AURORA, COLO. — I went to the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) conference earlier this month in three roles: as a private math teacher, president of the
Gifted Homeschoolers Forum (GHF), and a doctoral student studying cognitive diversity.
As a math teacher for gifted homeschooled learners, the parents are part of my team, as they are the primary educators for their children. My job is to remove obstacles for 2e learners. As the GHF board president, my job is to find resources for my community and to offer our resources to others. Finally, as a graduate student, I came here to develop a broader picture of the institution of gifted education. How do I work alongside NAGC, and is there a place for me in connecting any of my three roles?
That role might just be as an advocate on behalf of parents.
NAGC is the backbone of the infrastructure that supports state and local supervisors and educators of gifted children. NAGC’s own magazine for gifted education is the preeminent research publication within the community. Researchers focus on supporting the classroom experience, identifying gifted children, and testing such things as pedagogical approaches.
But it is a trying time for gifted education. There is a growing number of gifted children who leave schools for homeschooling and other resources, and there is debate and activism around whether gifted programs are useful or even appropriate, with some equating giftedness with whiteness (Mansfield, 2016).
As president of GHF, I see our ranks swelling as the interest in homeschooling gifted children rises. I hear too many stories of children not fitting into the system, regardless of the hard work and dedication of professionals. These children need either dramatic acceleration or are victims of the medical model which focuses on the “disabilities” of 2e learners rather than working with them from a strength-based perspective.
In this era of #blacklivesmatter and the emergence of critical race theory, there is very sober acknowledgement that gifted programming inordinately serves members of the middle class and above, leaving children of those less privileged not being identified or placed into gifted programming. Hostility and resentment has grown toward these programs for leaving children out. It is within this context that NAGC used its opening address to discuss the need of unidentified and under-supported Black and Brown children.
Jeffrey Blount, an eminent African American journalist and television producer, shared his personal story of being a gifted young Black child. He discussed what it was like to take a risk and show his talents. He was fortunate that there were mentors ready to support him — to nurture his ambitions and provide him a path to success. Blount also recounted heartbreaking stories that he researched and documented of gifted Black children who were not allowed to be gifted and Black. These students Blount spoke of are often bullied by their peers, which leads to daily torment and, for some, suicide. Blount closed by asking the education community to keep an eye out for kids like him and to be a mentor.
These examples of bullying and suicide differed from other obvious injustices facing the Black community that we often hear about. Blount’s stories were insidious in a different way and helped illustrate how institutional racism seeps deeply into a culture and affects the group dynamics. It is well documented that white kids are picked on for being gifted, but the intersectionality of being Black and gifted uncovers a much deeper extreme.
The theme of racism and giftedness was repeated in other parts of the conference. The session, “What Gifted Education Journal Editors Say,” addressed the lasting effects and value of writing about the structural injustice of racism. Interestingly, there was a suggestion that such articles would need to be published sooner in other journals with a quicker turnaround if they were meant to be more timely.
In a keynote by Drs. Angela and Brian Housand, the same issue of social justice was woven into lessons on Social Emotional Learning (SEL). Their focus was on “classroom strategies to engage thinking and feeling in your students and you.” One of their techniques was using the project
Reimagining the Four Freedoms to help young people deal with their emotions around social justice. The exhibit takes the Four Freedoms images from Norman Rockwell and asks that people contemporize those images to include the struggles and values as we see them today. Many of the images emphasized the injustice of institutional racism and illustrated the further work that needs to be done.
SEL needs indeed often can be found at the center of theoretical educational frameworks. Some common examples are the CASEL 5 framework (Niemi, 2021) and those developed by Uri Bronfenbrenner (Bronfenbrenner, 2005) and Joyce Epstein (Epstein, 2001). In the case of CASEL 5 (see adjacent graphic), notice how family and community are placed at the outermost circles of the model. These models have the best of intentions — and indeed, families are given crucial responsibilities in the education of their children — but the context of families believing themselves to be on the outer periphery of any education is endemic to the culture of American education, where many families have learned to give up their power to educate their kids with the hopes of the school experts sharing knowledge with them.
As both a doctoral student and as the non-profit leader who represents families, it is quite telling as to why some families may feel disconnected from the gifted education community. In many cases, they are an afterthought.
To this end, NAGC did feature several sessions devoted to parenting strategies and collaboration between parents and teachers. Indeed, the balance in power must change. Attitudes toward gifted education need to change for the better and underserved populations must be better supported. Proper partnerships with parents can make a significant difference in this area. So that is what I will work toward in my future involvement with NAGC and like organizations.
References
Bronfenbrenner, U. (2005).
Making human beings human: bioecological perspectives on human development. Sage Publications.
Epstein, J. L. (2001).
School, family, and community partnerships: Preparing educators and improving schools. Westview Press.
Mansfield, K. C. (2016). The color of giftedness: A policy genealogy implicating educators past, present, and future.
Educational Studies,
52(4), 289–312. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131946.2016.1190364
Niemi, K. (2021, October 11).
What is the Casel Framework? CASEL. Retrieved November 14, 2021, from https://casel.org/fundamentals-of-sel/what-is-the-casel-framework/.
