think it’s “witchcraft” if you are smarter than them and assume you are evil. Their only way to deal with that is to shun and ridicule. That’s why I am so looking forward to the predictions that the jab will cause serious long-term effects. At last, all the stupid people will be dead….
Skeptic · November 3, 2021 at 12:47 pm
Your teacher didn’t “happen to be black.” She was black. And, like all blacks, she endeavored to destroy that which she was unable to create or nurture.
millerized · November 4, 2021 at 12:21 pm
Curse of the High IQ by Aaron Clarey
Read that (if you haven’t already) and ask yourself if that ‘hasn’t been my whole life’?
Fellow ‘abnormal’ myself, and yeah, it sucked being the ‘smart one’. Not so much picked on, but ‘damn kid thinks he’s so smart, I’ll fix him” to the point that my “permanent record” was purged of everything except my attendance record. No test scores, no classes taken, nothing. All paper, no digital, so it’s gone. Meh, between Algebra and that ‘record’…I’ll take ‘things I haven’t needed since high school for $200 Alex!
jahn O · November 4, 2021 at 7:13 pm
yup- ditto… I was sharp kid. My Mom hid the IQ results-I didn’t know either, but it IS pretty obvious over time if a kid is making quick connections and correct deductions!
And HEY, I was in the first group of kids at my school for the GIFTED program. Yes, a lil time getting to spend in other pursuits. I will say that was a plus in future.
it wasn’t till HIGH SCHOOL, where small town us, bussed to bigger town, that the more sportzy guys(not my old classmates- the NEW classmates, took umbrage at the smarter kid. Cause bully and status and anything different is a target.
YUP– I dumbed myself WAY down, don’t stick up, ya don’t get hammered…as much…
I tangled with a couple, won a few, toed off with the #1 prick, who got along with my longtime friend from lil town because both on teams… and my buddy earnestly told jerk, J is good guy, leave him alone, cause if you don’t HE has two butcher knives in his bag, and REALLY IS going to kill you. Yah. pretty sad when I look back. But I understood serious escalation, and I wasn’t going to exist in fear. I was gonna show him serious reality. Today, I would be locked up and medicated away, because bullies can’t be confronted at all. (NOT that I wanted blood over the harassment) but that shithead tormented SOOO many ppl. Ugh.
In the rear view mirror… He mellowed out after high school, and never returned for any reunions. (I did a few) I have long wondered wtf was going on at his home on farm?
But yah, sux.
Gifted programs matter, but the teachers better be up to their best at leading, and not in tormenting.
DM, Disgusting that jagoff teacher was a p.o.s.
~JO
Mike-SMO · November 9, 2021 at 4:16 am
I suspect that we are being victimized by thoe who can’t or wouldn’t. The skills/talents measued by an I.Q. test are rather specific to the skills needed in medicine, law, engineering, finance, etc. The physicians have to relate a flood of data about medication mechanisms, side effects, dosage, human variability and statistics, dangers, uncertainty, etc to the barfing woman sitting in front of him/her. That physician also needs an experienced eye/ear and a sense of humanity. Most of the “Woke” who I have encountered have failed at any attempt at handling masses of technical data and merely demonstrate an ability to parott ideological jargon. Those “Woksters” also tend to be oblivious to those who have the perseverence to develop whatever “intelligence” they have with whatever “talents” they possess into a useful profession. Some of the finer folks that I have worked with were “functional illiterates”. But they were “reliable” and did their job correctly, ~40 hoursper week, 50 weeks per year, year after year. Good people often with a deadly sense of humor. The “Woke” usually seem to have no comprehension of “intelligence” or reliability”, or “skill”. Typically, they go with the old Communist fantasy that any person can be trained to do any job. That is why the Soviet system collapsed into a rubble pile. Kalashnikov had to be rescued from the gulag to finish the designing of the rifle used by the Soviet Army (AK-47). The “Woke” don’t understand what they don’t understand, but have latched on to the fantasy that their poor grades and unemployment must be due to “discrimination” by the “ruling class”. That some “jobs” require “intelligence” and enthusiasm doesn’t mean squat. Some jobs require skill and patience and “intelligence” alone is useless. The “Woke” generally seem to have neither.
I was profoundly impressed by a retired grammar school teacher. I “helped out” (fetch and carry) when she was getting ready to retire. She encouraged the “shy” and “tongue tied” and gently guided those who were vaguely aware that the glyphs actually referred to sounds. [K thru 2nd + Special Ed] Those who could, were encouraged. For those who couldn’t she taught “learning”. Most “human” group of “rug rats” that I have ever encountered. Even the child of the prior student who “went to war” against the school district to ensue that her child was put in my friend’s class.
Even a college level reading of history should make it clear that the founding population of the American “slave” population were composed of the non-productive “defectives” of the West African tribal population. They were a burden that was traded for pretty colored fabric and rum, so it is no surprise that their descendants have a troubled existence. “Like Grandfather, like Father, like son”. Faking a higher grade for those will not erase the genetic deficit of the founding population. America gave them all a chance to succeed, to establish a business or to advance themselves. I have worked for and with a few of them. Giving some a fake higher grade, an office with their name on the door, will not alter the basic deficit. To those who succeed, Huraah!. They are my neighbors. Faking the benefit of education will not change the situation. Except for the pain it causes, I find the attitude of the “Woke” amusing. They blame racism for the failure of others to accomplish what they could not themselves do.
Good teachers are valuable beyond gold and diamonds. They can not, however, change human nature. They can encourage those with deficits to prosper with the opportunities and talents that they have available. More Blacks than Whites have trouble in the modern world. NO SH*T! That population was not selected to be nuclear physicists. I have no idea if the prosperous ones came from a different sub-population or if it is just the workings of genetics. Whatever, it ain’t my fault.
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