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5 Things Every Teacher Should Know About…Gifted and Talented Students
1. “Children with extremely high cognitive abilities and those with extraordinary special talents have had trouble fitting in” (Kearney, 1996, n.p.)
This is very important for teachers to be aware of. Students who are not on the same intellectual level as their peers tend to feel isolated. They do not have someone to talk to who understands them, and many of these students feel that the play of their peers is beneath them. My own child is a second grader and he participates in the gifted program in our district as I did from 2nd-9th grades. In order to find common ground with his peers, he tends to act silly or clown around and “dumb himself down” in many ways. That is his way of connecting to the other students, which tends to get him into trouble and really does not allow him to be himself with the other students in his class. Some gifted children isolate themselves rather than taking my son’s approach.
Teachers are often concerned about the play behavior of extremely gifted children, sometimes mistaking solitary play for social immaturity. It is important to understand that highly gifted children are often loners on the playground not because they lack play knowledge or are unsociable creatures, but because their advanced intellectual development causes them to organize the play into a complicated pattern, with some remote and definite climax as the goal and to use vocabulary not yet accessible to age peers. (Kearney, 1996, n.p.)
2. Most students who are gifted and talented are left in full inclusion settings without much help or intervention for their needs.
These students are left to fend for themselves in most schools across the country. This does not seem fair or just. There is not much information out there for teachers who are interested in providing further challenging instruction for gifted and talented kids. Founder of The Hollingworth Center for Highly Gifted Children, Kathy Kearney, writes,
If inclusionary classrooms are committed to serving all students, they must choose to include, both physically and philosophically, even the most extremely gifted children as well as children with the most severe disabilities. This means more for both groups than simply being in attendance in the regular classroom. It means respecting and teaching one’s students to respect the unique developmental paths of each individual, no matter how unusual; providing access to a developmentally appropriate curriculum; and providing related support services. Although much has been written about inclusion methods for children with disabilities, an examination of inclusionary principles for children who are extremely gifted has not been addressed. (1996, n.p.)
3. “In the ordinary elementary school situation, children of 140 IQ waste half of their time. Those above 170 IQ waste practically all of their time” (Hollingworth, 1942, p. 299).
As educators, we need to be aware that many of our most gifted students are getting little to nothing out of the grade level curriculum we are offering the rest of the students. These children need much more challenging, appropriate material to work on to advance their thinking and brain development.
4. “One of the most common educational difficulties highly gifted students experience in both school and community programs is an arbitrary age requirement for curriculum access” (Kearney, 1996, n.p.)
Many school districts have age requirements as well as restrictions on the placement of students in classrooms and grade levels. Cognitive ability or intelligence is not a factor in the age-grading system we use in public schools, which is a great injustice for these highly intelligent students. Many families of gifted students end up pulling them from the public school setting entirely and home school in order to meet the needs of their children. Some children have even had damaging or paralyzing experiences as students in age-graded classrooms, causing parents to consider home schooling as an option.
5. “Busy American teachers since colonial days have used bright children to run errands, tutor other classmates or younger children, and perform maintenance tasks in the classroom…Teachers and policy makers must be very careful not to exploit highly gifted children” (Kearney, 1996, n.p.)
Children who already know what is being taught tend to be utilized as “helpers” and “tutors” in the classroom. This is not fair or helpful for those students who are gifted. It communicates to them that their learning is not a priority. Many will leave school feeling like it is a waste of their time and that they have been doing work the teacher gets paid to do. In many districts, there are policies in place that discourage acceleration or ability grouping and enrichment materials can be hard to come by.
In general, a reasonable rule would be that a highly gifted child should be expected to spend no more of his or her time than would be expected of any other child in the classroom on activities such as peer tutoring or being a teacher’s helper. Like all other students in the school, highly gifted children need daily opportunities to learn new things, even though the pace, depth, and even subject matter may be different from their age-peers (Kearney, 1996, n.p.)
We need to do what is developmentally and academically appropriate for the gifted and talented students in our care. Otherwise, “With little to do, how can these children develop power of sustained effort, respect for the task, or habits of steady work?” (Hollingworth, 1942, p. 299). Ultimately, these students need to be challenged and asked to work up to their own potential.
References
Autism Society of America is a site that details information about autism spectrum Disorders (http://www.autism-society.org/site/PageServer).
Beegle, D. (n.d.) Educating students from generational poverty: Building blocks from A to Z. Retrieved from http://www.region10.org/migranteducation/documents /EducatingChildrenofPoverty.pdf
Hollingworth, L. S. (1942). Children above 180 IQ (Stanford-Binet): Origin and development. Yonkers-on-Hudson, NY: World Book Company.
Kearney, K. (1996). Highly gifted children in full inclusion classrooms. Highly Gifted Children, 12 (4). Retrieved from http://www.hollingworth.org/fullincl.html
Payne, R. (1996). Understanding and working with students and adults from poverty. Instructional Leader, 9 (2). Retrieved from http://homepages.wmich.edu/~ljohnson/Payne.pdf
1. “Children with extremely high cognitive abilities and those with extraordinary special talents have had trouble fitting in” (Kearney, 1996, n.p.)
This is very important for teachers to be aware of. Students who are not on the same intellectual level as their peers tend to feel isolated. They do not have someone to talk to who understands them, and many of these students feel that the play of their peers is beneath them. My own child is a second grader and he participates in the gifted program in our district as I did from 2nd-9th grades. In order to find common ground with his peers, he tends to act silly or clown around and “dumb himself down” in many ways. That is his way of connecting to the other students, which tends to get him into trouble and really does not allow him to be himself with the other students in his class. Some gifted children isolate themselves rather than taking my son’s approach.
Teachers are often concerned about the play behavior of extremely gifted children, sometimes mistaking solitary play for social immaturity. It is important to understand that highly gifted children are often loners on the playground not because they lack play knowledge or are unsociable creatures, but because their advanced intellectual development causes them to organize the play into a complicated pattern, with some remote and definite climax as the goal and to use vocabulary not yet accessible to age peers. (Kearney, 1996, n.p.)
2. Most students who are gifted and talented are left in full inclusion settings without much help or intervention for their needs.
These students are left to fend for themselves in most schools across the country. This does not seem fair or just. There is not much information out there for teachers who are interested in providing further challenging instruction for gifted and talented kids. Founder of The Hollingworth Center for Highly Gifted Children, Kathy Kearney, writes,
If inclusionary classrooms are committed to serving all students, they must choose to include, both physically and philosophically, even the most extremely gifted children as well as children with the most severe disabilities. This means more for both groups than simply being in attendance in the regular classroom. It means respecting and teaching one’s students to respect the unique developmental paths of each individual, no matter how unusual; providing access to a developmentally appropriate curriculum; and providing related support services. Although much has been written about inclusion methods for children with disabilities, an examination of inclusionary principles for children who are extremely gifted has not been addressed. (1996, n.p.)
3. “In the ordinary elementary school situation, children of 140 IQ waste half of their time. Those above 170 IQ waste practically all of their time” (Hollingworth, 1942, p. 299).
As educators, we need to be aware that many of our most gifted students are getting little to nothing out of the grade level curriculum we are offering the rest of the students. These children need much more challenging, appropriate material to work on to advance their thinking and brain development.
4. “One of the most common educational difficulties highly gifted students experience in both school and community programs is an arbitrary age requirement for curriculum access” (Kearney, 1996, n.p.)
Many school districts have age requirements as well as restrictions on the placement of students in classrooms and grade levels. Cognitive ability or intelligence is not a factor in the age-grading system we use in public schools, which is a great injustice for these highly intelligent students. Many families of gifted students end up pulling them from the public school setting entirely and home school in order to meet the needs of their children. Some children have even had damaging or paralyzing experiences as students in age-graded classrooms, causing parents to consider home schooling as an option.
5. “Busy American teachers since colonial days have used bright children to run errands, tutor other classmates or younger children, and perform maintenance tasks in the classroom…Teachers and policy makers must be very careful not to exploit highly gifted children” (Kearney, 1996, n.p.)
Children who already know what is being taught tend to be utilized as “helpers” and “tutors” in the classroom. This is not fair or helpful for those students who are gifted. It communicates to them that their learning is not a priority. Many will leave school feeling like it is a waste of their time and that they have been doing work the teacher gets paid to do. In many districts, there are policies in place that discourage acceleration or ability grouping and enrichment materials can be hard to come by.
In general, a reasonable rule would be that a highly gifted child should be expected to spend no more of his or her time than would be expected of any other child in the classroom on activities such as peer tutoring or being a teacher’s helper. Like all other students in the school, highly gifted children need daily opportunities to learn new things, even though the pace, depth, and even subject matter may be different from their age-peers (Kearney, 1996, n.p.)
We need to do what is developmentally and academically appropriate for the gifted and talented students in our care. Otherwise, “With little to do, how can these children develop power of sustained effort, respect for the task, or habits of steady work?” (Hollingworth, 1942, p. 299). Ultimately, these students need to be challenged and asked to work up to their own potential.
References
Autism Society of America is a site that details information about autism spectrum Disorders (http://www.autism-society.org/site/PageServer).
Beegle, D. (n.d.) Educating students from generational poverty: Building blocks from A to Z. Retrieved from http://www.region10.org/migranteducation/documents /EducatingChildrenofPoverty.pdf
Hollingworth, L. S. (1942). Children above 180 IQ (Stanford-Binet): Origin and development. Yonkers-on-Hudson, NY: World Book Company.
Kearney, K. (1996). Highly gifted children in full inclusion classrooms. Highly Gifted Children, 12 (4). Retrieved from http://www.hollingworth.org/fullincl.html
Payne, R. (1996). Understanding and working with students and adults from poverty. Instructional Leader, 9 (2). Retrieved from http://homepages.wmich.edu/~ljohnson/Payne.pdf