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Undeserved Superiority

These lines in Twilight of the Elites quoted from the valedictorian of one the best public high schools for gifted kids gives real food for thought:

I feel guilty because I don’t deserve any of this. And neither do any of you. We received an outstanding education at no charge based solely on our performance on a test we took when we were eleven-year-olds, or four-year-olds. We received superior teachers and additional resources based on our status as “gifted,” while kids who naturally needed those resources much more than us wallowed in the mire of a broken system. And now, we stand on the precipice of our lives, in control of our lives, based purely and simply on luck and circumstance.

There is so much truth to what is young person is saying. Some very well-deserving kids on that day and hour failed to make the cut in the test for reasons they did not control. The family circumstances could have been so miserable that the student simply could not summon themselves up, they had no one holding their hand, holding up a light to their hidden potential. All of that is pure, crazy luck that happens to some but does not for the the vast majority who were in no way less, many were much more. Yet once the slotting has happened in elementary school fortunes start to diverge. 

The gifted get on the speed lane and are off to the races, each year bringing more and more new opportunities that are a far remote dream for those who are struggling on the city streets trying to get on the freeway. The speed-lanes are not even open to them for the most part. By the time of high school the two sets of students are inhabiting entirely different universes. I have had the chance to see the paths leading to the top ranking public high school and that leading to the very average base school, very closely. The kids in question were about same starting out but the disparity at the end of high school is in the orders of magnitude. I deeply understand what this kid is saying and truer words were not spoken.


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