Sometimes reading the news can be disheartening. The Los Angeles Times published an opinion piece on November 18, 2024 they call "Meet California's most neglected group of students with special needs: the gifted ones." I identified with this because if you substitute Massachusetts for California, the title would still be accurate. Neither state funds gifted education.
I know labels like "Gifted" and "Talented" are a little controversial. But the controversy is generally not with the label, but who gets it and how that is determined. So I'd like to attempt some clarification in an attempt to get us all understanding the terminology.
gifted adjective /ˈɡift·əd/ | The National Association of Gifted Children (NAGC) defines this as "Gifted individuals are those who demonstrate outstanding levels of aptitude (defined as an exceptional ability to reason and learn) or competence (documented performance or achievement in top 10% or rarer) in one or more domains."
Did you understand all of that? I have trouble with this definition because it seems very easy to lump Gifted and High Achieving into the same bucket. They have some similarities. Both may "demonstrate outstanding levels of aptitude or competence in one or more domains". But this definition leaves out that HOW a Gifted person develops an aptitude is vastly different from how a High Achieving student does. The approach to learning is fundamentally different.
Dr. Bertie Kingore, a recognized expert on Gifted learners, has done an exceptional job at highlighting the differences (and adds a third comparison for Creative learners).
Do you understand the difference a little better? Now imagine you are a teacher who was able to get a degree and licensure without ever having to learn the difference, without having much if any academic mention of gifted learners at all. The majority of teaching programs glance over gifted ed choosing to focus more on special ed. Thirty minutes of googling and I couldn't find a single college in Massachusetts offering a Master's in Gifted Ed. The programs are out there, just not in this state. Perhaps unsurprising since MA did away with its licensure with enhancement for gifted ed.
So we have a group of students in our public school classrooms that teachers are not taught to identify or teach that have distinct learning needs. I happen to live in one of the MA cities/towns that tests young students to identify those for their gifted program. However, their gifted program and identification process fails to distinguish between high-achieving and gifted. It also only provides for 1-2 hours of specialized programming a week. This is no where close to what is recommended for how to teach differently for gifted learners. And I am "lucky" because the vast majority of cities and towns in MA do nothing.
Just as there is some nuance in Special Ed, there is some nuance in Gifted Ed. Many learners can have a classic diagnosis that would typically make them special ed, but the extra "gifts" they get mean they don't perform low enough to qualify for services. These diagnosis also don't negate the giftedness, but can make it harder to spot. It also means the learner has a more complicated learning profile meshing the multiple elements together.
I come by all of this not because I have fun researching education topics, but because it is personal to me. I have three different kids with three very different learning profiles. I have had to learn so much in order to help understand how to best meet their needs. We tried public school. It was actually the public school that first suggested public school was a terrible fit and that we should look at alternatives. Second time around, we had fought with the district to help our child to their potential and not to the 11th percentile and no longer needing/qualifying for services. Third time was the charm. A lovely teacher of my third child bumped into me in the grocery store and asked why if I was already accommodating the other two with an alternative option was I not doing the same for my child in her class. Duh. I should have seen that one from a mile away.
There is another blog post in me somewhere about all of the different ways we have tried to offer them the best path forward. Sometimes with great success and sometimes with epic failure. But the point that I want to get to is that it didn't come together for each of them (and us as a family) until they tried a Personalized Learning Microschool. Over the last three years, we have had the distinct pleasure of seeing our kids thrive and achieve it the best ways possible. The oldest successfully launched to college, so excited that next year's Freshmen will be the same age as her, but she will be a Senior. Our math-hating-middle child that wanted nothing to do with computers, is using their math and programming as self rewards when they finish their other subjects. And our youngest, is full of life and momentum. Her academics are what she does for fun in between fun enrichments and fun experiments. When asked, she will tell you she hasn't really learned anything lately because she is too busy doing fun stuff. (Yes, I am aware there is too much "fun" in those last two sentences, but she really feels strongly that school is where to go for fun all day.)
In Spring of 2024, when we found out that our microschool had to close we were devastated. But it worked out that it was just an opportunity to expand and allow even more kids and families to experience the profoundly positive changes that we have seen.
At Kalexedy I am proud to say that our staff fundamentally understand the difference that different learners need across the ENTIRE spectrum. They have prior experience optimizing the learning plans and supports needed for our gifted learners. It is a part of the everyday experience. This starts in our learning spaces but is an integral part of how we adjust as students reach high school and consider what comes next. We encourage students to connect with intellectual peers, gifted or not, and our multi-age pods make this easier. And along the way, when they are playing strategy games, brainstorming for writing an epic story, or challenging each other to make the craziest sock puppet, they are learning in the most fun and personalized way possible.
So while we wait and hope that Massachusetts (and California) get it together and understand that ignoring the needs of this population is in no ones best interest, Kalexedy is just going to keep doing what we do. We'll be here helping each student reach their potential across all learning types.
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