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Advocates of gifted education argue that gifted and/or talented youth are so perceptually and intellectually above the mean, it is appropriate to pace their lessons more aggressively, track them into honors, Advanced Placement , or International Baccalaureate courses, or otherwise provide educational enrichment. They also claim that the needs of many gifted students are still neglected, as schools tend to place more emphasis on improving education for the youths on the other side of the spectrum. This may be an unintended consequence of the development of Disability Rights Litigation , which some Pundit s argue has led to the Disabled receiving more resources than the more-than-abled. See Special Education . CONTROVERSIES There are several controversies concerning gifted education: Definition of giftedness Many different educational authorities define giftedness differently — even if two authorities use the same IQ test to define giftedness, they may disagree on what gifted means - one may take top 2 % of the population, another would take top 5% of the population. The theory of Multiple Intelligence would produce a different definition to the traditional IQ definition. In Identifying Gifted Children: A Practical Guide, Susan K. Johnsen (2004) explains that gifted children all exhibit the potential for high performance in the areas included in the United States federal definition of gifted and talented students:
This definition has been adopted in part or completely by the majority of the states in the United States. Most have some definition similar to that used in the State of Texas, whose definition states:
The major characteristics of these definitions are (a) the diversity of areas in which performance may be exhibited (e.g., intellectual, creative, artistic, leadership, academic), (b) the comparison with other groups (e.g., those in general education classrooms or of the same age, experience, or environment), and (c) the use of terms that imply a need for development of the gift (e.g., capability and potential). The theory of positive disintegration Overexcitability has been a popular theme in many gifted circles over the past twenty years. Overexcitability is a component of developmental potential, a part of Dabrowski's theory of Positive Disintegration , a theory of personality development. The application of TPD to gifted education is one of several (other applications include psychotherapy, personality theory, philosophy of Man, etc.). What form of education is appropriate This is the most hotly debated aspect of gifted education. They usually fall into the following categories: #Separate classes - Gifted students are educated in either a separate class or a separate school. #Acceleration - Pupils are advanced to a higher-level class which is covering material that is more suited to the pupils' abilities. Some colleges offer Early Entrance Programs that give gifted younger students the opportunity to attend college early. #Pull-out - Students spend a portion of their time in a gifted class, with the rest of their time with their peers. #Enrichment - Students spend all class time with their peers, but receive extra material to challenge them. #. In many states, the population of gifted students who are being homeschooled is rising quite rapidly, as school districts responding to budgetary issues and standards-based policies are cutting what limited gifted education program remain extant, and families seek educational opportunities that are tailored to each child's unique needs. Impact on school Mara Sapon-Shevin has argued that gifted programmes result in educational Triage , with the gifted programme taking a disproportionate amount of school resources, leaving other pupils with much reduced resources. Her critics have countered that her research was into a school that was untypical of gifted education programmes in general. Impact on pupils Over-Reliance on IQ Some authors question the existence of The G Factor and thus hold that the result of an IQ test is meaningless, thus rendering the notion of giftedness meaningless. The most famous example is The Mismeasure Of Man by Stephen Jay Gould . In her book, ''Identifying Gifted Children: A Practical Guide'', Susan K. Johnsen (2004) explains that schools should use a variety of measures of students capability and potential when identifying gifted children. These measures may include portfolios of student work, classroom observations, achievement measures, and intelligence scores. Most educational professionals accept that no single measure can be used in isolation to accurately identify a gifted child. Arbitraryness of selection criteria Even if the notion of IQ is a good one, the question of the cutoff point for giftedness is still important. As noted above, different authorities often define giftedness differently. SEE ALSO
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