Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!cca!ima!inmet!andrew 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 Lines: 33 #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