Differentiated Curriculum For Classrooms with Gifted Children

Differentiated Curriculum
For Classrooms With Gifted Children

by Sue Hovis

When I have arranged a bouquet, in order to paint it I go around to the side that I have not looked at. -Pierre Auguste Renoir

When I started teaching gifted children in 1974, I did so by the seat of my pants: a challenging book for the children to read and lots of classroom discussion. What a difference 30 years and knowledge of the research makes!

We know that gifted children can learn faster, go deeper and think more abstractly than their classmates. They can handle books two years ahead, quadratic equations in 7th grade and studying the reasons for the Civil War in 5th grade. This has been explored and researched for a very long time, starting in 1895 with Darwin's Origin of Species; 1905 and Alfred Binet's concept of IQ, 1921 and Lewis Terman's revised Stanford-Binet IQ scale; the studies of Hall & Gesell, Montessori, Piaget, Guilford, Bloom, Bruner, Gardner, and all of the concepts recently that indicate intelligence is multi-faceted.

What is on the side that we have not looked at? How do we handle unrealistic expectations? What about the child who has so many ideas he cannot put one down on paper? What about the child who is so intimidated by the many that the classroom is not a safe place to explore unusual ideas? I believe the answer is the teacher.

In 1974, I was chosen to attend a conference in Los Angeles put on by the Leadership Training Institute which included Irving Sato, Sandra Kaplan and others who were part of an extraordinarily exotic world of which I knew nothing……. and wanted to learn more—I felt as if I had come home!

I was hired as a teacher in 1976, in the newly developed PACE program in Tempe, Arizona: Project Actualizing through Creativity and Excellence. There were 10 teachers and 2 curriculum specialists and we were trained from October 1 until February 1, 8:00 AM until 5 PM, every day. We were inundated with hands-on learning, exploration, and in-service from our director Robert E. Hall, as well as training by Frank Williams in Creativity, Sandy Kaplan, Sally Patton, Jean Delp, Barbara Clark and many others; subjects which included SOI, the Torrance Test of Creativity, Bloom's Taxonomy, & Philosophy for Children. We learned all of the activities that other teachers were using and we copied them; we were sent to conferences and encouraged to present at conferences; we observed in other classrooms, bought materials of which no one else was aware, and guess what—we all complained about how hard we were being pushed! One day, when I was vocally complaining to the group, my boss told us the following:

1. "Without an understanding of the literature and the research, you will never understand working with and teaching gifted children.

2. If you are not able to accept the mantle of "expert" of gifted where you are teaching, how can you be an advocate for the gifted child and his or her family?

3. If you do not take all of the tests, and experience all of the things which you are going to be teaching, how can you possibly understand that other side of the gifted child?"

Well of course, that meant nothing. I was still struggling with Bloom, trying to set up a classroom that would stimulate gifted children and getting a presentation ready for the parents of our first classes. It was not until years later that I realized the importance of what Robert was saying: the importance of a commitment to learning the literature and its application to living, breathing children and their families; the importance of a commitment to the mantle of not only 'expert', but also 'advocate' for the gifted child and the importance of truly knowing and feeling what the child needs, and the ability to take the research and meaningfully translate the theories into practice.

With this in mind, I would consider the following as "basics" for the differentiation of curriculum for the gifted child:

1. EXCELLENT TEACHERS who have goals that:

· help the student assess his/her sense of power
· help a student learn to relate appropriately to adult authority
· encourage the student to enjoy playing with ideas – 'art for art's sake' for example
· include demonstrations of self-discipline; a hard-work approach to ideas
· foster a respect for privacy
· encourage the student to use his/her gifts in many areas while acknowledging special interests & pursuits
· help the student realize that he/she can make a unique contribution in his/her chosen field
· point out that all highly capable may at time experience criticism, rebuff & ridicule
· assist the highly capable in an assessment of his/her special skills
· teach the tools of effective written & oral presentation of both factual & theoretical content
· help maintain or improve the student's motivation
· provide excellent coaching, teaching & guidance
· provide challenging competition
· demonstrate concern & acknowledgement for the total child, total person
· provide a classroom climate which encourages creative behaviors
· gives the student a sense of purpose—short or long range; personal or social
· go beyond text books & classroom walls
· provide a safe learning environment which is open & accepting of unusual ideas & feelings
· provide opportunities to make hypotheses
· provide opportunities to learn by discovery, manipulating, experimenting, questioning, exploring & risk-taking
· expose students to the achievements of bright and/or creative individuals
· accept a variety of responses
· maintains a growing & changing pool of resources
· provides open-ended assignments
· asks questions which spur thinking using techniques like SCAMPER
· helps students understand his/her potential, creatively and socially, as well as academically.
· options, various levels w/emphasis on individual interests
· student assuming responsibility for content & rate w/teacher as facilitator
· an emphasis on analysis , synthesis & generalization
· an emphasis on merits & enhancement of ideas
· an emphasis on productive/divergent thinking
· extensions or replacements of "traditional learning"
· problem seeking (as opposed to problem solving)

· as well as TEACHERS who are willing to forego:

· teaching which requires right/wrong answers all of the time
· busy work
· giving the bright student "more of the same" or additional reports, projects, etc.
· making exceptions or excuses for the gifted because of his/her talents or abilities
· routinely exhibiting the gifted student's work as a model
· programming the gifted student as a tutor—Junior Faculty position—unless the student wants to help or needs experiences for reasons of her own (to organize materials or overcome shyness)
· telling the bright student what new project to work on without having him/her involved in the planning
· an inflexible curriculum
· setting patterns for tests (every Friday) or fixed deadlines for completion of units which hold back the gifted learner
· any need to feel more knowledgeable about some special interests or areas that ths student may already have some expertise
· only a few are creative or bright
· giving examples when seeking responses
· the judgment & evaluation of a student's work without the involvement of the student
· the needs of the majority to determine pace & depth
· grade level & texts to determine content

2. A CURRICULUM WITH GOALS WHICH ENCOURAGE:

· A Tolerance for Ambiguity
· Self –sufficiency
· Independence in making judgments
· Self-assertiveness with self-confidence & self-acceptance
· Risk-taking
· An intellectual approach set toward alternative answers and solutions
· Encouragement of varied types of competition and interaction with conditions that avoid fear of criticism
· The development of basic creative behaviors (fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration)
· Redifinitive abilities (seeing things in a 'new light', become aware of consequences (good & bad) of the functional application of information
· Reading & listening skills
· Patterning
· Resourcefulness
· The development of passions and absorbing interests
· Sensitivity to problems & people & situations
· Respect & the constant understanding that their ideas have value

An Environment which encourages and helps develop:

· The ability to wonder; to be curious
· The ability to be enthusiastic, spontaneous, flexible
· The ability to be open to new experiences
· The ability to see the familiar from an unfamiliar point of view
· The ability to value serendipity
· The ability to make one thing of another by shifting functions
· The ability to generalize in order to see a universal application of ideas
· The ability to find order in disorder—to synthesize and integrate
· The ability to be intensely conscious yet in touch with the subconscious sources
· The ability to visualize or imagine new possibilities
· The ability to be analytical & critical
· The ability to know oneself and to have the courage to be oneself in the face of opposition
· The ability to be persistent, to work hard for a long period in pursuit of a goal without guaranteed results
· The ability to put two or more known things together in a unique way, thus creating a new thing.

For 25 years I kept the following quote on my bulletin board as a reminder to myself:

As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous….I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration….I can humiliate or humor….hurt or heal….In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated….and a child humanized or dehumanized.-- Haim Gainott, Teacher & Child

This sums up the responsibilities of the teacher, maintaining the environment, and developing the curriculum; a facilitator who believes that children want to learn; who thinks with children rather than for them; who basically respects the individual, and who believes that working with gifted children is the greatest job anyone could ever have!

About the author

Sue Hovis has been involved as an educator since 1965. She has been a teacher, an administrator, and a curriculum specialist. She has written books, been a director of marketing for an educational publishing company and has given workshops and spoken at conferences nationally and internationally. In 1980, she met her husband, Lowell Hovis, when they were both training Canadian teachers to teach gifted children in a program at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. They did this for 5 years, got married and Sue moved to Seattle where they both worked at The Bush School, and University Child Development School. Lowell died in 2001. Currently, Sue is directing a program called Super Saturday, for bright 4-7 year olds. She can be contacted at: suebhoney1@comcast.net

©December 2004 New Horizons for Learning
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