In an attempt to provide a clear explanation of the term “gifted” and how giftedness can be identified, developed and optimized, Stephanie Tolan’s metaphor about the parallelism of Cheetah and gifted students strikes a lot of resonant chords. She probed deeply about the nature of giftedness as something that is innate gifts longing for its expression. Just as a painter needs to paint, a musician needs to create music, an inventor needs to invent, and a runner needs to run. Like a boat on the shore, is safe but that is not what the boat is made for. Likewise, a gifted student is not made for repetitive tasks. He needs expression of his innate gifts. As Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman, Jr. point out in their book, In Search of Excellence, “man is simply designed wrong for any mechanistic system”.(Peters and Waterman, 1982) Similarly, gifted students are designed incorrectly for drills and dead lessons.
Every learning starts with a question. Let me also express my thoughts and analysis in the form of follow-up questions needing answers, rather than as a sentiment based on my limited experiences.
How do we identify giftedness? An animal is a gifted cheetah if it can run to a top speed of about 70 miles per hour. If a cheetah does not manifest a speed of 70 miles per hour, does it cease being a cheetah? If any other animal run at 70 miles per hour, does it become a cheetah? In our current educational system, a student is perceived as gifted if he wins contests, earns good grades, or performs more than what is expected at his particular developmental stage. If a student who, biologically /mentally gifted, does not win awards nor earn good grades, does he cease being gifted? If an average but diligent student earns good grades and wins awards, does he start being gifted? If a nine-year old student, who is mentally capable of performing mathematic skills for a 16-year old level, only performs for the level of a 12-year old, does he overachieve or underachieve?
Is giftedness a biological / mental make-up or is it a manifested behavior? A cheetah is still a cheetah even if it does not run. A cheetah is a cheetah as long as its biological / mental make-up is that of a cheetah. A child is gifted even if it does not manifest giftedness in flashy or traditional notion of giftedness, such a winning contests or earning good grades. Granting that giftedness is an innate talent, how can the teacher identify giftedness unless a gifted child shows behaviors of giftedness? But how can a child show behaviors of giftedness if the necessary conditions such as “playing field” and “antelope” are not present? Both questions feed on each other. So, how do we identify gifted students? For cheetah, it is not difficult because there are other characteristics like skin color, body built, and other visual attributes. For children, it is hard to identify who is gifted because (1) There are varied domains of giftedness (e.g. science, language, arts, numbers, sports, music, etc), and (2) It takes another gifted, or at least someone who understands giftedness, to identify who is gifted, and therefore is in the position to nurture them. Can a gifted student be taught by an average teacher? Does a gifted student need an instructor to instruct them about content, or a coach to inspire them to strive hard to catch the antelope?
What are the necessary conditions for giftedness to flourish? For cheetah, to nurture its “giftedness”, two conditions are needed: (1) a playing field wide enough for it to attain its top speed (2) an antelope fast enough to pose a real challenge to satisfy their hunger (something to run for).A cage limiting cheetah as animals to be displayed and not as animals to run; and a caretaker generous enough to spoon-fed the cheetah and cruel enough not to challenge it. On the same note, to nurture their giftedness, gifted students need a stage where to perform and not a cage to limit their giftedness. They need a goal high enough to bring the best out of them, a challenge hard enough to motivate them. Stakeholders of education need to recognize this eminent danger: A school programmed for equity instead of excellence which limits the students’ giftedness to earning good grades and meeting the VSC assessment limits; and a teacher and administrator who does not understand or have very limited knowledge about giftedness and therefore spoon-fed the gifted students rather than draw out the best out of them. But isn’t it that the world is designed and run by average persons for average persons doing average tasks and dreaming average dreams.
Cheetahs are like visionary scientists whose inventions are way ahead of time for the world to appreciate. It is not enough that the cheetah runs. It is important that it runs fast, and reach its top speed to be considered achiever. Likewise, it is not enough that gifted students earn high grades, nor meet the assessment limits. What they needs is a challenge hard enough to make them sweat and work hard. Gifted students must be challenged for what they are capable of, and not measured for what average students are measured against. To run fast, a cheetah needs reasons to run, and a running field wide enough to pick-up speed. Similarly, gifted students need motivation to strive for. Such motivation may be to cater to its longing for the expression of its gifts, or a safe environment that affords them to be different and original, or an open system that enables them the freedom to experiment, commit mistakes in the process and finally correct themselves if needed. Gifted students are not gods; they are human beings, too. They will commit mistakes, they will doubt themselves, they will redeem themselves, and they will contribute their talents in the greater scheme of things.
School system is financed by public funds (in the case of private schools, by funds from parents and other stakeholders). As such, school is expected to cater to the majority (in democratic government, the majority is the source of political clout and power.) Therefore, the schools carry the task of educating the majority, make them learn the same concepts and skills, and be educated citizens. However, it is also imperative for the system to recognize and acknowledge that, although approximately only 5 – 10 % of the school population comprises the gifted group, they are still part of the same large group. And that implies that schools need to believe that it is important to make the effort, that these children not only have the needs of all other children to be protected and properly cared for, but they have as much RIGHT as others to have their needs met. (Tolan, 1996)
For gifted students to attain their optimum potential, a teacher who exhibits cura-personalis would be critical for their success. Cura personalis means (1) accepting the student for who they are (2) challenging the student to be the best that they can be.
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