Director of The Learning Project
I get asked a lot about “giftedness” in students. Unfortunately, I think “giftedness” falls victim to the labeling-happy phenomenon in our country today. It is a label that gets slung around too easily and too readily. Many public schools have a special program called “gifted and talented,” which unfortunately leads to the conclusion that all students in the program show characteristics of giftedness. The reality is that some are in fact gifted, but some are bright, high achieving students that don’t quite show the level of abilities of a “gifted” student.
What does “gifted” really mean anyway? Traditionally, an IQ test has been used as a means of measurement, with a magic number of 130 possibly signifying “giftedness.” But, this definition is overly simplistic because not all gifted children have IQs this high, and not all children with this high IQ are gifted. Moreover, IQ tests measure only one aspect of intelligence (analysis, reasoning and problem solving), but they don’t do a very good job measuring other forms of intelligent behavior, such as creativity, practical reasoning and social intelligence.
Dr. Joe Renzulli has offered a widely cited conceptualization of giftedness, which includes high ability, along with two other critical factors: creativity and unusually high task persistence/motivation. Students who show strengths in all three areas are often seen as “gifted.” Depending on what research you look at, the percentage of children and adolescents meeting this definition would be in the 2 to 5% range.
As opposed to a “gifted” student, students who are “high achievers” in an area show above average performance in a particular domain, but do not quite have the passion, work ethic, creativity and exceptional talent in that area. Other characteristics that distinguish gifted from high achieving students (Heacox, 2002; Satler, 2002):
• Application/creativity, not just absorbing/copying information
• Self-initiation of work, not just “doing assignments”
• Tend to have higher IQ scores
• “Innovator” rather than a “technician” with concepts
• More connections/abstractions; less rote memorization
• Loves complexity rather than sequential processing
• Original thinking, unique perspectives
• Cognitive flexibility (can find multiple ways to solve problems)
• Accelerated pace of learning new concepts (don’t need a lot of repetition to “get it”)
• Insatiable intellectual curiosity and engagement
• Tendency to be more self-critical, perfectionistic
• Keen sense of justice/moral concern beyond one’s age
• Atypical self-awareness, empathy, insightfulness
• Tolerance for ambiguity
• Unusual task persistence/focus
• Asks a lot of questions, wants to know “why”
• Seeks out books/magazines meant for older children
• Asks a lot of “what if” types of questions
• Exhibits a well-developed sense of humor
• Can be overly sensitive (senses or emotions)
Do you agree or disagree with this list of distinguishing characteristics?