Impact of Teachers on the Gifted

The Role of the Teacher

A teacher is a person who educates students in a wide variety of material. Teachers work to get students to new levels of learning by showing them how it is done and helping them along the way. Gifted students can be tricky because they are ahead of their classmates in terms of their intellectual and developmental knowledge. For these students who are learning amongst regular classmates, teachers have a tough job in suiting the gifted child's educational needs.

In situations like these, teachers need to assume the role of the guide for gifted students. Teachers of gifted students need to put on a new hat and change their teaching styles in a way that will benefit the gifted learner. Gifted students do not respond well to straight instruction followed by direct repetition. Children who are gifted and talented need to be challenged to reach new depths of their brain to think outside the box.

While teachers need to take a different approach to teaching gifted students, they need to be careful with issues of social, emotional, and intellectual realms.

Social
An obvious problem that can come from being a gifted student is the feeling of social isolation. I was in the Gifted & Talented program from third grade to eighth grade. Each day, I was pulled out of my regular class to go to G&T. At the time, I thought nothing of it. As a kid, you do not realize that other things are happening around you even if you're not there. What I mean is that while I was in G&T class, regular class was still taking place with my friends and other classmates in another room. While I was in my own separate class, my other classmates were working together doing social exercises through the regular teacher.

I was so young when I started the G&T program to realize any of the negative drawbacks that could come from it. I thought I was so cool in the fact that the school recognized me as being advanced in my level of learning when compared to my peers. However, I never realized all of the time I missed with my classmates and all of the social situations I missed out on.

Teachers of gifted students must recognize how important social interaction is for the development of learning. If you know one of your students is above grade level, you cannot just give them different material to work on in class while the other students do a different assignment. This will make them feel isolated from the rest of the class and in turn, will hinder their development.

The National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) provides a list for good vs. bad ways to teach gifted children. One that stuck out to me most was one of their points on inappropriate ways to teach gifted learners. The article said, "Asking a highly able student to sit at a desk in the back of the room and move through the math book alone ignores a child's need for affiliation, and overlooks the fact that a teacher should be a crucial factor in all children's learning" (Tomlinson, 1997). If a student is working independently during class, they are missing out on peer interaction which slows the process of social development.

Emotional
Issues of emotional realms fall along the same lines of social, in the sense of feelings of isolation. Looking back in my time in the Gifted & Talented program, it makes me think about how I felt being pulled out of class versus how the other students felt about me being pulled out of class. To me, I felt great about myself because I thought it was cool to be smart. However, this is not the case for all children at that age.

In elementary school and especially middle school, kids rely on peer acceptance. They want to be liked by everyone, so they don't want to do anything to make them feel weird or stand out. So, being labeled as gifted can really be troubling for some students, especially girls.

I don't know about you, but I was once a middle-school girl, and I know firsthand that middle-school girls can be mean. As a middle-school girl, all you want to do is fit in. Being labeled by teachers and administrators as gifted gives other students a reason to call you a geek or a nerd. There is nothing wrong with being smart, but as an adolescent girl, you don't want to stand out.

As a teacher, you need to be careful in how you approach teaching gifted girls. Girls can be very sensitive, especially at the adolescent age, so it it essential to cater to their specific needs in the classroom.

Intellectual
Lastly comes the issues of intellectual realms in the classroom for gifted students. In relation to emotional issues, gifted students may feel the need to dumb down their knowledge in order to fit in. This brings us to the idea of underachievers.

Underachievers are the students who do not work to their fullest potential. Whether they do it because they are lazy or they are trying to fit in, but it depends on the particular student. Underachievers could also be the students who feel they are not being challenged enough in the classroom, therefore they are not letting their maximum knowledge reign.

In an article about the myths of developmental needs for gifted students, Tracy L. Cross talks about the myth "being too smart in school is a problem." He writes, "This myth has many facets to it. It represents adults' worries about their own feelings of acceptance; concerns about fears associated with standing out; the typical anti-intellectual culture of schools; the reflection of society's under evaluation of high-levels of achievement; and the often mentioned intuitively based association of high-levels of intellectual ability with low levels of morality."

He continues to say, "The obvious consequence of this myth is the nurturing of incredibly high percentages of our students who underachieve in school. These behaviors and beliefs about self make perfect sense when one perceives the mixed messages about being gifted in their school's social milieu. We must provide support for these children as they navigate the anti-intellectual contexts in which they spend much of their time." (Cross, 2002).

A little wordy, but he makes a great point. In short, students grow up in an environment where they receive mixed messages about being smart and this leads to the growing number of underachievers in school. If children are encouraged to embrace their knowledge, the morality of intelligence will be greatly increased.

So What Can the Teachers Do?
Socially, the teacher can be diligent in not being exclusive to the gifted student. They must work hard at keeping the gifted child in check with the other students, while simultaneously challenging the student to foster their learning.

Emotionally, the teacher can make sure that they are aware of each student's needs. The teacher must make sure every student in his or her classroom is comfortable with what they are learning and how they are learning, whether they are gifted or not.

Intellectually, the teacher can challenge the student to think outside of the box. They can encourage gifted students to think in new ways when approaching problems. They should work actively in the growth of the students talents and make sure they are not steering away from their fullest potential.

Overall, teachers of gifted students must work as a guide. They are the ones giving the students the material to work on, but it is the responsibility of the student to hold out the task. A teacher of regular students will show them how to get from point A to point B. But a teacher of gifted students should show them point A and point B, and have them find the path to one other.

References
Cross, T. L. (2002). Competing With the Myths About the Social and Emotional Development of Gifted Students. Retrieved from Cross_CompetingWithMythsAboutTheySocialAndEmotionalDevelopment.pdf

Tomlinson, C. A. (1997). What it Means to Teach Gifted Learners Well. Retrieved from https://www.nagc.org/resources-publications/gifted-education-practices/what-it-means-teach-gifted-learners-well

[Untitled Image of Child]. Retrieved October 3, 2016 from http://cdn2.mommyish.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/shutterstock_50867956-280x182.jpg

[Untitled Image of Gifted Students]. Retrieved October 3, 2016 from http://nancyebailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/gifted.jpg

[Untitled Image of Speech Bubble]. Retrieved October 3, 2016 from http://presentlygifted.weebly.com/uploads/1/9/5/4/19542243/4367598_orig.png

Gifted, Talented, and Neglected

The Gifted Education Program is very underrated in school systems. Many people may not understand what it is nor see a need for it in schools without realizing how important this program is for many students. When thinking about which individualized programs are essential for the growth of students, most would think of Special Needs Programs and how necessary they are for certain kids. Students with special needs require individualized attention in order to keep them at a proper pace in the classroom. While students with special needs may seem like the obvious group of students who need separate attention, gifted students are also just as important to focus on.

Of gifted students, there are many subgroups that fall under the category gifted. The entire group of gifted students may be underserved as a whole, but the different subgroups of gifted students each have their own reasons as to why they are underserved in education. These different groups are:

• Minorities
• Twice Exceptional
• Females
• Underachievers
• Poverty Stricken

Let's now explore why each one of these groups are underserved in education.

Minorities

In the gifted community, minorities tend to be widely underrepresented. In many gifted classes, Asian and American students make up the vast majority of the classroom. Other ethnic groups tend to lack in their numbers in these gifted classes. According to an article found on Scientific American, Hispanic students are underrepresented by 42 percent in gifted programs and African American students by 51 percent. This gap is huge and could be a result of numerous factors, such as:

• lack of access to technology
• poor quality schools
• lower teacher expectations
• low levels of parental education and involvement
• negative peer influences
• lack of expectations for higher education (Wickelgren, 2012).

Since many of these minority students fall victim to several of these factors, their numbers in education programs are underrepresented.

Twice Exceptional

Earlier I was talking about students with special needs who require extra attention in the classroom. Well, twice exceptional students are almost like students who need twice the amount of attention, that is, because they are both academically gifted and have some sort of learning disability. 

Twice exceptional students almost seem like a rare type of student because you don't typically hear too often about students with both types of learning habits; it is most common to hear about a student with AD/HD or a student who performs far above grade level. Most often you do not hear about a student who performs above average while also dealing with AD/HD or some other form of learning disability.

These students are tricky to deal with because the learning disability will typically take the forefront, causing the exceptional learning giftedness to go unnoticed. 

Females

When I was in grade school, I was part of this group of students. I represented the small number of females in the Gifted & Talented program at my elementary school, in fact, in the first year, I was the only female in my class of 4 gifted students in the third grade. 

Right away I felt like the minority in my class. Each day I would be pulled out of class to go work separately with my G&T class where I was the only female in the room. I was very shy to begin with, so putting me in a class where I had no other girls to lean on was challenging.

As the only female in a class setting like that one, you constantly question what put me in this room? What makes me different from all of the other girls? I was so young when I was put into this class that I did not realize what my gifts and talents even were. According to an article on the Davidson Institute Database, gifted girls "know they're different and, for many, they perceive that this difference is somehow strange or wrong" (Smutney, 1999). 

I never felt like it was wrong for me to be in the gifted program, but I always thought it was strange that there was such a limited number of females. Many of the projects and activities we did in class involved building things or problem solving, and most of the time the boys would take the lead. Many females don't have role models in these certain situations which makes their needs underserved.

Underachievers

Underachievers certainly go unnoticed in the gifted community because their talents may not ever be identified due to their lack of motivation in the classroom. These students could feel like they are not being challenged enough, therefore underperform in the class setting because of boredom of classroom material. Other factors as to why gifted students underachieve include:

• Un-nurturing environments that discourage high achievement 
• Low self-esteem
• Negative attitude toward school and learning
• Failure to take risks/apply one's self
• Lack of perseverance 
• Lack of goal-directed behavior
• Social isolation
• Disruptiveness in class (Smutney, 2004).

Many teachers will think of these students as lazy because they do not apply themselves in the classroom. In reality, the teachers are not giving these students challenging enough material to meet the academic needs. 

Poverty Stricken

Poverty stricken students may seem like an obvious group to be underserved in the gifted community. Gifted students coming from low-income families do not have the funds or resources typically to meet their child's needs. Not only do impoverished children not have the means for an advanced education at their home life, many schools can't even reach their needs.

According to an article on Education Week, "only two states require teachers to have any training in educating gifted students, and none requires educators to learn about how poverty may affect giftedness" (Sparks, 2015). So if a poverty stricken student isn't getting their needs met at home or at school, how are they supposed to express their academically giftedness?

Which group is most underserved?
After researching the five categories of underserved gifted students, I came to a conclusion of which group I felt was most underserved in the education system. My answer is: Twice Exceptional.

First off, I was a gifted student and I had never heard of twice exceptional students. I did not know such a category existed, which is part of the reason why I believe they are most underserved. I feel like twice exceptionality is such a rare category that most teachers do not know how to handle it.

While researching twice exceptional students, I came across a twice exceptional newsletter, where accounts of twice exceptional students are posted. The story that stuck out to me most was about a boy named Cameron.

Cameron performs above grade level and causes no disruptions in the classroom. His teachers see him as a model student, but his AD/HD makes it hard for him to focus in class all day. Cameron has superior-level intelligence for abstract thinking and problem solving, but he uses all of his physical and mental energy to survive the school day, so his academic gifts went unnoticed in the classroom.

His teachers started to feel like he wasn't trying hard enough so he received a lack of encouragement in the classroom. Cameron would go home from school and break down and cry and tell himself that he was stupid. By age 8, he dreaded school and did not ever want to return to that environment. Cameron's parents had to begin homeschooling him because they simply had no other option (Bracamonte, 2010).

Cameron's story shows how underserved the twice exceptional community is. Teachers simply do not know how to handle students like Cameron because their situation is so rare.

Why should they receive more attention?
Twice exceptional students are going unnoticed, and at this rate the problem will only continue to grow. School systems need to pay closer attention to these students and make sure they are getting the proper care they deserve.

Teachers need to go through proper training so they know how to handle these students. They must be aware that it's not the student's fault and that they're not being lazy, when in actuality they just may not be getting challenged enough.

Parents need to be aware of the gifts and talents their child possesses, so they know how to accommodate. Parents must play an active role in their child's education in order for them to reach their fullest potential.

And finally, the twice exceptional student needs to know that it is OK to speak up to a parent or a teacher when they feel they are not being challenged enough. A student should not have to sit idly to their education if they feel the content is below their learning capabilities. These students are gifted for a reason, and it is important that the school system provides them with all the attention that they deserve.

References
Bracamonte, M. (2010, March). Twice-Exceptional Students: Who Are They and What Do They Need? Retrieved from
http://www.2enewsletter.com/article_2e_what_are_they.html

Smutney, J. F. (1999). Gifted Girls. Retrieved from
http://www.davidsongifted.org/Search-Database/entry/A10171

Smutney, J. F. (2004). Meeting the needs of gifted underachievers - individually! Retrieved from http://www.davidsongifted.org/Search-Database/entry/A10442

Sparks, S. (2015, May 20). Poorest Students Often Miss Out on Gifted Classes. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/05/20/poorest-students-often-miss-out-on-gifted.html

[Untitled image of Student]. Retrieved October 3, 2016 from http://www.brainbalancecenters.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Twice-Exceptional-Students.jpeg

[Untitled image of Classroom]. Retrieved October 3, 2016 from http://www.specialeducationguide.com/wp-content/uploads/22_classroom-students-hands-up.jpg

Wickelgren, I. (2012, Nov. 2). Where are the Gifted Minorities? Retrieved from http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/streams-of-consciousness/where-are-the-gifted-minorities/