[sunstone]

Exceptionally talented kids whether it be sports, music, math, chess etc. should go to normal schools and receive training relevant to their gift in a separate setting. Their schooling doesn't have to be an either or choice.

[colanderman]

I agree, but unfortunately access to those programs is typically not free. The best an academically gifted public-school child can hope for is either the existence of a (free) after-school enrichment program run by a benevolent teacher, or to be bumped up a grade or two in their subject of talent (which typically only works in later grades, when students have more flexible schedules).

My own experience as a public school child was following the latter course (bumped up two years in math in high school), but that was only an option because (a) I was in one of the best public schools in the state, and (b) my mother was herself a teacher, and could navigate the system to fight to open that option to me. But that only worked for one year – before that, it logistically wasn't an option (so teachers would just isolate me with a special workbook); after that, well, there were no higher-level math courses offered (so I just didn't take math and instead dicked around in the AV club room for an hour each day).

[sunstone]

Too bad it couldn't have been you and Walter Pitts in the library with the pencil.

[jdeibele]

My daughters attended a local public program where students had to achieve at least 99% on certain tests. The program started out relatively central, then was moved further out. The year after my younger daughter left, the program was split into two, with elementary students as far east as it was possible to go and still be in the district and the middle schoolers as far south.

The district would clearly like to kill the program. It used to be possible to get high school credit for the science classes and the district did away with that.

The one opportunity that students have in some other local schools to advance is to do Compacted Math, where they do 7th and 8th Grade mathematics plus algebra in 2 years instead of the usual 3.

Nowhere in the district is there an opportunity to go faster in English or anything else.

What I would have liked for my daughters is to be able to go to local schools and still have some advanced classes. Their local middle school has 3 classes from one school, 4 from another, and another 4 from a 3rd school. There's 275 kids in a grade. Surely there could be 1 or 2 classes for the fast learners and extra help for some others?

No way, that's tracking and the district refuses to do it.

[Viliam1234]

It would be wonderful if normal schools would provide optional advanced lessons in many subjects!

Among other reasons, it would be wonderful, because some kids are exceptionally talented in one area, but some of them are exceptionally talented in two or three different areas. Currently, if you are talented e.g. in art and math, you have to choose between a normal school, art school, or math school... but there is no option to get advanced art and math.

(Advanced lessons are better than skipping grades, because skipping means "the same thing, only faster", while advanced lessons could also be "deeper". I don't have a good example for this, but imagine that normals kids spend e.g. one month learning about squares and one month learning about triangles... then the faster option would be only three or two weeks learning the same information about each... while the deeper option would be also learning one month about squares, but learning more facts about them, and then one month learning more facts about triangles. Except, it's not just more facts, but also more connections between the facts, etc.)

Also, it is great if kids exceptional in one subject can interact with kids exceptional in other subjects. I have seen great school projects, for example a computer game where the code was written by a computer science talented kid, and the pictures and music were created by their artistically talented classmates. More impressive than a typical computer game generated by math school students, where the physics engine is awesome... but, no offense meant, the aesthetics is usually quite meh.

Finnish schools seem to provide more flexibility to students; instead of everyone in the same grade following the same schedule, you have some freedom to choose classes. On the other hand, kids exceptional in one subject are typically encouraged by teachers to focus on the remaining subjects, rather than further improve the one they already excel in. The culture values balance, not extremes. (I was told so by a Finnish student.)

And perhaps if we use more computer education in the future, it would be easier (and cheaper) to allow different students progress at their natural pace. Instead of normal and advanced classes, we could have literally each student proceed at a different speed... at a computer. And teachers could then provide consultations, individually or in small groups.

Unfortunately, the same prejudices that people have against schools for gifted children, also apply to talented classes. If your dogma is that no one is really different from others, then no one is allowed to be different from others even for one lesson a week.

There are also technical problems, like if you have 40 kids in a grade, then if their talents are on a bell curve, you get 1 kids exceptional in math, and maybe 2 more half-exceptional kids, and the rest is normal or bad at math. You cannot make a separate lesson for 1 kid or 3 kids; and splitting the class 20:20 will not provide that 1 kid what they need.