[Ohiogift] Labelling the gifted

[Margaret DeLacy]

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/04/16/28peters_ep.h33.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS1

Commentary
Gifted Ed. Is Crucial, But the Label Isn't
By Scott J. Peters, Scott Barry Kaufman, Michael S. Matthews, Matthew T. McBee, D. Betsy McCoach 

"But how does the label of "gifted" help teachers and administrators determine the appropriate programming for students? In our view, the term is not only unhelpful, but actually harmful to the interests of bright students. "Gifted" is an educationally nondescript concept, yet it also connotes an endowment that some students receive while others do not. Moreover, the term seems to suggest that high academic performance is a permanent quality, both due to chance and applicable in all domains.

The truth is that "giftedness" is irrelevant to K-12 educational decisions. What is relevant is whether the instruction a child receives is sufficiently rigorous to challenge that child. When that is not the case, there are many potential causes." 

Margaret comments:

I disagree with this.  I think the authors are insensitive to the realities of a school environment where time and energy are at a premium.  These constraints make it exceedingly unlikely that a child will have access to "rigorous" instruction without a formal procedure for identifying the students who are likely to need significant interventions. 

Suppose I went to a nursery and said "one of my plants is failing to thrive.  What should I do?"

The nursery worker says, "what plant is it?"

I say, "I don't know.  I don't believe in labelling my plants." 

The nursery isn't going to send someone out to my home to see what plant it is.  I don't have the time to try to figure it out.  So the plant doesn't get what it needs.

Labels are never perfect.  They are always probabilistic.  Labels can be switched or wrong.  But a good label would tell a knowledgeable person what kind of plant I probably have, how it fits in a taxonomy of plants, and what sorts of issues it might have.  For example, there are tens of thousands of species of rhododendrons.  But even if all we know is that the plant is a rhododendron at least that would also mean it probably needs acid soil. At least we would know to check for that issue. 

Margaret