I'm personally quite fond of shrimp an' grits.
That said, I looked into this article a bit and this is what I find:
- The title is meant to provoke a reaction (whether positive or negative, the author does not care... as long as it causes people to read the article).
- The full title is "
Why there's no such thing as a gifted child." However the article does not get around to explaining giftedness away. Instead, the article back-peddles by saying "
While the jury is out on giftedness being innate and other factors potentially making the difference, what is certain is that the behaviours associated with high levels of performance are replicable and most can be taught – even traits such as curiosity."
- The article contains a mishmosh of snippets from unrelated research studies which each suggest possible increases in performance and/or achievement. It appears that when a school is focused on applying these principals
there is no will to serve the needs of certain students who present with very high innate intelligence.
- The article states "
Research in Britain shows the difference parents make if they take part in simple activities pre-school in the home, supporting reading for example" which appears to echo
Hart & Risley research in the 1960's...
information which has been well-known for 50 years.
- The purpose of the article is to create free publicity for an upcoming book, "
Great Minds and How to Grow Them: High Performance Learning" which is co-authored by the writer of the article, Wendy Berliner, along with Deborah Eyre, the founder of High Performance Learning (HPL), an organization whose name appears in the book's title on amazon.
So we have:
article => promotes book => promotes organization.
-
High Performance Learning appears to be a UK counterpart to Advancement Via Individual Determination (
AVID).
-
Deborah Eyre appears to have several income streams from educational endeavors and consultancies. Ms. Eyre was a member of the
executive committee of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children (WCGTC) from 2005-2007, and from 2007-2009 Vice President. She may be regarded as a person of influence.
- The book states, "
Deborah always found the hard bit was choosing who the brightest ones were. Formal Education doesn't have a great record in that regard. No Nobel Prize Winner so far was identified as a prodigy as a child..." I believe the flaws in this logic are:
Sentence 1 -
it is not necessarily about "choosing the brightest ones", it is about identifying "need."Sentence 2 - again,
it is about focusing on meeting educational "need" - teaching a child in their appropriate challenge level or ZPD.
Sentence 3 - This conflates gifted with prodigy. This also obfuscates "meeting a gifted child's educational needs" with "predicting future eminence."
Possibly her work would benefit from a glossary of definitions, and consistency in word use. Of course, that consistency makes it so much more difficult to spin terms and segue the conversation from one based on facts to one based on emotions.
- Phrases such as "
most children are capable of reaching high levels of performance that were previously associated only with the gifted and talented" while non-specific as to what is being compared, seem to promote hot-housing which far exceeds a child's natural inquisitiveness, individual penchant for knowledge, thirst for learning, or rage to master. These phrases describe a gifted child's taking the lead in his/her own education.
There is a vast difference between supporting a gifted child who is taking the lead and setting the pace, as compared with flooding a typical student with information at the same pace. - Regarding Einstein, statements in the article such as "
Even Einstein was unexceptional in his youth" are non-specific as to both the traits being considered and age. Youth can refer to toddler years through early adulthood. The book sheds a bit more light on this statement, in saying, "
Einstein, who was slow to talk, was seen as a slow learner - described by the family maid as 'the dopey one'."
The casual observations of a maid are not to be taken as a formal educational evaluation for placement.I would be tempted to dismiss this work altogether if I did not sense a true danger to gifted children from several of the ideas presented and the conclusions drawn.
