Gifted youths already know what they want to be when they grow up - in a lot of cases it's applied sciences, but when they are asked why they made their choices, they are not able to explain.
A study surveyed 800 gifted and non-gifted high-school students and examined the differences in self-concept and other psychological variables between the two groups. The study also observed the ways in which maturing gifted students form their identity. The results showed that while gifted youths have higher self-esteem in their educational achievements, they have lower self-esteem in social and physical aspects.
"Society identifies the gifted child with high intelligence and is often hasty to identify this intelligence with specific subjects, especially exact or prestigious sciences. The maturing children are quick to adopt this identity, renouncing the process of building self-identity," said Dr. Inbal Shani of the University of Haifa, who carried out this study under the supervision of Prof. Moshe Zeidner.
The researchers pointed out that as soon as students are defined as gifted, they are entered into special educational programs. This process causes them to feel that they excel in the academic field and therefore they strive to meet the expectations set for them in the programs built specially for them. This is particularly prominent in those classes that participate in intensive daily programs fostering gifted children.
"Maturing gifted students know from a very young age what their life's course will be – usually in the applied sciences. Most of them demonstrate neither deliberation nor interest in other fields, and they speak of studying in academic or military-academic tracks . . . which is of much significance in the process of self-exploration," Dr. Shani noted.
She added that it is likely that applied science tracks are adjusted for the maturing gifted, and it could be that many of these youths would have chosen them regardless of the social labeling; but the problem is that they do primarily tend to choose their professional identity based on the social expectations. "It is a paradox: It is the gifted - who are often multi-talented - who tend to limit the realization of those very talents into specific fields. Instead of selecting from many options open to them, they limit themselves to applied or prestigious subjects," she said.
Dr. Shani added that gifted youths frequently report social difficulties and the feeling that other children keep distant from them because of the gifted label, and therefore it is important to enable them – in the process of forming an identity – to relate to emotional and social characteristics, such as motivation, self-concept, and external pressures, and not only to those characteristics related to cognitive aptitude.
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Painter (not verified) | 03/03/09 | 12:25 PM
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Basically, they're saying art and music are the fallback positions for dumb kids. 'Teaching to the test' is not the culprit - clearly when the 3 r's were taught to our grandparents and nothing else they were darn smart even if they only had 8th grade educations - it's the later focus on things outside education basics that has led to a decrease in education quality.
So when you have kids teach them to have some balance. Don't let them neglect science because you didn't like how you were treated in high school.
Hank Campbell | 03/03/09 | 12:49 PM
Painter (not verified) | 03/03/09 | 13:25 PM
When college education became a 'right' and student loans got unlimited to make that right feasible (which diluted the value and spiked the cost but that's a story for another time) students had every right to wonder why they have to take courses unrelated to their future jobs at a cost that has gone so high thanks to an unlimited pool of money now available to pay for it. Newton and DaVinci and any number of others were so successful precisely because they were not hindered by two things; a job-based education and a thinking that science only gets done using huge government funding.
Baseball players and musicians both insist they can't do math, even though they are the two most obvious examples (in different areas) where what they do cannot exist without knowing math.
Hank Campbell | 03/03/09 | 13:36 PM
if this phenomenon were following some sort of mathematical trend, or if you are religious,
God has a liking for these folks. It is also interesting to note how strongly society invests
in our current crop of prodigies. Take for instance the Wall Street bankers who were so
innovative in constructing their financial instruments of mass destruction; I've read that
they were assisted by physics graduate students. Their enormous success in destroying
the economic interests of the common man and the world should be duly noted. Perhaps
something of similar magnitude can be achieved at CERN? Great intelligence, ego, and
risk taking -- didn't we get some appreciation of these attributes in The Wrath of Khan? Can't
we as a people anticipate future dangers on the basis of our current TV viewing? Fortunately, a group
of us in Montana have a well detailed action plan for dealing with our world's growing calamities;
you can read about it at: http://www.manyone.net/MonSanc/
William Blight (not verified) | 03/03/09 | 14:23 PM
