gifted

I was in the attic looking for the Easter baskets when I saw the cardboard box. The box contains a wedding present, a very nice serving tray which was a gift from one of my best friends from college. My wife and I recently celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary. The gift has been with us for those 26 years, it has survived 5 moves, and it has been out of the box for a sum total of 4 minutes; as in "Oh, do you remember this?" It is a very nice gift, from a dear friend, but I am ashamed to say that we have yet to integrate it as a useful part of our lives.

One of the questions for educators is how do we deal with the students who are uniquely gifted? What do we do to promote their ability, to showcase their talent; or do we just leave them in the box with the occasional acknowledgement of their importance? But first, what does the term 'gifted and talented child' mean?

Let me be careful about word choice. What are accurate definitions of the terms gifted and talented? John Feldhusen, past president of the National Association for Gifted Children concludes that we should discontinue the use of the term gifted to apply to school-aged children since the U.S. Department of Education now defines the term gifted as the mature achievement of one's special ability. So therefore the term talented becomes our identifier. The U.S. Department of Education's 1993 report, National Excellence: A Case for Developing America's Talent, defines talent in this manner; "Children and youth with outstanding talent perform or show the potential for performing at remarkably high levels of accomplishment when compared to their peers." Remarkable high levels of achievement when compared to their peers. This statement begs these questions: Which abilities? And how will we test for them? Various typologies of abilities have been constructed, but objective norm-referenced tests have not. Hmmm, that certainly is a dilemma. And now for the kiss of death, Howard Gardner warns against any test that purports to measure intelligence.

Another concern that I have is the part stating that the achievement can be demonstrated now or there may be potential to demonstrate it. Potential?! I thought every child had potential and that none were to be left behind. And for commentary on the academic programs put in place by schools, Feldhusen states that money spent on programs for talented students is not merited.

In summary, the term 'gifted child' is an oxymoron since being gifted means you have reached mature achievement, there are no tests to measure talent, and current programs in school attempting to serve this population have not proven their merit. Ouch. On the practical side, we as educators have come across students with abilities that exceed those of their peers. How do handle them? Or more commonly, how do we handle the parent that believes their precocious child is gifted?

There is no easy answer. This is one of the those areas where research has not supported consensus on theory. The cavalry is not coming to save the day. In situations like this the decisions should be based on local practice. The clarifying question then becomes; what is in the best interest of the community? The essayist, Wendell Berry, writes with great passion on the value of localized decision making. The final stanza from his poem, Damage, bears witness:
"I was careful to get expert advice. But this only exemplifies what I already knew. No expert knows everything about every place, not even everything about any place. If one's knowledge of one's whereabouts is insufficient, if one's judgement is unsound, then expert advice is of little use."

The school, the community, the family will decide how to showcase their children's talent and how to develop their potential. Above all the concerns is the need to take some action, because ignoring a gift is an insult and a shame.

Make a good day,
Tod

PS. To read an excerpt of one of Feldhusen works see J. Borland's Rethinking Gifted Education by following this link: http://books.google.com/books?id=ZIZJiXMUYS0C&pg=PA34&lpg=PA34&dq=feldhusen+gifted&source=bl&ots=dHHSqa_EWy&sig=fhnXXRPRmoiN1PpUtCUXF17GtyQ&hl=en&ei=Xov7SZCpGom-MuzWsL0E&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5#PPP1,M1

PSS. One of Feldhusen's more recent books (2003) is Beyond General Giftedness: New Ways to Identify and Educate Gifted, Talented, and Precocious Youth