The Promise of the Intelligent Child

Common wisdom regarding the education of particularly gifted children is sometimes not very wise. Consider this article in the recent issue of Scientific American Mind.

IQ is just one ingredient among many in the recipe for success. Children thrive or struggle in school for a host of reasons apart from IQ, according to psychologist Franz Mönks of the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands. These include motivation and persistence, social competence, and the support of family, educators and friends. Emphasizing the importance of persistence and hard work, for example, will help a child avoid the laziness trap. Gifted children also need intellectual challenges—to teach them how to work hard.

So far, so good. Of course highly intelligent children need to be trained in persistence and motivation. That is called executive function (EF), and in fact all children should be trained in EF by the time they are 6 or 7 years old. Failure to emphasize such training is educational malpractice. Yet it is rarely provided by government schools.

Highly gifted children solve the most varied thought problems faster and more thoroughly than those with more average aptitudes do. Because these children speed through the regular curriculum for their grade, they need additional intellectual stimulation while they wait for the rest of the kids to learn the basics. Two central approaches are used to satisfy the educational needs of such children: acceleration and enrichment. Acceleration means studying material that is part of the standard curriculum for older students. Enrichment involves learning information that falls outside the usual curriculum—say, investigating a topic in greater depth or finding out about new topics....

... mixed-age classes such as those found at Montessori schools prevent precocious students from leaving their regular class completely and yet may enable some acceleration for younger students. In some cases, gifted kids might be given the opportunity to, say, take an accelerated class in a subject that interests them while remaining in their regular classroom for other ­subjects.

When acceleration is not an option, or not a good one, enrichment can be. After all, school is not a race but an adventure in learning....Thus, providing opportunities for a child to study topics outside the regular curriculum can be at least as valuable as pushing him or her through the required material faster. Gifted kids might get the stimulation they require by, say, joining a chess club, a math or debate team, or another enrichment activity that engages their intellect. Another common technique is to enable a child to embark on an independent project or experiment under the guidance of a mentor.

...In the “revolving door” model developed by educational psychologists Joseph Renzulli and Sally Reis of the University of Connecticut, a broad swath of above-average elementary school students—those who score in the top 15 to 25 percent on standardized tests—leave their regular classrooms for several hours to work individually on projects of their own choosing.

_SciAmMind

Unfortunately, few schools even bother to identify the top 10 or 15% of students, much less provide opportunities for them to pursue special projects or interests. In fact, schools cringe at the thought of identifying and assisting gifted children out of fear of being accused of political bias of various types. Gifted children are not distributed equally among various population groups.

Modern government schools are too often a project in dumbing all children down to the same level, which can be extremely dumb. What a waste, when society truly needs all the intelligence, imagination, innovation, and invention from its best and brightest.

Obstacles to better developing the human capital of our children includes

1. teachers' unions that enforce counter-productive contracts and restrict access to alternative educations,
2. corruption and nepotism in government school hiring and contracts,
3. overt indoctrination of teachers that emphasizes ideologically and politically biased curricula at the expense of basic preparation for the student's future life
4. and a long list of other corrupt complexities and parasitic processes .

[edited since initial publication for clarity]