I once saw a 60 Minutes story about a disabled child who was flown in an airplane to school. The amount of money spent on a child who might some day be able to tie his shoelaces unaided was amazing and horrifying.
We should fund programs for gifted students. Better yet, we should allow homeschooling and test for results. Better still, we should allow students to opt out of classes based on exam results.
I so envy children who are homeschooled. I had a Marxist Manhattan Mafia bore me to distraction in public school and nuns trying to convert me back to Catholicism in parochial school. I learned most the year I played hookey and studied philosophy in the mornings and went to foreign films in the afternoon.
I wouldn’t even go to college if I had it to do over. I would study Spanish, French, Italian and Portugese (at least 2 years worth of credits right there) , ancient philosophy, American, French and English history, economics, political science et al on my own then take CLEP exams. One woman was able to graduate from a four year university in six months by doing so.
As to who is gifted or retarded or what, in the first grade I stubbornly insisted on pronouncing *I” like “e” which is how it’s pronounced in Spanish. I had been taught to read at home by my grandmother, a language teacher. (that meant I learned using phonics not that brain destroying look-say method that has greatly destroyed our former literacy). I was labeled at the least not too smart. Then, because I so hated public school my parents sent me to parochial school Public and Parochial schools don’t share records. The nuns thought me gifted and eventually skipped me a year ahead.
There are many different kinds of intelligence. I am verbally gifted. But I learned math in school which has left me pretty much innumerate like way too many Americans.
I admire people who are good at fixing things and making things. That’s a different kind of intelligence. My ex-husband wasn’t verbal, but could keep a flow chart the length of a conference table in his head, I can’t think two steps ahead in chess. Different brain wiring.
I found out only a few years ago that I have ADD. Had I known I would have been less of a loner and misfit and had an easier time of it. When I looked into ADD, I was given a list of ADD geniuses which included virtually everyone I’d ever admired.
It takes all kinds to make a world.
