When doing a simulation in class, we looked at a set of, what we thought, were hypothetical students and reviewed their admission into a gifted program. As a group, we went through each person and evaluated their “numbers” and their personality traits in order to decide whether or not we would allow them into our program.
There was hardly a unanimous decision on which candidates to admit and then we found out the true identities of the individuals. What we found out was that we excluded people like Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Oprah Winfrey, just to name a few. As flabbergasted as we were, it showed us how we, as future and current educators, must look beyond the surface level data and information on a student in order to find out what their true potential is.
Not everyone is classified as “gifted” according to the school’s standards, obviously, although it is my opinion that everyone is gifted in their own unique capacity. Whether it is an interest in the arts, video games, or mechanics, each and every person has the ability to excel in something they enjoy. It is imperative to find, and dig if you must, that talent and interest at a young age.
In an ideal world, each “interest” would have its own gifted program and curriculum to foster those interests and exude that “giftedness” to everyone. This, of course, isn’t feasible in today’s current educational set-up. Although, as I have mentioned in my previous posts, that is what we should ultimately be working towards and an intrinsic motivation for everyone.
The ultimate takeaway is that it is essential to know your students on a deeper level, no matter what your initial impression may be or what other teachers have told you about them. Far too often students are abandoned by teachers as a result of previous rumors or misconceptions about who they are as a student. Everyone deserves a blank slate until they skew it, although that still doesn’t mean you can simply write them off.
There was hardly a unanimous decision on which candidates to admit and then we found out the true identities of the individuals. What we found out was that we excluded people like Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Oprah Winfrey, just to name a few. As flabbergasted as we were, it showed us how we, as future and current educators, must look beyond the surface level data and information on a student in order to find out what their true potential is.
Not everyone is classified as “gifted” according to the school’s standards, obviously, although it is my opinion that everyone is gifted in their own unique capacity. Whether it is an interest in the arts, video games, or mechanics, each and every person has the ability to excel in something they enjoy. It is imperative to find, and dig if you must, that talent and interest at a young age.
In an ideal world, each “interest” would have its own gifted program and curriculum to foster those interests and exude that “giftedness” to everyone. This, of course, isn’t feasible in today’s current educational set-up. Although, as I have mentioned in my previous posts, that is what we should ultimately be working towards and an intrinsic motivation for everyone.
The ultimate takeaway is that it is essential to know your students on a deeper level, no matter what your initial impression may be or what other teachers have told you about them. Far too often students are abandoned by teachers as a result of previous rumors or misconceptions about who they are as a student. Everyone deserves a blank slate until they skew it, although that still doesn’t mean you can simply write them off.