What Is 21st Century Gifted Education?

Gifted edu­ca­tion has been around for over a cen­tury. Researchers have stud­ied what it means to be gifted, and what are the best meth­ods for edu­cat­ing the gifted. It has been an uphill jour­ney for many rea­sons. A great num­ber of peo­ple believe that there is no need to pro­vide gifted edu­ca­tion, that it is elit­ist and unfair, and that gifted kids will do fine any­way, so why waste energy and resources on spe­cial pro­grams for them?

It is not my pur­pose today to engage in this debate. But I keep com­ing back to a com­ment that was made to me recently in con­nec­tion with a project I’m doing at work. My dis­trict is in the midst of a com­pre­hen­sive review and analy­sis of our gifted pro­gram. As part of that review, we have cre­ated a new vision and mis­sion state­ment for the gifted pro­gram. (For the curi­ous among you, it is posted here)

I shared the draft of that doc­u­ment with my admin­is­tra­tion, then unveiled it pub­licly for the first time at a school board meet­ing. In among the many pos­i­tive and encour­ag­ing responses, a few peo­ple com­mented that, while the state­ments were nice, aren’t these things we should be doing with every student?

This echoes sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments I’ve heard for as long as I’ve been teach­ing. Of course the answer is yes; though the empha­sis for the gen­eral edu­ca­tion cur­ricu­lum and pro­gram will be on dif­fer­ent kinds of things, the “stuff” that for so long was the core of gifted edu­ca­tion has become part of the main­stream 21^st cen­tury emphasis.

It got me think­ing about what gifted edu­ca­tion should look like in today’s schools. Is it still nec­es­sary in an age when high level think­ing and prob­lem solv­ing, col­lab­o­ra­tion, tech­nol­ogy, dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion, and inclu­sion are grow­ing in their impor­tance and reach in our schools? I believe it is, but my thoughts are con­tin­u­ing to evolve about what it should do and how.

So what should gifted edu­ca­tion be in the 21^st cen­tury? I don’t know. Yet. But I’ve invited a col­lec­tion of peo­ple who have had a tremen­dous influ­ence on my learn­ing and think­ing to help me answer that ques­tion. Over the next sev­eral weeks, eleven peo­ple who I con­sider col­leagues and friends will be guests on this blog, wrestling with that very ques­tion. I am look­ing for­ward to read­ing what they have to say. I hope you are too.

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Posts in this series:

Empow­er­ing the Future, by Mary Beth Hertz
What Does It Mean to Be Gifted Now? by Tony Bal­dasero
The Future of Gifted Edu­ca­tion, by Jerry Blu­men­garten
I Don’t Know, by Jeff Aga­menoni
Gifted but Lack­ing?, by Kevin Wash­burn
What If Every Child Was Gifted?, by Brandi Jor­dan
Gifted Edu­ca­tion in the 21^st Cen­tury, by Damian Bariexca