What y’all think ‘gifted child’ discourse is saying: I used to be special and now I’m not and that makes me sad.
What ‘gifted child’ discourse is ACTUALLY saying: The way many educational systems treat children who’ve been identified as ‘gifted’ is actively harmful in that it a. obliges kids to give up socialising with their same-age peers in favour of constantly courting the approval of adult ‘mentors’ who mostly don’t give a shit about them, b. demands that they tie their entire identity to a set of standards that’snot merely unsustainable, but intentionally so, because its unstated purpose is to weed out the “unworthy” rather than to provide useful goals for self-improvement, and c. denies them opportunities to learn useful life skills in favour of training them up in an excruciatingly narrow academic skill-set that’s basically useless outside of an institutional career path that the vast majority of them will never be allowed to pursue.
If you require kids to go to school by law, they shouldn’t have to pay for anything at all to be able to go there. They shouldn’t need to pay for food, books, a laptop, anything that the school gives you. If a child has to pay in any way to attend school, it’s a failure of our government to provide proper funding
This also includes transportation to and from school.
This should also include accessibility, aids and assistance for disabled children!
ifesbob 