[LMB] Prep and Finishing School OT:

[Azalais Aranxta]

yOn Fri, 4 Aug 2006, Peter H. Granzeau wrote:

> Where, and when, were gifted children refused permission to go to
> school at all and left without any education at all?

They're not, they're just made so miserable there that they drop
out, commit suicide, go to university early and get themselves in
all sorts of trouble, and occasionally are driven so mad by
teachers and peers that they shoot up schools.

I wasn't surprised by Columbine.

I am surprised that it happens so infrequently.  The day it
happened, I had three friends tell me they'd considered it.  Lord
knows I wanted to see John Adams Middle School get shot up when I
was 13.

I'm not sure why we didn't and they did, but I think given the
amount of bullying (sometimes including physical and sexual
harassment) that very gifted children with social deficits due
to peer-communication problems face, some of them might as well
be excluded from school by law, for all of the good it does them
to go and all the damage that is done to them there.

One thing I do know.  It wasn't access to guns that was the
problem.  There were plenty of guns in my house and anyone who's
ever played Airsoft or Time Crisis with me knows I know how to
use them.

And there used to be a lot more special schools for mentally
disabled children.  Special schools for the gifted tend *not* to
be federally funded and to have screamingly high tuition.

Part of it is that mainstreaming is a disaster, both for the very
disabled and the very gifted.  It just is.  It puts extra
pressure on teachers who don't have the smarts to outsmart the
very gifted (and resent it) and feel that they are justified in
putting all their effort into the very disabled and to the
behaviour problems, while dismissing bullying and hazing of the
gifted and the gay as unavoidable if not perfectly normal
business as usual.

~malfoy

**************************************************************************
"That wickedness weltering around inside of you, inside of everyone, is
sacred somewhere.  There's a deity out there who digs it.  You can respect
and love your darkest side, disposing only of what is obsolete or
impractical.  It's all about giving yourself permission." --Jack Darkhand

"It is better to be cruel for love than for hate." --Thomas Burnett Swann