Keeping Gifted Education Alive in the Contemporary Times
By Sandra N. Kaplan
1250 words
A prevailing question among educators of the gifted is why gifted education receives so little
attention in the spectrum of all other educational needs. Perhaps, the real question is why
advocacy efforts for the gifted are circular rather than linear or why after the pleas are made,
information is given, and action is taken, gifted education still never is fully academically
accepted or fiscally supported. After years of analyzing the advocacy efforts on behalf of the
gifted, the answers to these questions seem evident: the real basis of support for gifted education
is dependent on educators rather than rhetoric, on educators rather than dollars, on educators
rather than legislation. There is no intent to minimize the importance of economic, social, or
academic support for gifted education. The intent is to underscore the fact that the only stable
support for gifted students might be educators.
Rendering support for gifted education without the endorsement of policies and regulations,
institutional or agency confirmation, or monetary backing, shifts the responsibility to educators
whose efforts and energy supplant the traditional means by which programs are expected to be
maintained. This type of ideological and programmatic form of maintenance defines a new
professionalism. It is no longer a matter of educators of the gifted attending classes, conferences,
and workshops to learn about gifted education; it is a matter of educators of the gifted becoming
teacher–advocates of the gifted: those who teach colleagues and students about gifted education.
To sustain gifted education in this era necessitates relinquishing the idea that the district assumes
the role of educational provider. It requires that provisions for learning and implementing what is
needed for gifted learners are part of the role of the professional. The contemporary climate
affects in varying degrees the political, social, and economic support for all educational areas.
Lamenting, and withdrawing are actions that will not sustain education for the gifted in these
times. The development of a set of actions enacted by educators that address gifted students in
collegial and classroom environments could be the most productive advocacy to keep gifted
education alive during the “hard times.”
Collegial Environments
There are both informal or casual and formal or planned collegial environments in which
educators can promote and provide the strategies responsive to the needs, interests and abilities
for the gifted. The educator’s role as a colleague must be characterized as a facilitator rather than
aggressor. As a colleague, educators seek those situations that can be used to enter into a
discussion and demonstrate an activity to illustrate the strategy that best educates gifted learners.
Collegial support tactics include conducting an informal meeting to share materials that have
proven effective in meeting differentiated curricular standards. It involves the subtle introduction
of an article or book that addresses a concern about the gifted the faculty is discussing. It shifts
the concept of professional development from the traditional setting to an invitation to a
teacher’s classroom to observe differentiated curriculum in practice. It involves constructing
collegial partnerships wherein teachers meet and plan to provide meaningfully for gifted
students.

In the faculty lounge, teachers commenting on the observed need of a gifted student who
is listless, underachieving, or intellectually disruptive during a lesson provides an
opportunity to enter into the discussion with a, “Have you thought about this?” strategy
that the teacher could employ to engage, challenge, and stimulate the student.

In the faculty lounge, teachers selecting new textbooks and inquiring about the qualities
of these books to meet the needs of their students offers a situation to add to their
knowledge of what to look for in choosing text materials appropriate to the academic
demands of giftedness.

During a professional development session, teachers asking how the particular
curriculum is implemented provide an opportunity to pose how this same curriculum
addresses the needs of the gifted.

During a professional development session, teachers being oriented to a new set of
benchmarks to measure academic success provides the situation to question how the
system affects students who already have mastered the skills to be tested.
Collegial environments abound with situational opportunities to influence educators to render
their support for the gifted. However, these interactions need to be judiciously executed. The
interaction between colleagues needs to be mindful of not over-emphasizing a point. The
colleague must acquire the acute sensitivity to understand when ideas shared require visual
support to make them comprehensible. Success in educator-to-educator dialogue is most
effective when words and actions eradicate the mysteries surrounding the education of the gifted.
Importantly, using the collegial environment as a venue to initiate or maintain interest in
appropriately educating gifted learners also places a burden on the educational advocate to have
answers that are realistic and feasible within the context of today’s classrooms and to avoid
offending either the educational system or its teachers.
Classroom Environments
Perhaps the most efficient and effective ways to continue efforts to differentiate curriculum and
instruction for gifted students it to underscore the ultimate goals of a gifted program or service:
To assist gifted students in becoming independent, life-long learners. The realization of this
intended outcome becomes the foundation for demonstrating the strategies that respond to
giftedness. The purpose is not to forge a competition between curriculums: The core versus
differentiated curriculum. The purpose is to develop curriculum coexistence: The reliance of one
curriculum on another to satisfy the multiple basic requirements and intellectual demands of the
gifted.
It is imperative that educators consistently provide support for the gifted by understanding how
to emphasize features of the core or basic curriculum that reinforce differentiated curriculum.
Educators can utilize this technique by making meaningful connections between the content
standards and the differentiated standards outlined for the gifted to achieve. Initiating more
opportunities for the gifted to investigate areas of the core curriculum using multiple and varied
research skills and resources ensures the continued development to become an independent
learner as well as a researcher.
Another strategy to keep gifted education alive in the classroom is to engage the gifted student as
a partner in the differentiated learning process. Educators can assist gifted students in
understanding the dimensions of a differentiated curriculum for the purpose of helping them
become cognizant of opportunities in the course of a lesson, unit of study, or chapter analysis in
a text where these dimensions can be practiced. It also is necessary for teachers to clearly express
the concept that differentiated curriculum experiences are neither rewards nor punishments but
the right of each student. In the classroom environment, a collaborative effort between teacher
and student to ensure that this right is fulfilled for the gifted students is a mandate.
The Real Task
Maintaining gifted education in a time when it is both undervalued and under-supported is a
challenge. Educators of the gifted stress the need for gifted students to be challenged and
sometimes admonish them for their reluctance to accept this challenge. This is a time when the
challenge also falls on educators. It is a time to recognize that the external structures of the state
and district that have traditionally promoted and sustained the education of the gifted are not as
readily available. It is a time to recognize that the mechanisms to keep gifted education alive in
today’s climate is dependent on the intellectual and personal internal structures of educators for
activities to advocate among their colleagues and in their classrooms.
SANDRA N KAPLAN, Ed.D., is Associate Clinical Professor in the Rossier School of
Education at the University of Southern California. She is a well-known creator of
classroom differentiated curriculum materials for gifted students. She is a past president of
the National Association for Gifted Children and the California Association for the Gifted
and currently serves on the Executive committee of the World Council for Gifted Children.