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CH tf &
" THE AVERAGE CHIL^
average
heard about the man who took the average
but stepped in and got drov/ned.
depth
oi a pone
deptft of
?
Let us consider the "outstanding" or the term commonly used by
the Educational Psychologists - The Gifted child.
Thrninphnnt history, different societies have held.various views
as
or brass^. As children they should be instructed in such subjects as
philosophy, metaphysics and science which would be beyond the ability 6
those who were destined to become soldiers or artisans.
Until well into the nineteenth century, there was little problem
few children were educated anyway. Even until World War
since so countries
including ours only the upper and middle class chil r
several --‘ ‘
class could advance to college and
and a few of the able working
_
_
democratic
As
more
ideals began to spread, educa
university education,
te Government:
uuiunwiuuu; and
in that process the
;
tion beeano the"objective of the
the
whose special needs
has
been
gifted
most suffered group in my view
have been little cared for.
There is a real difficulty in finding and agreeing on suitable
criteria for determining who are the gifted children. When we urn o
literature on the subject we find that different authors have provided
chicklists of criteria which should indicate giftedness. These cover
the period of birth, Infancy, childhood and adolscence. Even factors
such" as age at which the child was first able to sit up,.the age at
which he articulated his first recognizable word (regognizable by
someone other than his fond mother'.), the ago at which the child could
first dress himself, the ago of learning to walk,may appear on the list.
Unfortunately those lists are sometimes so long and extensive as to
cSvir the vast majority of children thereby..leading to one of two
conclusions: Either the vast majority of children have some of the . .
characteristics of the so called "gifted" and so the term "gifted '
children" loses its meaning; or there is a considerable variety in h
characteristics and growth rates of gifted children.
Fifty years a--o it was generally assumed by psychologists and
educationists that intelligence was the basic innate capac^ty.^^e
individual to 1 narn3 comprehend and reason. They sarw tnat since this
Quality was IcHeimraTly'^termilled it developed with ago irrespective
of the environment; that it reached its maximum by around 15 years and • <■
accurately by individually administered tests such as Stanford - Binet
and hence the IQ obtained in childhood gave a reliable indication of the
educational and vodational level that the person.could bo expected to
attain in his later school career and in adult life.
However by 1920's and 30's there was mounting evidence that IQs
were considerably affected by environmental differences.from the Army
Aloha Te^V-evidence gathered for example from gypsy children and other
rural children who were adopted and reated in superior foster homes. We
need not dwell here on the question of the unending controversy oyer
"Heredity or Environment" but assume that both_play a part in what we
t”erm-as""IntGlii gcnce "
Essentially, three parametas have been employed to identify the
gifted: general intelligence, special abilities and creativity, although
there is some disagreement on the relative independence of these criteri
Performance on one or more tests of general intelligence has been the
most widely used criterion of giftedness in both research and selection.
Efhcre only this criterion is used, the cut off poirfit which distinguishes
the gifted from the nori-gifted becogies an important issue. There is
some ebnsensious that IQ 140 (top .38 percent) - used by Torman in his
monumental followup study of Giften California children - should be this
cut off. But measured intelligence has many components and it is not eas
stayed constant vAtil senility set in; that it could be moasuro’d'£av
2
to identify them. Guilford's "the three
“oups^hereb^ability
thfeeiiimensionsf operations, contents
the identification of facJ?r|
factors are grouped according to three dimensions
> or
VGry,
and products^ For exampie one of tn^flve
psychological process is cogni i
standing: its contents
awppngs-s.^,-.J.ecognition^comprehen
^hG form it
could be fig_uraly Jsy^olicq six-"wavs. This three dimensional
produces can be p^ssifiod in six way . u different abilities. Howdvor
classification then will ^^120 possible diiier n
there remain many dl^GF2nces of opinion ^fj^lgent is by Butcher
sr—s 8su k
if:
mtoiii.
The recent dissatisfaction with criteria of
“
tho usual intollignoo tests ^s^Stltovo^^XkoninJallL^StSiri Jackson (1962) "Creativity and Intelligence" report on pupils
of IQ 132 described two experimental groups - one consisting of he
hi p’hlv intelligent children with low creativity test scores and the
othGr^conslstlngof relatively less intelligent children Mho scored
highly S tests of creativity. Tho highly oroatlve appeared to have a
hi eh sense of humouf 5 to_-come_fr^m __lc_ss.... ac ad,em.i^ZZamiJ.^ie^ tohold__less
conyormist values and to over-achieve in terms of th_eir__I_Q> Hddson s
(19S6)m'eaElich on 'convergent' and 'divergent' tnmking among the
revealed that the different cognxttve
(1966) lesoarcn on
&
Snes wSe related to persontlity characteristics and.that there was
o tondenev-for 'convergent' thinkers to faypur._sp_eciali_za^lo^;T-in the
sclSSs Li dlvorgoSt8thinkers to favo^po^*^ I?
The findings of another study by Wallach.-and Kovan’s (1965)
below:
classified into four combinations are summarised
l
i) High creativity - High intelligence;: These children ^xurcise within
adult-like and child-like
themselves both control and freedom, both
L_
kindd of behaviour.
ii) High creativity - Low intelligence; Those children are in.angty
-----with U™U17Zs
conflict
themselves and with their school environment and hre beset
; of worthiness _and_ inadequacy. In a stress-free context,
-’
S^crr they*
can blossom
forth cognitively.
blossom forth
they can
cognitively.
•iii) Low creativity - High intelligence^ Those children can be described
ba "a3fOmHUmd~HlUmmm'ment. Academic failure would bo conceived
by them as catastrophic, so that.they must continually strive for_acadomic excel loncQ, to avoid tho possibility of pain.
iv) Low creativity - Low intplligencei Basically bewildered, those
children ’engage in various defensive, manoeuvres ranging.from useful
adaptations such as intensive social_afi±iyltyiftQ_regro^sig^^c^s
passivity-gEPsychosomatic symptrams.
Clearly the phenomenon of creativity is central to any thinking
about the sort of education which a gifted child should receive and
tests of creativity may play their part in the process of discovering .
the nature of creativity^ but creativity cannot bo turned on to ordcr^n
a test situation because of the open-ended nature ofthese tests. Because
of "the absence of any single measure of giftodness, American programmes
for the gifted child tend to rely upon a variety of selective devices.
ffierman’d investigation has been the most ambitious longitudinal
study of tne gifted reported so far and his findings have been generally
supported by other studies conducted from 1936 to 1966;
i) There is considerable consistency between early and late performance
profiles•
- 3 ii) Iniolligencc tests predict school performance more successfully
than development in personal traits and other growth characteristics.
iii) A high IQ above docs not guarantee success; ambition.to do well 7
drive to achieve and a determination to succeed are also important.
iv) Family background appears to be a determining factor in how well a
bright child realizes his early promise.
v) Gifted children of equal ability as measured by tests show wide
divergence in personality, interests and acMevemonts
achievements as they
tney mature.
vi) Regression to the mean is to bo expected from repeated intelligence
tests of exceptional individuals.
vii) Although there are no sox differences in general intelligence in
the early years, in the teens and beyond , girls regress more ropidly
than boys. This may be duo to social factors.
The education of the Gifted:
Special provision for the gifted varies according to the idcolog’
gieal and structural characteristics of different societies. Generally
speaking, European societies have had elite secondary schools which have
been academically and socially selective. But with the process of
transformation of their secondary education into comprehensive ones,
problems have arisen regarding the gifted. However differentiation of
some kind or another occurs at certain stages in their systems. In the
German gymnasium between the ages of 13 and 16 and in the French Lycee
between 11 and 15 years. In Russia, though the basic system of education
is common and comprehensive, by end of Grade Eight (15-16 years) there
are variations of pattern to cater for the gifted. There are four
university boarding schools in Moscow, Kiev, Leningard and Novosibirsk
which cater for the gifted children from rural areas only. Recruitment
is through academic olympiads with written and oral tests.
Owing to the decentralized character of American education,
solutions to the problem of the education of the gifted have a highly
varied character. The American practices can bo classified under three
major headings: Grouping, acceleration and enrichment.
Apart from grouping the gifted in special classes for part of
their teaching^ there are a number of techniques in use which provide
for the gifted child in the regular classroom through the individuali
zation of assignments, materials and activities. Also extra curricular
activities through clubs and summer programmes are made to supplement
calss teachings This is very similar to the procedure adopted in some of
the good schools in our country.
Acceleration involves skipping of a standard what we call in our
situationfdouble promotion1 to give the child a challenge in the higher
class. The disadvantages of that are mainly associated with the social
adjustment.
Enrichment relates to any technique whereby gifted children can
study certain areas in greater depth or study additional subjects and
topics to a greater breadth,
In Britain approach to the gifted has been through streaming at
one stage or another so that the children can proceed at their own pace
in their respective groups and also by special classes for the gifted
organised in certain centres. Both these are commonly adopted in a
number of our Schools.
In_ our country,7 there
•
.
_ large scale offo.rt^
been ___
no^ specific
have
to__idontrj?y the gifted. There are no Intelligence<
the whole population, even
though^isolated efforts'^^'^^T^^up^have’
been made from time to time by individuals working for their^higher
<----degrees. For most purposes, examination
- marks
■
are~the oniy~yards"tick £ .4
- 4
selection into higher academic or vocational or
it is the basis for _
which recruitmont to various
technical course and also the basis on the good schools resort to
jobs is made. As stated before some.of measured by achievementtests’.)
streaming according to ability (again
advanced curricula:
and the children in the 'best' stream are given
’s Science Talent Sesrch_
Merit Scholarin Mathematics and Science. Tne . • •1 • •
i extent
s
of
and
Mathematics
in^dentifyinp- the gifted children atleast in areas
a3?d
recently
against
them
levelled
that
recon y
Science - inspite of the criticisms
appeared in the newspapers.
A lot more research should be done on identifying and educating
^~jts~rfforts~to progress. They may do well to take note of the
foTlowing~~remarks of latTTSir Cyril Burti
" In spite of popular prejudice, there is or there.should bo no
insuperable conflict between equality as a principle oi justice.and
inequality as a fact of genetics. In education, equal opportunity
means equal opportunity to make themost of differences that are innate.
The idoaTTFa^frce"and'Yair chance for _epITpecuIIar gifts g^Wtups
with which he is endowed - high ability if he possesses it, if no ,
wEatevor qualities of body, mind and character are latent within him.
In this way, and in this way along, can we bo^ure of realising to the
full our untapped resources of talent......
XXX2QQC
Bibliography
Abraham, W (1958): Commonsense about gifted children.New fork:
1.
iwj.diio.Lu,
2.
3.
4.
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Harper, Row
k
Education of exceptional
Birch, J W and Reynolds M.C. (1963): children
(Rev.Ed.Res 33)
Branch, M and Cash,A(1966):Gifted children.London:Souvenir Press
Bridges S.A.(1973): IQ-150.London: Priory Press.
Burt,0 11961): The gifted chlld(Brit.J.Stat.Psych 14)
S'
R.F and Havlghur3t>P.J<1961) = EBauStlgogirtodnOhild/oniot
Press)
C(1958): Acceleration of the giftod.(Giftod child Quarterl.
9. Elwood,
10 Freehill, M.F(1961): Gifted children: their psychology and educatic
10. ireenui,
Ngw york. Macmillan
11. Branch, J L(ed) (1959): Educating the gifted: a book of readings.
New York: Holt,Rinehart, Winston
P.W(1962):
Creativity and intolligency
12. Getzels, J.W. and Jackson,
New Y(--rk: Wiley
(American.
13.Guilford9 J.P.(1959): The three faces of intellect.Psychologists)
14.Laycock, S.R. (1957): Gifted children: a hand book for the classroon
J
teacher. Toronto: Copp-61ark
etel
(1965):
Genetic
L.M.
studies of genius Vol I:
15. Terman,
mental and physical traits of a thousand gifted
children: Stanford University Press
----;
Creativity:What
research says to the teacher
16. Torrance<;E»P. (1968):
Washington D.C: American Education Research Assn.
17. Vernon, P.E. (3964): Creativity and intelligence (Ed.Res.6)
18. Wallach M.A. and Kogan , N(1965): M/odos of thinking in young
children. New York: Holt Rinehart,Winston.
•.x.•.
25 Fob.1979
Bangalore. .
A.T.BALRAJ
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