Reading at 3 years old. Playing a musical instrument at an early age. Getting one perfect score after another in school.  We think we know what giftedness in children means, but really, we don’t.

According to educator and gifted and talented specialist Mary Ellen Ryan, who was recently in the country to facilitate the 12th Annual Convention-Workshop for the Philippine Association for the Gifted, nobody really has one definition of giftedness.

“For renowned American educational psychologist Joseph Renzulli, who developed the Three Ring Model of Giftedness, it is about the coming together of three areas: (1) having high or above-average general ability, (2) motivation and (3) creativity. Gifted children are not only fast learners and ‘intelligent’ kids, they are also self-motivated learners who are creative. Their giftedness lies not only in the answers that they can give but in the questions that they ask and the connections that they make. It is not just something that they can do early, such as being able to read at three years old, but what they can do with it.” 

With most parents all wanting to have “gifted children,” it may seem hard to believe that there are problems that come with giftedness too. But there are. While there are no cut and dried rules for defining giftedness, says Ryan, there are characteristics that are common among gifted children.

Among them, says Ryan, are the tendency to be a perfectionist, and to have socio-emotional problems. On the last characteristic, Ryan explains, “often, when something is overdeveloped, there is something that may be underdeveloped. They may not fit with their peers very well because their intellectual level is higher. They, therefore, may not do very well socially.”

This makes the heterogeneous mixing of students very helpful because, as Ryan explains, “through this, the gifted children learn to work with other children, and their giftedness is not inhibited.”   This is a departure from the usual route that educators in the country take with exceptional children: to pull them out of their class and put them in a gifted program. But Ryan believes that children will benefit from a program that provides enrichment to all students.

“This is based on a model prepared by Renzulli and Sally Reis, wherein there is less focus on identifying children as gifted, as there is on identifying the types of learners and their needs. The focus is then more on enhancing the regular curriculum, rather than eliminating them because of special children,” she explains. “As much as gifted children are important, we should think about all the children. It is about ramping up education for everyone,” she adds.

Through this module, Ryan explains, “you can build a capacity for creativity, where students become capable for self-motivated learning. It is set up so all the children in the class are challenged with tools such as questioning, wherein they are taught to think at higher levels with the type of questions that are asked, instead of feeding them with knowledge-based, factual-oriented questions. The answers here need to be analyzed, synthesized, and evaluated.”

On the other end of the spectrum are programs that are geared towards low to medium learners, where, as Ryan explains, “we are focused on struggling children, and don’t pay any attention to the gifted ones because we assume that they can handle it. In a sense, the gifted children are failing.”

The Renzulli model then advocates a heterogeneous grouping, where there is time for pulling out children and teaching them in groups, and there is a period when all the children are together. “Gifted children learn with other gifted children but the others learn better with gifted children in their class.”

No pushing

To help any child -- not just a gifted one – shine, Ryan says that parents still play a key role. “It is not just the school’s job to educate,” she reminds.

But she also has one caveat: Don’t pressure! It is very easy to fall into this trap. “I think it is wonderful to expose children to everything. They may have a talent but they don’t want you pushing them into that direction. Give them opportunities to do what they want and provide ways for them to develop their talents but don’t direct them. It would be better if, for example, the child wants to play the piano the whole day because it is his choice. You can then encourage your child to develop his particular interest by buying him books on the subject. That is not pressuring them. Exposure to everything that is out there for them is really the best that you can do,” she ends.