Are We Failing our Geniuses?

There were many interesting points mentioned in the recent Time magazine article titled, “Are We Failing our Geniuses?” (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1653653-1,00.html)
As an educator I feel that it is very important to challenge all students, but I know that I do not. It’s too difficult to find the time and lessons to teach your most gifted students. I spend my time preparing for the masses, which tend to be in the middle to lower end on the intelligence scale. Grade skipping kids would be a great way for a teacher to continue to teach at this level but yet challenge the gifted students as well. If a 6th grader wanted to come to 8th grade for Math one period a day, I see no reason to stop that from happening. I also think that it is beneficial to everyone involved. The student is being challenged, the teachers are not modifying too much of their curriculum, and students can see the benefits of excelling (Quicker movement through the K-12 curriculum). A great mind is a horrible thing to waste. I feel that if you pull a student out of the public school system, they will not get a logical look at what reality is. They will have to deal with people in their lives that have a lesser IQ than they have. It is better to prepare them for that now, than to have a severe reality check later on.

Is it worth it?

I want to find out how many of my students will actually be into this "blogging" rage. If there are enough students that want to try it out, then I think I'll use it. But, if only a few students get into it, we'll just stick to the whole pencil and paper thing. My biggest worry is that my students will have too many problems figuring out how to do it so they will stop trying. I am a big proponent of technology in the classroom as long as students are using it to learn, and not to detract from the educational happenings. Well, if you think blogging is a good idea let me know.