I was talking with a colleague today about working with those children who are “gifted”. I use the term lightly, because being labeled “gifted” is all a matter of how well you do on the specific test the your school district chooses to use to identify those children who rise above the average standard. The ironic thing is that in one school district a child can be labeled as gifted, but when they move they are faced with having to test again and may not qualify on another district’s test. I suppose instead of our saying our discussion focused on the “gifted”, I really should say we were discussing the children who achieve higher than the grade level expectations. Are we meeting their needs or do they, in the long run, end up being punished as a result of their early achievements?
I can only use myself as an example. I was one of those children who excelled in reading (math…well that’s an entirely different story). In second grade I was reading at the level of a 5th grader, in 5th grade I was reading at the level of a 8th-9th grader. I attempted to read Watership Down as a 4th grader…notice the word attempted. As a 5th grader I found myself in detention all of the time because I would never have my summary for our reading group assignment written. As 6th grader I almost lost out of a local science competition because I just didn’t do my project.
Why didn’t I finish Watership Down when I was certainly capable of reading it? Why didn’t I just write the summaries in order to avoid detention? Why didn’t I just do the science project without having my G.A.T.E. teacher have to sit and walk me through it? Why? Simply put…I just didn’t know how!
No one ever taught me how to pace myself through a long, difficult chapter book…they just assumed because of my test scores that I knew how to do it intrinsically. No one ever taught me how to write a summary…they just assumed because of my test scores that I knew how to do it. No one ever taught me how to do a science experiment…they just assumed I knew how to do. No one ever taught me how! And what’s worse is that I didn’t have enough knowledge about what I didn’t know to realize that I should ask for help.
I think as educators we often assume that our students have a certain amount of background knowledge and as a result we don’t need to cover the minor details of any given topic. Either that, or we assume that our high achievers already know it, so we don’t need to remind them and instead focus on those kiddos that need a little bit more support. My own experience has taught me to assume that the children in my class know nothing…about anything…so that I can make sure they have all of the details they need to succeed at the work I give them. Nine times out of ten, those high achieving students already have the background knowledge they need…but there are those occasions when they don’t and even the simplest of explanations provides a “light bulb moment” for them. I’ve even heard them whispher “Oh….so that’s why…I never knew why I had to work it that way!”
I look now at the high achieving students in my class and I worry about them…will they be faced with the same experience at some point in their educational careers? Will they be left to figure it out on their own because “their test scores show they can do it”? Will they have to face failure and punishment because they didn’t know enough about what information they lack to realize that they should ask for help? Or will someone understand…will someone realize that even the “gifted” need to be taught the basics-they can only be high achievers if we teach them what it is they need to achieve.
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May 13th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
In any case, I think it’s good to teach students how to get help when they need it because information is rarely, if ever, perfectly transmitted. Sometimes the teacher wasn’t clear or assumed knowledge that wasn’t there, sometimes the student was distracted or got lost somewhere in the middle. Just as they need strategies when they don’t know what’s going on while they’re reading a book, they also need them when they don’t know what to do when they’re in the middle of an assignment.
Oh, there are lots of ironies when it comes to GT students. I think it basically comes down to school’s inability to come up with appropriate plans for individual students, based on each one’s talents, interests and abilities. Instead, we have to funnel them all into groups and then come up with a plan based on what each group supposedly needs. That the results end up pleasing nobody shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.
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