Were you in the "Gifted Program" ?

reply to post by FissionSurplus


We are the soldiers of light that they fear....

Here is a location for Gowan's aforementioned works. They are very worth a read to understand the possible thinking behind the programs from between perhaps the 60's to the 80's. He has them listed towards the bottom of the page. Ever grateful to his son for hosting them: www.johnagowan.org...

For what it's worth, here's my (quick) history:

I was moved into the "advanced placement" program in middle/high school. Basically just taking classes ahead of the average student. We took college classes in senior year. I'm sure this is normal, but I'd like to share this bit in case. I never bothered to look this up. I was put into a training program in 2nd or 3rd grade. I was told that part of the day, I would go to a separate room in the school to train other students in speech. I don't remember much beyond that. Also, every year I would have to see the school doctor to get a physical where he would touch my genitals. In one case, he actually picked up used gloves from the counter, they were flipped almost inside out so I know they were used.

Apparently that is normal though.

My mother told me that her parents, both masons, told her to avoid exposing me to any vaccines. This was achieved through moving me to 7 or 8 schools through my education career. My stepfather was extremely abusive. Some of the things I was exposed to were psychological and physical torture. In one case, I was told to find a stick big enough for him to beat my brother with. If I brought back something inadequate, he would beat us both. I was told to wipe my bottom with only one square of toilet paper. I was also punished by being forcing into a corner, head between my knees, and he would push on my neck until I cried violently. etc etc

1st and 2nd grade is kind of hazy in my mind, but I do remember a few strange cases that were sexual in nature. I don't care to explain that in detail, but there were 3rd parties involved, not my parents.

Also, in 3rd grade, I was attending a swim class for half the year. Every time we changed clothes, the male gym teacher (I am male also) would watch. In one instance, a fellow student approached me with his genitals about 2 inches from my face and said "what are you gonna do?" This was while the teacher watched and did nothing.

Also, and this might not be relevant at all, but both of my grandparents belong to the Knight's Templar and Eastern Star, masonic groups. Grandfather is 33rd degree, and I don't know what my grandmother is ranked. And the history of my biological father is very mysterious. I found that no matter how much legal trouble I found myself in, I always managed to get out of it with 100 dollar fines. That includes a few felonies.

I want to sincerely thank all of you for your comments. I would have NEVER guessed that all of you had similar experiences with it that I did. I think we may be onto something with this, maybe not so much that they are tracking us, but perhaps we're packed away in a file cabinet somewhere, waiting to be pulled out for the right moment, whatever that may be. I am completely blown away at the amount of people that are both gifted program and ATS members, I think that is really neat, and want to thank all of you again!

reply to post by Roundtree


i went from the gifted program to the adhd class, back into the gifted program. after that they made me take a bunch of tests and put puzzles together. then they asked me what i wanted to do and said i can do anything. after that i told them to put me in programming classes and i was one of the top script kiddies in the school after like 2 months. thats all between 7th and 9th grade.

I was in one of these programs also.

I was also being tracked by some outsiders who would occasionally interview a bunch of us. We figured out why we were being interviewed. (Broke into the school records and reviewed them). After that, we kind of messed with the interviews. We came up with themes. So about 5 or 6 of us would agree on a theme (ie old west) and then when the interviewers asked question like "What kind of career would do you think you would like?" we would all have old west answers....ride shotgun on stage coach, cattle rancher, sheriff, Shepard) I always wonder if their research was ever published.

I was placed in the gifted program in the 5th grade for scoring exceptionally high on a statewide test.

Oddly enough, we mainly did aerobics and studied Greek mythology of all things, even dressing up for a mock toga party complete with grape juice! LoL

I thought it was kinda creepy, and I didn't really see the point.
I'm not into any type of classism, segregation or social discrimination and the program somehow made me feel more socially isolated than I already felt.

Here is no gifted classes. Although schools require tests before getting in, so that creates "smarter" schools. Although overally anybody can succeed in any school, there is no AP or gifted classes anywhere, only extracurricular activities are possible. Although the standards are high and unless you are gifted, it is nearly impossible to be a Straight-A student.

If anybody wants they can go directly and take university beginner classes in the university during highschool From my graduation year, out of the sixty 12th graders, everybody got in to some university. Although I do not know how many managed to get a degree. Everybody I have spoken with have managed at least Bachelor´s so far, although I communicate with only around half the people from my HS.

reply to post by Roundtree


Not sure if this constitutes as gifted but I'll throw it on the board anyway. Chapter 9 / in 3rd-4th grade. It was for dislexic children. Now the part that is now throwing me for a loop is. Majority of the time when I attended they sat us infront of a computer. Think of that a Dislexic young individual infront of a computer.... I had and still do at time have a problem with not reading punctuation marks.... Phenominally fast at reading but they said that I don't retain the information.... So in essence it was to slow me down... How that translated into computer time playing video games and learning to type is a bigger conspiracy imho than the class itself..... Now i'm very tech savy and haven't ran accross a program I can't learn. It's not rocket science.... But I feel I could grasp the concept of that and be successful if I put my mind to it.... laymanly stated my learnt aptitude is off the charts.

Originally posted by DeReK DaRkLy
I was placed in the gifted program in the 5th grade for scoring exceptionally high on a statewide test.

Oddly enough, we mainly did aerobics and studied Greek mythology of all things, even dressing up for a mock toga party complete with grape juice! LoL

I thought it was kinda creepy, and I didn't really see the point.
I'm not into any type of classism, segregation or social discrimination and the program somehow made me feel more socially isolated than I already felt.

First of all, I want to say that, after pondering the program myself for a few months, I obtained access to an university database where I read roughly 1000 abstracts on the subjects of the gifted programs and gifted research taking place between the 19th century to the present. Surprisingly, less than 10% of the abstracts were available in their full pdf version irrespective of time period. Probably the most consistent source that provided pdf variants were articles from the Gifted Child Quarterly, the academic journal run by the National Association of Gifted Children. Interestingly enough, the wiki only cites the UK version and only makes a small remark about an US version (of which the aforementioned Gowan was the president of in the late 70's). I've looked at many old documents in regards to curriculum subjects and ideas that were used to instruct the gifted.

Legislation drafted and passed by Congress from 1958 in the form of the NDEA and later into the Javits Act created the gifted programs. It initiated the search for gifted children through what was called Project Talent and eventually culminated, as intended, into gifted programs nationwide. Each of the 50 states is mandated to have a gifted program. Congress, for whatever reason, decided that the individuals who were to be in charge of these programs should be from the fields of psychology and psychiatry--not education though the research and programs were frequently performed by educational psychologists.

The Greek mythology unit was most likely used to emphasize what was called in the gifted program, "the Hero's Journey". Instead of summarizing it, I'll simply leave links that I know that all you former bright kids can figure out. If I had to guess though, I wouldn't be surprised if the reason why you all had a toga party was to put yourself into the Greek mythos, even to possibly subconsciously stimulate the vision of oneself as being part of the Greek mythos in the role of the hero: mdk12.org...

Ironically enough, in the late 60's to the present, there was a good deal of research and concern being expressed for gifted students' "attitude problems" and "sense of isolation". Never once did any of these papers make the correlation that being identified and pulled out of classrooms to learn radically different from one's peers material as being a factor. Bit of a logical fallacy there and this radical difference in education is precisely what my youngest expressed after being recently placed into the program herself. She was no longer having math classes with her normal classroom or even covering the same math subjects. Instead, she's learning about prime numbers, Euclid and perfect numbers, numeric patterns, Meresenne primes, and playing with cryptex. Her remark about this just last week was "I feel kind of lonely because I can't talk to my friends about what I learned as I don't think they'll understand it. I don't feel as close to them anymore."

The response by these gifted "educators" to the sense of isolation, as their concern was that we would become so isolated from the rest of society that we would no longer act in benefit to that same society, was referred to as "character building" exercises. Basically, manipulating our characters through lesson, practice and deliberate exposures through a variety of media, in such a way that we felt a sense of obligation to society. Anybody remember what the god Odin did?

I can honestly say that there was some seriously sketchy lines of thought that were occurring, sometimes for decades, within the top researchers of their time periods in regards to gifted program education. For any that recall bizarre medical like tests, a small number of gifted were used for biofeedback experiments, EEGs, and MRI's to basically monitor the differences in neural activity between us and others. You can find those in a google scholar search.

Originally posted by sulaw
reply to post by Roundtree

 

Not sure if this constitutes as gifted but I'll throw it on the board anyway. Chapter 9 / in 3rd-4th grade. It was for dislexic children. Now the part that is now throwing me for a loop is. Majority of the time when I attended they sat us infront of a computer. Think of that a Dislexic young individual infront of a computer.... I had and still do at time have a problem with not reading punctuation marks.... Phenominally fast at reading but they said that I don't retain the information.... So in essence it was to slow me down... How that translated into computer time playing video games and learning to type is a bigger conspiracy imho than the class itself..... Now i'm very tech savy and haven't ran accross a program I can't learn. It's not rocket science.... But I feel I could grasp the concept of that and be successful if I put my mind to it.... laymanly stated my learnt aptitude is off the charts.

Kind of ironic but my child, who was recently placed into TAG as I mentioned in the prior post, was sent home with a piece of paper informing "parents/guardians" that her school had been selected to be a pilot school for a new program called "Typing Agent". The link given on the paper is typingagent.com.... We found it humorous because they tested her typing speed and found her to be a very fast typist already. Doesn't say so on the site but the theme of the games are of the child being a "secret agent". Plan on poking around on it myself to see what it is. *Cheesy and boring as hell. Maybe more graphically appealing to a much younger child but yeah, it's about typing. Haven't found anything "secret agent" about it yet, lol.

reply to post by Bleeeeep


I just wanted to say, that in my case, I was literally put on the books and they watched me mature. Any physician trained in the USA today knows who I am, by name, face, or other medical data, with information about me contained in over 5,000 books, last count. (They used to send us a list of the books....) Does it make me special in any way? No. I just wanted you to understand that yes indeed some kids were put on the books and followed as they matured in the early 1960's. It was a pet project of the University of Minnesota. I've never been able to find much information about the project online.

I just remember them having the authority to place me into school before the age deadlines, which they did, and they had the authority to have me taught as they saw fit, which they did, as I showed, like another person who has responded, the ability to master college level material at the 4th grade. From then on I was given what would now be considered to be a custom education.

And like for many, throughout life, it's been more of a curse than a blessing. If you converse and discuss things in the level YOU understand, then you are accused of being a "know it all". If you are female, men are intimidated by you. Everyone that knows you are intelligent, thinks that you use that intelligence for nefarious purposes. How can I say this? It's what I've experienced in life, through these past nearly 50 years. I look back and it all just makes me kinda smile. *LOL*

Have a great week.
SK

reply to post by WhiteAlice


Wierd- I remember the EEG's and other neuro tests too being done once a year (at least). Funny you brought it up, because I remember being VERY young- in the age range of 3 or so, and my mother was making sure I was prepared and not scared about the tests they were going to do to me.

Hey thanks- for the nice memory....

SK

Originally posted by SweetKarma
reply to post by WhiteAlice

 

Wierd- I remember the EEG's and other neuro tests too being done once a year (at least). Funny you brought it up, because I remember being VERY young- in the age range of 3 or so, and my mother was making sure I was prepared and not scared about the tests they were going to do to me.

Hey thanks- for the nice memory....

SK

Not sure if the thanks was sarcastic or not, lol. I figured that I would mention the presence of that research being on google scholar because I'm quite sure that there are others that probably remember medical testing as well. They were definitely curious about us, that's for sure. From what I could glean from the abstracts on the EEGs and biofeedback was that they were looking for differences between what makes somebody gifted against other iq ranges. They also did MRIs of gifted children from what I've found. I find it irritating that they are continuing to do it when, considering the whole thing is run by psychologists, you'd think somebody would go "hey, how does this make the kid feel?" .

Anyways, here's a MRI differences one where you can preview the images with the document. As much as it annoys me, it's still kind of interesting because its' a pretty major contrast: www.sciencedirect.com...

And I can totally relate to your prior post. I always knew that there was nothing wrong with my looks in the minds of boys in high school and that my lack of boyfriends had everything to do with my mind. I'd also add the complaints of people saying I think too much are also a problem as well as people complaining that I'm actually their head hurt because I'm forcing them to think too much. Both of those are pretty frustrating, too. Definitely a mixed blessing.

My daughter was in the gifted 1st grade program this past year, and we just received the news that she will be in the program next year as well, as she scored in the 99th percentile in reading on the Otis Lennon ability test and 95th in Math.

I have always been aware that my child is unique. She is never satisfied with the way things are and always seeks to improve methods. This last semester her teacher was highly impressed with her creative nature and had never seen such enthusiasm when it cam to creating things and ideas.

That being said (I did not post this to gloat about my daughter, though I am a proud father), prior to kindergarten she missed the cut off for the program by two points on the test. So she was placed in a regular class for kindergarten. The differences between the regular programs and gifted programs is like night and day. The teachers are specially trained in how to handle these children who think differently than most at their age. The classroom structure is far more laid back allowing the children to be creative and learn at a pace suited to them. In our school district the gifted children are even taking Chinese as a class 4 days a week.

When in kindergarten my daughter would bring home the same type of worksheet that was well below her mental level. She got bored very fast and it was like pulling teeth to get her to do any homework. She had a great teacher, don't get me wrong, but the teacher had to base her teaching on state and government standards (remember no child left behind act). This kept my daughter from growing in her abilities and in fact would have brought her mental thinking down a level if her teacher hadn't had my daughter learn from the classroom computer, while the other children were reviewing past assignments or taking tests as my daughter would wize right through them.

It took my daughter a bit to get caught up with the other challenge first graders (since most were in the kindergarten challenge program) but by mid term she had caught up and by the end of the year far surpassed many in her class.

What I am getting at here is that though the government may be monitoring some gifted programs throughout the country, I do not see this as a conspiracy or whatever. Gifted children have a tendency to act differently than other children their age. Their minds absorb everything and they do not forget. For any parent out there who has a child in the gifted program, you are very much aware of the downsides of having a gifted child. for those that do not know, here are a few of those signs

Very emotional and often over react to both negative and positive things in their lives.
Very interested in news and goings on in this world. (but also worries about them, weather, news, ...... )
Highly Empathetic to all human and animal.
Can be very stubborn
Do not like to be wrong
Rely a lot of routine and if that routine is off then can get agitated.
Will not stand for injustice
Often like to push boundaries to an extreme
Rarely will surpass those boundaries once set though
Often do not understand why another child their age doesn't understand something that is obvious to them.
Will often try to control others (and are good at figuring out how)
Often are drawn to older people and younger people than themselves (They want to be the student or the teacher if you will)
this list could go on and on, and I am aware that these traits are found in all children gifted or not, and it would be impossible to explain what I am talking about unless you have worked with a gifted child before.

FACT IS, these programs are needed as my daughter would not be able to cope very well in a regularly structured classroom. She would get to frustrated at the slow pace and would not be able to excel and fine tune her abilities.

My daughter's challenge class let's her learn at her own pace and opens the door for her to do things other classes could not because of the repetitive teaching styles those classes use.

my program was called signal. Otherwise, the same as the OP

Interesting thread; back in 1980, i was part of what was called gifted and talented program. I remember it was a group of about 35 elementary age kids from 3 different districts, i was the only one from my school. Odd problem solving games and iq measuring work. Some computer work in basic. I do remember thinking it odd that two of the instructors briught their spouses who worked for the fbi. I thought it was fun; free lunches and got to spend day of wk away from normal school. It wasnt until college i had heard 3 of the kids had died. Until op's post, i had just forgotten about it.

reply to post by tw0330


Please try to remember that the majority of the posters on this thread were just like your daughter. The majority of us were identified as talented and gifted and placed into these programs. If that's what you think about it, then perhaps you should obtain university database access to articles on the gifted programs, curriculum, educational psychology involved with the gifted, and the journals that are specifically involved with gifted education. I looked as deeply as I could into the subject matter and have these two things to say on it.

1. The gifted program is highly subject to change as it is, in fact, entirely experimental and, more specifically, experimental educational psychology. See the Marland Report and the Jacob Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act for the emphasis on the field of psychology being at the helm for the programs.

As it is experimental, it is subject to change through the "flavor of the times". When I was in the program (70's), the subjects being discussed by academics were (not joking here, deadly serious): 1. character building/attitude changing, 2. enhancement of creativity through "positive disintegration" or "developmental forcing", depending on who you read (suggestions for the usage of hypnosis, post-hypnotic suggestion and '___' in the mid 60's as well), and 3. parapsychology. Flake central and highly questionable oversight into these programs. They are riddled with group think.

Don't believe me? Take a look at these from Krippner, "Hypnosis and Creativity", 1965, GCQ:

i.imgur.com...
i.imgur.com...

I wish I were joking. Words cannot express how deeply just the existence of this article within its specific venue sickens me to the core. It doesn't matter whether or not it was implemented into any of the programs. The sheer lack of ethics involved in what is being suggested was published in what was (and still is) the gifted education journal for children. You can authenticate the existence of the article and where it was publish. This is the kind of crap that is locked behind expensive subscription fees for academic journals on the subject of gifted education. Whereas I cannot know for sure what methods were being employed for certain, Gowan, founder and president of the NAGC in the 70's, does write of pushing a "young child" to "stage three" via developmental forcing and the child breaking in "Trance, Art and Creativity" (available in the above link).

In other words, it's not all sunshine, puppy dogs, rainbows and unicorns.

2. Oversight and legal accountability is null in the programs. The Department of Education provides no oversight into the gifted programs and it is, instead, monitored at the state level and is inadequately funded (especially after the No Child Left Behind Act, which gutted the funding for the programs). This scenario basically forces the schools to find funding through special interests, one of which is the NSA. Furthermore, a gifted student has less rights than a child with Down's. Records of their involvement within the gifted program are destroyed 5 years after they turn 18 and, before that, are kept in a separate file away from their school record with restricted access. You can also verify those facts via the net.

They taught us to question everything but the one thing that I never questioned was the program itself or how it functioned. It disturbs me.

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
my program was called signal. Otherwise, the same as the OP

Interesting. About how old are you? Late 40s? I think that's when Signal (have also heard it called Sigil) was running.