The Pitfalls in Identifying a Gifted Child

The New York Times asks some experts about the difficulty with identifying gifted children in public schools. The comments of the article are also interesting, with many parents of gifted children and grown up (and aggrieved) gifted kids chiming in.

One professor explains that the purpose of identifying gifted kids is "to recognize two groups of children: those who because of their advanced development need much greater challenges than they are likely to receive in a traditional education setting and those who may with intervention become advanced."

This drives me crazy. Are there parents out there who don't think their kid is special? If there are, it is likely those kids who will need special help at school to undo the damage done by their horrible parents. And is there a kid (or adult!) out there who isn't gifted at something or who wouldn't become more advanced with special attention? The entire premise of this question is absurd.

Doesn't this constant drive to hive off elite groups of young students just create entire generations of kids who read nothing but Ayn Rand and see their "regular" "non-gifted" counterparts as slow moving obstacles to their own worldly success? Don't we want these "gifted" kids to one day be members of society or workforces where they will work with (and possibly support) people that may not have been classified as "gifted"? Or is the point of a gifted program to create some kind of special ruling class who only interact with each other?

Why on earth would you want to gather together groups of "gifted" students, tell them they are better than the others, provide them with special instruction and resources, and shield them from real life? What is the downside of forcing more advanced students to stay among their peers to teach and learn from them in a social environment that more closely mimics the outside world? Is the fear that they will become delinquents and drop out because they aren't being challenged academically? Well, maybe that's an important lesson for children identified as gifted to learn - sometimes the institution won't change to suit your particular needs, and sometimes you won't be intellectually stimulated. Despite what your parents tell you, you aren't the centre of the universe. Learn to deal with this horrible, horrible fact. And when you are more advanced than your peers, focus on helping those around you up to your level.

I agree with another one of the profs in the piece: "Children need to learn that hard work is more important than being born with a high IQ. Putting them in a “gifted” class sends the opposite message. It is also important for academically successful children to be exposed to and to learn from children who are talented in ways that are not measured by early “gifted and talented” tests: children who are particularly musical or athletic or good at resolving playground squabbles, for example."