[igorkraw]

This "envy" story is complete BS. Why should we, as a society, especially help the most privileged and gifted people even more? It's not envy, it's regression to the mean (everything except societal rules is already going in your favour, how dare it).

I also don't think you appreciate the value of instruction as a learning tool and the skills required to truly teach people - empathy, paying attention to cues to keep an up to date model of the student, language skills, clarity of thought to adapt your explanation on the fly. All of these are real skills, which it is absolutely worth teaching the gifted math prodigy instead of rushing them into research ASAP - they are humans, not theorem-factories.

[chongli]

There are plenty of gifted students who are not from economically privileged backgrounds. These are kids who can easily drop out, not just from school but from society as a whole, if they’re not nurtured.

I have first hand experience with this, as a former high school dropout, now close to completing a math degree just before the age of 40. The cost to the school system to keep me engaged rather than bored and ignored would’ve been minuscule compared to all of the lost tax revenue from me staying out of the workforce for over a decade and a half.

None of that has anything to do with forcing gifted kids into math research. And there are a hell of a lot more gifted kids than just the Olympiad gold medallist prodigies. I could’ve learned calculus in elementary school but I am far, far away from someone like Terence Tao.

[igorkraw]

That still doesn't hold any water for the envy/spite argument I was replying to.

I'm all about making school a valuable, engaging experience for everyone, including gifted children. But it needs to scale and be progressive, not just pile more inequalities and gate keeping into the system.

And if we are talking about the lost tax revenue and the "worth" of education, having the gifted kids teach their peers for better socialisation and so increasing the floor of math and other education will have a much larger impact. Progress doesn't come from great men, it comes from the world changing.

[scarmig]

It's weird that we don't think it's reasonable to expect teachers with years of postgraduate study and experience in education to get kids up to grade level algebra and at the same time think having a gifted kid tutor them will be able to improve things.

Also, if we're expecting gifted kids to work as teachers' aides at the expense of their own education, shouldn't we be compensating them for it?

Or should the gifted kids just be grateful for the opportunity? If it's actually good for them, are parents just being irrational by focusing on challenging them academically instead of enrolling them in a teacher's college for tots?

[dekleinewolf]

My kids (Montessori) school has horizontal classes (3 age groups in one class) for exactly this reason. From ages 3-12 they go through the cycle of being youngest, middle and oldest 3 times, teaching them valuable 'soft skills' such as you described.