manlystanley

The problem with the brilliant kids is that Public education in Canada and I suspect it's just as bad if not worse in the States is they aren't designed for those top 2% kids.

In Canada provinces run the education system and they have X dollars to fund various things - there is ZERO funding for gifted children. Parents are completely on their own. Gifted is or should be classified as a Special Need because those brilliant kids are special and they require a different kind of program than the middle ground (try to catch most kids) program. The government here funds low functioning special needs students Autism, physical or violent needs kids. Indeed, the school I worked at in B.C. had a serious violent special needs students - they had to have two Special Ed workers follow him around all day - he never attended classes. But this is 2 $40,000 a year salaries to follow a kid who will never pass any subject and is possibly ultra dangerous - he stabbed a special Ed worker in elementary school.

Unfortunately, BC has a totally clueless right wing government that wants all schools to operate without losing money. So the schools of course have no chance to operate like that in the North Island - high heating bills, they generally have to pay a bit more to get teachers to work there and since funding is based on numbers of students when the High School has 450 students but the building still needs to be lit and heated there is far less money than a bigger district with 1800 students. So the school is paid to take in these kinds of violent students and they're kind of forced financially to take them in order to buy books or keep a decent computer lab.

The gifted kid is bored to tears - often become discipline problems because they're not challenged. Teachers in districts where most of the kids are weak tend to slightly lower the standards because if 4/5 of the class is failing it becomes a frustrating job very quickly. It's worse in the States as your job is on the line every year if the marks are low - but you can't learn the material for students - at the end of the day it's the teacher's job to teach it and the student's job to learn it.

Most kids can do well - it does come down to work ethic and several educational articles want wording changed when teacher's praise students (same for parents). Rather than saying "you scored 90% on that essay you must be so smart." it is better to say "Wow your "hard work" paid off look how well you did on your essay."

And getting that early is key because it is k-4 where most of the important stuff is taught - including work ethic. By grade 8 the weak students are giving up because their still at grade 2-3 English and math levels - they see Joe getting straight A's seemingly coming easy to him - well it does because he has all of the foundation skills. And this is why South Korean and Chinese kids are killing western kids on many of the foundational subjects.

Parents in South Korea make their kids work - and work hard. I taught 8-9 year old kids - grade 2. Typical week.

Go to Korean school from 8-2:30. Then come to English school from 3-6pm. Monday to Friday. 2-3 nights a week they would have piano or violin lessons and a private English tutor. They go to school every other Saturday from 8-1. Some would have Sunday school.

They had P.E. once a week with me for 1/2 hour that was the fun time.

But here's the thing - they didn't know any better - they were no missing anything - they were all bright happy and enjoyed coming to class. The sad part is they could write better than some of the grade 7 (13yr olds) in Canada and English is their first language. Depressing really.