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More Wordless Wednesday

This week's news about gifted children focuses on news from Tennessee. Natalia Mielczarek, staff writer for Tennessean.com, wrote about Beth O'Shea, Metro Nashville's chief of gifted and advanced education. Her article, Gifted-education chief wants new path for program, discusses O'Shea's vision for gifted education.

I admire many of the sentiments in this vision. For example, according to Mielczarek, O'Shea wants to "put in place clear standards for gifted and advanced education for every grade, and include music and art in the program." I think that sounds wonderful. I can't say enough about the value of music and art (for all children) and having advanced education in every grade sounds like heaven. Imagine your child being challenged and learning from kindergarten to high school graduation!

However, I'm skeptical. Why? Because O'Shea says, "What is good for gifted children is good for all children. Gifted education should address all of the gifts that children have." That sounds too much like "all children are gifted" to me to make me happy. It also opens the door to misunderstandings of what gifted kids really need and leads to a slippery slope that can actually decrease the academic services that gifted children receive.

All children have strengths and weaknesses, but when we start calling the strengths of every child a gift, we end up seeing gifted children as nothing more than kids with strengths, just like every other kid. When we start thinking that way, we lose track of the fact that gifted children may not only have strengths in one or more areas, they also learn differently. For example, they learn faster than non-gifted children.

The other problem with O'Shea's statement is that it can lead to a watering down of existing gifted programs. If her statement that what is good for gifted children is good for all children means that all children can benefit from challenge, most of us would agree wholeheartedly. However, I have seen that idea interpreted in a different way. A school might design a program that it believes all children might benefit from. In other words, it could design an enrichment program meant for ALL children, with no differentiation of any kind for any of the children.

While many of the children will certainly benefit from this kind of enrichment program, for gifted children, it would be no more challenging than the work in the regular curriculum.