Should Giftedness be Narrowly or Broadly Defined in my School District? Gifted education defined can be a broad topic with a number of different branches to spiral down if you’re not careful. So how can we narrow our search for information and come to some conclusion on where we are today and where we might be tomorrow? First, what is giftedness? The Virginia Beach School system defines giftedness as: “Students, children, or youth who give evidence of high achievement capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership capacity, or in specific academic fields, and who need services and activities not ordinarily provided by the school in order to fully develop those capabilities.” This is the same definition as the federal government’s definition of giftedness. This definition does provide us with a good baseline for educators to focus efforts, however the application and the execution of programs based on this definition will determine on a state level who will receive the gifted based education. The American “No Child Left Behind” legislation, is putting an emphasis on minimum standards, which in turn is not challenging our gifted students. This also leaves us in a position where some students who normally would not be identified as gifted are then put into gifted programs and receiving services that they do not necessarily need. The current system would lead us to believe that Virginia Beach has a broad definition or liberal view of giftedness. This is true on how we define giftedness but defining and executing the programs need to go hand in hand, the ying and yang per say. The execution and the availability of gifted programs and services are also very broad based on the federal definition. Giftednes... ... middle of paper ... ...gh-functioning individuals in that domain. Further, giftedness can be viewed as developmental, in that in the beginning stages, potential is the key variable; in later stages, achievement is the measure of giftedness; and in fully developed talents, eminence is the basis on which this label is granted. Psychosocial variables play an essential role in the manifestation of giftedness at every developmental stage. Both cognitive and psychosocial variables are malleable and need to be deliberately cultivated (L. Coleman & Cross, 2005, Dai & Coleman, 2005a; Mayer, 2005; Olszewski-Kubilius, 2000). Narrowly defining giftedness will only exclude some of the truly talented and extraordinary individuals and inhibit the resources and legislation that are needed to ensure gifted education is a national priority to improve our educational status on a national and global scale.
Plucker, J. A., & Barab, S. A. (2005). The importance of contexts in theories of giftedness. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (pp. 201-216). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Before we begin to address this, we must first consult the definition; Among the various ones provided in our textbook, the following phrases will be especially useful for our analysis: Gifted and talented students have “potential high performance capabilities in…specific academic…ability”; “outstanding levels of aptitude (defined as an exceptional ability to reason and learn)”; “above-average general intellectual abilities” (Heward, Alber-Morgan, & Konrad, 2017, pp. 436-437). I find the word potential most striking, especially because many of Will’s friends (as well as Lambeau and Sean) believed that he had significant untapped potential. Also, when standing up for one of his friends at the bar, he went into much detail about historical facts and events in a strikingly logical and academic manner, with vocabulary and elaboration that well-surpassed many of those around
The problem associated with how students are chosen to join a gifted and talented program stems from the way that we define giftedness. Because there are countless ways in which any individual can define talent, the government created a federal task force in 1972 to study gifted education in order to standardize the way in which schools choose students for and implement their gifted and talented programs. The task force’s results are known as the Marland Report and include much information as a result of their research, including a decision that a public school’s gifted and talented programs should aim to serve between 3 and 5 percent o...
When I found out I qualified to be a candidate for the NJHS, I knew I had to take this chance. This group is made up of people who depict leadership, character, citizenship, academic success, and service and I would love to join. These characteristics wouldn't just be valuable for a candidate to have, but for everyone to have to exceed in life. If I were to be in the National Junior Honor Society, it would give me an opportunity to ameliorate my future and motivate me to do better.
The Talents Unlimited Model was created under the philosophy that all students, both those identified as gifted and those not, would benefit from enrichment programs. The model is used to educate teachers on how to use differentiated instruction to use “higher order cognitive tasks to help students with varying abilities use their preferred thinking talents to manipulate instruction to solve problems, see broad relationships, evaluate varying perspectives, draw comparisons among disparate viewpoints, and predict causes and effects” (Schlichter, 2009, p. 434).
The book opens up with a quote by the German proverb, “you will become clever through your mistakes.” I agree with this quote 100% because through personal experience mistakes are the best way I learned on the softball field. It has helped me grow as a player, teammate, and person. I guess a great way to start off this paper is the way he defined talent. Talent in the strictest sense is the possession of repeatable skills that don’t depend on physical size. That being said no matter what size you are the skills you possess is where talent is born for athletes.
His anecdotes presented in the article are appropriate in terms of his subject and claims. The author responds back to the naysayers by saying that people only look at the test scores earned in school, but not the actual talent. He says, “Our culture- in Cartesian fashion- separates the body from the mind, so that, for example we assume that the use of tool does not involve abstraction. We reinforce this notion by defining intelligence solely on grades in school and number on IQ tests. And we employ social biases pertaining to a person’s place on the occupational ladder” (279). The author says that instead of looking at people’s talent we judge them by their grades in school or their IQ score, and we also employ them based on these numbers. People learn more each time they perform a task. He talks about blue collared individuals developing multi-tasking and creativity skills as they perform the task they are asked to
Some people work hard their whole life to achieve success and others just seem to be born talented in a certain field that they prevail in. One of the ways an individual can attempt to become successful is by working diligently in school to obtain a proper education. Access to advanced education is key if you would want to become very intelligent and furthermore the so called “gifted programs” in these advanced education systems are supposed to make you even smarter.People have wondered if going through gifted programs would make you more successful in your adult life.There was a man named Richard Terman, who wanted to take a group of kids in these gifted programs, his “Termites”, and track how successful they were later in life. He was hoping to find that the kids that were in advanced classes would in fact become very successful adults and he was right. When his Termites were adults many of them became experts in different fields. Terman measured the success of the chosen people by looking at awards they have achieved and all of the writings that they have published and the amount of these achievements was fairly
Plucker, J. A., & Barab, S. A. (2005). The importance of contexts in theories of giftedness. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (pp. 201-216). New York: Cambridge University Press.
A common misconception is intelligence is inherited and does not change, so therefore, gifted children do not need special services. However, this mindset is very dangerous when it comes to the development of gifted children. It is widely believed that gifted students will get by on their own without any assistance from their school. After all,
One of the most controversial things about gifted and talented education is the criterion educators use to identify the gifted and talented. In the past, a student’s intelligence, based on an I.Q. score, was considered the best way to determine whether or not they qualified as gifted. As a result of using this method of identification, many gifted and talented students are not discovered nor are they placed in the appropriate programs to develop their abilities. Talents in the arts or an excellent ability to write are not measured on an I.Q. test but are abilities that may certainly qualify a student as gifted or talented.
The bulk of legal cases are in the realm of special education, but only time will tell if gifted education will challenge our highest courts. For now, district administrators and teachers must continue with due diligence to meet the needs of gifted learners, but they must always stay abreast of rulings from the Office of Dispute Resolution. By following the due process hearings, districts can identify commonalities with their own district practice and adjust as needed. Gifted education enrollment numbers are dwarfed by the special education numbers, but the parents of gifted students are no less vocal and often have more resources available to them. Regardless of what the law has said or will say, it is the school’s responsibility to grow all learners, but realize that is our gifted learners who have the innate ability to truly make a difference in our
The mind is such a beautiful mystery that gives us humans the power to come up with extraordinary ideas. Every individual is different; we all have different ideas and opinions on how we approach life. The situation of living can be twisted and bended into many ideas that humans have formed overtime. Life to me is important to be questioned. Famous philosopher Socrates believed that the unexamined life is not worth living, this is something I highly agree on. Life has many folded questions, which some people choose to unfold while others choose to follow the system of not asking too many questions.
Since we are born we have imagination and as we grow up this imagination may increase or decrease. Creativity strongly relies in our imagination. Depending on different circumstances people learn to express their creativity openly while other people close themselves and believe they do not have creativity. Creativity is a natural talent that every single human has. Creativity can be used to solve a complex problem in a different manner or just to find innovative ways to have fun. Creativity is thinking out of the box. Even though creativity cannot be taught from scratch there should be a class that is specific for creativity.
The identification and definition of giftedness have been controversial for many, many decades. Originally, IQ test scores were the only way of determining giftedness. An IQ test would be given and some number score, such as 12-, would be the point of cut-off (Cook, Elliott, Kratochwill, & Travers, 2000). More recently, intellectual giftedness is usually identified and defined by the specific school systems’ ideas and perspectives. There is no generally accepted definition of giftedness, but the Javits Gifted and Talented Education Act defines it as: