Why haven't they learned gifted is ... not always gifted ...

Came across this video from Yahoo! feed on a playschool in Issaquah (Washington State, US) requiring IQ tests for its "gifted" preschool class. http://www.yahoo.com/s/874463

Watched it and saw the school's official website http://www.bkplay.com

Point made in their favour - some kids are gifted, and should receive special attention, just as kids with learning difficulty should receive a different kind of special attention.

Well, it's all up to the parents, I say.

Having kids of my own made me wish I could start and run my own school to provide a healthy and holistic environment for their learning.

And one of the things I'm not going to do is segregate kids by the measured learning abilities.

Yes, for certain classes, it would be helpful.

But classes in general, what is more important is for children to learn to interact with and accept other children of diverse abilities, temperaments, and backgrounds.

To learn to communicate and express themselves effectively and humanely to those who think alike and to those who think different.

To learn to recognise strengths and weakness in themselves and in different people, and to work together to strengthen each other, complement each other, and bring out the best in each other.

I believe in the process of helping each other, they learn more important life skills than being able to master thousands of vocabulary words at a young age or other specific technical skills.

Not only should they learn to learn, learn discipline and tenacity, but they also learn to work with all kinds of people, those who are similar and those who are different.  It's EQ, and it's more than EQ.

I'm not against going to elite universities - I just feel that there're more important lessons and skills to learn when one is younger, or rather, especially when one is younger.