Future of Education for the Nation's Most Talented Students

A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n

National Excellence: A Case for Developing America's Talent - October 1993

Part III.

The Future of Education for the Nation's Most Talented Students

In today's climate of education reform, many questions about gifted and talented education remain to be answered. When school practice is being rethought and the norms of general education are changing, where does the education of children with outstanding talent fit? How do we raise the ceiling of educational accomplishment in our schools and provide appropriate opportunities for all? How can we use what we have learned about gifted education in the past 20 years to improve education for all youngsters and provide the caliber of schools we need for the future? What is involved in providing an excellent education for students with exceptional talent?

Emerging Views on Intelligence and Talent

In the past 20 years, groundbreaking research has challenged the long-held view of intelligence as a fixed, narrow concept measurable by any one test. It is now understood that intelligence is complex, takes many forms, and therefore requires that many criteria be used to measure it. This understanding has led educators to question traditional definitions of intelligence and current assessment practices and procedures. Performance on a single test is no longer a viable way to identify the myriad talents that students possess.

While researchers may disagree on the specifics, there is general agreement that even very bright children vary in the rate at which they learn and in the areas in which they excel. Most researchers agree that there are different ways to be intelligent and different ways that exceptional talent is demonstrated. Most agree that children should not be rigidly labeled and that more emphasis should be focused on the processes of developing potential in children.

Therefore, we can find outstanding talent by observing students at work in rich and varied educational settings. For example, educators can give many children the opportunity to take dance classes with an accomplished instructor and observe them. This enables us to identify the smaller number who have the interest and talent to study dance seriously. Likewise in computer science, educators can provide many students with the opportunity to explore computer technology so that we can identify those inclined to pursue advanced instruction on programming and theory. Providing opportunities and observing performance give the best information on children's strengths.

Definition of Children with Outstanding Talent

Neuroscience and cognitive psychology provide us with new insights into what it means for children and youth to be outstanding talents and require us to develop a new definition of this population. The term "gifted" connotes a mature power rather than a developing ability and, therefore, is antithetic to recent research findings about children. The following definition, based on the definition used in the federal Javits Gifted and Talented Education Act, reflects today's knowledge and thinking:

Children and youth with outstanding talent perform or show the potential for performing at remarkably high levels of accomplishment when compared with others of their age, experience, or environment.
These children and youth exhibit high performance capability in intellectual, creative, and/or artistic areas, possess an unusual leadership capacity, or excel in specific academic fields. They require services or activities not ordinarily provided by the schools.
Outstanding talents are present in children and youth from all cultural groups, across all economic strata, and in all areas of human endeavor.

To put this definition into practice, schools must develop a system to identify gifted and talented students that:

Seeks variety--looks throughout a range of disciplines for students with diverse talents;
Uses many assessment measures--uses a variety of appraisals so that schools can find students in different talent areas and at different ages;
Is free of bias--provides students of all backgrounds with equal access to appropriate opportunities;
Is fluid--uses assessment procedures that can accommodate students who develop at different rates and whose interests may change as they mature;
Identifies potential--discovers talents that are not readily apparent in students, as well as those that are obvious; and
Assesses motivation--takes into account the drive and passion that play a key role in accomplishment.

With a broader understanding of intelligence, and with many ways to identify and develop talent in children, we can build the excellent schools we need for the future and provide our exceptional students with better opportunities.

Recommendations

The responsibility for challenging students with exceptional talent must be shared by many sectors of society and levels of government. Society must first value intellectual and artistic accomplishment in children as much as it values athletic ability or physical beauty. In addition, schools and parents need to encourage hard work, hold high expectations for students, and push students to the outer limits of their potential. Achieving such a goal requires that appropriate educational options be made available for talented students. The following national recommendations for action would provide pathways toward an education that allows American students to be as well prepared as those anywhere in the world:

Establish challenging curriculum standards. The nation must establish performance standards in the core subjects that challenge students performing at the highest levels. As state and local governments develop standards, they must ensure that the standards are sufficiently high to challenge talented students. As the floor is raised for all students, so must the ceiling be raised for students operating in the upper range of ability.

Educators must develop assessment procedures based on standards that accurately measure the accomplishments of students who perform at the highest levels.

Establish high-level learning opportunities. The nation must establish comprehensive and advanced learning opportunities that meet the needs of children with outstanding talents in every school in the nation. Opportunities must be as diverse as the talents of the children and enable them to do more in-depth work in the core curriculum; accelerate the rate at which they learn the core curriculum; enroll in special classes in a specific interest area such as the arts; and work in such places as museums, libraries, scientific organizations, and special schools. Flexibility and varied opportunities are essential to meeting the needs of all students, including the talented.

Schools also must assess students' levels of competence in the regular school curriculum in each of the core subjects and provide alternative learning opportunities for students who have mastered them.
Communities must establish learning opportunities for students both inside and outside the regular classroom and both inside and outside the school building. Communities also must ensure that students have many options that draw on the community's resources.

Ensure access to early childhood education. The nation must ensure that all children, especially economically disadvantaged and minority children, have access to an early childhood education that develops their potential. Young children need rich, varied learning opportunities and teachers and caregivers who look more for their strengths and potential rather than for their perceived weaknesses.

Communities must establish programs that work with parents and other primary caregivers to help them understand ways to nurture the talents of their children and help them achieve in school.
Schools must establish a system of communication between preschools and elementary schools to ensure that student strengths identified in preschool continue to be nurtured in elementary school.
Communities must train preschool teachers how to identify and develop strengths in children.

These suggestions are not intended to imply that schools should label preschool and primary students as gifted and talented. They should not. Instead, preschools and primary schools should develop a curriculum for all that nurtures the strengths of children and encourages its staff to do the same.

Expand opportunities for economically disadvantaged and minority children. The nation must increase opportunities for economically disadvantaged and minority children with exceptional talent to participate in advanced learning experiences. Special efforts are required to overcome the barriers to achievement that many economically disadvantaged and minority students face. Stronger preschool programs and a stronger regular curriculum for all students will aid in this effort. In addition, schools and communities must develop strategies to serve students from underrepresented groups.

The nation must support research and demonstration projects working to develop talent in diverse populations.
Schools must eliminate barriers to participation of economically disadvantaged and minority students in services for students with outstanding talents.

Encourage appropriate teacher training and technical assistance. Teachers are the key to success in our vision of excellent education. They must be prepared to work with advanced materials and to use complex teaching strategies with a variety of students. Teaching materials appropriate for use with talented students also must be developed. The nation also must encourage the kind of teacher training, research, curriculum, and technical assistance necessary to improve educational opportunities for students with outstanding talent.

The nation must conduct research on challenging curriculum, assessment standards, and successful teaching strategies.
Schools must conduct training sessions for teachers on how to provide challenging curriculum and varied learning opportunities that accommodate the different needs of children.
The nation must provide sufficient financial support from federal, state, and local governments, as well as from the private sector, to carry out these actions.

Match world performance. The nation must ensure that high-achieving students in the United States match or exceed the performance of high-achieving students anywhere in the world.

The nation must study and learn from the education policies and practices of nations whose top students perform well.
The nation must ensure that tests of international comparisons provide accurate data on top-performing students around the world.

A Vision for Excellent Schools

Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of American education helps us to define the kind of schools we need to compete in the world economy. The schools we need in the future must provide a richer curriculum for all students, realize each student's potential, and develop outstanding talent. In the schools we seek

All children progress through challenging material at their own pace. Students are grouped and regrouped based on their interests and needs. Achieving success for all students is not equated with achieving the same results for all students.
Diversity is honored in students' backgrounds as well as in their abilities and interests. The classroom, school organization, and instructional strategies are designed to accommodate diversity and to find the strengths in all children.
Students know that parents, educators, and other important adults in their lives set high expectations for them and watch them closely to ensure that they work to their ability and develop their potential.
The community provides the resources needed to adapt and enrich the curriculum to meet student needs. School faculty and administrators ensure that community and school resources are matched with students' strengths and needs.
Students gain self-esteem and self-confidence from mastering work that initially seemed slightly beyond their grasp.
Students emerge from their education eager to learn and confident that they can join the intellectual, cultural, and work life of the nation.

Everyone wins in the schools we seek. All students have an equal opportunity to develop their talents and to display exceptional talent in educational settings that require sophisticated thinking and a high level of performance. All teachers search for the strengths and talents of their pupils and interests, and nurture those talents. Exceptional students pursue intensively their special talent, allowing the nation to grow intellectually, culturally, and economically stronger.

Excellence--An Imperative

We must build better schools in order to create a better society. But we need better schools, too, because all children, including those with outstanding talents, deserve an education that helps each of them develop their special qualities. As we go about improving American education, this human element must not be ignored.

Eighteen-year-old Wayne from inner-city Detroit is just one of many youngsters around the nation whose life course was radically altered because he had the opportunity to participate in a program for gifted and talented students. Wayne, a National Merit Scholar, recalls his experience in the Minority Research Apprenticeship Program, a collaboration of the Detroit Public Schools and Wayne State University:

I don't think I'll ever forget it. The first day I worked with the professor he came up to a chalkboard and drew all these nomenclatures, and I just sat there with my mouth open. In that lab, I personally synthesized two compounds for anti-cancer drugs, and I can still explain it in laymen's terms: I'm really tricking cancer cells into taking something they think they need to have to reproduce. But once it's inside, this compound kills the cells, like a wolf in sheep's clothing.

During the 9-week summer program, Wayne was particularly touched by the support and guidance he received from the University staff. "It wasn't just a summer program where you came and worked and left," he recalls. "We became very close to people."

This young man went on to win first-place honors in a science fair for an anti-cancer drug project. He subsequently received a full scholarship from Wayne State, where he enrolled in the highly selective Research Careers for Minority Scholars. Wayne eventually plans to earn an advanced degree in biochemistry or organic chemistry. America has many more Waynes who deserve similar opportunities.

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[Part II.]

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