Cool Hand Luke (from the movie)
"I have endured a great deal of ridicule without much malice; and have
received a great deal of kindness, not quite free from ridicule. I am used to
it."
Abraham Lincoln
William Glasser
Schools without Failure
Myth: Gifted children will make it on their own.
Reality: Everyone needs help, encouragement and appropriate learning experiences
in order to make the most of themselves. Many learners with gifted abilities
have disabilities or are underachievers and some will become dropouts from learning
or from school unless they receive guidance and challenge.
Myth: Gifted children can be handled adequately in a regular classroom.
Reality: How? Without help? Is adequate acceptable? Just give them more work?
Let them teach others?
Gifted children process information much faster and in different ways than other
students. Classroom teachers do not have time to develop quantitatively different
programs for each learner for all curriculum. Classroom teachers need help and
resources to deal adequately with children who are not in the learning mainstream.
More work - watch out these learners dislike anything that looks like busy work.
Teaching others - a wonderful societal goal - but it doesn't educate a child
at his or her own level.
Myth: If gifted children are grouped together or given special programs
they will become an elite group.
Reality: An elite group? Like the Jazz Band or the Rep. Basketball Team? We
often group children according to their talents. We expect children will achieve
their best at their own level. We should provide some grouping for gifted children,
not so they can learn to be snobs, but so they can experience working with children
most like themselves. Empathy and appropriate behavior as well as mathematics
can be taught to a group of learners.
Myth: Programs for gifted children are good for all children.
Reality: Possibly true if only content is considered. However the pace and depth
of understanding and exploration is different for gifted children and is not
equal or the same for all learners.
Myth: Gifted children must learn to get along with their peers?
Reality: A great goal - but which peers? social peers? chronological peers?
economic peers? intellectual peers? We should look at all sides of a societal
goal. Gifted children find their intellectual and talented peers stimulating
and should be allowed some time to get along and work in their atmosphere as
well as in a regular classroom.
Myth: Everyone is gifted.
Reality: True. And we are all athletic and musical to a degree. But we cannot
all achieve at the same level all of the time. If we could, Olympic medals would
be as common as dollar coins and we could all hold concerts to draw international
audiences. Let us be realistic, we cannot believe that everyone is at the same
learning in the classroom all the time
Fraser, Anderson and Walberg Manual for Learning Environment Inventory, 1982.
Studies by Feldhusen (1989], Kulik and Kulik (1984) and Oakes (1986) confirm what ... educators have known for years: gifted students benefit cognitively and affectively from working with other gifted students.