« The Proctor Is In: Assembly Assemble | Home | Big Horn Fire Burns Behind Claremont »
PUSD on the Hook and Letting Gifted Students Down
By Centinel | May 14, 2008
Not only is PUSD looking at tab of $15,000 that Rythms of the Village walked away from, but the district is a poster child for neglect of its gifted in an LAT article:
If you reviewed Dalton Sargent’s report cards, you’d know only half his story. The 15-year-old Altadena junior has lousy grades in many subjects. He has blown off assignments and been dissatisfied with many of his teachers. It would be accurate to call him a problematic student. But he is also gifted.
Dalton is among the sizable number of highly intelligent or talented children in the nation’s classrooms who find little in the standard curriculum to rouse their interest and who often fall by the wayside.
Ouch. Of course, I gotta say, this Dalton kid doesn’t impress me in some ways:
In most respects, Dalton is a typical teenager. A student at Blair International Baccalaureate School, he lives in Altadena with his grandmother and likes science fiction, sports, hiking and his computer. Through the Pipeline program, Dalton has gone on college tours, attended leadership camps and taken a journalism course.
But at 15, he wonders where he will be five or 10 years from now. He worries about the world’s problems and says he wants to do something significant with his life or at least make people happy. Staying motivated, though, is a constant struggle: “It’s a problem I still have if I don’t see the usefulness of something,” he said.
One almost picture young D on the set of a movie, petulantly asking, “Where’s my motivation?” Seriously, though, surely someone so “gifted” should have figured out that you get out what you put into your education. There are a thousand ways to improve your learning, even at the tender age of 15, besides simply sitting back and waiting for a public institution to come up with a better program to fit your needs.
How about getting that gifted behind in gear and applying for a better, private school, one that recognizes gifted students with merit scholarships? How about taking some more challenging classes at PCC at night, as many of the smart kids I knew in high school did, to challenge themselves. What about teaching yourself, as I did in high school, so you can skip a grade of math that you find boring (and no, I was no genius, I just hated algebra)?
The phrase, Dalton, is “to those whom much has been given, much will be asked,” not “to those who are smart, cynical and don’t give a rat’s —, special government programs will be cooked up to combat their teenage apathy.”
At least someone has mentioned to this to the star of the article:
The one bright spot that year was an algebra class in which his teacher, Minh Tran, challenged GATE pupils with complex equations and allowed them to lead discussions.
Tran, now a school counselor, is still a mentor to Dalton and says the teenager has an intelligence “you just can’t teach.” But he added that Dalton doesn’t always give his best effort in class. “I had to sit down with him and tell him sometimes you have to take care of things just because it’s your job. You don’t always get to pick and choose in life.”
Pretty mild advice, because “taking care of things” in life is your job. It’s called living.
Last 5 posts in Main Page
- Feed Portantino's Election Reelection Campaign - July 23rd, 2008
- Alvarez Waterboarded! - July 23rd, 2008
- Morning Linkfest: 7 Reasons to Hate Corporations - July 23rd, 2008
- Even the Cost of Underwear Is Increasing - July 23rd, 2008
- Pasadena Has a New City Clerk - July 23rd, 2008
Topics: Main Page, Education, Pasadena |
May 14th, 2008 at 7:50 am
I agree with your last sentence there. Well done.
Teachers can only do so much. There’s parents, there’s your environment, but it’s ultimately YOU who chooses your destiny.
May 14th, 2008 at 8:29 am
Exactly! The people who are always “reinventing” public education AND the people who are vehemently anti- public education always seem to miss the point, that each individual student is ultimately in charge of their destiny.
I think I turned out to be a happy, reasonably intelligent, contributing member of society. It wasn’t because I had some impossible and utopian public school to attend, and it wasn’t because I was enrolled in some expensive private school or home schooled. It was because I took interest in various aspects of life and nature, and followed those interests.
May 14th, 2008 at 9:55 am
I was (and still am) fortunate to have parents that give a damn.
I actually didn’t do too well toward the end of my high school days. I was distracted (I started going to pro-wrestling school around the time and was ring announcing and wrestling on shows on the weekend). That’s not something that any amount of money is going to fix.
Yes, parents need to lead the way. Yes, we need a better environment for our kids to grow up in - one that isn’t feasting on every single Britney Spears story and showing that yes, you too, can waste your life away playing on MySpace and getting to level-whatever on Guitar Hero.
But it’s still ultimately up to you.
I could be a bum if I just kept being lazy but I decided to perservere (even after many times of wanting to just give up) and look what I am now…a local dignitary of sorts.
I’m not anti-public education, either. I’m just sick of people crying “PUBLIC SCHOOLS! WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN!” like Mrs. Lovejoy on “The Simpsons”.
May 14th, 2008 at 10:48 am
It’s funny, but if ol’ Dalton had been “gifted” in sports, he would have been carefully nurtured, recruited, and provided with a coach at school. He wouldn’t have to take PE classes with those boring, non-gifted students, and everybody would make sure that he was sufficiently “challenged” as an athlete that he could continue to grow.
Furthermore, it’s important to distinguish between “gifted” and “has his act together”. They are orthogonal, whether we’re talking about gifted athletes or gifted thinkers. Jim Thorpe? Nikola Tesla?
May 14th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Hulk Hogan?
May 14th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
I like this post so much. I think it is my favorite.