Back to the Future?

As we turned over the last calendar page of 2005, we decided to ask two gifted experts, Nancy Robinson from the University of Washington and Margie Kitano from San Diego State University, where they thought gifted education was heading.

Center for Talent Development (CTD) Editor: Will there be more or less government funding for gifted education in the future? Why do you believe that?

Nancy M. Robinson: With the overwhelming national deficits we are facing, I am not optimistic about even maintaining the meager federal funding we have at the moment — despite its being very much in our national interest to increase such funding dramatically. Probably most vulnerable are the Javits research grants, though I very much hope the National Research Center survives. Unless coping with the federal deficit also wipes out the “No Child Left Behind” restrictions, I’m afraid that state eyes are going to remain fixed on raising the floor rather than the ceiling. What everyone seems to ignore is that funding for gifted children is amazingly inexpensive — significant gains can accrue from very modest expenditures if we focus on coherent, rigorous teaching and use accelerative options liberally.

CTD: Will gifted education have more supporters? Will it have higher visibility? Why?

Robinson: These are really the same question, because it is higher visibility that can recruit supporters. In the last couple of years, we have seen the impact of two powerful publications with strong voices. Jan and Bob Davidson’s (2004) Genius Denied, and the two-volume A Nation Deceived (Colangelo, Assouline, & Gross, 2004) are not only compellingly written, but they are being distributed widely with philanthropic support. These are passionate books, and if they don’t move hearts and minds, nothing will. But there are many other “causes” competing for public attention.

CTD: What changes will occur in the way giftedness is handled in the schools?

Robinson: I suspect that we will see increments in acceleration and differentiation of curriculum in regular classrooms (and, incidentally, within programs for gifted students we’ve too often dropped that ball). I don’t expect great increases in public K-12 special programs, but we may see more dual-enrollment and early college programs, mostly non-residential. The students are ready, and states can save real dollars in this manner. The established talent searches will continue to grow their summer and on-line programs, with greater respect from the “establishment” — more willingness, for example, to give school credit for such courses.

CTD: Will parents be more vocal in their advocacy? Will anyone hear or listen to them?

Robinson: I believe parents are becoming more effective and better informed advocates for their own children, and schools — not school boards — may be more willing to experiment, one child at a time.

CTD: What will research tell us that we don’t already know?

Robinson: I don’t know where we will possibly get the money to address these questions, but I see the two most important targets as:

• Well-designed, large-scale studies of various modalities of delivering rigorous academic challenges to gifted children, studies that include random assignment both to competing models and to “standard treatment,” patterned after clinical trials of new drugs. Without such evidence, how can we make people listen? (And if the results are disappointing, we need to hear that message ourselves.)

• Studies investigating how the thinking of gifted children is like or unlike that of older students of the same mental age. We need this information to inform our teaching and make acceleration meaningful.

CTD: If you controlled the giftedness purse strings, what would you want to accomplish in five years and what programs would you fund to reach these goals?

Robinson: First, I would campaign for a change in the intellectual climate of this nation — a greater respect for the accomplishments of the mind. Our society just doesn’t get it. Political leadership is the short-term answer; better education is the long-term one.

Second, I’d fund the research I’ve mentioned in this interview. We are crippled by our inability to test and refine what we think we know.

Third, I’d emphasize accelerative efforts of all kinds, from early school entry to early college entry. The more we provide age diversity, the more comfort teachers will have in individualizing, and students will have in moving at their own pace.

Fourth, I’d promote self-contained classes and other methods, such as cluster grouping, that address the whole school day rather than a fraction of it.

Fifth, I’d raise expectations for gifted students’ accomplishments much higher than they are today.

CTD: Finally, what will be the major cultural or social factors affecting the field?

I see two huge, competing agendas that have import for our field. The first, highlighted by Hurricane Katrina, is a renewed battle against persistent social inequalities. Addressing this issue will inevitably raise even more political questions about student diversity in programs, but we can’t turn away from it. (Note that most accelerative options do not affect classroom diversity one way or the other.)

The second agenda is international competition — what Thomas Friedman  refers to as the “flattening of the world” in his book The World is Flat — A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. We are beginning to see how essential is an educated citizenry, ready to seize opportunities to invent and carry out scientific and technical breakthroughs. Our weak educational system is endangering our world leadership, most critically at the creative cutting edge. Perhaps this will be our Sputnik!

Nancy M. Robinson (Stanford University Ph.D. in Developmental and Child Clinical Psychology, 1958) is Professor Emerita of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington and former Director of what is now known as the Halbert and Nancy Robinson Center for Young Scholars. She moved to the UW in 1969 from the University of North Carolina. Known previously for her work in mental retardation, Robinson has focused her research interests since 1981 on the effects of marked academic acceleration to college, adjustment issues of gifted children, and verbal and mathematical precocity in very young children. She continues her work in assessment and counseling with gifted children and their families.

CTD: How do you see the future of gifted education in this country?

Margie Kitano: Over the next five years the achievement gap between African American, Latino, and Native American (Underrepresented Minority Groups) students on the one hand, and Asian and White students on the other, will be the major cultural and social factor affecting the field.

CTD: What other factors will influence gifted education?

A second social factor will be continued advances in communications and instructional technology with commensurate changes in learning expectations of children and youth raised with the Internet, video games, and mobile devices (Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005). Lacking access for all students, the technology culture will exacerbate achievement gaps. Unless educators are able to raise the achievement of all groups to what Hilliard (2003) calls a level of excellence, the United States will become a country of unfulfilled human potential.

The North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (2003) notes that today’s technological environment must be addressed in order to prepare children and youth to thrive in the present and future context, which will depend on 21st century skills. These include four broad categories:

1. Digital-age literacies (basic, scientific, economic, technological, visual and information, multicultural and global)
2. Inventive thinking (adaptability, managing complexity, self-direction, curiosity, creativity, risk taking, higher order thinking, sound reasoning)
3. Effective communication (teaming, collaboration, and interpersonal skills; personal, social, and civic responsibility; and interactive communication)
4. High productivity (prioritizing, planning, and managing for results; effective use of real-world tools; and ability to produce relevant, high-quality products).

Unless we are able to ensure competence of all learners in these skills, outsourcing of U.S. jobs will be a third social factor of significance.

Government, education, and popular support for gifted education will grow only to the extent that we can use our knowledge of research-supported strategies to ensure that students across income, ethnic, cultural, and language groups acquire 21st century skills. Activities typically prescribed for gifted learners — inductive thinking, problem and project-based learning, curriculum depth and complexity, creative and higher-level thinking, real-world applications, high-quality products — are highly consistent with these skills.

Not surprisingly, the literature on effective strategies for general populations of students of color and English learners (Education Trust, 2003a, b) also supports challenging curriculum and higher-level thinking. In other words, all students — not just the gifted and talented — should benefit from high expectations and curriculum and instructional strategies that foster high-level skills.

CTD: How can the gifted community help students acquire these essential skills?

Kitano: Educators of gifted and talented, among others, have much to offer on strategies for accomplishing this goal. And we have a moral obligation to do so.

We need to:

• Add more to our repertoire on information and multicultural literacies and collaborate with experts on critical noncognitive variables (relational, contextual, familial, and social) to address identity, self-efficacy, and motivational factors affecting academic achievement.
• Integrate and evaluate new technologies that have promise for enhancing engagement and learning. These include immersive technologies; simulations that permit experiencing phenomena with all senses; and devices that encourage students, teachers, and families to interact anytime anywhere to follow learning progress (U.S. Department of Commerce, 2002).

We will need to educate our constituencies about the greater social good that demands our moving in this direction. Toward these goals, research should identify new organizational structures, delivery systems, instructional strategies, teacher preparation models, and community programs effective for student acquisition of 21st century skills across income, culture, and language groups, and how current and emerging technologies can support this goal.