Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources The Development of Giftedness

I'm coming late to this conversation b/c we've been out of town for the past week, but I wanted to go back to this b/c it resonates with me. I find myself struggling at times with feeling elitist in wanting to restrict what is defined as gifted b/c defining it so broadly muddies the water so much that there is no way to adequately say "here's was a gifted child needs" when gifted means so many different things. I find that our local definition falls more into the "kids with a few areas of learning strength" area b/c most kids who are ided as gifted are ones who hit the 95th percentile in any one area in achievement (like an SRI lexile score in the 95th and all other achievement scores not that high).

However, I do like the idea that there can be many boxes that can be called gifted as long as one is clear as to which box we are using for the individual child. Has anyone read Jim Deslisle's article arguing for a more restrictive definition of gifted (http://www.giftedteam.org/pdf/links/Understand_What_Giftedness_Is_and_What_It_Is_Not-Delisle.pdf)?

I think that as we talk more to friends and neighbors we'll be able to have a more nuanced conversation about what gifted kids might be and what they might need.

As for the elitist part - if the gifted program is a pull out 45 minutes a week for kids to go on special field trips and make videos and do 'fun stuff' because 'they are our hope for the future' - well, count me out.

I think we have to be clear that some kids have special educational needs that aren't routinely and reliably met in the regular classrom. If all children could benifit from the content of a gifted class, the give it to all kids. The learning environment in the gifted class should be 'not developmentally appropriate' for the normally developing kid.

I love the idea of a palate of options for all the kids in all my above catagories. I think if we focus on our children's learning needs, then the elitism charge melts away.

Love and More Love (and welcome back Cricket2)
Grinity