Gifted Education Policy Changes I'd Like to See - Part 1
In this 3-part series, I share my views on how we can improve the ways gifted individuals of all Levels of Giftedness can be better served by educational views and systems.
In 2017 I retired from my private consultancy. I gave away all my testing materials for the mere cost of shipping to my friend Kathi in Maine. She works for a school district and loves having materials to share the best tests for a child needing assessment. And she is an amazing teacher, too. I did this because I would have been too easily tempted to give just one more test to someone begging for it. Seriously. I find it hard to say no when it’s about things I love to do, have a passion for.
While still giving tests and guidance, the majority of the gifted people brought to me as children, and represented in my longitudinal study, were boys. It isn’t that there aren’t as many girls who are gifted — including extremely gifted — but that girls usually do okay in school. They don’t cause problems that worry parents or teachers.
No matter what Level of Gifted or personality type girls have, school seems to fit girls better than boys. There are so few in my study, in fact, that it is hard to draw as many conclusions about them as for the boys in the study. It was when I looked for the personality type frequency percentages broken down by sex that I saw how many females in the study had likely suffered from confusing and mixed messages from family and classmates because not only were they extremely intelligent, their way of seeing and thinking about things was considerably different and unfamiliar to their parents and the other children. Many of them had personality type preferences found more often in boys and men. Interestingly, the reverse is true, as well. More gifted boys in the study have personality types that are generally more common among girls and women from the general population. (Author and gender psychologist Michael Gurian addresses the masculinity-femininity continuum and “bridge brains” concept in his work and books including What Could He Be Thinking: How a Man’s Mind Really Works (2003).
As I explain in my different writings and books, finding the right fit (see What is good fit and why does it matter?) cannot just be about scores, nor can it be a contest for who can get the best grades or pleases the teacher the most. Students who are not getting their particular learning needs met still need the flexible grouping and instruction that fits them. We need a major overhaul of the system and how we train, pay, and support teachers and families. And we cannot give gifted children what they need when we set up our schools in ways that don’t meet their needs or the needs of most other children.
Additionally, all gifted children are not alike. Even if their one ability score, the final IQ or School Ability Index score (SAI) result is the same as another person’s, it is the overall profile or subtest scores, personality, sex, etc., that matter when making educational decisions for what will work best for each child. As we identify characteristics and behaviors of gifted children in the study from infancy through middle school years (1), we see the Levels of Gifted descriptors show growing differences between Levels. The abilities, interests, general achievements, and behaviors are vastly different from Levels One through Five. And readers can also see clearly that the needs of gifted children vary considerably from one another depending on where they are on both the intellectual spectrum and the environment they find themselves in as described by the Five Levels (2).
Getting what they need during the school years is more than about the schools, though. There are further consequences to student and family outcomes directly related to the family’s access to a social safety net and options. As it now stands, it remains common for society, policy, laws, and educational institutions to continue to maintain an agreement for systems and practices that do not meet the needs of a substantially large portion of the overall population. Sadly, almost anyone who doesn’t naturally fit the mainstream without additional assistance or adaptations is destined to become less of an emotionally and psychologically healthy member of society.
In my study and my writing, I specifically look at gifted children, but much of it can be applied to others who are somehow different, too. It is not the fault of teachers. It is the systems currently in play. In my opinion, most of what gets done to support students who have differences from their age and grade groups is like palliative care and a bandage approach when it is the systems that feed into how we organize schools and school districts, where the funding comes from, and who has control of the overall approach to meeting the needs of all students.
There is no good reason to group only by age or to create as wide a range of learning abilities in the same classrooms each year as is currently done (see Why do we continue to have same aged classrooms?). Examples are provided throughout the first 5 Levels of Gifted book (1) book for how to achieve more flexible options that can include same-aged as well as mixed-aged grouping. There are many occasions where same-aged grouping is appropriate, enjoyable, and good for the social and emotional lives of any child, but not during, for example, an advanced math or interpretive reading course.
When describing what a good fit looks like for Levels Four and Five children — the exceptionally to profoundly gifted youngsters — there is something called the “critical mass” when it comes to how a teacher or school chooses the learning materials and pacing for its teachers to use in the classroom. It aims for the average learning and achievement range of the majority of students in each grade and age level — i.e., the critical mass.
In reference to gifted children and educational institutions effectively addressing their own needs, the typical ways we sort school children by age and grade level pretty much guarantees there will rarely be a critical mass of gifted students in any one classroom. It makes especially clear that the highly, exceptionally, or profoundly gifted children will almost always be on their own in such settings.
The study results show that of 64 study subjects, 46 experienced an Unsatisfactory school “fit” during the beginning of their K-3 school years. For those fortunate enough to have active and proactive parents who had options and access to different settings, changes were made early on. Only six of the 64 children across the ability span had an Excellent start, often because the parents of those 6 children sought evaluations before the school years, decided to homeschool, or found good Montessori schools.
It is important to recognize I am talking about more than giving financially poor or otherwise disadvantaged young gifted people the opportunity to go to good schools, the right schools for them. Yes, scholarships to private college preparatory schools are wonderful, but neither the scholarships nor the private prep schools should be necessary. We need an overall system of supporting the learning abilities and needs of students from every walk of life in their K-12 years and post-secondary educations, as well. At present, there are too many barriers, e.g., race, poverty, recent immigration status, and exclusionary school districts where students are grouped by their zip code, that create hurdles for almost everyone who isn’t in the upper middle to the highest classes of social capital, access, and financial resources.
My current published books about the gifted:
(1) 5 Levels of Gifted: School Issues and Educational Options in 2009. Here are links to the 5 Levels of Gifted book on Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/5-levels-of-gifted-deborah-ruf/1126358834 and Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Levels-Gifted-School-Educational-Options/dp/0910707987 or directly from the publisher: https://www.giftedunlimitedllc.com/store/p12/5_Levels_of_Gifted.html
(2) The Five Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up: What They Tell Us (2023). https://www.amazon.com/Levels-Gifted-Children-Grown-Up/dp/B0C9SHFRLH or https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-5-levels-of-gifted-children-grown-up-phd-deborah-l-ruf/1143719859?ean=9798988323709. This is an 18-year longitudinal study follow-up about the original gifted child subjects in 5 Levels of Gifted: School Issues and Educational Options (2005, 2009).
Keys to Successfully Parenting the Gifted Child (2023). On Amazon, Keys to Successfully Parenting Gifted Children (2022, 2023) Print and ebook. The Nook version is also now on B&N. This is a short book 80 pages including pictures — that is a great starter for parents just wanting some answers … fast! The content was originally from a PowerPoint I created for the parents of gifted children presentations around the country. The contents zero in on some of the most important things about raising gifted children that parents want to know.
Losing Our Minds: Too Many Gifted Children Left Behind (Oct. 2024). The book provides a detailed analysis of the different levels of giftedness, the concept of "good fit" in educational settings, and the impact of various school environments on gifted children. It also includes personal stories and experiences of gifted children and adults, highlighting the challenges they face in finding appropriate educational and social environments. Available now on both Amazon and B&N. It is not the old purple book from 2005. Also, the Kindle and Nook versions are formatted so readers can click back and forth easily and find their place again. Follow this link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DL3BSC9X or this link: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/losing-our-minds-deborah-ruf/1146410968?ean=2940185888872
Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies (D. Ruf, 1998) doctoral dissertation. Free PDF https://dabrowskicenter.org/ruf
Dr. Ruf is available for the following services.
Click for details and to schedule:
One-Hour Test Interpretation
Gifted Child Test Interpretation & Guidance
20-Minute Consultation
45-Minute Consultation
One-Hour Consultation
Podcast Interview
Pl ease just change back to reading writing (kids can’t read or write cursive I kid you not) and for gods sake some rudimentary (not the absolutely insane “math”) arithmetic !!
Deborah, Thanks for you advocacy for these children whose needs are chronically overlooked. I also appreciate your nod the difficulties boys face... schools in the early grades are just not suitable for many of them.