Redefining Giftedness
January 8, 2018
By: Nancy Flanagan
Source: Education Week
Back in the day, I was a big proponent of special edu-goodies for students identified as gifted. The conversation, back then, was all about pull-outs vs. self-contained classrooms for the gifted, as well as the accelerated (or was it enriched?) curriculum they deserved. Everybody agreed that gifted kids (here comes an important word) deserved these things. After all, they were the future citizen-leaders of our great nation—the ones who would cure cancer, straighten out the government and write the Great American Novel.
Or not.
Over time and ample experience, and after studying exceptional children as part of my masters’ work, I came to see that Gifted Education, as a premium offering in public schools, was fraught with issues. Not problems, exactly—but issues. While the field of educating our brightest students has advanced beyond the Renzulli triangle, and advocacy groups for the gifted have never faded from the education scene, most of the conversation now centers on school choice, not special in-house programs for the gifted.
The issues…