Gifted Students Ignored?? Blog 14

Can gifted students become bored? If a student is truly gifted, is there really nothing to do? What qualities constitutes as being gifted?

What are your students to do if they finish their assignment/project/activity before others? Read? Work on other assignments? Computer? Do they have to be constantly told what to do at this point? Sometimes? Or never?

Gifted students have always fascinated me....their independence, eagerness, their knowledge, how easy concepts come to them, etc. I really don't believe that true gifted students are bored in a regular classroom. By a regular classroom, I mean one that is constantly moving right along without lulls, is organized, and always positive. Which brings me to an article I read in the Sunday Fargo Forum about Liz Fitzgerald and her two young teenagers from Atlanta.

We all know the federal No Child Left Behind Law forces states to focus on bringing struggling children up to grade level. So when Liz Fitzgerald realized that her son and daughter were reading instead of doing math so the rest of the class could "catch up," she pulled them out of school and into a gifted school. And we also know that finding a gifted school is very difficult due to budget cuts. Most federal money is focused on efforts in helping low-performing, poor, and minority kids achieve basic proficiency. What about the gifted kids? The federal government spent just $7.5 million last year on research and grants for gifted programs. The bottom line is that the federal government is "ignoring" the idea of helping gifted kids reach their highest potential. Local school districts, instead of the government, are left to deal with this particular task.

Out of 50 states, only six pick up the whole tab for gifted programs. Thirteen states don't even put a dollar toward such curriculum. "In the age of Sputnik, we put money into math and science, and we ended up on the moon," said Del Siegle, a University of Connecticut researcher. "We really need to consider that again. We cannot afford as a country to ignore talent."

So did Liz have a right to move her kids to a gifted program for being ignored? Of course she did. However, Liz also made a comment about if her kids didn't have these gifted classes, they would have been bored and distracted easily with little to no challenges. Think of your gifted students...true gifted students....are they bored? Do they never have anything to do? I think, we as teachers, overly compensate to make sure our students are being productive. However, I still believe that gifted students are not bored in a classroom. Especially a classroom that is moving right along, is organized, and remains to be a positive environment for all.