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Showing posts with the label advanced development

Saving Gifted Butterflies with Service Learning

Service learning can help high school and college students raise their grades and connect to a wider world. A paper by Bruce-Davis and Chancy (2012) discuss to a greater degree how service learning improves upon the platform for regular students but can help gifted students reach new heights. Education isn’t always stuffed in some dusty book and can include practical application of interests. Once engaged, gifted students can engage for years until breakthroughs are created. Gifted learners are often underachievers. Their brains work at a capacity where standard curriculum bores them right out of school and directly into the school of life. This is why history is full of the genius drop out. Adding on top of this, teacher misperceptions, rigid classroom structures, and improper social relations, the school system can seem more like a prison system.  Gifted learners underachieve because there is little to achieve for. If their classmates are focused on the latest He Man to

Giftedness Across a Lifespan

Gifted individuals go through the stages of life in many of the same ways as others. Their development has parallels with those in the bell curve but there is some uniqueness in terms of the level of development in each stage. Their expectations and capacities are higher which leads them to unique perspectives. A fundamental component of this is whether they have spent their lives in acceptance of giftedness or in denial of their special talents. A paper in the journal Advanced Development by Ellen Fiedler describes this groups life’s transitions.    It is first beneficial to define giftedness.   The Columbus Group defines it as, “ Giftedness is asynchronous development in which advance cognitive abilities and heightened intensity combine to create inner experiences and awareness that are qualitatively different from the norm .”   Because they see the world different they have spent time criticized for their mannerisms and perspectives and may have buried their talents.  A