So, what is gifted and talented education (GATE)? Parents who think they have gifted children ask to have those children tested. Teachers observe students to be significantly more intelligent and higher performers than their classmates.
The students get labeled as gifted or talented, and the teacher tries to address each exceptional student’s needs with special assignments or extra work to provide subject enrichment.
It is even possible that, with further testing, exceptional students are allowed to accelerate their courses and advance to higher grades or more advanced classes in their areas of expertise.
Enrichment and advancement have been the two popular paths to furthering the path of education for exceptional students.
Although these paths have come to be accepted as the norm, recent studies and recent thought in this field have led to questions about the validity of these paths and are redefining gifted education.
Do enrichment and acceleration programs for the gifted lead to long-term educational growth and success as adults? Are there tangible benefits? Do these programs lead to better-informed adults who are more capable and more empathetic, and really make a difference in the world with advancements in society?
Do they provide a level of satisfaction and happiness for the gifted students? Do they enjoy these roads to perfection?
If we keep advancing gifted students, where does that lead? Do we advance them until they are equal with older students in intelligence but far behind them in emotional maturity? What are the consequences of outgrowing their emotional levels?
The tests for giftedness are usually centered on math or ELA. But what about art or music? What about leadership? Giftedness comes in many forms.
And what about the rest of the class? If some students become labeled as “gifted” and given special opportunities to learn more about their favorite subjects, what about those students who are not “gifted?” How do they feel and how do they react? Are there negative consequences to gifted and talented education?
Scientific research tells us that our brains have plasticity and that they are highly capable of change. In fact, they change all the time, and continued learning is a proven neurological phenomenon. Do we short-change those students not labeled as “gifted” by making them think they are incapable of learning as much?
Understanding Gifted and Talented Education
Many educators and most policy-makers do not understand what gifted and talented education means. They don’t know how to identify giftedness. They say, “Yes, we definitely have to find those smart and talented children and offer them enrichment programs.”
And they do more and more testing. And this leads to labeling and the access to gifted programs.The questions now being asked are, “Who is doing the labeling?” and “With what tools?” There is much controversy these days on the validity of testing for giftedness using standard IQ tests, etc., and on whether testing should be used at all.
There are many intelligent students who go about the business of learning without the benefit of being called “gifted” and without the benefit of special attention. They may or may not be recognized at all as being different.
Students who are not stimulated to learn and are overlooked for special program opportunities are more likely to drop out of school. Their missed chances early in life usually lead to or contribute to, missed chances down the line. They miss out, not only at school but also at home where their parents are less likely to support them and push them into gifted programs.
There are many students in lower socioeconomic status that might not do as well on testing as others but are still very intelligent. Don’t all these students deserve the opportunities to develop their own unique gifts as much as the “gifted” students?
Now, educational professionals are starting to say “yes.” The thinking is that every student should have the opportunity to grow and develop, based on their own individual strengths and interests.
For decades now, gifted students – as well as those with learning disabilities – have been given special services like Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), segregation or “pullout” for special instruction, and more expenditures for materials and opportunities. Advocates for gifted programs now ask, “Don’t my early reader and first-grade Chemist enthusiast deserve the same benefits?”
And the answer, again, is “yes,” that precocious pianist deserves her own musical mentor. The aspiring engineer deserves a LEGO robotics advisor. The socially-active class president deserves a political science scholarship.
The goal of education should be to match all children’s gifts to the educational opportunities they deserve. It isn’t about labels and seeing whether smart students are more likely to change the world.
To really understand gifted education, and to get a better idea of its success or failure, the current research is centered on following the stories of gifted learners.
The School-Choice Conversation and Solution
Rather than focusing on in-school programs for the gifted, attention is now being paid to school-choice as a better way to pursue individual learning opportunities. Some schools offer the chance – for all children – to select the books they actually want to read. They learn math and reading with other children at their same level. They learn from teachers who are trained on differentiated learning and teaching.
The goal is to make education richer, less stressful, more productive, and more rewarding. It is an approach that turns our attention away from dividing up the educational pie (between gifted and non-gifted) and toward giving the whole pie to (investing in) all children equally.
The idea is to provide opportunities for gifted children, children who struggle, children who test well and children who do not, children whose skills and talents are recognized and those whose skills are harder to identify.
Children should be praised for effort, not ability. Children should be placed into an environment where work ethic is rewarded, where hard leads to success. It’s about the search for finding ways to give all children, the ordinary and the gifted, a high-quality, individualized education that encourages self-development and is not overly expensive to their parents.