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• Wednesday, April 12, 2006 05:57 PM

  cartman

  You should know enough by now to know that public schools are not all the same.

  I went to diverse public schools until college and was glad to be exposed to everybody. I found that the worst effect of segregating adolescents away from the real world, the formation of popularity-based hierarchies with defined in- and out-groups, goes away when the student population is too large and too diverse to be confined in a linear hierarchy. As I told adults about my school, "Columbine couldn't happen here."

  I'm sorry that you had a difficult time navigating the public schools. I got a 1420 SAT score when I was 12 (if we're going to talk about scores), and my middle school arranged for me to take math at the high school, and the high school principal arranged for me to graduate in three years. Of course, my mom was my teacher and advocate, especially in the early years, but the schools were more than happy to help. In fact, it was the high school principal's idea to accelerate me through HS.

  I'm also sorry that you feel so negatively about "retards." It's definitely not true that they are beyond help. My brother was severely learning-disabled when he was young, but through intensive tutoring, he's reached the point now where he's navigating college and looking at an independent career. A lot of his improvement was due to my mom's efforts, but the school's willingness to assist and mainstream him was crucial. I think that if a school has to make a choice between special education and programs for advanced kids, perhaps it is better to help those who need help to merely function independently in society. I and the other advanced kids would have turned out OK regardless, but every special ed kid you can educate potentially represents one less person in jail or on the public dole.

  —synaptic plasticity
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