Gifted Myth #1 Debunked

For the next 10 weeks I would like us to focus on this gifted article, going through each myth one week at a time. The link to the full article is: http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/14/ten-myths-about-gifted-students-and-programs-for-gifted/ However, this week we will concentrate only on Myth 1: Myth No. 1: Intelligence is inherited and does not change. Gifted students, therefore, do not need any special services. All of us do inherit certain traits, intelligences and talents. But these need to be developed and nurtured throughout life for them to grow and reach their full potential. A beautiful flower inherits certain traits. But if it is not watered and fed and if it does not get the right amount of sunlight, it does not develop as it could. The same is true for gifted children. My response: I have heard this statement so many times, and in reflection, if I am 100% honest, I have left these children out during my teaching as well. It simply is easy to do. I can remember one student in particular who I knew already had a deep understanding of my curriculum and I encouraged her to be my TA instead of taking my class, because I knew I wouldn’t be able to challenge her the way that she deserved. (She was the best TA that I have ever had by the way.) But was I helping her by not giving her special services? Was I allowing her to grow and blossom in technology like she could have? No. In fact, I would say that she was left behind, because the students in my class received instruction while she was filing, running errands, making copies, etc. Had I taken the time (of which I didn’t think I had) to allow her to reach her full potential, she could have excelled in this area, rather than be just like one of the rest of the kids at the end of the year. Through careful reflection of my failure of this student, two years later I had another student that passed my pre-test with no sweat. I actually called a meeting with his parents and him to go over what I could do to help him soar. We built a plan together that he was in charge of using the models in the book “ Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom” and he did amazing things. He used his time each day to expand on his current knowledge and to add more to his learning than I could ever think of doing. He set his curriculum, outcomes, and goals, he and I just met once a week to discuss his progress. There were times that he asked to join the other students in class because he liked what we were working on and wanted to see how he would do. He always surpassed my expectations. Simply put, I focused more on the learning that was going on rather than the curriculum that I had to cover and he exceeded what I would have done if I had hunkered down and created curriculum for him that I MUST cover.