IDENTIFYING AND TEACHING THE GIFTED -- AMERICAN EDUCATION'S STEPCHILDREN

Maurice D. Fisher. Ph.D
. and
Eugenia M. Fisher. Ed.D.

By concentrating on the following questions, we will provide teachers and parents with a "state-of-the-art" account of gifted edu- cation today:

What are the problems of defining and ldentifying giftedness? How should gifted children be educated? What types of alternative programs and educational models are available for these children?

Although the political and educational climate for gifted programs has improved considerably within the last several years, they are still the economic stepchild of American education. For example, federal funding for gifted programs was a paltry $6 million in 1980, as com- pared to $3 billion for ESEA Title I, the congressionally mandated compensatary education program for disadvantaged students.* However. this enormaus expenditure of taxpayers' money for compensatory educa- tion has brought relatively little improvement in our inner-city schools, and has produced few exemplary educational models that can be applied to different types of educational programs. Therefore. we believe these huge funds can probably be spent more wisely, if a large chunk were used to instruct gifted students in both inner-city and middle-class schools.

In the discussion that follows, we have stressed that educators make a serious mistake by limitting programs for the gifted to students who obtain high scores on IQ tests. There are significant numbers of students gifted in other areas not measured by IQ and achievement tests who should also be served by these programs. And, if their needs are not met, the public schools will seriously neglect the highly creative, artistic, socially skilled and culturally different students whose gifts are as important as the traditional academic gifts asso- ciated with high verbal and reasoning abilities.

We have also emphasized that gifted students can be seriously harmed. both intellectually and emotionally, by school programs that don't stimulate their unique abilities. In fact, such poorly designed programs can actually retard their learning and stifle successful development. Therefore, under these deplorable circumstances, parents should remove their children from school and systematically educate them at home.,

*Since 1965, the first year of ESEA Title I. Congress has appropriated a total of about $20 billion for this program.