Gifted education

Gifted education is a term for special ways to educate (teach) children who have been identified as gifted. There is no definition of a gifted student which everyone agrees on. It often means smart, talented, or expected to achieve above average.

Alternate teaching for gifted students dates back to Ancient Greece and Chinese dynasties. It is done around the world. People debate about how giftedness and intelligence should be tested. How education for gifted people is done can be a place of disagreement as well as being unequal.

History

Plato (c. 427–c. 347 BCE) argued that education should be given to gifted young people and this education should be specific for what they need. In China's Tang dynasty (580–618 CE), child prodigies were asked to appear at the imperial court for specialized education.[1] During the Renaissance time, people who were talented in art, architecture, and literature were supported by the government and and by private patronage.[1]

Definition

In 2011, the National Association for Gifted Children published a position paper that said what a gifted student is. The word "gifted" describes people who demonstrate outstanding aptitude or competence in one or more areas. An "aptitude" is defined as an exceptional ability to learn or reason. "Competence" is defined as documented performance or achievement in the top 10% of the population. This means that in a room of 100 people, the person would be performing better than 90 of them.[2]

Research

Leta Hollingworth

Leta Hollingworth studied how to serve students who showed evidence of high test performance. Hollingworth credited the home environment and school structure of students instead of only recognising heredity or genetics. Hollingworth worked to fight the belief that "bright children take care of themselves". She emphasized the importance of early identification, daily contact, and grouping gifted children with others with similar abilities. Hollingworth performed an 18-year-long study of 50 children in New York City who scored 155 or above on the Stanford-Binet. She also studied smaller groups of children who scored above a 180. She ran a school in New York City for bright students that used a curriculum that prioritised the students leading the exploration. This was instead of giving the students a more advanced curriculum.

Around the world

In England, schools have been expected to identify 5–10% of students who are gifted and/or talented in relation to the child's peers. The term gifted is used to mean ability in traditional academic subjects. Talented is used to mean achievement in creative arts and sports. The National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth ran from 2002 to 2007 at the University of Warwick. The University did not reapply for the contract to run NAGTY in 2007, instead introducing its own programme, the International Gateway for Gifted Youth in 2008. In January 2010, the government announced that NAGTY was to end the next month.

In the United States, each state department of education decides if the needs of gifted students will be addressed as a part of public education. If they do, the state determines the definition of which students will be identified and receive services. They can determine how the students will receive this education. If a state does not consider gifted education mandatory, then individual districts might. This means the definition of what giftedness means varies from state or district.

In New York City, basing admission to gifted and talented programs on tests can mean favoring too many middle-class, White, and Asian students instead of students being represented equally. It can also affect the development of more programs in the schools that those students attend, while other schools might not get those programs.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Cite error: The named reference bce2 was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).
  2. ↑ National Association for Gifted Children. (2011). Redefining giftedness for a new century: Shifting the paradigm [Position Paper]. http://nagc.org/index2.aspx?id=6404 Archived 2013-12-24 at the Wayback Machine


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