While I don’t have a problem with the right to hold an opinion, I do believe that if a person is as passionate about gifted children as the author purports to be, the opportunity for an article like this could better be used to promote positive community perceptions of gifted children and their needs. My disappointment arises from the fact that the outcome of the piece appearing on p 21 of the West is likely to result in yet more families facing the same myth-conceptions and barriers to getting their child’s particular learning needs met as others have faced in the past.
There is a clear distinction between giftedness and talent in the model the various education systems base their policy documents on. The terms are not interchangeable. Using the words as if they are adds no clarity to discussions. It only encourages the community to think that 'gifted' always equals 'high performing student'. The reality is that many of our most intellectually gifted students are not performing highly.
The 2001 Senate Inquiry Report “The Education of Gifted Children” found that “there has been little progress for gifted children since [the previous inquiry in] 1988”. It agreed that gifted children have special needs in the education system, noting that “for many their needs are not being met; and many suffer underachievement, boredom, frustration and psychological distress as a result” (foreword). It went on to note that an estimated 75% of gifted students are underachieving (performing below their level of potential).
Our most gifted students are the ones least likely to have their ability recognised or needs met particularly without someone advocating on their behalf. In the last month or so a number of families with highly gifted (and beyond) children who have not managed to secure a place in a selective program at high school have contacted me. It is not as a result of lack of ability, but more likely as a result of the lack of opportunity to develop that potential into ‘talent’, for them to become one of the high performing students.
Finding gifted students is not always easy but regardless of whether we label them ‘gifted’, ‘talented’, ‘bright’, ‘good at’ or use any other label that comes to mind or becomes culturally important, they still have learning needs which are different to other kids the same age.
The concept of a highly able child being given more work rather than different work is, unfortunately, common. It shows a lack of understanding of perhaps the most central characteristic of giftedness – ease and speed of learning. When gifted children are expected to complete (correctly) simple material before being offered something that is more engaging or more appropriately challenging, the extra work becomes both a reward and a punishment. It certainly isn’t ‘acceleration’ when the child has to go back to the simple work again the next lesson. If we drove our car in that fashion we would probably be shepherded off the road but in a very short time we woudl almost certainly find ourselves the mechanic’s (if we are lucky, a talented one whose skills are within the top 10% of mechanics available to work on our car).
Work at an appropriately challenging level and appropriate pace is a right of every child in the education system. It is provided for in the Curriculum Framework Overarching Statement which all schools in WA are bound by as outlined below.
3. Inclusivity
The Curriculum Framework is intended for all students in Western Australian schools. Inclusivity means providing all groups of students, irrespective of educational setting, with access to a wide and empowering range of knowledge, skills and values. It means recognising and accommodating the different starting points, learning rates and previous experiences of individual students or groups of students. It means valuing and including the understandings and knowledge of all groups. It means providing opportunities for students to evaluate how concepts and constructions such as culture, disability, race, class and gender are shaped. (p 17)‘More work’ is not acceleration. It is more work. If a child has demonstrated that they have completed the curriculum at a particular level then there is not ‘more’ they can do, at least without repeating something they have already shown they know. Moving on to the next step in the development of knowledge is not doing ‘more’ work, it is doing ‘different’ work. Appropriately challenging different work one would hope.
Confusing ‘more work’ with acceleration is only likely to compound reluctance of schools to put into place a successful strategy supported by more than 70 years of research showing it to be successful. Acceleration is a placement decision, it provides a closer match between the learner and the curriculum they are offered. It is considered to be the least utilised but most useful strategy for meeting the needs of our intellectually gifted children. Strangely, we have no hesitation in using the same strategy for talent development in sport or the creative arts (music, dance etc) where children are moved on through the stages as they demonstrate readiness.
That there are few high school aged children at university is subject to debate but actually says more about the reluctance of schools to allow students to work on content at a level that meets their needs, than on the success of acceleration as a strategy. In the last 5 years I have seen a significant shift in the willingness of schools to accelerate students. While there are still too many schools where parents are wrongly told it is ‘damaging’, ‘doesn’t work’, or the ‘policy prohibits it’ (none of which are true in the general sense) there are now a large number of students I have worked with who have been accelerated. In a few years time we will start to see these young people become students of 'high school age' who are studying at university. While many have only been accelerated a single year, a handful have been radically accelerated and will be very young by the usual standards when they complete their high school years, probably very successfully. A couple of years ago one of the coveted General Exhibition award winners was only 15 years of age.
Acceleration isn’t all about the academic side of things though. It also provides the child with the opportunity to interact with others at a similar intellectual level, the chance to continue to develop social interaction skills in a meaningful setting, to collaborate, to learn the skills of learning, to be required to think, reason, justify, construct an argument……….. Just imagine where those sorts of skills could take, not only the child, but also our society.
I agree that systematically building thinking skills (‘value adding’ as it is referred to in the article) can only help our children, all of our children. After all they will grow into a world we can’t even imagine let alone prepare them for and well developed thinking and reasoning skills will be essential tools for managing the unpredictable.
While a teacher may only come across an exceptionally or profoundly gifted child once or twice in their career, virtually every teacher has one or more gifted child in their class every year. Without training and support, they may not even realise they are there. They may well be seduced by opinion and remain unaware of the facts.
Regularly it seems, I become disillusioned, frustrated at the lack of progress in the area of appropriate education for gifted students. While some enlightened teachers and even some schools have made a great difference for the gifted children they encounter, I am still frequently called upon to answer the same questions and correct the same misconceptions. Parents continue to meet many of the same road blocks and misinformed decision making that first led me to learn more and begin advocating for the needs of gifted children 15 years ago. When I read articles like the one today, I wonder if any progress has been made at all.
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