Pros and Cons of Being Labeled a Gifted Child
Gifted is defined as "children who give evidence of high performance capability in areas such as intellectual, artistic, creative, leadership capacity, or specific academic fields, and who require services or activities not ordinarily provided by the school in order to fully develop such capabilities. There is a biological difference between gifted kids. They have an increased cell production that will increase synaptic activity. This is what causes the added increase in thought production. There are many myths that surround the gifted community like "gifted students will be fine on their own", or "gifted students are happy, popular, and well adjusted in school." Some common characteristics shared between gifted boys and girls is that they are more adaptable, adventurous, and little tolerance for boredom. They need think periods, independence, and very self disciplined. "Typically, we associate giftedness in adults with high levels of achievements, but it is not that simple. In fact, the gifted person is as likely to be the high school rebel as they are to be the the valedictorian, CEO, or a Nobel prize winner." Some examples of famous gifted people are Albert Einstein, Steven Hawking, Isaac Newton, Walt Disney, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill and many more. If a child shows signs of being gifted they should be tested by an official to prove and show their strengths. Testing is beneficial because it uses the child's full potential instead of just having it for themselves. As of 2006, the average of kids that are labeled as gifted in public elementary schools is 6.7% of the total student population. Being a gifted child has many pros and cons. After analysis of this comparison, it ...
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...hy the negatives outweigh the positives, especially the emotional side that effects the whole life of the child. Through the real world and Ender's Game there are many examples of how being gifted is not beneficial to the well being of the person from childhood to adulthood.
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Card, Orson Scott. Ender's Game. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1991. Print.
(2005). Code of Ethics. Alexandria, VA: Author. Plucker, J. A., & Barab, S. A. (2005). The importance of contexts in theories of giftedness.
Through data from Raven test scores and pulled information from other studies, Zajonc and Markus were able to dig deeper into the investigation of validating their hypothesis. Nevertheless, their information cannot actually be presented as concrete evidence. On that note, many scientists actually oppose their theory and believe nurturing is more of a factor in the development of a child’s intellectual ability. Both theories overlap to an extent, but there still remain
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...
Chapter three is titled, “The Trouble with Geniuses, Part 1”. This chapter started with a quote. The quote was, “Knowledge of a boy’s IQ is of little help if you are faced with a formful of clever b...
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).
Results of students who received praise for intelligence: The students in this category had negative results after receiving praising. When asked afterwards if they wanted to do the same level of problems or try more challenging ones, they chose the task that would allow them to look smart and do well on. Consequently, while telling a child how smart he or she is, we are sending a message to not take risks and just look the part. Afterwards, these children were given a hard task, which they performed poorly on, and they know longer liked the problems and did not want to practice them at home. Children also felt “dumb” and when given the initial task (in which they did well), they performed significantly worse. Lastly, their opinions of intelligence reflected that it was an innate capacity as though you cannot improve.
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
Lynn, Richard, and John Harvey. "The Decline of the World's IQ." Intelligence 36 (2008): 112-
Ryser, G. R., & McConnell, K. (2003). Scales for Identifying Gifted Students. Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.
In his book, Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell makes the claim that IQ does not have an accurate correlation to success after a certain point. Specifically, he says, “The relationship between success and IQ works only up to a point. Once someone has reached an IQ of somewhere around 120, having additional IQ points doesn’t seem to translate into any measurable real-world advantage.” IQ tests and other talent assessments have long been used to enroll students in gifted education initiatives. It has been argued that not only are IQ tests inaccurate, but gifted programs are detrimental to a child’s education. While I concede that IQ tests are not the best way to determine intelligence, I still insist that gifted programs are beneficial for children that show a special aptitude in different school subjects. Without advanced programs to challenge children with unique abilities, these students are unable to reach their full potential.
“The Drama of the Gifted Child” by Alice Miller is a book that every child psychologist should want to read in order to understand children at a young age. This book teaches the readers that a gifted child who is intelligent, sensitive and is emotionally aware can be accustomed to their parent’s expectations. Therefore they will do whatever it takes to fulfill her parent’s expectations, while ignoring their own feelings and needs. While trying to be the perfect child, they lose their true self and locks away their feelings. When the child becomes older, they still try to please their parents but are constantly looking to others for approval. If an adult cannot face the truth of his or her past as a child, then they are not going to
The demographic used for the study is described as “highly advantaged children (middle-class whites with IQs of at least 135)…” (Gallagher). An IQ of 135 or higher is a very selective group and less than 1% of the entire world fits that criteria (“What Goes Into the Making of a Genius?”). With an IQ at or over 135, these children are more susceptible to anxiety, stress, and relationship issues among peers (“Social and Emotional Issues”). These troubles could directly impact their happiness and have a large effect on their lives if the issues persist. The results are even more limiting when the other factors such as race and financial background are taken into account. The lives led by these children are by no means typical and having access to certain advantages and a greater susceptibility to certain conditions can have an impact on the results. When 99% of the world is exempt from this study and the results are being applied to such a broad spectrum, it is not an acceptable application of the provided
1940 The Thirty-ninth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education: Factors Influencing the Growth of Intelligence in Young Children. US Public School Publishing Co. Cherry, Kendra “What Is Nature versus Nurture?” Accessed February 20, 2014.
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 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: