Is GEP really necessary?

[Nebbermind]

2ppaamm:

Nebbermind:

WOW!! I almost forego the GEP offer!!! Would be feeling triple stupid if I did!!! :evil:

Really? I feel quadruply stupid. I accepted the GEP offer for my son to be there, and I realize my son doesn't fit because he was never hot housed! The GEP cannot accept children who want to learn themselves and are too inquisitive. For guai guai children, they survive better. The odd balls, those who have never known what a tuition room look like, or even done a single piece of homework (unfortunately, yes, my son did not do any of his homework from P1 to P3, and I didn't think it was important, because he received school academic awards anyway, and I was receiving too many behavior issues to handle.). A child like this won't survive in GEP as well. So, in order to survive in GEP, the kid has to know how to be hothoused, not too creative, and not too out of the norm. So silly, gifted = out of the norm mah...

For that matter, Einstein won't survive as well. He is weird as weird can be. Poor in communication and social skills. But that's why he was good. He could think differently!

We had problem w the teachers at P4 too n my boy wasn't happy. Thank God it got better in P5 n he finally enjoyed himself at P6 coz the teachers were more tolerant n could really relate w the kids

[Nebbermind]

PiggyLalala:

Yup.. it is definitely not that easy to get a CO from the 2 popular boy schools even for the GEPpers. There are also quite a number of GEPpers who did not do so well in the PSLE. I wondered if these GEPpers were in the mainstream where there are so much more drill and practice for each subjects, would they have done better in the PSLE and to get into the 'top schools' through the S1 posting. And which is better, to be in GEP for 3 years but because of less drilling and less preparation time and not able to go to so called 'top schools' or not to be in the GEP but because of the better preparation in the mainstream and hence achieve better PSLE result and go the so called 'top sec schools'?

The thing is that u can never tell. Because of the better exposure in GEP, u may still have a slight advantage over the rest during those DSA tests and may not need such fantastic PSLE results after all.

[2ppaamm]

jtoh:

You probably meant it tongue-in-cheek, but your post implies that to fit in as a GEPper you need to have been hot-housed. I have to disagree. Also as I have posted previously, my dd had classmates who were anything but quiet and obedient in class and asked all manner of questions and disrupted the class but were handled very well by the teachers. Teachers who accepted their quirks and did not put them down in answering their questions.

No, that's not what I implied. I meant that to survive in GEP, you must be at least a 'good' student in our Singapore context: obedient to teachers, able to do filing, always hand up work on time (or be ready for scolding), never question the integrity or ability of teachers. I am not saying all these are bad, but these are not features of giftedness. Geniuses always challenge status quo, that's why they change things.

And, I still believe our current bastardized GEP system no longer find most of the gifted students. Terry Tao would never have made it to the GEP today. He is so extremely gifted in Maths, but he is just normal with other subjects. In today's GEP, that lack of English ability would set him back, and someone with a better aggregate would get in instead.

So, Terry Tao wouldn't make it because of his lack of English ability, Einstein wouldn't make it due to his quirkiness. Who is in the GEP and what are we nurturing? Very capable high ability students, who, btw, are not inferior in my opinion. If given a choice, I might choose to have HA children over gifted ones. They are easy to handle, can work till the cows come home. My son won't work for more than 2 hours a day on academic stuff, and I just worry about his future - how is he going to work for someone one day.

But HA is not your intellectual gifted children. HA kids survive and excel anywhere in any kind of program. The latter need special support and are special needs too. They are weird. Not just asking questions and noisy. In one incident, my son organized a protest when he was P4 against the school authority. He was trying to fight for his rights. This was frowned upon, but that's how they work. They have no respect for status quo. Our job, as educators, is to teach them how to bring forth their beliefs in an amicable way or teach them the best possible way to get a resolution. Not punishment! These are still kids, only that they think differently. They need to be reasoned with, they have read more than many of the school teachers added up together. They know how the political system works, they know how a protest brings results in other countries. They are not the usual students with questions. They can somehow link the tennis ball to the cosmos theory, and then spin 5 languages in their scripts in one essay. Teachers wave that off as irrelevance, but if you spend time to listen deeply, you can hear their voices trying to communicate their thoughts, which are often misunderstood.

Our teachers don't have the time or the resources to hear these kids out. So, my suggestion is don't even bother to pretend we do. Just forget about GEP, gather your HA kids and pump them up for results. That way, everyone is happy. The current GE kids go round in circles doing secondary academic stuff without getting recognition for them, resulting in lower PSLE scores, or so their parents claim. BTW, I also don't agree with this claim. I believe it only takes two weeks to prepare for PSLE if the kid is bright enough to be top 1%. O well, I know people will that's why I say, why not everybody just go for the PSLE instead of this strange thing that lasts 3 years?

[jtoh]

Our current GEP system was never intended for the profoundly gifted or even the exceptionally gifted. And that’s why your Einsteins and the like will never fit into the system. I think statistically there would only be 1 or 2 profoundly gifted children in a cohort (if at all) so I can understand why the govt would hesitate to have a programme just for this small number. Therefore it has chosen to enhance the learning of a slightly wider group of ‘gifted’ children, as defined by their parameters. Should the entire GEP programme be discarded because it doesn’t cater to these Einsteins? No. It would be akin to throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Should the govt ignore the needs of these profoundly or exceptionally gifted children? No it shouldn’t. I don’t think it needs to be an either/or situation. We should be able to provide for the needs of the GEP students, the profoundly gifted as well as the Special Needs.

[toxic118]

jtoh:

Our current GEP system was never intended for the profoundly gifted or even the exceptionally gifted. And that's why your Einsteins and the like will never fit into the system. I think statistically there would only be 1 or 2 profoundly gifted children in a cohort (if at all) so I can understand why the govt would hesitate to have a programme just for this small number. Therefore it has chosen to enhance the learning of a slightly wider group of 'gifted' children, as defined by their parameters. Should the entire GEP programme be discarded because it doesn't cater to these Einsteins? No. It would be akin to throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Should the govt ignore the needs of these profoundly or exceptionally gifted children? No it shouldn't. I don't think it needs to be an either/or situation. We should be able to provide for the needs of the GEP students, the profoundly gifted as well as the Special Needs.

:udawoman: :udawoman:

[2ppaamm]

jtoh:

Our current GEP system was never intended for the profoundly gifted or even the exceptionally gifted. And that's why your Einsteins and the like will never fit into the system. I think statistically there would only be 1 or 2 profoundly gifted children in a cohort (if at all) so I can understand why the govt would hesitate to have a programme just for this small number. Therefore it has chosen to enhance the learning of a slightly wider group of 'gifted' children, as defined by their parameters. Should the entire GEP programme be discarded because it doesn't cater to these Einsteins? No. It would be akin to throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Should the govt ignore the needs of these profoundly or exceptionally gifted children? No it shouldn't. I don't think it needs to be an either/or situation. We should be able to provide for the needs of the GEP students, the profoundly gifted as well as the Special Needs.

Actually, you are saying exactly what I am saying but in a different way.

Today, where do our profoundly or exceptionally gifted children go to? The GEP, there's no other avenue. So admittedly, there's no other program for them. So, are we saying we should not cater to the EG and PG so that we can nurture the moderately gifted and high ability in GEP? Then it should not be called a gifted program. Exactly my point. Secondly, the system has also degenerated to not even pick up a Math or humanities genius, given the aggregate method they use. So, not only do we not pick up the Einsteins, we are also not picking up the Terry Taos. So, what we have are High ability students. And this makes sense, because it makes classes easy to teach.

I have a very good friend who used to teach the GEP. He is like pro-GEP forever kind, since his own daughter was in GEP. And, admittedly, he couldn't handle the English GEP kids of those days, as he taught Math. He would sweat and cringe over them. He applauded when the system changed to the aggregate one. I asked if he was worried that those literature geniuses will be left out. He said he was more worried about how to 'pump up' those who can't even pass Math.

So our GEP is not for the genius, and not for those gifted in one area. The latter may not be geniuses, but certainly those who can contribute significantly in future in one area.

My point is to call it as it is. Handling giftedness is different from handling high ability. Today, our GEP is no longer a gifted program. By giftedness, it is not about being top 1%, it is about being extraordinarily good in some areas. But our GEP now means being top 1% in the cohort. So yes, I agree that there should be some kind of attention given to these children, but not together with the gifted ones. The ones who will fail your Math, but brilliant in their literature. Those who cannot write good compositions or can't even spell but they could not only solve but create mathematical models. Today, these kids are not being recognized, and thrown into the mainstream with no intervention, while we spend resources on high ability students, who, in all honesty be able to excel in any environment.

So, I'd say, by all means, give a special program to these high ability students within the schools, give them enrichment, give them lots of work and project etc etc, they will be our leaders and administrators one day. Honestly, they are still not gifted, and their propensity to contribute and create is different.

While those who are now left out cold in the system, those who are extremely creative in one area, look out for them and design something for them. These are the ones who will be spinning new innovations, new inventions for the country. They may not be your regular high ability students, but they deserve an education that meets their needs as well. And I'm not talking about exceptionally gifted category (who will make it into GEP mostly), I'm talking about just the ones gifted in one or two areas.

Another queer thing about GEP. Why are the girls always a minority by half? Never in my research do I ever come across boys being more often gifted than girls. Again, I question the selection. So again, it is not about choosing the gifted. It is about picking a category that we CHOOSE to nurture, which BTW, to me, is WRONG. EVERY child deserves a suitable education. So, again, GEP is not about giftedness.

And, I haven't gotten to the hothousing part yet, which many fellow forummers have discussed.

Singapore has failed to produce brilliant academic stars at the highest level to date. TO DATE. Yet, our GEP system has run since 1984. Time to wake up. If it is time to throw out the system, then it is time. Looking at the parliament seating, it is quite clear everybody knows it is time as well. The secondary schools knew it was time years ago.

If the gifted kids are not afraid of challenging status quo, why should we be?

[PiggyLalala]

Would allowing these geniuses to skip grades and to join the university at an earlier age help? Like what yr child is doing it now? I think only the really geniuses professioners can handle these young Einsteins?

[PiggyLalala]

deminc:

The attraction is the small class size, and meeting other kids with similar interests. But from what I gather here, it seems that GEP no longer serves the gifted kids with their many quirks and uneven development, but the HA kids. I have been told by mothers whose kids went through it that GEP doesn't truly stretch the kids for creative thinking, which is what they excel in; rather, it is taking high-level syllabus and packaging it for younger kids. It would take a certain kind of teacher to handle and understand these children, I feel, especially for boys who question authorities more and tend to go off on their oddball quests.

Yup, the attraction is the small class size and meeting other kids with similar interests. I think the GEP still serves most of the gifted kids with their many quirks and uneven development well. However the kid needs to comply to the normal school rules like doing every peice of homework with proper filing too. One of my ds's classmates, is extremely absent-minded but very good in Maths. He solved Maths questions using his own method, using algebra with little working and yet got the answer correct. That was once I saw him trying to solve simultaneous equations using Matrix. Wow.. that is actually a topic in secondary AMaths.

[2ppaamm]

PiggyLalala:

Would allowing these geniuses to skip grades and to join the university at an earlier age help? Like what yr child is doing it now? I think only the really geniuses professioners can handle these young Einsteins?

You know, I am not sure if this helps for every kid. And I'm not here fighting for my own. To skip grades and all, you need a support structure in place. I happen to have one, because I am blessed to how to go about it. Not everybody does.

If you read the parliament notes, there was a question on the EG kids as well. The thing is, the EG kids are so expensive to identify for the parents, and parents have to be in the know or have to be rich. Many go unidentified except at GEP. So, GEP is their only avenue. My heart goes out to those children, and many of them don't survive the GEP because of their uniqueness. The only way to skip grades is to be identified EG in our system. Also, having dealt with them, I am questioning their ability to handle these EG cases as well.

Skipping grades is a sensitive issue, and unless a family has the right support structure, it is very difficult to execute. If I have a choice, I will still want my kids to play with their age peers, but doing higher level work. But there isn't such a system in place on this earth.

So acceleration is good for gifted kids, but not all kids who are accelerated need to be gifted. High ability kids can, too. As long as the family has the right support structure in place.

You see, I'm not here to shoot down the current GEP kids by saying they are HA. They have their advantages over the really gifted ones. But there must be some kind of support for every kind in our society. We should call things as they are, and cater to every kind. Afterall, if we claim to be a first world country, we should have systems that reflect the status. As it is, we have low spending in education, weird gifted programs and real gifted children left in the cold, unequal advantage given to children identified at P3, etc. These just do not make sense to me.

[PiggyLalala]

2ppaamm:

PiggyLalala:

Would allowing these geniuses to skip grades and to join the university at an earlier age help? Like what yr child is doing it now? I think only the really geniuses professioners can handle these young Einsteins?

You know, I am not sure if this helps for every kid. And I'm not here fighting for my own. To skip grades and all, you need a support structure in place. I happen to have one, because I am blessed to how to go about it. Not everybody does.

If you read the parliament notes, there was a question on the EG kids as well. The thing is, the EG kids are so expensive to identify for the parents, and parents have to be in the know or have to be rich. Many go unidentified except at GEP. So, GEP is their only avenue. My heart goes out to those children, and many of them don't survive the GEP because of their uniqueness. The only way to skip grades is to be identified EG in our system. Also, having dealt with them, I am questioning their ability to handle these EG cases as well.

Skipping grades is a sensitive issue, and unless a family has the right support structure, it is very difficult to execute. If I have a choice, I will still want my kids to play with their age peers, but doing higher level work. But there isn't such a system in place on this earth.
So acceleration is good for gifted kids, but not all kids who are accelerated need to be gifted. High ability kids can, too. As long as the family has the right support structure in place.

What about NUSH? They have the professors in NUS. So maybe these geniuses can be accelerated accordingly in certain subjects and still join their peers for the other subjects.?