As an independent school educator of some thirty-plus years and a director of admission at a number of highly-selective independent schools for twenty-two of those years, I must admit that I am becoming increasing concerned about the overuse of the term “gifted child.” Now, as a disclaimer, I believe profoundly that every child has a gift for something and that those gifts are often overlooked in large or small schools. And no, I am not talking about that hard-working A’s-all-the-time, terrific test taker. We all have them; we all identify them easily; and, of course, we love them as much as we love all our students. But, I am seeing so many applicants whose resumes list Gifted and Talent Education (GATE) programs or participation in the one of the many programs designed for the “high-performing student” that I am beginning to wonder who is not “gifted.” Many of these students are happily spending their summers studying forensics, psychology, writing, economics and I applaud those interests. It sure has to be better than spending the summer locked in front of the newest version of World of Warcraft. But there are so many of these programs and the vast majority use your typical battery of standardized tests to identify such students; the result of which is that now we have seventh graders taking some version of the SAT and that is implicitly encouraging parents to prepare sixth grade students for the SAT. Oh, to be in the SAT prep business today! And how very sad this is all becoming. Just the other day, I had a young parent ask me if I would accept her child’s SAT results in place of our typical standardized assessment test for admission. “And what grade is she in, may I ask?” “Well, she’s gifted, you know, and she took the SAT in grade 7.” “How do you know she’s ‘gifted’?” “Well, look at her test scores.”
Some years back, I had the privilege of working as the director of admission for a school whose entire focus was the truly exceptional (we call them “highly capable”) learner. I was simply captivated by these remarkable students, for how one captures their attention and imagination goes well beyond what I am seeing in many a school’s classrooms. These are the children that learn in a completely different way from most children. Their minds are working in overdrive and everything seems a world of wonder. Placed in your standard “I teach you; you learn” environment, they either explicitly rebel or check out. They might see solutions to math problems completely outside the norm. Some have extraordinary individual talents (I am thinking of the boy I took to the National Geographic Geography Bee finals in 2001. He won.); some have extraordinary verbal skills. What they have in common is that they are such uncommon learners and I believe they are among the most misunderstood and poorly served in educational institutions where standardized tests, SAT results, and registration in AP courses are used to determine what many believe defines a “gifted” student. It is not so.
During my interviews I can pick out the child of which I am writing. I am thinking of a boy - let’s call him Joseph - who sat in my office and could talk about whatever esoteric subject came to mind. During those thirty minutes we explored black holes and the possibility that if the Big Bang means the universe started from nothing, then nothing must be something. We analyzed the meaning of the word “should” and engaged in solving a physics problem of motion. He was a talented animator and designer of computer games but he never played them. His head was full of ideas; his room full of books. On paper? A “B” student. He didn’t turn in his work as, for many of these children, the homework we demand is pretty much mindless and I would agree. This is not the kind of student who can sit quietly solving the odd-number problems in the back of the algebra text. Most likely, he knows the material without expending much intellectual energy. Answer the questions in the back of chapter four of A Survey of World Literature? I don’t think so. The result? Well, instead of attempting to discern what this student really knows or can demonstrate mastery of, he gets a “C” since 40% of his grade is mindless homework. So, he disappears to the middle of the classroom, unnoticed and certainly forgotten in big schools. He doesn’t bother anyone and is never encouraged except for the rare instance that a special teacher opens her eyes and reaches out. She notes the student who confounds her with his questions that seem to come out of nowhere and whose verbal dexterity can only be matched by his remarkable insights no matter how seemingly inane. I know because I worked with such students like Bert, all of 10 years old, who assisted me on a tour of the school with a father, an engineer. Upon viewing a class where algebraic solutions were scattered across the board (this was fifth grade), the engineer suggested an alternative solution to the problem. “No”, remarked Bert. “That would be wrong. Let me show you why.” He was right. I can still see that father’s eyes. Bert and all his classmates used to call all teachers and administrators by their first name. “Hi, Leo.” It would only work there. I just loved the place because everything was so very different from what I was used to. And we had waiting lists.
I always worried for these children because after they graduated from grade 8, there really were no schools for them. Yes, of course, there were the schools hyping IB programs or their lists of AP courses and, horror of horrors, universities that purported to “accelerate” these children bypassing any notion that developmentally they were still only fourteen years old. What’s the rush? I wonder. But IB/AP does not necessarily address the needs of the truly exceptional, highly capable learner. There are few schools that are addressing their needs and certainly not in the public sector. The task is left typically to that special teacher of whom I remark; and given the size of their classes and the independence from state mandated standards, I believe many independent schools, particularly boarding schools, are well-suited to address the needs of such students.
Teenagers want to be known, and once known they do remarkable things. Imagine then if that highly capable child who possibly does not understand his talents or gifts – they seem too natural – is identified in a caring community such as we have in boarding schools. The possibilities for that child are enormous. I love seeing these students on my campus and I can tell stories about every one of them. And I can do so because they seem to thrive in the intellectual freedom provided by schools like ours. When you sit around a table with fifteen students and engage in a Socratic dialogue about Robert Frost’s take on the American Dream, or take your students on a field trip to the Utah wilderness to search for a newly identified miniature T. Rex, you open the possibility for such students to reveal themselves. It is when you let them stretch their minds without the burden of meeting arbitrary rubrics for success that the highly capable child begins to see that the world has meaning for him or her. And when we teachers hear them think, it is something to behold.
