EDFD MATTER: Gift and high ability

           I’m writing this for those who are interested in the phenomenon of giftedness, but I’m confining this post to problems that could be answered with commonsense. What would count as a good educational program for gifted children? What kind of education, and hence, school, is good for a gifted child? How should adult teachers deal with gifted students? What should the teacher do if a parent thinks his/her child is gifted? This type of questions generate inconsistent or conflicting answers, which, of course, are not without problems, inside and outside the cyberspace. I may likewise not be able to give satisfactory answers to such questions, but I hope my thoughts will help teachers and parents gain better understanding of giftedness, gifted children, and gifted education.

I always find myself gravitating toward the idea of gifted education as very little is known about it up to this date. While equally small in population, gifted children are probably less understood than those with developmental disorders (e.g., down syndrome) and learning disabilities (e.g., dyslexia). Being not a medical case, the knowledge that has been generated about the phenomenon of giftedness explains why it’s nearly an alien thing in the sphere of medicine. Ironically, even if giftedness has been around since before the birth of Jesus Christ, it remains a rare and delicate orchid that could go to waste if left unattended. 

What is giftedness?

            Answers to this problem come from different convictions or assumptions. Whether giftedness is something we are born with or it’s one of performance is an issue for which a widely acceptable answer remains elusive. I believe, however, that giftedness, though it defies total scientific demystification, is nothing ghostly in the wider context of world pool of knowledge.

If one is gifted, is it then the case that his/her gift is something he/she is born with? To be gifted, for me, is simply to be born with the required (i.e., normal) faculty that could be used to advance one’s learning and achieve extraordinary mastery in one or various areas of human activity. While genetics seems to be central to this sense of giftedness, gift is nothing but a simple potential to get one’s level of functioning to surpass the highest level of mainstream’s performance in certain activities. One’s gift or endowment could be in the area of cognition, athletics, social relations, arts, practical living, etc.

One’s gift, if inappropriately cultivated, could barely be translated into something optimally useful. Gifted humans then are born, but great men and women, those with extraordinary talents and skills, are made. 
Neglect of one's gift may also have catastrophic effects on the life of the gifted. I need not say more about this.

            Elsewhere, I had addressed the matter on the content and arrangement of home environment of pre-school-aged children who have the potential to advance their learning in various areas of study or activity. 
            For now, I’d like to focus on what might having a gift means.

Gift (as a real potential) and high ability: Are they the same?

            I think the expression “gift” and its cognates, in the same linguistic context, are more ambiguous than the expression “high ability.”

Consider the following:

1.         High ability is what one has and is manifested in what he/she does. In the absence of relevant action, high ability could not be assumed.

2.         High ability is something we cannot see, smell, touch, and so on; we infer high ability from a certain act. In the absence of an act, we cannot posit the presence of high ability.

2.1       One’s mathematical ability is discerned by means of analyzing one’s performance in math test, for instance. Again, ability--high, average, or low--could not be sensed, but it is indicated by what we may witness.

3.         Compared with high ability, gift, in its potential sense, is more nebulous in meaning.

4.         The presence of gift, in its potential sense, may be assumed in the absence of abnormality. Action may not be required to say that one has a gift or is endowed with a certain potential.

5.         Gift, as a potential, is broader in scope in that it applies--granting there is no abnormality--even to those who are not yet highly capable of engaging in activities like reading, writing, and doing arithmetic.
6.          Many people are gifted (with the potential to acquire certain skills and maximize the development of their talents), but only few are capable of high-ability performance in certain areas of human activity. 
7.         Gifted people may not be capable of high-ability performance, but those capable of high-ability performance must be gifted.
8.         It seems thus that high ability performance is nobler than just having a gift, i.e., potential.
8.1      This is not to suggest that high ability is more important than having a gift. Whether one is more important than the other is not an issue here.