Were You Part Of The "Mentally Gifted Minds" Program In California Scools back in the 70's?

'get over it basketcase'

Not California but I was in the program in Illinois in the early 80s. Basically what you described. We were often taken out of class for special testing. Got special classes in computer use with early Apples including learning how to program in BASIC, while the normal kids barely ever got to touch a computer. Also got special library sessions were we could just read whatever we wanted. We also got IQ testing every couple of years.

yes.

Weird, me also.

Me too, in the Northeast.

interesting how we end up here.

I'm coming for you, Sweetie.

In Illinois, had govt officials coming in to interview me, was upper 1% in those damn Iowa Basic Skills tests. Constantly pulled out of class.

So are you guys multiples or something? Asassins? Missing time?

i was in the "gifted" program as well in the midwest in the early to mid 80s. i never really thought much of it until i read this post.

let me expand on this.

i was in a school for the gifted AND i was pulled out a lot. in 7th grade, i basically had my own curriculum and continued with special lessons all throughout my education.

my brothers did this as well.

I know seriously. Was in the program in Pennsylvania in late 70s/early 80s.

Why do you ask OP?

pomp

I was in it in the 80's and 90's in California. They called it GATE. Gifted And Talented Education. Tons of special testing. I completely forgot about the fast flickering light test until you brought it up. I used to get bussed to another school once per week for the whole day. All the GATE kids in the district would meet once per week at the same school for special classes and tests. There was only maybe 20 of us or so out of 7 or 8 schools.

So... Were we programmed to end up here?

WOW, I had forgotten about the 'mentally gifted morons' class. Was in 6th grade for me 1979, Duarte CA.

YES, lots of testing and stupid drama and art classes I had no interest in.

GATE here

Yes, we were bussed to schools outside of our own district. We were given many different types of puzzles. After a while they would stop giving us a variety of puzzles and have us focus on one type. My specialty was determined to be elimination logic puzzles.

We were a very small group of children, less than 10 in all. From the entire area.

These tests continued for perhaps two or three quarters. It was a search that was conducted by Ludens. Ludens children were placed amongst other children for this purpose.

I keep waiting for you to tell us this was some sort of conspiracy or something, OP.

Spill the beans, please.

I was in the gifted program as well. But so was my brother and several other people that didn't become conspiracy nuts.

No flashing images or anything like that.

Is there a point to this, or are you just polling?

that was funny.

seriously though.

did any of you start off in montessouri schools for early education? (pre-k, kindergarden?) just curious.

we were bussed from far away and i lived right behind an elementary school i could have gone to. my neighbors never understood why we did that.

I went to the GATE classes once per week from second grade through eighth grade. I really don't remember much about those classes though. It's like there's a big blank spot in my memory.

I do remember two projects very well. One, we would look at an image for a few seconds, then we had to close our eyes and draw the image. Another project was engineering and then building a small sailboat out of string, a small piece of paper, and some Popsicle sticks. We then tested them to see if they would float and then raced them. I remember doing the sailboat project in 3rd grade. Pretty advanced stuff for 7-8 year olds! That's really all I can remember though.

Do you guys remember much from that time?

I was in the GATE program

yes....in Georgia, my youngest brother also.

I'm wondering as well. My curiosity is piqued.

Found this site but am unsure of the correlation to the OP.

[link to www.nagc.org]

Toward the close of the twentieth century, federal monies from the Jacob Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act funded such entities as the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented and provided grant monies for gifted research and programming. A Nation at Risk (1983) and National Excellence: A Case For Developing America's Talent (1993), reports issued by the federal government, highlighted the missed opportunities to identify and serve gifted students nationally. In turn, a call was made for additional research and programming in the field of gifted education. The issuance of national standards by the National Association for Gifted Children also helped solidify the field's intent and provide school districts across the country with a set of programming criteria. Published in 2004, A Nation Deceived reported on the advantages of acceleration for gifted children, which illustrated America's inability to properly meet the needs of its most able students despite the overwhelming research supporting acceleration.

We were asked to design a spaceship that could sustain human life indefinately. We had to come up with ways to produce food, medicine, and other life support systems. We just thought it was lots of fun to design this thing.

we had to do the image recall lesson as well.

ever partner with one person and try to move the ball through the hoop lesson?

how about the picture relay lesson?

Pre-K was not common when I was a child. I did attend kindergarten, which is a German word meaning "Children's Garden". Very strange that we use this word eh?

The children that lived adjacent to my school were not allowed to attend it. In turn we were taken from that school to a school 1 hour away. Very strange times those were.

Does anyone remember the shape games? While everyone else was trying to figure out which hole to put the square in, we were doing these: [link to ursispaltenstein.ch]

I can't remember anything from the "gifted & talented" program. Like another said, it's like a blank spot in my memory. The only thing I remember was taking tons of tests. I remember that I didn't mind taking the tests. I rather enjoyed them. I remember getting out of class a lot to talk to different people. But like I said, I don't remember one thing from the program itself. All this took place in elementary school years through 5th grade. Then my family moved to a different city and that was it. Testing saved my grades in school. I was very poor at doing homework. But I always aced my tests.

So yeah, what were they testing me for? Where are the results? Hell, WHAT were the results?

Makes me wonder......