What Should Be on the Tombstone of Gifted Education: Part 1 – Invasion of the Gifted Thieves

Every one of us in the pre-retirement set remembers what it was like in school. It was a tiny microcosm of fragmented social groups. Some groups were popular, while others banded together to rebel against the popular crowd. Even within these groups, further stratification was based on who was interested in schoolwork and who was not. Not that academic success mattered within the group, you were still accepted as a member and given the status you thought you deserved. As we graduated, we moved from high school groups to college or social groups and did our best to maintain our status for as long as we could. In general, most of us succeeded in life in one way or another and gave birth to the next generation that would go through the gauntlet until repopulated.

Every generation that has lived through public education has seen fit to allow the cream of the crop to rise to the top and take their place as leaders in the perpetuation of the American social and political ideal. Gifted students were provided with unique and surplus resources to enable them to develop their talents so they can graduate from high school and take their place among their peers on the college’s honor table. From this table of Phi Beta Kappans and research assistants, it was assumed that the gifted student would maintain their grades and the quality of work necessary to proceed to graduate school where they would achieve their academic credential. This would catapult them into the elite of medicine, law, politics, science, etc. Here are our leaders! They achieved their goals with the blood, sweat, and tears of their high school teachers.

Fast forward to the 21st century, where the number of gifted students has skyrocketed like they’re on academic steroids. Today’s gifted student is not that different from what they were in the 20th century. However, their numbers and membership have been invaded by the greatest disease that the beginning of the 21st century has produced: Equality with an added dose of fairness! If you walk into my employer’s high school when it starts right after Labor Day, you’ll see a sea of ​​students with stickers attached. Some of those labels will say “504,” some will say “SPED,” and some will say “Gifted.” Many of these gifted children will have been stuck with the gifted label from the earliest days of elementary school and have carried it with them ever since. However, once you start working with these kids, the “g” and “I” begin to loosen from the gifted label. They whine and cry and complain about how hard your class is and start opening their iPods as you try to teach them. Wait a minute! Are these the same kids that have been gifted all along? What happened to your ability to step up on your own and take on those extra assignments and research papers to build your future? You start to wonder if they really got those grades or they were just passed on to you by the previous teacher to pull your hair out.

Yes, in the name of equality and justice, the gifted class has been invaded by the former mediocre students who were once content to sit in regular classes and get their nails done and discuss Friday’s football game string of plays. at night. As I sit and work with gifted classes these days, I see the cream of the crop (they’re always there) working towards their future goals. But, now they must sit in the same classes with the popular set whose parents insisted they be labeled gifted and take the higher level classes. Instead of the gifted teacher of the gifted spending quality time nurturing them to achieve those inspiring goals, the gifted teacher must now spend that resource on those students who don’t need to be in the gifted class. Equality has suggested that there should not be one class of students above another. Justice suggests that it is not correct to punish those poor mediocre students for doing their nails in class. They must be given the right to be gifted.

Coming soon in Part 2: Why there needs to be a separate “gifted” program in every school.