That was an interesting article. Thank you for posting it
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This is going to get a bit off topic from the original post, but one thing that Renzulli discussed was interesting to me. He mentioned a combo of well above average ability, task commitment, and creativity synthesizing to make an individual gifted. His discussion of what "well above average ability" means was enlightening and helped me understand my general disagreement with the way gifted is defined in most school settings. He states that high ability can be defined one of two ways:
Well above average ability can be defined in two ways#&151;general ability and specific abilities.
General ability consists of the capacity to process information, to integrate experiences that result in appropriate and adaptive responses in new situations, and the capacity to engage in abstract thinking. Examples of general ability are verbal and numerical reasoning, spatial relations, memory, and word fluency. These abilities are usually measured by tests of general aptitude or intelligence, and are broadly applicable to a variety of traditional learning situations.
Specific abilities consist of the capacity to acquire knowledge, skill, or the ability to perform in one or more activities of a specialized kind and within a restricted range. These abilities are defined in a manner that represents the ways in which human beings express themselves in real-life (i.e., nontest) situations. Examples of specific abilities are chemistry, ballet, mathematics, musical composition, sculpture, and photography. Each specific ability can be further subdivided into even more specific areas (e.g., portrait photography, astrophotography, photo journalism). Specific abilities in certain areas such as mathematics and chemistry have a strong relationship with general ability and, therefore, some indication of potential in these areas can be determined from tests of general aptitude and intelligence. They can also be measured by achievement tests and tests of specific aptitude. Many specific abilities, however, cannot be easily measured by tests, and, therefore, areas such as the arts must be evaluated through one or more performance-based assessment techniques.
Within this model the term above average ability will be used to describe both general and specific abilities. Above average should also be interpreted to mean the upper range of potential within any given area. Although it is difficult to assign numerical values to many specific areas of ability, when I refer to "well above average ability" I clearly have in mind persons who are capable of performance or the potential for performance that is representative of the top 15-20% of any given area of human endeavor.
I realize that it isn't only the numbers being used (more than the top 2 percent or so) that I have disagreed with, but the fact that schools identify high ability in terms of specific ability not general ability.
I do see the value in using specific ability and Renzulli makes valid points for doing so, but I also wonder if one can fairly say that pairing children with strength in "specific ability" with children who are strong in "general ability" for education purposes is placing apples with apples.
If child A's specific ability is language arts and say that he's in the 98th percentile in the verbal realm, does he have similar enough needs to a child who is in the 98th percentile in general ability to say that we can educate them together for language arts? My general feel is 'no,' b/c the child with the overall high ability is still going to process and learn differently enough due to his other extreme strengths that child A does not share that his needs will still be significantly different from child A even if they have the same verbal ability score.
Thoughts?
