You Know Your Child Is Gifted When By Judy Galbraith

One of the difficulties in identifying the needs of low-income students is the profound cultural barriers which exist that prevent their strengths and deficits from being identified. Children from low-income homes frequently have poorer vocabularies and a weaker basis of the type of knowledge that is frequently considered 'intelligence' on most forms of assessment. A low-income child's IQ may be high, even though he lacks a framework of accepted middle-class knowledge. "In January 2003, the National Academy of Sciences released a report on the seeming overrepresentation of minorities in special education and underrepresentation of those students in gifted education. The NRC reported that, nationwide, 7.47 percent of all white students and 9.9 percent of Asian students are placed in gifted programs. Meanwhile, 3.04 percent of African-American students, 3.57 percent of Hispanic students, and 4.86 percent of American Indian students are classified as gifted" (GT-minority identification, 2003, ERIC Clearinghouse). The discrepancy, the NAS believed, could not be solely explained by talent alone but was at least partially rooted in the methods of identifying students labeled as gifted. Biases in standardized and other tests identifying student strengths, combined with prejudices, however unintentional, amongst educators and administrators lead to under-identification of the gifted

Typically gifted and talented programs are intended to challenge fast pace learners and recognize their special abilities, however the innocuous separation between peers can prevent other students’ talents from being acknowledged and advanced. While the gifted and talented students are applauded for their intellectual capabilities and natural talents, other students are labeled as average or less skilled. Placement into these programs are rooted from the results of standardized testing, which students and teachers spend a great amount of time preparing for. Preparation for these exams alter the curriculum and objective for learning all together. Some education systems seem to focus more on teaching to test rather than teaching to educate. In Cathy Davidson essay, “Project Classroom Makeover,” she explores how there should be more emphases on the relevance, relationship and rigor in the classroom and how this can teach students more efficiently and improve our school. Within the past 15 years, advancements in technology alone theoretically have created new prospective ways of learning, therefore standardized testing may be an inadequate method of testing students’ talents and abilities. Because each student’s future is so heavily weighted on their performance throughout grade school, education systems should have a well-rounded system in place that allows students to support and learn from each other rather than creating a divide between the strong versus the poor test

Education was built, along with many other things, to the average standard. It was designed with the average student in mind, never really adapted towards those who grasps concepts quickly, accelerate at rapid rates beyond their peers. As gifted, or exceptionally intelligence children make up around 6 to 10 percent of the students within America, roughly 3 to 5 million students (“Gifted Education in the U.S”). But as America is behind in the general education, it is bounds behind in gifted education. Teachers aren’t equipped to challenge the gifted students, or simply have no time to spend developing and nurturing the child’s talents. Schools don’t have programs to help the children develop at their quicken pace, and programs in place aren’t

Firstly, achieved statuses are more important than ascribed statuses as achieved statuses differentiates people from one another, especially when they are taken into greater regard than ascribed statuses, which then in turn affects other people’s perception of them. One example of this is education in Singapore, where the greater emphasis on one’s results places the spotlight on individual achievements. Students are judged by others based on how much they score for tests and what grades they get. One of the first things family members ask students when they meet them is how they are doing in school. Furthermore, there are programmes in Singapore that provide greater depth and breadth of content for students, for which the students are selected based purely on merit and ability. The Gifted Education Programme (GEP) is one such programme that aims to identify individuals who are “gifted” and provide them with a more enriched programme. All students in the country take selection tests in Primary 3 and the top 1% of the cohort is identified for the programme. The selection test does not discriminate based on one’s ascribed statuses, be it race, religion or nationality.

A common explanation of intelligence includes “the importance of learning from experience” and being able to “adapt to the environment.” Later the “importance of people’s understanding and control of their own thinking processes” was added along with the other two to attempt to measure intelligence itself (Williams, 1996). When measuring intelligence, there are two extreme sides that take up about four percent of the population according to the normal distribution of intelligence, one being intellectual disability and the other being giftedness. The other 96 percent of the population fall in the average intelligence (Weiten, 2013).

In 2015, I wrote about my personal philosophy of the gifted learner. I stated in my paper that, “Giftedness is not a one, set definition. The definition of gifted must encompass intellect, ability, creative talent as well as emotional awareness. It cannot be micro-managed and be a “one size fits all” definition” (Dauber, 2015). People, who are gifted, need differentiation and opportunity to express, demonstrate and show their giftedness. Educators must be able to provide opportunities for the gifted learner to express his/her abilities and/or talents. Gifted students learn differently and require special educational experiences in order to grow academically and achieve their highest potential. Therefore, the education field must be able to understand not only the cognitive side of a gifted learner but the affective or social/emotional aspects too.

A Gifted and talented (G/T) student” is “one who . . . exhibits high performance capability in an intellectual, creative, or artistic area, possesses an unusual capacity for leadership, or excels in a specific academic field” (Aldine ISD Board Policy Manual, 2014). The Texas Education Agency (TEA) provides a state plan, which outlines the standards for Texas schools to be in compliance. It also offers the educational opportunities these students should receive. In fact, there are performance measures for five aspects of G/T programs including student assessment, service design, curriculum and instruction, professional development, and family and community involvement. The plan assists districts in delivering these comprehensive services to

I evaluated the information in the document above based upon Moon’s (2013) nine measures to consider in comprehensive gifted education program. I think that FCCPS does a considerably good job addressing these nine guidelines. However, I believe they should consider more non-standardized materials and data while considering students for identification.

A fifth grader may come in at a “second-grade level” and graduate at a “fourth-grade level,” which is a tremendous achievement on the part of the educators; however, because standardized testing fails to account for such circumstances, the entire year would be seen as a failure from the perspective of the state (Berger). To put it crudely, “poor schools can’t win at standardized testing” because students in areas of poverty start school academically behind and are unable to catch up as there is the lack of resources and funding (Broussard). On the other extreme, gifted students are also hurt by attempts to standardize education, for instance, with the No Child Left Behind Act, an act that many say has “failed our adolescents” (Steinberg). Teachers say that the legislation has resulted in a “race to the middle” that means “talented students have their potential squandered” as schools “[don’t] foster growth” (Weller). In effect, standardization attempts to remove individuality from learning and ignores that students have different capacities for learning, that some students may need more help while others need to be challenged above their grade level - instead it averages it all out to a “standard” that harms both

Niall (not real name), an 11-year-old boy identified as gifted scoring in the 99.5 percentile for his age in the Woodcock Johnson III test. He is

Gifted students should be provided advanced opportunities to be challenged, to experience both success and growth, to develop higher level study, creativity, and productivity. To develop their interests and talents their individual characteristics, needs, learning rates, motivations for learning, cognitive abilities, and interests must be taken into account. Differentiation can be included in the curriculum by incorporating acceleration, complexity, depth, challenge, and creativity. Students can also be given fewer tasks to master a standard, use multiple resources and higher-level skills, conduct research, develop products, make cross-disciplinary

cognitive ability. This test can get students into gifted programs in schools and was used by the

National Association for Gifted Children website mission is to support those who enhance the growth and development of gifted and talented children through education, advocacy, community building, and research. They aim to help parents and families, K-12 education professionals including support service personnel, and members of the research and higher education community. We can find the Twice-Exceptional Special Interest Group, this group provides professionals a network where they can meet to discuss research, programs, curriculum and new developments for this special area of gifted education. I couldn’t find specific information for children from 0 to 8-year-old, but they give relevant information for parents who notice something exceptional

People say that being smart or gifted is a superb kind of ability. However does society even know the basic definition of giftedness? For example, “Albert Einstein’s name is associated with the term genius in pop culture” (Cohen), but people still don’t know how the mind of a genius thinks or what it goes through. This is a problem with society itself for not accepting different people just because they are greater. Being a gifted has its advantages and its flaws such as how gifted person can mean conflict with society, being gifted can mean things such as a higher IQ, and gifted people contribute many important factors to innovation.

Before the 1950s, most educators and school systems tended to follow Louis Terman’s example and based most decisions about gifted individuals on IQ and scholastic achievement scores. Standardized group intelligence tests, such as California Test of Mental Maturity, were often used to determine IQ. In these tests, educators were looking for exceptional ability in verbal or performance IQ, or a combination of the two. For the final identification, individual IQ tests such as the Wechsler scales and the Stanford Binet were used. Most school systems around this time considered an IQ of 130 or above to fall in the "gifted" range. This information comes from a book by Frederick B. Tuttle, Laurence A. Becker, and Joan A. Sousa (48).