If Teachers Have to Differentiate, Everyone Has to Differentiate!!!

To follow up on my previous comments regarding Piirto's (2007) gifted construct, it would be a mistake to reason that, because all students have certain gifts and talents, there is no place for gifted and talented programs in public schools.  In modern public education, the notion of differentiation is perhaps the most dominant instructional emphasis.  Beyond being a mere trend, many researchers assert that differentiation is the clearest past to making classroom instruction consistent with the needs and the nature of learners (Sousa & Tomlinson, 2010).  If anything, Piirto's (2007) arguments support an extrapolation of differentiated education across an entire school building (or, perhaps, a school district).

Accordingly, here are a few recommendations/observations for gifted and talented programs in public schools:

(1) Be accurate in identifying the program.  If a gifted and talented program serves academically gifted or High IQ students, clearly articulate that in the program's mission statement, eligibility criteria, and name.  Rather than calling it a Gifted Program, for example, one might call it "HighQ," "Renaissance" (for students who are academically talented in multiple content domains), "Math Counts" (for those specifically talented in math), etc.

(2) Expand gifted and talented opportunities in the school.  Teachers are expected to differentiate in every class, which often means over thirty customized learning experiences per academic block.  If teachers are expected to do this on a daily basis at the individual class level, why shouldn't administrators be expected to do the same at the building level.  Sure, there are some logistics to work out, but there are classroom logistics to work out as well, and administrators make the big bucks.  A single school could have separate programs for the academically gifted, the relationally gifted, the physically gifted, the mechanically gifted, the creatively gifted, etc. - school-wide differentiation according to gifts and talents!

References


Piirto, J. (2007). Talented children and adults: Their development and education (3rd ed.). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.

Sousa, D.A., & Tomlinson, C.A. (2010). Differentiation and the brain: How neuroscience supports the learner-friendly classroom. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.