DISTINGUISHMENT OF STUDENTS BASED ON INTELLECTUALITY
Students can be separated from their peers based on intellectuality, placing them with other gifted students. The thought of being surrounded by other ‘talented’ students brings excitement, or can be compared to a utopic environment. However, separating pupils and having high standards on intellectuality (or IQ) is not effective and has some issues, as demonstrated by Gordon Korman in his novel ‘Ungifted’. This is proven through Donovan Curtis’ accidental placement into the Academy of Scholastic Distinction (ASD), an institute where students are placed based on several standardized tests and high academic standards. This is evident as Donovan introduces the students to new things, brings…show more content… He changes the class’ robot into a classmate. He adds pictures on it to make the robot look better. He also names it ‘Tin Man’. In doing so, he changes the robot from an ‘it’ to a ‘he’. This is proven in the following quote by Mr. Osborne to his other fellow teachers in a staff meeting, talking about Donovan, “To be honest, the other kids love what he does with the graphics. And nobody’s ever thought of naming the robot before. At first I only went with it to empower Donovan. But you know what? I’m glad we did it” (64). This verifies how unpressured and relaxed the non-Academy kids are. They do not think too hard, unlike the Academy kids, who often forget something as simple as the visual appeal of the robot. This can truly help the school’s outcome at the Robotics meet. Donovan also contributes to the Robotics class as the robot’s main driver. Through his experiences with video games, something he had time for before attending the Academy, he is able to manoeuvre the robot with the controller far better than the other students. The Academy students cannot operate the robot as well because they are not relaxed and do not play video games. This is explained by Mr. Osborne’s thoughts towards Donovan in the classroom, “With a casual shrug, he held out his hands for the controller, and Donovan put Tin Man through his paces. I watched in amazement. The Mecanums worked like magic “(75). Being in a gifted school as such brings a huge strain on students. This causes students to become tense in everything they do at the Academy. They do not get much time to pursue their passions. A student spending all their time and energy on school is unhealthy. It does not allow students to relax. This stress can lead to a dissatisfaction in life, which Noah goes through before discovering YouTube from