Broadening our understanding of giftedness
There
was a time when giftedness in children was narrowly defined in terms of
intellectual skills and knowledge that could be tested by a narrow
range of intelligence tests. However, in recent decades our
understanding of giftedness has broadened based on our growing
understanding that intelligence can have many manifestations (see for
example my post on Howard Gardner's
Multiple Intelligences).
And so, while we know some gifted children can demonstrate exceptional
abilities across a wide range of capabilities (e.g. memory, language,
mathematics, problem solving etc), others are extremely gifted in
narrower and more specific ways (e.g. visual arts, music, leadership,
sport etc).
The Queensland Government's document '
Framework for Gifted Education' offers a helpful broad definition of giftedness:
Students who are gifted excel, or are capable of excelling, in one or more areas such as
a) General intelligence,
b) Specific academic studies,
c) Visual and performing arts,
Physical ability,
d) Creative thinking,
e) Interpersonal and intrapersonal skills.
Giftedness
in a student is commonly characterised by an advanced pace of learning,
quality of thinking or capability for remarkably high standards of
performance compared to students of the same age.
In relation to the narrower understanding of general academic giftedness, the following well-known definition by
Joseph Renzulli is helpful.
Giftedness consists of an interaction among three basic clusters of human traits:
Above average general abilities
High levels of task commitment
High levels of creativity
How do I recognise giftedness in my children?
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| 6yr old drawing of Blue Tongue via eyes of a predator |
If you live with a gifted child or have one in your
class there is a good chance you will begin to recognise a number of
characteristics that differentiate them from most children, even
most capable children. While many parents feel their children are
gifted purely due to their observations of the pace of their development
in the early preschool years, exceptional giftedness is much more rare.
While some teachers tend to assume that gifted children can take care of
themselves and so require less attention, this can be a dangerous
assumption. Life for the highly gifted child can be an extremely
frustrating, confusing and at times lonely experience if their
giftedness isn't identified and supported. If your child demonstrates,
to a significantly greater extent a large number of the following
characteristics, they may be gifted and will need support, encouragement
and some adaptation by teachers and parents.
- The ability to invent or create novel or original things, or look at their world in unusual ways.
- The desire and ability to investigate their immediate world, to see the unusual and observe things that others don't notice.
- Extreme curiosity demonstrated by experimentation, investigation and in depth study.
- Using extended vocabulary, complex sentence structure and varied language forms.
- Understanding and using imagery and metaphorical language at a young age (often under 5 years).
- Exploring varied interests often at depth, well beyond their years.
- Being able to learn rapidly and easily compared to other children.
- Gaining great pleasure and excitement when they are learning new and difficult things.
- Outstanding memory demonstrated by encyclopaedic recall.
- A desire to spend time with older children or adults and to learn with and from them.
- Being able to cope with the introduction of many new ideas, sometimes simultaneously.
- Wanting to spend large amounts of time learning about a favourite topic.
- Capable of generating many solutions to verbal or mathematical problems.
- Enjoying and seeking out frequent intellectual challenges.
- Demonstrating unusual imagination that is stimulated easily and sometimes independently.
- Ability to generate multiple ideas and solutions to problems.
- Showing preparedness to question assumed knowledge or ways of doing things.
- Often preferring individual work rather than group work and able to work well independently.
- Demonstrating a highly mature and unusual sense of humour.
- Sometimes having expectations of themselves that are too demanding and unrealistic.
- Demonstrating single-mindedness and extreme determination when pursuing interests.
If you think about the above characteristics it should be easy
to see how they might well be misinterpreted by teachers and parents who
don't understand giftedness. For example, wanting to work independently
could be seen as anti-social, single-mindedness can be seen as
self-focussed, questioning the assumed knowledge of the teacher could be
seen as rudeness and so on. This is why the gifted need to be
understood and supported; they are different.
How do I support a gifted child?
There are two main approaches to meeting the needs of the gifted.
a) Acceleration - This involves allowing students
to complete curriculum faster, or to advance through school more rapidly,
based on their readiness, motivation and capability. It allows the pace of instruction to be adjusted to meet their needs and, it offers new more appropriate challenges.
b) Enrichment - This involves the modification of the curriculum to allow gifted learners to
explore topics in greater depth or breadth, to permit the use of varied
skills, and generally to promote a higher level of thinking, investigation and exploration. It often
involves integration of varied learning areas, creative outcomes and
products, and the use of supplementary materials beyond the
normal range.
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| Drawing by Jacob just 4 years after a trip to the aquarium. Drawing is from the unusual vantage point of the fish & shows his view of 'Grandad
looking into the aquarium', as seen by the fish. |
While there are classes set up for
extremely gifted children and some schools that establish specific
groups for gifted and talented children, for most gifted children, the
mainstream classroom is where they spend most of their time. Both
acceleration and enrichment usually occurs within mainstream schools and
at times under the sponsorship of external organisations.
Joseph Renzulli's
Triad Model
has been influential for schools and parents that have tried to provide
enrichment for children. His triad suggests three types of
enrichment:
Type 1 - General Interest/Exploratory Activities. These offer a wide range of experiences, e.g. excursions, guest experts, clubs, special classes etc.
Type 2 - Group Training Activities.
These aim to develop thinking skills and include activities that
facilitate experimentation, analysis, classification skills, critical
thinking and communication.
Type 3 - Individual & Small Group Investigation and Problem Solving.
This type allows children to apply the skills acquired in Type 1
& 2 to real life problems of interest to them. They then present
their findings in some form to other, e.g. written reports, video
presentation, website, debate, a journal etc.
The
reality for many parents of gifted children is that they end up having
to make a lot of effort themselves to provide for their gifted child. In the rest of this post I will suggest a number simple ways to
enrich the education of the gifted. While all of these ideas could be
seen as relevant for children of average ability, they offer additional
opportunities for the gifted.
1. Ensure that the child experiences a rich and stimulating life outside school.
This could include:
- Opportunities to play and learn with other gifted children, older
children and adults who have similar interests and can stimulate their
imagination, offer new experiences, and challenge them with new areas of
learning.
- Lots of first-hand experiences, including visits to museums, zoos,
galleries, musical performance and drama, film, outdoor exploration,
keeping and studying pets, nature walks, and gardening.
- Providing opportunities for hobbies that offer depth of new
learning, for example, collecting rocks, stamps, chess, photograph,
movie making, astronomy, and animation.
- Introducing them to varied ways to respond to learning or present
knowledge (e.g. creative arts, drama, video and audio presentations,
public presentations etc).
2. Provide opportunities for children to extend their knowledge in areas of special interest.
This might include:
- Project-based work.
- Library research.
- Digital Storytelling (see my previous post here).
- Webquests.
- Learning a musical instrument.
- Learning a new language.
3. Introduce a variety of enrichment activities at regular intervals
While
it isn't possible for any teacher or parent to offer individual
activities for gifted children there are many wonderful activities that
all children will enjoy which can also accommodate the needs of the
gifted. The following are some examples of the types of enrichment
activities I mean.
a) Story in a Box strategy
This
involves placing 5-6 objects in a box that have some relationship to
one
another. Sometimes I might include a single
object that is unrelated, to allow additional creativity. Children are
then encouraged to talk about the objects and then create stories that
relate to them. The teacher or parent would
usually need to model the process of story creation before asking
children to
do it. You might also jointly construct a story or two with children
before letting them do it independently. With that proviso, here are
just some of the ways I'd suggest you might use the strategy:
1. A group of 5-7 year-olds might explore the objects in a box and try to
tell a joint story or simply take turns creating individual stories. You
could allow them to supplement the box with a dress-up box if there is a
need for children to become specific characters or take on roles.
2. A group of 6-12 year old children might discuss the objects and then
prepare a joint monologue to be presented to others (with the objects
used as artefacts or aids). Alternatively, a group story or picture book
could be produced based on the objects.
3. The box of objects might simply be used to create a digital story
(individually or in groups). Have a look at Daniel Meadows'
'Scissors' video to see what might be produced, as well as my previous post on digital storytelling (
here). This approach could also be used with high school children.
You can read a longer post on this topic
here.
b) Using a book as the focus for an excursion to its setting
I wrote a post back in January 2009 (
here) about a family excursion to explore part of Sydney that was the setting for the wonderful book '
My Place' (Nadia Wheatley & Donna Rawlins). '
My Place'
was published in 1987 for distribution in Australia’s bicentennial year
(1988) and makes a strong statement about the fact that Indigenous
Australians were here for thousands of years before white settlement
(there isn't space to unpack this). It is a very clever book that takes
one suburban block (and the surrounding area) and tells the story of
this place in reverse chronological sequence, decade by decade, from
1988 back to 1788 when the first British Fleet landed at Botany Bay. The
overall meaning of the book is shaped by multiple narrative recounts of
the families who have lived in this spot, 'my Place' and the changing
nature of the physical landscape and built environment.
Our excursion as a family around the streets of
Tempe and
St Peters
in Sydney enriched my appreciation of the book and my grandchildren's
sense of the place. As well, it gave my grandchildren a great
introduction to Australia's history since white settlement in 1788 and
it deepened our understanding of the book. The book has been used as the
basis of a television series that screened recently in Australia (
here).
There
are many other wonderful books that are situated in specific places
that can be explored after, before or during the reading of a book.
Here are three more.
c) Offering Stimulating Firsthand experiences
I have written previously about the 'The Language Experience Approach' to literacy on this blog (
here).
Typically, it occurs when a teacher or parent opportunistically seizes an experience as a basis for learning. Many are basic:
- The squelch of mud between toes on a wet day in the back yard
- Running on a sandy beach for the first time
- Watching a worm wiggle in the palm of a small hand
- Building a cubby house from boxes in the back yard
- Watching a bird build its nest in a tree in the playground in spring
- Doing hand painting
- Observing chickens as they grow bigger day by day
The
experience becomes a focus for discussion and exploration and eventually
is recorded as a written text in some way. There is great power in new experiences to enrich learning - seeing new
places, doing things for the first time, tasting new food, finding
yourself immersed in a significant event - new experiences have a major
impact on learning and our use of language to describe these events.
Such experiences teach us new things and move us to use language to make
sense of the experience and tell others about it.
The approach has four main elements:
- Sharing an experience
- Talking about the experience
- Making some record of the experience (words, pictures, sound recording, photographs, video)
- Finally, using the recorded experience for further reading, discussion and the stimulation of further writing
d) Using blogging to stimulate children's learning
As a keen blogger
I know the various benefits of blogging as I'm sure do the readers of
this blog. But how might we make better use of blogging with children?
Many teachers have already experimented with blogging for children, as
have some parents. Most children don't need to be convinced of the
wonder and worth of the Internet, but could we make better use of the
Blogosphere?
There seem some obvious reasons for using blogs in the classroom or at home:
1. The act of writing a blog post can lead to significant research and
related learning. For example, it is an excellent way to develop web
comprehension and research skills.
2. Blogs offer authentic
readers and audiences for children. So much classroom writing is simply
for the teacher 'as examiner', but blogs offer 'real' readers who will
respond as learners and fellow writers. This is powerful.
3. Blogs can offer a means for children of many nationalities to communicate and share their ideas across the globe.
4. Blogging can offer a wonderful means for children to practice a second language.
5. Using blogs as creators as well as consumers highlights the need for
children to consider issues such as truth and fiction, privacy,
copyright and so on.
You can read my post on 'Children as Bloggers'
here.
e) Using film making and animation
Filmmaking
and animation is another wonderful way to enrich the learning of gifted
children. I have written a previous post on some varied resources for
animation. One of them was '
The Klutz Book of Animation'
by John Cassidy and Nicholas Berger. It is excellent aid for young
filmmakers. The book provides step by step guidance to primary aged
children to make simple animations using a video camera (as simple as a
web cam), a computer and a variety of props, objects, plasticine and so
on. The publishers provide a number of videos online that teach
children the fundamentals of animation and filmmaking (
here). At the Klutz site you can download free instructional videos (
here), free sound effects (
here) and sample videos made by children (
here).
Below is a sample using the Klutz methodology. This is a great resource
for young filmmakers. Steven Spielberg would have loved to have this
as a child.
You can read a full post on animation and film making tools for children
here.
Summing Up
It
is important that truly gifted and talented children be identified and
supported through varied forms of enrichment. To teach classes to the middle and ignore giftedness is as wrong as ignoring students with learning disabilities. The gifted can become just as frustrated with inappropriate learning tasks as students who have learning difficulties.
This
novel for younger readers (8-10 years) is set in Australia prior to the
1960s. It is the story of a young Australian aboriginal boy named John
Jagamarra, who had been taken (like thousands of other Indigenous
children) from his family. John was taken from his mother by the Welfare
Department of the day, and sent to live with his white Father at the
Pearl Bay Mission for Aboriginal Children. He grew up in this beautiful
place, but he knew it was not like being home with his mother and his
people. He remembers how the 'Big Man from Welfare' had come and
taken him away. His story illustrates how well intentioned government
policy at the time failed to deal with the problems of Indigenous
communities and failed to understand the full needs of people 'other'
than themselves. While the story positions us as reader to see the
tragedy of the 'Stolen Generation' through John's eyes, at the same time
it offers child and adult readers the chance to consider the issues of
racial difference and how we understand, live with and when necessary,
reach out to people other than ourselves. 
This
is the story of Shane, a young street kid (which isn't revealed until
the end of the story), who finds a lost kitten. The story takes us
through the city streets to Shane’s ‘house’; which the kitten will share
with him. The illustrations by Gregory Rogers portray Sydney at night.
They show the constant shift (which is part of Shane's life) from busy
streets ablaze with lights to dark and sometimes threatening back
alleyways. There are hazards and dangers for Shane and the tiny kitten
at every turn. The story offers an insight into the life of the homeless
and is a poignant story of two survivors. Suitable for 7-10 years olds.
There
have been many books that look at differences of gender. A recent
author who has focused on this theme is Aaron Blabey. His first book 'Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley'
is about friendship and relationships. Pearl Barley and Charlie
Parsley are the best of friends, but they are different in almost every
way. Pearl likes solving mysteries and moves rather fast in the world;
Charlie likes taking baths and watching his garden grow. So how can
Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley be such good friends? Because that
which is in the 'other' can complement that which is in him or her. The
book won the Children's Book Council Award for Picture Book of the year
in 2009.
