The mother of a very gifted child is suing the Queensland Government for failing to enrol her 9 year old daughter in Year 8 at a Queensland public school. There is no minimum age for enrollment in high school, but the Queensland Government cited fears over the girl’s social development as a reason for refusing the mother’s request. The case has now gone up to the High Court.
I must say that I have ambivalent feelings about accelerated learning. I did not learn much from Primary School. Perhaps I would have gotten more out of my Australian schooling if I had been accelerated. I’m sure that my parents could have accelerated me should they have wanted to do so. But, as I’ve said in a previous post, I have reservations about labelling a child as “gifted”:
I read a comment in a Stephen Fry book about gifted children which resonated with me. The protagonist said something like “When I was 7, I could read like a 14 year old. When I was 14, I could read like a 21 year old. When I was 21, I could read like a 21 year old.” This is essentially what happened to me. Yes, I was a very gifted reader as a child. I read Lord of the Rings when I was 6 or 7 years old. But by the time I was an adult, everyone else had caught up. Who cared that I was a very good reader by that point? (Of course, I had had an opportunity to read Lord of the Rings over 40 times, so there were some advantages.)
I think that having very high expectations of oneself is a problem for many lawyers. At law school there are many very intelligent people with lots of potential. There’s a natural tendency to compare oneself with people like that Rhodes Scholar girl [a severe overachiever mentioned earlier in the post] and find oneself wanting. The thing is that we can’t all be the next Chief Justice of the High Court. And you know what? That’s okay.
As I’ve also said in another post, I think labelling someone as gifted can actually close their mind and lead them to become overly concerned about failure. Failure and questioning one’s conclusions are necessary parts of learning, in my opinion. Praising someone for being “bright” can lead to that person abhorring “boring” tasks. Well, boring tasks are part of learning, and also part of being an adult. I had to rote learn all kinds of boring facts for my A-Levels, but once I had done that, I found that the conclusions I could draw were so much more informed and exciting.
I’m not quite sure what the law is on this point. I presume that the mother of this child has succeeded on the basis that there was no statutory minimum age for enrollment in high school, and therefore the exercise of discretion to refuse the request by the Queensland Government was ultra vires and invalid.
But I do think there’s something to the Queensland Government’s fear about the child’s emotional development. I remember my sister’s friend’s younger sister was massively advanced through school (she was about three years ahead of her actual grade level). My sister said that this girl didn’t have real friends. She had schoolmates who treated her kindly enough, like some kind of a pet or novelty, but not as an equal. She ended up having a nervous breakdown and going back to her own year.
I think rather than accelerating learning, the answer may be to have different streams for students of different abilities. When I was younger, I was very much against this, seeing it as elitist and exclusionist. But then I went to a selective school in the UK and I flourished. The subjects were hard and I loved it. Nonetheless, I was still among my age group, and among people of a similar mindset to me (I wasn’t teased for reading books or for knowing nerdy facts, for example). The danger, of course, is that some people may be intelligent but end up in a lower stream, or vice versa: I think it’s really important to have some flexibility in streaming. If someone isn’t coping or if someone is outstripping their stream, then they should be moved into a different stream (if they want to be moved). We don’t want people to be pigeonholed for life. But on the other hand, I don’t think acceleration is the answer – it’s still elitist, just less openly so.
Anyway, I shall await with interest to see what the High Court concludes on the legal question!
4 Comments
I think it really depends on the kid. I went through school at the normal pace with a 148 IQ and had a fairly miserable time, but I really don’t know whether acceleration would have fixed that. School is pretty hit or miss as to whether you have a good time or not – it probably depends both on the cohort and the school.
I think what makes this case difficult is the geographical location – the girl’s mother is clearly based near Ipswich (a poor area with poor quality state schools). I’d imagine that if the primary school she attended is a feeder school for Rosewood High, then a kid that bright would have been bored out of her tiny mind in short order.
Yes, that is a difficulty – if the local High School is generally geared towards the lowest common denominator, and given the area the LCD is pretty low, then she would be bored. Still, I’m not sure acceleration is the answer. The problem is that the school has to cater for such a broad range of abilities, and it’s impossible to do that in classes where there’s a huge spectrum of ability.
I think I would have had a miserable time at school whether I was accelerated or not. But it took a long while for my emotional and social development to catch up with my intellectual development. I think it all only clicked when I was about 25. If I had gone to uni too young, I would have been a right royal pain in the bottom, and I would have been totally socially inept.
I didn’t like much about Plato’s Republic, but his observation that wisdom — as opposed to mere learning — does not start to turn up until after 25 seems to me to be pretty much on the money.
Speaking only for myself, I found most of highschool to be very tedious. I hear a lot about socialisation, but how much can children really learn from each other about social behaviour? Surely the adults in their lives are what give them the role models they will ultimately emulate.
“Socialisation” is mostly a crock. Speaking from personal experience, some of the socialisation kids learn at school are the laws of the jungle. Might is right, bullies rule the roost. I learned my moral behaviour from my parents.
I just think that if you are significantly younger than your cohort, you are going to have more difficulty than usual making friends. I also think that when you get to university, you won’t be old enough to enjoy it properly.
What’s the hurry? Why do it all particularly quickly? You might find that you’ve lost some of the positive aspects of childhood by pushing forward so fast. Also, boredom is not necessarily a bad thing – I often compose blog posts while in the doctor’s waiting room at the moment. Sometimes our brains need time to idle.