Rationale

Rationale for Choices

The reason behind why I chose my first post was because the topic of “Why and should gifted education exist” enabled me to find more evidence in the weekly readings to support my decision- which was yes. The reason for my position was this- from my prior knowledge of what giftedness was, I saw the gifted population as a specialized population. And just like educators pay close attention to other specialized students (LD, ADHD, ELL) I felt that gifted students and education should be considered equally significant. Every child that enters a classroom has various needs that we as educators strive to meet every day, and I wanted to make it very clear that gifted students are no different. However, as I was doing the readings for this topic, I am to other realizations of why gifted education should exist. The article from Borland (2013) really enabled me to look deeper into what “proper education” was in gifted education. To be honest, I really was not able to wrap my head around Borland’s statement that the ultimate goal of gifted education was “proper education” of gifted students and not the creation of programs. I had previously read a chapter in the book by Callahan & Hertberg-Davis (2013) entitled “Defensible Curriculum for Gifted Students” and after reading that, I was sure that designing and creating effective programming was essential in meeting the diverse needs of gifted students. So I found myself challenging the question of “What is proper education then if it does not require creating programs to meet the needs of gifted students?”

I also chose this post because it enabled me to look deeper into this ongoing debate about the consensus of gifted education. Borland (2012) stated that, “intellectual ...

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...re were more critical questions I had now. What exactly would that look like in practice for teachers? And how can we be assured that this redesign will in fact meet the needs of all learners? Can teacher training be of any assistance? Will there be another document that explains the strategies of how to enforce the principles of the redesign? I understand that this is the hope, but it may not be the reality. I feel that since my perception was swayed, I am back to asking the question, “What should proper education look like in gifted programs, and how effective are the practices we have now?” This post really made me feel that there is no much more to be explored with this question, and that perhaps I settled for a bit less in my response in the second post. I am hoping that the section two articles and topics will allow me to look into my questions a bit further.