Ignoring High Abilities in School Children Can Lead to Behavioral Issues

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When Teachers Overlook High Abilities

Teachers who lack even the most basic knowledge about gifted children are also totally unaware that there are different levels of giftedness. Even when teachers give assessment and achievement tests, they often ignore or don’t quite believe the results. They also fail to under-stand the extraordinarily advanced behaviors exhibited by some of these exceptional children. And while many parents are aware that their child could learn more, they seldom know how the child actually compares to others in the class.

Many teachers try to placate concerned parents of gifted children by telling them, “We have lots of children as bright as yours.” This statement stems from two different foundations. First, it might actually be true that there are children who are equally as bright as the child in question, but the other parents haven’t complained, or the children’s personalities are such that they go along without making any trouble. Alternately, teachers don’t really know who is smarter than others because the low level of class assignments limits children’s ability to show what they know and can do. When the top one-third of the class can all perform perfectly — or nearly so — on whatever is required, differentiating between their abilities is very difficult.

Educators also try to appease parents of gifted children who press for advanced educational opportunities for their children with the reasoning that above average abilities usually level off after a few years. This argument is so common and yet so wrong that it almost defies explanation. How can anyone believe that an early reader will simply “tread water” while others catch up, and they won’t make any progress in the meantime? As discussed earlier, any school subject that has reading as a major component is one in which gifted children self-instruct and advance, despite the school’s slow pace.

School achievement test results of high ability children reveal that their reading and comprehension scores not only are high, but they tend to go up more than two grade levels each year. Social studies and science scores often go up nearly as fast, probably because gifted children do a lot of reading and assimilate facts on their own.

Despite all of this resistance from school personnel, schools can make adjustments that require no specialist, no extra money, and no extra work for the teacher. Even though an adjustment may be slight, it can make a big difference in the child’s sense of what he or she can do.

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What Parents Said About High Abilities Being Overlooked by Teachers in the 5 Levels of Gifted Children Longitudinal Study (That Started in the Early 2000s)

Brennan Ahlers

When I talked to the teachers and the school counselor about Brennan, I repeatedly heard phrases like these: “We have a lot of smart kids here.” “The Stanford-Binet (Form L-M) scores kids too high — Brennan isn’t really that smart.” “We haven’t done grade skipping in 25 years and we aren’t going to start now.” “He’s so socially immature that you should be happy that academically he doesn’t have to work so he can concentrate on his social skills.”

Debra Sund

When Debra started kindergarten, she was already reading, so I told the teacher this the first day. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I could tell that she had heard this before from other parents, so I didn’t press. Within a month, the teacher told me (a little apologetically), “Debra really can read!” She said that she wanted the reading specialist to test her, and it was during this testing that we got a clearer picture of Debra’s giftedness — she was reading at a fourth-grade level. They let us put Debra in the third-grade reading group for a half an hour every day, where she did well and fit in fine with the older kids.

Janet Lewis

By first grade, Janet was reading third-grade books at home, but the teacher placed her in a middle reading group, interpreting her shyness and her mimicking the halting reading style of the other group members as an indication of only average ability. At our first conference, the teacher suggested that Janet had simply memorized books that we had repeatedly read to her. So the next day, I sent Janet to school with a challenging new shrink-wrapped book and a note asking the teacher to have Janet read it to her for the first time. After that, the teacher moved Janet to the top reading group and admitted that she was the best reader in the class.

Justin Janacek

We were confused by the lack of response from Justin’s preschool and kindergarten teachers. Both said that many kids had Justin’s abilities, and they brushed aside any special consideration of his academic or social needs. They said that he was a good listener, a good participant, and that he was well liked, but they were completely unwilling to see anything above average in him. The principal said that above average abilities usually level off by third grade anyway.

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Behavior Problems

Many parents find themselves in an awkward position because their children do not cooperate with what is required by the school for an average student, and the teachers use that behavior as the criterion for access to more advanced curriculum. It’s the old chicken and egg dilemma. Gifted children don’t want to work on things they already know how to do, but until they dutifully demonstrate excellent completion of grade-level work, the children can’t “earn their way” into more advanced, appropriate, and interesting coursework.