[VLM]

"The culture shock"

I was also in a G+T program in the 80s and I'd say a major problem in young adult years is no one cares how smart you are, after 16 or so years of being told there's nothing more important than being smart. Much like your GPA, your IQ is pretty much irrelevant once you graduate. Workplace progress suddenly switches entirely over to who you know, who is your dad, who you impress, who you kiss up to, your golf game, etc.

[JoeAltmaier]

In other words, social skills. Maybe we can just add that to the curriculum? If a gifted child can attend to social cues and learn some beneficial behaviors (and they surely can), then the outcome could be much different?

[krigi]

You make it seem that gifted children lack social skills. We don't, however, you spend a lot of time with other gifted kids and types of behaviors that provide social currency in that circle may not do so in circles with non-gifted individuals. This is why I'd prefer gifted programs not exist.

Artificially concentrating smart kids in a group and then scattering them into the world is pretty counterproductive. I mean, it makes the school district look good ("We have 120 high-IQ students in the county! Stellar exam scores! We're fantastic!"), and at the end of the day, that's all the matters. The school system doesn't care much what happens after the students have left it.

[neilcrj]

This is a function of how gifted kids learn social skills. Before adolescence, children primarily seek approval from parents and teachers. Gifted kids get this in abundance, and learn how to earn, as you put it, social currency with adults (at least those who value academics), which is not the same as how to earn social currency with their peers in adolescence and early adulthood. And of course, gifted students learn more quickly, and are reinforced more. It's a perfect environment for developing anti-social behaviors.

For academic achievement, the majority of research backs up your thesis, and it isn't even a tradeoff, where you get better academics at the expense of worse socialization. Gifted programs don't work. It is far better to accelerate a student to a higher grade, even if it means putting students in classes with much older students (accelerating a gifted student is the most effective positive intervention that can be taken in K-12 education according to Hattie's recent review of meta-analyses, Visible Learning, and nothing else is close). It pushes them academically, and more often than not, helps them socialize, because they learn how older kids interact before internalizing too many abnormal frames and social habits.

[JoeAltmaier]

I know a gifted kid that was accelerated to higher grades. Lonely and sad. Not a lot of friends that much older than him; no dates; no hanging out. 16-18 yr olds don't want to talk to a 14yo, especially in high school.

So maybe we have to work with what we've got - 14yo that can learn fast - so teach them fast. Can't do it in the regular classroom, so gifted class. Socialization is apparently an issue there (why? same age group as other kids have, same teacher - what's really different?) so work on that.