RE: Blasphemy

Phillip Allen White (pwhite who-is-at carbon.cudenver.edu)
Wed, 5 Aug 1998 09:50:06 -0600 (MDT)

On Tue, 4 Aug 1998, Konopak wrote:

> I'd be interested in the reaction of others in the group to
>
> >Vygotsky was critiquing the
> >attitude of looking at those children as having moral problems. He
> >argued instead that these were the children who were gifted and would be our
> >future leaders.

in the nearly thirty years i've spent in elementary teaching, this
argument has been the one most used to argue for the funding of gifted
education - that gifted students would in time be our future leaders.

yet in follow-up studies, most gifted students demonstrated social
success by incrementally adding to their professional fields (doctors,
lawyers, professors). hardly any demonstrated leadership or intellectual
leaps within their fields.

could this be because _giftedness_ is a collage of particular
attributes favored by the culture at that time? - it has certainly been
a reflection of social demographics.

phillip

phillip white pwhite who-is-at carbon.cudenver.edu

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A relation of surveillance, defined and regulated,
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Michel Foucault / Discipline & Punish

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