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GIFTED CHILDREN NEWSLETTER 3
Schooling Counter to
Talent Development?
ORLANDO, Fla.--Schools may not be the best place
to develop exceptional talent, according to a study by Dr.
Benjamin S. Bloom, Professor of Education at
Northwestern University and the University of Chicago.
Bloom presented the results of his study at a special
conference on the gifted sponsored jointly by the
Association for the Gifted and the Council for
Exceptional Children. (Complete results were also
published in the November 1981 issue of Educational
Leadership.)
In Bloom's Development of Talent Research Project,
more than 120 persons who excelled in an area before the
age of thirty-five were interviewed to determine the
factors that were significant in developing their talents.
The study sought specifically to determine how the home
and school contributed to an international level of
accomplishment by individuals in three areas: the artistic
(concert pianists and sculptors); the psychomotor
(Olympic swimmers and tennis players); and the
cognitive (research mathematicians and neurologists).
In the majority of cases, Bloom reports, a positive
family environment existed wherein parents or other
family members had a personal interest in the talent field
and gave strong support, encouragement, and rewards
for developing the talent. In fact, most often it was taken
for granted that the talent would be learned as part of the
family's life style. These factors were especially operative
between the ages of three and seven in Bloom's sample.
Home and School Contrasts
In addition to parental values and expectations, other
environmental and educational ingredients were
reported essential to the development and exceptional
accomplishment in the talent field. Many are opposite in
nature to school experience. For example, the general
approach to learning in the home is informal and varied.
The school environment is formal and the approach to
learning is generally uniform.
The instruction that the talented individuals in
Bloom's study received at home was usually on a one-to-
one basis--from parents, siblings, and teachers in the
talent field. Consequently it was individualized and
personalized. Classroom learning, on the other hand, is
like an "assembly line," states Bloom, and emphasizes
group learning of the same tasks.
In the early years of talent development, the home was
important for providing support and resources, for
monitoring practice sessions and even correcting the
child's work, and for helping in the consideration of
future options.
And there are numerous public arenas outside the
home for the expression of talent--recitals, contests,
GlFTED CHILDREN NEWSLETTER
concerts--which do not exist to the same degree in
academic areas. These events serve to spur children on by
providing "significant rewards and approval," Bloom
said. They are also meaningful in providing an external
goal for training, benchmarks of a child's progress, and a
context in which a group of individuals who share a
special interest can form a community.
"The major point," Bloom says, "is that in the talent
field the individual becomes fully engaged ... The school
does not encourage or permit many students to become
fully involved in any one part of the curriculum."
In contrast to classroom learning, often presented as a
series of isolated and fragmented tasks, learning in a
talent area is constantly related to long-term as well as
short-term goals. The highest possible level of
accomplishment is the teacher's objective for the child.
Bloom said.
He concludes on a pessimistic note: "We report very
few instances in which talent development and schooling
function to enhance each other."
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