Q&A ON LISG’S APPROACH TO ACCELERATION AND GIFTED EDUCATION
LONG ISLAND SCHOOL FOR THE GIFTED
WHY IS THERE A NEED FOR GIFTED EDUCATION?
When a gifted child is bored in school, the first problem is that they’re not learning; they’re not developing intellectually to their potential. But that is not the only problem. The child’s boredom and disengagement can lead to behavioral problems and even attitudes that interfere with education; for example, if class is boring, gifted students might become disruptive. Because of their different interests and abilities, gifted students may also face social barriers. Being gifted often correlates with particular traits, such as perfectionism, intense emotions, and a strong sense of justice; these traits may interact poorly with educational programs that don’t recognize children’s abilities and talents.
WHAT IS LISG’S SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEMS THAT GIFTED CHILDREN MAY FACE IN OTHER SCHOOLS?
LISG offers an accelerated educational program. Personalized acceleration is one of the most thoroughly researched and beneficial practices for gifted children; as the National Association for Gifted Children puts it, “Educational acceleration is one of the cornerstones of exemplary gifted education practices, with more research supporting this intervention than any other in the literature on gifted individuals.”
In an accelerated program, students learn material that is appropriate for them along with age-appropriate peers. The historical technique for gifted students was simply to have them “skip” grades, but that can put tremendous social pressures on students and often does not lead to good outcomes. Gifted children are already often different from other students, and surrounding a gifted 11-year-old with ordinary 13-year-old children is not a recipe for social thriving.
At LISG, students can learn and grow with others who are like them. With gifted peers, students learn in a cooperative environment that provides for their social and emotional development and in which giftedness is valued and nurtured by every teacher and staff member in the school.
HOW DOES LISG COMPARE TO “GIFTED AND TALENTED” PROGRAMS WITHIN PUBLIC SCHOOLS?
To address the special challenges that gifted students face, some schools have “pullout” programs in which, for a small amount of time each week, students receive “enrichment” activities or limited amounts of instruction that are
more suited to their abilities. The research suggests that these programs are better than nothing, but in our experience they are a band-aid; they do not comprehensively offer gifted education. Moreover, without teachers who are trained in and sensitive to the needs of gifted students, limited “enrichment” programs are often not implemented well. One of our graduates reports, of their elementary-school enrichment activities before they transferred to LISG: “‘Enrichment’ for me was things like, ‘Oh, you’re good at multiplying three-digit numbers? Here’s a sheet of four-digit numbers to multiply.’ I felt like I was being punished for finishing my work early.”
An appropriate education engages students for the whole time they’re at school. It gives them opportunities to push their own limits, to be creative, to satisfy curiosities, and to be encouraged by teachers and peers.
Many states require identification and some support for gifted students within public schools. New York State does not. (New York City has excellent accelerated schools, but there is no general concept of a “magnet school” in New York State as a whole.) LISG fills this gap for students on Long Island.
WON’T SMART STUDENTS DO WELL IN ANY SCHOOL JUST BECAUSE THEY’RE SMART?
One of the biggest misunderstandings about gifted education is that gifted students don’t need special support. While it’s true that many gifted children are adaptable and very resourceful, an inappropriate educational environment doesn’t just fail to stimulate and educate; it can lead gifted students to develop unproductive behaviors and attitudes toward education. It can also leave them frustrated and unappreciated.
Moreover, gifted students are more than just “smart” or “bright.” A smart, engaged student might do well in an ordinary educational program if they are happy to learn definite material and recite it back. But gifted children often are “off the charts” when it comes to their abilities, interests, and approaches. One of our graduates told this story about their fifth-grade classroom at a Long Island public school before transferring to LISG: “In 5th grade there was a repetitive series of assignments about the cardiovascular system, and at home or in downtime at school (which was much of the day), I (1) wrote a song about how it was better to think of all the different ‘circulatory’ systems together rather than to learn the ‘cardiovascular system’ in isolation and (2) made a fake Rosetta Stone with five real and five fake languages that ‘translated’ the first line of that song. You don’t want to take kids like that and make them sit through hours-long classes where they’re learning how to label different organs on a chart of the human body.”
A parent of a kindergarten student recently shared photos of kindergarten assignments “before” and “after” the student transferred to LISG midyear. The “before” photo asks the student to identify drawings that depict something that starts with the letter P (pin, pig, and so on); the LISG photo shows an assignment that involved reading a newspaper article. For math, the difference in the assignments was between “3+2” and adding and subtracting three-digit numbers. The parent summarized: “My kid got extremely bored of the easy and repetitive math in a nonetheless nice public school district. He has fallen in love with LISG since visit day and is feeling challenged yet excited about the adventures!”
One way to consider the situation of gifted students is to recognize that (purely as a statistical matter) an IQ of 130 is as rare, and as far from the average, as an IQ of 70. Everyone recognizes that a student with an IQ of 70 needs support and a differentiated educational program; the magnitude of the educational difference from “average” is just as great for a student with an IQ of 130.
ARE THERE PROBLEMS WITH “ISOLATING” GIFTED STUDENTS IN THEIR OWN PROGRAM?
Our experience, as well as the published research in the area, doesn’t bear out these concerns. As the National Association for Gifted Children reports, “Some argue that acceleration can be harmful to students’ self-concept . . . or other social-emotional needs. However, research on acceleration has demonstrated multiple academic benefits to students and suggests that acceleration does not harm students.” Their research report adds: “Literature suggests those students who were accelerated had few regrets[;] if anything, they tended to wish they had more acceleration. In addition, in a series of interviews with students who were accelerated, an overwhelming majority of these students said that acceleration was an ‘excellent experience’ for them.”
From its very beginnings, LISG has been attuned to the needs for social and emotional education. Its original mission statement from 1980 sets it goal as providing “an appropriate education for gifted children . . . in a nurturing environment where they will be both intellectually challenged and comfortable socially, thereby providing these children with the opportunity to grow and develop to their potential.” We believe that gifted students do best when they’re around others who appreciate their special abilities and interests.
Unlike some private schools, LISG’s social environment is culturally diverse. For example, LISG students come from many different cultural and religious backgrounds. Our students and alumni report that LISG is a place where they can thrive socially. As one alum put it, “A few weeks after I transferred in in sixth grade, I had recommendations from new friends to read a ten-volume set of novels, which my parents then bought for me. I had never had friends like that before.”
We have found that a whole-school approach to gifted education offers many benefits. For example, many gifted students face common struggles, such as being perfectionistic and holding themselves to unattainable standards. These tendencies can manifest as a fear of failure and can affect academic performance; a gifted student might even avoid turning in schoolwork at all because they may come to see “not trying” as better than “trying and performing poorly.” In a gifted school like LISG, teachers and administrators are specially attuned to potential problems like these and are trained to help children address them. Our former head of school, Roberta Tropper, reports the following story:
I had a perfectionist student who I was working with at school. I suggested that doing your best is a more realistic goal. He told me that “best” was very subjective and you could always do better or more, so how could you reach or measure “best”? (He was 9) We settled on a series of questions about preparation, including sufficient studying, sleeping, and breakfast. These were more tangible and measurable.
Parents and teachers sometimes inadvertently encourage perfectionism when they focus on children’s abilities and talents rather than on their age. As another example, because gifted students often read at advanced levels, work with large vocabularies, and have insatiable levels of curiosity, they may learn unexpected things from printed and online materials. Without special attention to the needs of gifted children, teachers in public schools may be surprised and ill-equipped to address their questions and ideas.
IS GIFTED EDUCATION ‘ELITIST’?
Gifted educators believe that gifted education is no more elitist than any other programs that are tailored to special characteristics that students have.
As the story of “Pearson’s Ploy” illustrates, such programs are commonplace in schools; unfortunately, they are often criticized only when they address the needs of gifted students rather than others:
Pearson was the father of a gifted child in the late 1970’s. He was trying to get services for his son, who was working years above his classmates. He went to the teacher, who said she could do only what the Principal assigned her. He went to the Principal, who said the school was doing all it could; perhaps he should go to the Superintendent, who set all educational policies. The Superintendent said he couldn’t help because he had to answer to the school board.
Pearson submitted a request to speak at the next Board meeting. By now, the entire community was aware of his attempts to get his son a special program. The night of the Board meeting the auditorium was packed.
When it was his turn, Mr. Pearson got up and said to the Board, “I would like to discuss a special program for a small group of students who demonstrate superior talents. These students would have a number of specialty teachers at their disposal. They would meet after school every day in a special area of the school. They’d have special equipment, maintained and replaced as necessary. To highlight how special these students are, the school will make up shirts for them to wear. The parents will have fundraisers to support them. And, every week, the school will get together to cheer them on and show their support.”
The Board President, quite outraged by this point, stopped him and said, ”Mr. Pearson. This is outrageous. The school district cannot have such a program for your son. We have limited resources and we must attend to all the needs of all the students in our schools. We can’t start something like this!”
Mr. Pearson’s response: “You already do, I was describing the football team!”