The "G" word

I heard it again just this week. "I don't believe in gifted education. I believe all children are gifted."

Of course, all children have gifts. All children are capable of learning new things at school and showing growth in a variety of ways each day. But this statement makes me bristle because I also know that not all children have the same gifts. To treat them if as if they do, denies them the chance to be the unique individuals they are.

Many of us who specialize in gifted education are uncomfortable being saddled with the term “gifted” for the children we are passionate about serving. There is often an assumption that the label "gifted" is an honor or achievement, and programs for gifted kids can be accused of being elitist for that reason. But, for better or worse, it is the term applied to the students that we serve, first by the field of psychology and then by education. It's important that we understand what it means when we use it – also what it does NOT mean.

This is how the Federal Government defines gifted students. 

“The term ‘gifted and talented' … means students, children, or youth who give evidence of high achievement capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership capacity, or in specific academic fields, and who need services or activities not ordinarily provided by the school in order to fully develop those capabilities."

At Seabury, we particularly like this definition of giftedness by the great Annemarie Roeper, a pioneer in gifted education.

“Giftedness is a greater awareness, a greater sensitivity, and a greater ability to understand and transform perceptions into intellectual and emotional experiences."

Society has no trouble recognizing gifts such as athletic ability or musical talent. It is generally agreed that that children who show exceptional ability in these areas need different kinds of training and experiences if they are to fully develop their gifts. Children as young as 4 or 5 who show advanced skill in sports are offered opportunities for more challenging play and different coaching than peers who are still learning the basics. Early music education is a no-brainer for a child who begins picking out tunes on the piano at age 3. Anyone would agree these children need an appropriate level of challenge to continue to grow. But something else seems to come into play when we are talking about intellectual ability.

When a child is speaking in sentences at 12 months old, or forming complex patterns with blocks at 2, or counting to 1,000 at 5, many people assume that the parents are pushing her. When a 3-year-old who is obsessed with learning everything there is to know about planets points out errors in nonfiction books on astronomy and can name the moons of Jupiter, his parents feel alone because talking to friends about their child’s intellectual prowess is seen as boasting. And where will they find teachers who understand him?

Parents and educators often struggle with the idea that these are indicators that children like this need something different than the one-size-fits-all-education program we increasingly have in our schools.

Why does our society struggle with the fact that not all kids learn in the same way – that some kids need more time to learn basic skills, while others the same age learn quickly and need opportunities to think deeply and to ask more complicated questions? This doesn't make one child better than the other, just different, each with their own set of talents and areas for growth.

I have a passion for gifted education because I believe strongly that ALL children deserve to learn something new at school every day. I cannot bear to tell our gifted children that their job in school is to read a book and wait for the others to "catch up." Of course the other children have their own gifts, but they are no more likely to "catch up" to those extraordinary minds than I am to catch up to Felix Hernandez in my pitching ability. Does that make Felix better than me? Better at baseball – yes. Better as a person – no. Just different.

Gifted kids are not the "good kids" or the "easy kids" as many teaching colleagues over the years have told me. In fact, gifted kids often have challenges that are unrecognized. The ability to conceive of things that your body and hands are not yet ready to make or do is frustrating when you are little. Having questions that are often unanswerable – like "What is the meaning of life?" – can be difficult and is the reason many gifted young people experience existential depression. The strong sense of justice and fairness, and high degree of sensitivity that many gifted children carry can make them targets or can cause stress as they worry over the suffering of others. There can be a profound sense of aloneness when a child is seeing things and asking questions that other kids their age aren't ready for yet.

Gifted education is not perfect. We struggle to find all the students who would benefit from the services we offer. We hurt our own cause when we are too rigid with assessments or when the label "gifted" becomes a burden or is treated like an achievement. But when we are at our best, we can provide a safe space for highly capable children to be themselves at school.

Gifted students are not better than other children. But, they, like all children, deserve the chance to learn joyfully, to grow at their own pace, and to be understood and appreciated. That is why Seabury exists. That is why gifted education is my passion. That is why we need to continue to work to make sure ALL students, gifted or not, get to learn something new at school every day.

– Sandi Wollum

Big Ideas – Little People: Early Learning at Seabury

What do you do with a 4-year-old who asks, in all sincerity, whether you think Pluto should be considered a planet, and can back up with scientific arguments the view that it should? How do you support a kindergarten child who has the fluency to read a 300-page chapter book*, but not the stamina to manage that long of a novel or life experience to grasp the content of books aimed at fourth or fifth graders. What constitutes an appropriate challenge for the 4-year-old who has been building elaborate LEGO structures for as long as you can remember, but struggles to hold a pencil?

Serving young gifted students is complicated, in large part because of their asynchronous development. All gifted children develop asynchronously – their intellectual development is out of sync with their social, emotional, and physical development. In the early years, the differences in their development are especially apparent. Young gifted children often talk like little adults. You hear the word "actually" a lot as they correct your mistaken understandings about everything from LEGOS to planetary science to why ice cream before dinner is a perfectly valid idea. But they are still young, so after a rational discussion of the pros and cons of pets in families, can throw a beautiful, screaming temper tantrum because you said no to getting a puppy. They have big questions about life and death, but are young and want you as the parent to have clear and concrete answers to the unanswerable.

At school, this asynchronous development can lead to frustration in typical classroom settings. At writing time, the 4-year-old who has a complex and fanciful story in his head, but who still struggles to form letters, might decide to give up on writing because it is too frustrating. Parents and teachers might be misled by the child's articulate speech and big vocabulary, and set expectations for work and behavior that is beyond her maturity level and ability to be successful. Early readers can become bored with books for their age. Yet, books that sync with their reading levels might not sync with attention span or emotional maturity.

At Seabury, our early learning program is designed specifically to meet the needs of these asynchronous learners. The prekindergarten and kindergarten classrooms are full of blocks, toys, craft supplies, books and materials that support play and imagination, and are developmentally appropriate for young learners. You won't see kids sitting at desks filling out worksheets. Worksheets are usually looking for the short, “correct” answer. We want our kids to be thinking about big ideas and creating possibilities. Young learners need to learn with their whole bodies.

In a Seabury early learning classroom, you will witness kids engrossed in deep conversations as they build complicated block structures. You will see them using the language of scientific inquiry as they study concepts of interest to them, creating hypotheses and testing theories through experiments and research quests. When it's math time, you might see some students physically solving addition and subtraction problems by moving along a huge number line on the floor while others are developing number sense using a variety of manipulatives and activities that allow them to explore complex ideas in age-appropriate ways. At writing time, you will see some students writing independently and others dictating their big ideas to teachers. Then they may copy some or all of what they dictated so that they can experience the joy of getting their ideas on paper, while working on developing the physical skill of handwriting.

Individualized instruction in skills such as reading, writing and math allow teachers to tailor instruction to the skill level and the developmental level of students. An early sight reader may need to go back and learn some missed phonics rules to recognize word patterns and be a more effective speller. A later reader who is bright and intuitive might need instruction in sounding out simple words, and also to be part of a reading group doing high level analytical comprehension activities with Junior Great Books stories that have been read aloud. Instruction for bright young students needs to address both strengths and areas for growth as students' intellectual, social and emotional development all move forward at their own pace.

I once read a quote by a parent who said that she wished her gifted child had a digital readout on his forehead that said what age child she was dealing with at any given moment. Seabury's early learning program, like all of Seabury's programs, addresses all of the many ages our early learners represent – the 4-year-old pre-k student who is more like an 8-year-old in math, a 6-year-old in reading and a 3-year-old when it comes to sharing toys. This allows students to develop their strengths, address their weaknesses, and grow as a whole person at a pace and in a way that is tailored to exactly what that student needs. And, just as importantly, to do so in the company of other bright kids who "get" them and teachers who can support and nurture their unique learning needs.

*A note about early reading: Only about 50 percent of gifted children are early readers. The rest begin to read when their brain is developmentally ready and often at the same time as other, more typically developing children. For a small percentage of gifted children, reading is difficult because they are both gifted and have a learning disability in reading (check out "stealth dyslexia"). Don't assume your preschool child isn't gifted just because s/he isn't reading early. Pay attention to other indicators of giftedness – a large vocabulary for his/her age, a passion for complexity, a more sophisticated sense of humor than most age peers, a powerful memory, etc.) Research indicates that parents are good judges of their child's development and of whether or not their child may need more than a typical preschool or school program offers. For more information about identification of gifted children, read What We Have Learned About Gifted Children at the Gifted Development Center. 

– Sandi Wollum