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From: andrew@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.kids
Subject: Re: 'Talented and Gifted' program - (nf)
Message-ID: <862@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 9-Feb-84 23:48:21 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.862
Posted: Thu Feb  9 23:48:21 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 12-Feb-84 21:42:21 EST
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#R:ihuxr:-86900:inmet:18800008:000:1933
inmet!andrew    Feb  8 12:33:00 1984

T.C. Wheeler hit it right on the head when he exposed the implicit class
bias in T&G programs!  I could read and do arithmetic at the junior-high
level at age 4.  My parents (both working-class), however, had to threaten
legal action before the school board would even let me take the exam for
the T&G program!  Several years later, a group of 8th/9th graders was allowed
to take the SATs in order to identify those who might be capable of starting 
college early.  Despite superlative performance on similar tests, I wasn't
originally included among them; again my parents fought and the school board
relented.  (I scored 800M/751V at age 14, by the way... and was allowed to
cross-register at the local community college.  Big deal.)

You will also notice a distinct class bias regarding guidance counselors'
recommendations of colleges.  The most prestigious schools, of course, devote
considerable effort to finding and recruiting exceptionally bright students
form non-prestigious backgrounds (Harvard once rented a helicopter to help
them recruit talented Eskimos), but few guidance counselors want this to be
known.  Their job is basically to get the doctors', lawyers', and executives'
kids into the prestige schools while diverting working-class kids, regardless
of intelligence, into the community colleges.

Paul L. mentioned a third-grader and Zeno's Paradox (1/2+1/4+1/8... = ?).  
Well, I was kicked out of high school for asking my math teacher if there was
any such thing as the square root of i!  Rather than admit her ignorance, she
claimed that I was "disrupting the class with smart-aleck comments" and tried 
to have me suspended from school.  Fortunately, the chairman of the Math 
Department came to my rescue that time... he not only explained that it was a 
legitimate question, but even explained Euler's Theorem and how it could be
used to calculate the answer (+- (1+i)/sqrt(2)... try it!).
 
A.W. Rogers