Social Emotional Needs

“I want our educators, . . . to agree that beneficence is the Number one ethical and moral obligation that underpins all of our schools.”

Welcome to this installment of my GCT column on the social and emotional development of gifted students. After 30 years in the field of gifted education, and, more specifically, 30 years of studying the psychology of gifted students, I have come to believe that the single greatest threat to the psychological well-being of gifted students is the mismatch between the school’s curriculum and the student’s needs.

I argue in this column that we have acted like ostriches by sticking our heads in the sand and pretending that there is no connection between the curriculum and pedagogy that underpins our gifted students’ educational experiences and their psychological well-being. I want our educators, administrators, and, most importantly, our politicians to agree that beneficence is the Number one ethical and moral obligation that underpins all of our schools. We cannot continue to risk our students with this form of malfeasance that exists in environments run or influenced by any person who is not an expert pedagogue. Since the creation of public schools, people have been willing to risk the psychological well-being of our students by engaging in educational practices that are malnourishing our gifted students. This outcome is logical when one factors in the chronic and constant meddling of nonexperts. For example, some of the concerns about the Common Core are so irrational and uninformed that they illustrate the danger of having schools influenced by nonexperts.

All people go through life experiencing some degree of malnourishment in some area. Few, people, however, deal with the degree and chronic nature of educational malnourishment as do gifted students. Imagine going to school each morning having not had a chance to eat anything for breakfast. By midmorning, you would begin to feel bad with your stomach churning and with a slight headache. If you also did not get to eat lunch, by midday, you would be hurting for sustenance and would, perhaps, drink as much water as you could. During your afternoon classes, you would not be able to concentrate; you would feel dizzy and might try to entertain yourself to distract from the suffering. After school, you would race home in hopes of eating but you would not have the energy to prepare anything to eat and would feel so badly that you decide just to go to bed, hoping that tomorrow will be different. Now, imagine that you felt that way 185 days a year—an entire school year. Welcome to the educational experience of many gifted students. This common form of educational malnourishment robs gifted students of the intellectual nutrition that they need, that they yearn for, and that they require to grow intellectually in a healthy manner. It also threatens their psychological well-being.

There are numerous short- and long-term consequences of educational malnourishment. Like eating a healthy diet with sufficient vitamins and minerals, appropriate levels and types of calories, and with the opportunity to exercise, participating in an educationally nourishing environment is essential to positive intellectual growth. Without the ongoing and foundational learning that establishes the basis for later learning, few possibilities to grow exist. By making sure that all students are challenged to reach their potential by employing state-of-the-art pedagogical techniques and practices, and by including a rigorous curriculum, educational nourishment is guaranteed. In the early grades, foundational skills such as reading, writing, and mathematics set the stage for the more advanced and focused talent domains that are developed in secondary schools (Cross & Coleman, 2005). Chronic malnutrition, therefore, places the gifted student at serious risk for long-term underachievement, problems with self-concept, reduction in agency, increase in self-doubt, and so forth.

Developing the potential of young students into specific talent domains requires constant challenge, opportunities to fail, and practice—lots and lots of practice. Kanevsky and Keighley (2003) argue that there are five important characteristics to effective learning environments that engage gifted students, including a caring teacher, complexity, challenge, control, and choice. Appropriate grouping, out-of-level assessment, acceleration opportunities, and so forth are practices demonstrated to create these nourishing educational environments.

What happens to the psychological well-being of gifted students who go days, weeks, and months being educationally malnourished? Fatigue, disinterest, underachievement, and acting out are all common reactions to the chronic boredom that ensues. For older gifted students, a logical outcome to chronic educational malnourishment is to leave school without graduating. Imagine the aggregate cost to society when gifted students do not complete high school. They cannot go to college and graduate school. Many professional positions will not be filled and more people live their lives underemployed. Being underemployed with virtually no hope for challenging work is the second challenge to the psychological well-being of gifted students. This example occurs later in life. Unfortunately, however, this one can last not 12 years, but closer to 60 years. Now, imagine the aggregate loss to society of gifted students who are chronically underemployed for up to 60 years of their lives.

Our P-12 schools establish the educational foundation not only for college and graduate school opportunities but also for life afterward. The future of the United States of America is directly tied to the appropriate education of all its students, including its gifted students. When schools fail to provide the educational nourishment that their gifted students need, the psychological well-being of these people is threatened, as is our country’s future. We have enough research to guide our educational practice to prevent this psychological harm to our students and, consequently, we have a moral imperative to behave accordingly. Let us commit to the educational nourishment of all our students, including our gifted students. This will in turn secure the future of the United States of America.