Member-only story

Gifted Education, Teacher Diversity, and Technology Trends

Insights from Educate, 20th Edition

Jennifer Osborne
Educate.
5 min readDec 15, 2021

--

Welcome to Insights from Educate, a curated biweekly newsletter of professional learning and inspiration from authentic voices in education.

I have watched in dismay as districts around the country have begun to dismantle gifted programs in attempts to provide “accelerated learning” for all students. There is no question that the identification of giftedness has issues- issues stemming from inequitable access to testing and school resources. However, dismantling programs that provide identified students with the learning they need is not the answer. Pull-out programs do provide benefits for gifted students, but more importantly, we have to move past the idea that all students are expected to learn the same material in the same way at the same time.

Students that are identified as gifted are challenged with asynchronous development where some cognitive abilities, such as math, outpace others, such as reading. Asynchronous development is also prevalent in social-emotional areas where intensity drives students to struggle with relating to peers and other social situations prompting many students to hide their abilities to fit in.

Frederick Hess writes, “If one accepts that people are born with an array of talents, and that students and society benefit when schools cultivate those talents, the conversation about gifted education should be how to do it fairly, responsibly, and…

--

--

Educate.
Educate.

Published in Educate.

Educate magnifies the voices of changemakers in education. We empower educators to share their stories, ideas, insights, and inspiration. Educate is dedicated to the fusion of research + education policy and practice.

Jennifer Osborne
Jennifer Osborne

Written by Jennifer Osborne

Educational Leadership Policy Ph.D. Student ⎪Editor of Educate. medium.com/educate-pub

No responses yet