Reflection

At this point, we are going to take a moment to consider how this impacts on our learning and teaching principles and strategies.

As teachers it is about inspiring an investment in ENERGY.

It is about supporting students to develop GRIT.

Consider the book:

Consider the work of James Nottingham; as a starting point, Ready Fire Aim and The Learning Pit.

Ready, fire, aim James Nottingham – YouTube

James Nottingham’s Learning Challenge (Learning Pit) animation – Bing video

Now we have briefly looked at Gifts, Talents and Intrapersonal Catalysts now also consider the following:

Students must have confidence in their abilities and they must accept and value their gifts. Sometimes teachers confuse conceit, which we naturally want children to avoid, with a healthy pride in one’s abilities, which is an essential constituent of self-esteem. Gifted students must learn to feel good about being gifted.

Organisation is important, too. The capacity to get organised and stay organised is essential for success regardless of the domain in which the gift is sited.

Gagné describes concentration as the capacity to shut out external stimuli and keep working on essential tasks for as long as it takes to complete them. Students to whom learning has come easily in the early years may not have had to develop the skills of concentration.

The optimum state of performance has been coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi who was the pioneering co-founder of the field of positive psychology. Known to many as the “father of flow”.

Flow Theory – Bing video

How do you encourage an environment to support students in achieving ‘flow’?

Environmental catalysts

Teachers are very aware of environmental factors which impact positively or negatively on the learning process. These may include:

• The milieu or surroundings in which the child lives and learns. This can include family issues such as family size, family economic circumstances and family attitude towards education or towards the child’s gifts. However, it also includes the presence or absence of learning resources; for example, a student talented in sport but living in a small country centre may not have access to high level training.

• Consider also Differentiation – specifically – the Learning Environment. (insert from PowerPoint on Differentiation – pages 6 – 10)

• Significant persons – parents, siblings, teachers, other students, school leaders, community leaders – who encourage, discourage, or are neutral towards talent development. (Passivity – apathy or lack of interest in the student’s talents – can sometimes be as negative as active opposition.)

• The provisions the school makes, or fails to make, to develop the student’s gifts into talents, and even the social ethos of the community which can dictate which talents are valued and, therefore, which programs of talent development will be established or funded. A supportive school environment can enhance not only the child’s likelihood of academic success, but also the development of a strong and healthy personality.

• Significant events in the family or community – for example, the death of a parent or a family breakup, winning a prize or award, suffering an accident or major illness, or finding the right teacher at the right time – can significantly influence the course of a student’s journey from giftedness to talent.

Within the Gagné model, the school and community’s responsibility is to seek out students who are gifted but not yet talented and assist them to develop their abilities into achievements, as well as recognising and further assisting those talented students who are already performing at high levels.

For this to happen, the school must identify positive personal and environmental catalysts and harness them to assist the talent development process. Equally, however, the school must work to lessen or remove negative personal and environmental catalysts which may be hampering the gifted student’s progress towards talent.

Gagné points out that chance can have a significant influence on talent development. Children have no control over the socio-economic status of the family they are raised in, and usually they have little control over their school’s attitude to gifted education. However, teachers and schools enhance the student’s ‘chance’ of success. A gifted student is more likely to develop habits of motivation and perseverance if the work she is presented with is engaging, challenging and set at her ability level. There is less ‘chance’ of a gifted student camouflaging his abilities for peer acceptance if the class climate encourages academic talent.

Each Australian state or territory has a published policy on the education of gifted and talented students. In every case, these policies are congruent with the Gagné model – indeed some states, such as New South Wales and Western Australia have formally adopted the Gagné model.

What abilities are valued within Australia?

Australia is a nation rich in cultural diversity. Different abilities and achievements are valued by different cultures. Some cultures value creative gifts, or aptitude for social relationships, more than academic gifts. Other cultures value academic ability very highly.

What abilities are valued by the communities served by your school? What abilities are less valued? What impact could this have on the gifts that a community will allow to be fostered into talents and the gifts that will be allowed to lie dormant?