What is “Good Fit” and Why Does It Matter?
What is “Good Fit” and Why Does It Matter?
It's about feeling you belong here.
“Good fit” in the context of school and social life means that people feel as though they belong
First, “good fit” in the context of school and social life means that the children feel as though they belong, that they are not outliers, or lonely, or weird compared to the others.[i] Children who grow up feeling like they don’t belong all-too-often turn into adults who also feel that way.
Why does a good fit matter? The purpose of a longitudinal study is to uncover what—from the subjects’ background experiences—could have impacted how their lives are as adults. Good fit matters for the topic of high intelligence because there is one especially big hurdle in the lives of highly intelligent children and their families that is not a hurdle for children who fit the ways schools are set up.
The ways schools are typically arranged for children does not fit the different Levels of Gifted children well and can have negative, lasting effects if no changes are provided for the needs of such learners during those 12 to 13 long, formative school years.
The customary method of grouping children in schools is by age and within age-grade levels. When a bright or gifted child is not similar to the majority of the other children in learning ability, this is a big problem. Further, within that structure of grade levels by age, schools primarily use heterogeneous (mixed ability) grouping and “whole class” instruction.
Despite considerable evidence that the achievement span among children of the same age can be—and usually is—significant (Lohman, D., 1999), children are typically grouped with others their age. Lohman, co-author of both the Cognitive Abilities Test and the Iowa Tests of basic skills, both widely used by public schools for their elementary school students, states,
“The typical public school first-grade classroom already has 12-grade equivalencies of achievement in it.”[ii]
Indeed, grouping children by age for instruction makes about as much sense as grouping them by height. In all of world history, this kind of grouping for instruction has only been around for a about 120 years. And yes, through most of history there were no public schools at all and no universal system for educating children.
Research shows typical age-based grouping is an effective approach to teaching children only when the children have been selected to have similar ability levels and learning needs. Research from experts, including Terman (1925), Hollingworth (1931, 1942), and Kell, et al. (2013), shows that, when given the chance, highly intelligent children learn faster—and to a greater depth—than same-aged students with lower intellectual abilities.
Different types of acceleration through the school years often lead to a good fit. Although there is considerable research (Assouline, S., et. al., 2014) that supports the idea that brighter students don’t suffer socially, emotionally, or otherwise, from being allowed to accelerate (i.e., move ahead academically) the context of that faster track is important to making this statement true. When not done with an awareness of context, fast-tracking can be problematic.
As Lohman said, the range of students’ intellectual abilities within each classroom is often vast, just as you would find for weight, height, hair, and eye color. Age grouping for instruction with no consideration of learning readiness and ability is simply awkward. Such grouping creates more problems than it solves, including classroom management difficulties and disruptive behaviors.
Age grouping can work when the participating children are initially evaluated and then grouped by their readiness to learn new material. In the typical age-based school system, however, goals are set for all students to reach the academic average-for-their-age proficiency[iii] levels. A large range of students’ learning abilities in one classroom almost guarantees that no matter how good the instruction, many children will learn little new while a similar number will continue to struggle because their readiness to learn the material is not at the needed level.
Children need true peers, people who get their jokes and who understand and share many of their interests and ways of being.
The social and emotional needs of gifted children—and not just their academic needs—are at the root of what matters for a good fit for them.
If they are outliers in their classrooms, they will often not only be lonely, but also more likely will have little opportunity to learn and practice the social and effective communication skills needed for when they move into the greater world and interact with others in their intellectual abilities’ range. As therapist Jana Rockne[iv] noted,
In my 30 plus years of clinical work, I can say with great confidence that a fundamental human need is having a sense of belonging. Having an unconscious awareness, as a lower elementary grade student, of being different due to intellectual ability would likely be internalized simply as different and not belonging.
Not All Gifted Children Are Alike
A considerable problem with many popular approaches to gifted education is that many educators do not consider—or take seriously—that gifted children are not all alike. Even among the most intelligent children, many are uneven in their abilities. Some read at a high level but do not excel at the same high level in other subjects. Few are "omnibus gifted,” a term coined by David Feldman (1986), that means a person gifted at the highest levels in all areas.
The range within the group of children called “gifted” is great, spanning between a beginning level of traits where some children are moderately ahead of others to a scenario where some children are more than five, six, or more years ahead of other children in what they can learn and do by the time they enter first grade.
Plus, to complicate matters (and confuse everyone trying to plan for these children), each school and each group of children going through each school are at least a little different from one another.
The grandfather of one of the people in this book, for example, told his family how, when he was on a nominating committee for selecting the high school’s foreign exchange students, the teachers commented that from year to year, the graduating classes go from being full of great students one year to great athletes the next, and other years filled with artists, musicians, and actors. The school population is always changing because it depends on who is there each year.
In summary, it is not the high IQ or intellectual level that causes personal problems and outcomes for many of our most intellectually gifted people. It is the ongoing presence of a poor environmental “fit” during their childhood. The better the fit, the better the social, emotional, and any other kind of well-being outcome measure, they will have.
[i] Blending many definitions together, there are two types of “best fit” and the more familiar term “Goodness of Fit”: how a trait or condition interacts, e.g., giftedness or personality, with the environment and how it interacts with the person or other people in that environment. Any trait in and of itself is not a problem; rather, it is the interaction that determines the “acceptability” of that trait.
[ii] From an in-person conversation with David Lohman in 2003 and re-confirmed by phone in 2015.
[iii] For more information on this topic, start with this website and move on from there. On NAEP scores, "proficient" does not mean performing at grade level (reachinghighernh.org).
[iv] Jana L. Rockne, LPC, LMDT, is a therapist who specializes in Marriage and Family Counseling in Traverse City, MI. She is a partner in the GT Psych Associates Center.
My current published and coming books about the gifted:
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). Keys to Successfully Parenting Gifted Children (2022, 2023)
Losing Our Minds: Too Many Gifted Children Left Behind (Oct. 2024). Available for pre-order now. Follow this link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DHV6QT6F
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
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