Is "gifted" and "smart" overused?

[Vex]

I went to a primary school where being gifted and having a high IQ was the norm. If you weren't brilliant at everything you were nothing. When I was 7 I had to be tested because my teacher insisted I was "retarded" (her term, not mine) but what my test results showed was that I had a high IQ, had far above average language skills and my (slightly) below average maths skills were a result of a lack of confidence rather than intelligence. That's how smart most of the kids were - I was slightly below average at maths and the teacher thought I was learning impaired. Most of my friends were the children of at least one doctor, often both their parents were medical doctors or PhDs.

I ended up doing well enough once I got out of that environment, but it can really hurt kids to not recognise their talents when they actually have them. I do agree that 'gifted' is thrown around way too much, and when kids are genuinely gifted a lot of parents endlessly brag and it is insufferable.

[August]

Yep. Another educator here. In my entire teaching career (7 years) I can honestly say that I have taught one child who I believe was gifted. One. Out of hundreds. There were many, many bright kids. Many above average kids. But only one that I would label gifted.

At the same time, this year, I'm teaching siblings Math in two different grades. These kids are undoubtedly bright kids. They do well and they catch on quick. But that's it. These siblings are absorbing what I am saying and are able to give it back to me. My gifted student was able to take what I said, analyse it and figure out different applications for it. Instead of just giving it back to me, she was figuring out her own ways to use it. That's where I see the difference between bright and gifted.

holy crap, how bad is your district???? If your students were representative of the general population you would have had at least a dozen (assuming hundreds means two hundred kids). We can't all live in Los Alamos or Palo Alto, but wow, that's amazing.

[Feberin]

You should read this.

http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/14/scien ... -says.html

And this

http://www.alfiekohn.org/parenting/gj.htm

It's not as toxic as telling them they're smart, but it's still something you want to think about. If one of my kids does something like correctly identifying a letter and I feel the need to comment I would say "hey, you recognised the X!" or "yeah, it makes the x sound, doesn't it?". They want you to be involved and interested and you show that more with a warm and enthusiastic tone of voice combined with a really relevant comment. Imagine you show your partner a new (whatever, craft, outfit, report) and they glance up and down again and say "that's great, honey". Or they glance up and down again and say "Is that that shirt you got last week/ your stitches are really tiny/why did you mention the GDP of Bolivia?".

Thank you for posting. I'll try to praise him for effort more then intelligence. And I don't throw the compliments out without paying attention to what he is actually doing at the time. Most of the time it is when we are working together on something like a puzzle or reading a book and my attention is focused on him. There is also only so much one can say about a correctly identified letter.

[mockingbird]

I ended up doing well enough once I got out of that environment, but it can really hurt kids to not recognise their talents when they actually have them. I do agree that 'gifted' is thrown around way too much, and when kids are genuinely gifted a lot of parents endlessly brag and it is insufferable.

I agree with this.

I don't think there's anything wrong with "gifted" programs or honors classes, per se - I'd say they are probably necessary because all kids need an environment that supports and challenges them. So we need honors opportunities just as much as we need special ed. I also agree with you and another poster who talked about too much pressure on gifted kids. I wonder if internal pressure is just a common thing with gifted kids? Or if that's more of an environmental or parental thing? I think my parents did a good job of *mostly* focusing on praising effort, but I did get some of the "you've made A's before, why didn't you get an A on this test?" type thing. I am not really competitive with other people, but I am "competitive" with myself and can put a lot of pressure on myself to succeed. It is hard for me to admit that it's okay to take time off and not be studying/doing SOMETHING 24/7. I was never in anything like the situation you described, but I definitely have "perfectionistic" tendencies.

I just don't like the whole "special snowflake" thing (I don't think falsely building up kids' self-esteem helps them, and the bragging is annoying) and the competition around being gifted. Maybe I am just speaking from bias as I was in "gifted" type programs and classes so I don't know what it's like NOT to be in those classes, but I don't think there's anything wrong with being "average". It's not like that is going to hamper you from success later in life at getting a job or going to college or having a family or whatever you want to do. And like another poster said, everyone is good at something. If it's not academics maybe you are good with athletics or music or social skills or what have you.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

I think the dangerous thing is for a kid to have such a great "record" that he's afraid to try anything new for fear of messing it up or having someone see him not being stellar at everything all the time. Really, you can't learn anything without taking some risks.

Surely that's the psychology going on with the "smart" group of kids in that NYTimes article, they see the hard test and worry it shows they're not "smart," while the control kids don't have that problem (regardless of how "smart" anyone is, just mentioning the two groups).

[Vex]

I wonder if internal pressure is just a common thing with gifted kids? Or if that's more of an environmental or parental thing? I think my parents did a good job of *mostly* focusing on praising effort, but I did get some of the "you've made A's before, why didn't you get an A on this test?" type thing. I am not really competitive with other people, but I am "competitive" with myself and can put a lot of pressure on myself to succeed. It is hard for me to admit that it's okay to take time off and not be studying/doing SOMETHING 24/7. I was never in anything like the situation you described, but I definitely have "perfectionistic" tendencies.

I never had that pressure on me, but I certainly had friends who did. The same friends I mentioned who were the children of doctors (and lawyers and professors etc). Their parents were brilliant and they had to be too. Their parents would put so much pressure on them, and the teachers would sometimes exacerbate the issue with their excessive praise and by telling the other students how much of a genius/role model those super smart kids were. I remember in our two graduating primary school classed in the year I graduated, 85% of the kids graduating were offered academic scholarships to one or more (private) high schools.

The damage that place did to me and the other kids like me who were nothing special was really severe. One of my friends desperately wanted to be an air force pilot and was put off it forever by our year 7 teacher, who openly ridiculed his maths skills in front of the entire class. My self-confidence was badly damaged and it effected me well into my twenties, to the point where when I got into the honour society of my university in my first semester I called them to ask if they'd made a mistake.

So either way is very very damaging. One friend of mine who was under parental pressure to perform and had enormous expectation placed upon her shoulders by her instructors (she was an exceptionally talented dancer) wound up having a total breakdown.

Because she felt she could never be the person her mother and teachers wanted to be she ended up dating an abusive dickhead who told her to her face she was never going to succeed. She told me that at least he told her the truth to her face, and it was such a relief to be with someone who didn't expect anything from her. She turned down a scholarship to a prestigious ballet school in France, got into drugs and last I heard was a stripper in an extremely seedy place.

[YPestis]

No, it's the term used the top roughly 5% of the population. That's not rare, it's 1 in 20. In some places it's even the top 10%. And, in certain schools you'll easily have a classroom's worth per grade, whether it's because of local employers or socioeconomics. You're confusing "genius" with "gifted".

(BTW, I also saw that study you pointed out in the NYTimes, and I think it proves that empty praise is just as damaging as insults and belittling)

I do not believe I'm confusing gifted with genius. From what I've read, the term "gifted" is anywhere from 2-5% of the population, although there appears to be no agreed upon stance. Your reasoning that it's dependent on the socioeconomic causes of gifted is one reason I feel it's misused. Gifted implies an intrinsic ability, not something that can be truly changed, although early childhood education does contribute to positive brain growth. I think there is confusion between "gifted" with "well-prepared".

A gifted child may process information quicker or show more mature growth, not because their parents taught them to add and read from a young age. In China, it is common for 6 year olds to do double digit arithmetic and know their multiplication table, to know their ABCs, to read at the 2nd grade readers. In the US, I"ve heard some people consider that "smart" or "gifted" when it is really just parents pushing their kids. Those kids weren't gifted, merely well prepared.

I don't think a person's job or economic status in this country will substantially increase the intrinsic intelligence of a significant number of it's populace (i.e having gifted students jump from 2-10%). Babies react pretty well to proper nutrition and stimulation. Most kids get that regardless of the education and income of their parents. I don't think they jump from average to gifted because they listened to baby Mozart and had books read to them. Severe deprivation will stunt a person's growth, however, but that doesn't work as well going the other way (i.e kids becoming super smart because they were overly stimulated).

Furthermore, even if someone is gifted in one area, it doesn't always translate to academic intelligence. Given a gifted population of 5%, that doesn't translate to 5% of the population able to grasp advanced coursework that currently counts as "gifted" education.

For what it's worth, my SO was IQ tested at the request of his teacher in grade school and his score was "off the charts". Evidently, the teachers told his mom he was a 'genius'. He did well in his gifted school, in high school, college and med school. However, to this day, he laughs at the 'genius' label and even the 'gifted' label. He considers himself smart, nothing more. In med school, we've both met some honkin' smart people. If the kids in our 'gifted' classes were truly 'gifted', then does that mean universities are stuffed with mini-Einsteins?

It's one more reason I am reluctant to label a big portion of the population as "gifted" or "smart". Top 5% of the household income is about $200k in this country. How common is that? I've certainly heard "gifted" used more than I've met people who make over $200k.

[2xx1xy1JD]

You'd love Wendy Mogel's book "The Blessings of a B Minus". She's a child psychologist who noticed that she had tons of parents who seemed to crave labels for their children, and who never wanted to hear "your child is normal".

To a certain extent, I'll agree with Gardenvarietycitizen that gifted children may end up doing better because of more attention, more resources, etc.

My oldest child goes to a school that divides kids into high, average and low streams for half of their subjects, but not for the other half. Her grades are higher in the subjects for which she is streamed (she's in the high class), even though the work is slightly harder. The teachers love having the high class, and it shows. The level of class discussion is higher. In the non-streamed classes, the teacher deals with kids of all abilities, including kids who need extra help or modifications. It's sort of an interesting, accidental experiment, because it show that the placement itself makes a difference.

I would also agree that effort and ambition can be even more important than just raw intelligence. I was the kid who coasted along on being smart - and then got a shock when I finally got to the point that I had to really study and work, because I wasn't used to it. My husband, OTOH, is reasonably intelligent but his main asset is the fact that he is very driven and hard-working. Ultimately, that's what makes him successful (more successful than me). Oldest child takes after him - she studies HARD for exams, has assignments and tests all mapped out on her calendar, and really works. Middle child is a bit more like me - she's likely gifted and seems to get perfect grades without any effort. She doesn't need to study, so she hasn't developed study skills.

OTOH, my kids really don't do as well if they are not challenged, and my middle child in particular does not do well with teachers who are very rigid and who don't treat children as if they are mature. Middle Child has always been an adult trapped in the body of a child, and HATES to be treated like a little kid. The grade 1 teacher who had a thick rule book and who used to insist that kids wear heavy winter coats regardless of whether they felt cold was a complete mismatch for her.

[Morton Fan]

It seems that lots of posters seem to agree with the original poster ... but don't fail to mention how smart they, their children, or their spouse is. :)

I'm average, as is my husband, and most likely as are our two arrows. Fret not, we're gainfully employed and succeeding, albeit averagely, in life.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Thing is though - I think ALL kids don't do as well if they're not challenged, whether they are learning faster than the middle group OR slower than the middle group. Kids need to have a challenge, have it assessed intelligently, do projects involving problem-solving and design (not just multiple choice tests out of a can), get feedback on their creativity, and be praised for solving problems so they're excited to take on a challenge - WHATEVER their current challenge level might be.

But too often, those things are reserved for the "gifted" kids. It's not just that the level of the class is different, the entire quality of the class is different. The children are treated differently, too.

Meanwhile I'm also kinda amused at how many people (at least on mommy blogs) seem to think it's some sort of amazing thing that a kid reads earlier than average. Is it a good thing? Sure. Hopefully the kid learns to love reading, too. (Plus the earlier a kid can read, the earlier a kid can amuse HIMSELF!!! says this lazy babysitter.) But the thing is, the other kids DO catch up. By the time we're all 20, no one really cares who learned to read at 3 and who waited until they started school at 7.

As for praising kids, in my experience in school and at home the praise was for what we DID "wow you did it" "wow you solved it" "wow you worked hard at that" or "that was some good insight!" but not so much "wow you're smart."

[Blahblah]

I believe that some kids may have a gift, a talent, a freaky ability in one or two areas. This does not make them gifted. People who refer to their child as gifted seem to want you to believe that the child is a superstar at everything they touch.

My oldest is extremely, scarily good at Maths. (yes it's Maths in Aus, not Math). His teachers just keep challenging him by giving him more work, different work, more challenges. They also ask him to tutor his peers in Maths which is making him think about how he thinks so that he can relay his methods to the other kids.

But that's only Maths. Comes to sport, languages, hand writing he's just average.

So I certainly don't call him gifted. He has an inexplicable, genuine talent for Maths. His brain is just hard wired for numbers it seems. And his particular school deals well with that. All the kids are in class together -no gifted class, no struggling class. The teachers teach to the average student, push those along who can cope and support those who can't. And in the main, it works.

[August]

It seems that lots of posters seem to agree with the original poster ... but don't fail to mention how smart they, their children, or their spouse is. :)

I'm average, as is my husband, and most likely as are our two arrows. Fret not, we're gainfully employed and succeeding, albeit averagely, in life.

Well, we're all geniuses, but I didn't want to make you feel bad ;)

[August]

YPestis, whether you like it or not, there is a definition of the word gifted, and it doesn't change depending on what you or I or some chick who's coached her child to read before they're ready wants it to mean. It's defined by whatever school your child attends as some score over a certain amount on whatever measure they choose to use. And although you disagree, that never means that only those higher than 99.99% qualify (I had an almost in there, but I took it out because I can't think of any at all who put the cutoff that high). In New York, being in the top 10% of scores on the OLSAT means you're gifted. If you're at 93% and attend school somewhere else you probably won't be gifted. It's like creationists insisting evolution's just a theory.

There is a definite correlation between socioeconomic status and IQ, and there's a correlation between certain jobs and IQ. Sure, lots of smart people don't earn tons of money and lots of stupid coughbankerscough people earn tons of money, but there's a correlation. There are fewer stupid phds than stupid bankers, though. And since IQ is genetic, the children of smart people are also smart. So ifyou have a town with lots of smart adults for whatever reason, whether it's high property prices (damned bankers) or a research facility like Los Alamos there will be more smart kids in the schools.

[August]

Thank you for posting. I'll try to praise him for effort more then intelligence. And I don't throw the compliments out without paying attention to what he is actually doing at the time. Most of the time it is when we are working together on something like a puzzle or reading a book and my attention is focused on him. There is also only so much one can say about a correctly identified letter.

You'll be amazed how many people still do it even when we know it's harmful (I find it creepy, too, but I think I'm in the minority). I've had to talk to every teacher my kids have had about it, including preschool teachers.

[jaynie]

This seems sort of vaguely related to the fact that almost everyone defines intelligence in a way that flatters them. "Of course I'm intelligent! I'm very good at communicating with people!" or "Of course I'm intelligent! I don't fall for political propaganda!" "Of course I'm intelligent! I've got a PhD in string theory!" (Ok, that last one might be indisputable).

So maybe parents are going "Of course my child is gifted! She knew 300 words by the age of 2!*" or "Of course my child is gifted! He's in the nth percentile for Maths scores in our county" or "Of course my child is gifted! She knows better than to fall for feminism and evul librul marxism!" They're defining gifted in a way that flatters their child. I don't even know how you could avoid this -- every time I try to come up with a definition for intelligence, for example, I go around in circles and end up focusing on the traits I value (which, because I value them, are high in myself and in my social circle).

Me, I was an all rounder, mostly, with above-average talent in some areas. Maybe some parents would have called me gifted. My parents just told me I could do anything I set my mind to, as long as I worked at it. I think that's probably better, because it acknowledges that success requires more than just innate ability. A scientifically curious child who never picks up a science textbook is not going to cure cancer, no matter how much praise his parents heap on his special ability.

*Note: I have no idea if that's above average or not. It's rather besides the point, really.

August:And since IQ is genetic, the children of smart people are also smart.

Just a little quibble here. IQ is almost certainly partly genetic, but I haven't come across anyone recently who thinks it is entirely so. The textbook I have open next to me cites it as being about half genetic and half environmental. The children of smart people are not inherently smart themselves, as you seem to imply.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Indeed, reading about the history of the IQ test is fascinating.

[boysmom]

Generally the top 5% would be considered gifted. Being above average is the top 14%, probably lots of "smart" kids in there who aren't actually gifted, but do very well in school. The bottom line is that all IQ does, and all it was designed to do, was predict school performance. It doesn't measure things like artistic ability or interpersonal skills at all. Those can be important to life success.

I don't think I agree that the gifted classes get the most resources, if anything, it's the special ed classes. They have a much lower teacher/student ratio for one. That being said, I don't think that many of us are hoping our kids end up there because they "get more resources." From what I've seem, gifted/advanced/AP classes just speed kids through things and don't' really take them into more depth on the subject, which is what I think an advanced class should be, helping the kids to think critically and pursue a subject further. I was in the "honors" courses (as my school called them) in high school and I didn't think they did much for me aside from allow me to take Calculus in high school.

[August]

It's hard to measure intelligence, though. I just get annoyed trying to read papers about it. IQ is just a measure of how common a particular set of subtest scores are, and I don't have the interest to exhaustively search the literature. I'm more of a three paragraph summary in New Scientist girl. Can you link to a current review? I think this was the study I was thinkng of

http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/20 ... restraint/

[Wolfie]

It seems that lots of posters seem to agree with the original poster ... but don't fail to mention how smart they, their children, or their spouse is. :)

I'm average, as is my husband, and most likely as are our two arrows. Fret not, we're gainfully employed and succeeding, albeit averagely, in life.

Well, I was kind of thinking about that. My brother and I were both identified as Gifted in early elementary school, through testing and the like. By the time we hit high school he was a National Merit Scholar, I was a National Merit Commended student. He was the student that all teachers loved having in their classrooms, me on the other hand, well I am ADHD, and even showed some Autistic behaviors when I was younger.... My sister is smart, and she's gifted in art, but she got her good grades by working hard, not because it was easy for her. We were a truly lucky family and our IQ scores show that. And I do think my sister had it hard after my brother and I. I had it hard enough being my brother's sister and compared to him. My parents were very careful to not let us think that we were anything special, and I didn't even realize how uncommon the National Merit honors were until I was a few years into undergrad.

As a teacher, I've had some very bright students and a handful of students who strike me as gifted, but most students are average.

[Rosa]

in way too many schools, the "gifted" classes or tracked classes are just a way to re-segregate. It was really notable where I went to high school, how racially segregated the tracks were.

I saw so many negative effects of the gifted label, I would avoid it at nearly all costs for my child. I was in the generation that was labeled TAG/Gifted and told we were smart and then offered no coping skills for when we hit the level we had to expend more effort at - most of the kids i was in gifted classes with crashed and burned at some point, whether it was college, grad school, or the professional world - if you keep progressing, you are eventually going to get to the point where you're not above average in the company you keep. We chose the Montessori school largely because it was the only one close to us that does NOT track. Kids get to work at their own level and most of them have very strong areas and weaker ones.

That said, skills for school are not the same as skills for the rest of life. I'm really excellent at standardized tests but that's not the world's most useful skill once i got out of school. In early elementary, when most of the "gifted" diagnosing is going on, the results of more- and less- school oriented early childhood experience are still very visible. Some kids come in already reading (one in my son's classroom was reading fluently in two languages at the start of first grade) and some come in with a shaky grasp of phonetics.

My son looks to be seriously above-average in math (not surprising; his dad is ridiculously good at math) and they manage to keep him engaged at a challenging level there but also work on his social skills issues and force him to engage in work he finds harder and less rewarding, like handwriting and reading fiction.

There has to be a balance between exploring kids strengths and shoring up their weaknesses, along with giving them the experience of supported struggle so they develop resilience. It's terrible to see smart kids skate by without ever having to address their weaknesses or develop grit and good habits, until one day they have a harder obstacle and it trips them up.

[Vex]

I for one am happy to be average. If I work hard I can do well in certain areas but that sure as heck doesn't make me gifted, and I will never ever be anything other than below average in maths. I would not want to be a kiddie genius for anything. I've seen expectations laid upon gifted students ruin them as much as I've seen a lack of praise stunt people and the only conclusion I can draw is that the middle of the road is not an undesirable place to be.

If I ever have kids, I hope they are just normal, happy, regular children. I'm sure I'd brag about them, but I hope that never becomes a special snowflake delusion.

[Anise]

Everyone likes to be special.

But for me, it was the opposite; I was never told that I was smart (or pretty for that matter) when I was growing up. It never occurred to me whether I was or not.

I did really well on my standardized tests (National Merit commendation), which was a surprise to everyone. But I don't consider myself gifted or very especially intelligent- maybe slightly above average.

[Itsnotaclowncar]

The honors program in my high school was the top 15%. You needed grades plus a teacher recommendation to be put in while in middle school and then it was just grades to get and stay in while in high school. By sophomore year of high school the bright but unwilling to work were moved down and average but hardworking moved up.

We had fewer resources than the other tracks, there were a number of field trips that only the honors classes were left out of, larger class sizes, older textbooks, and significantly less guidance office support (and the college advising was absolutely abysmal). The services my fiance received as an average student at his much wealthier upper middle class high school were all directed toward getting into college whereas I only had one college talk and there was a lot of pressure to go into the vocational program.

I really believe in tracking, I had a few mixed classes and it was painful and frustrating for everyone involved. My french teacher was a horrible person and would have us compete with each other in front of the class. It was really unfair when she would put the honors kids against some of the below average kids and their grades would be shot. Public education teaches to the average and anything that can narrow it down is helpful.

Getting into and staying in the honors program was a really big deal, it was something to use to sell yourself to college admissions. I know I wouldn't have gotten the financial aid offers I did had I not been in the program, which probably would have meant no college for me and it did mean that for a number of my more average friends who are still struggling to pay their way through 8 years after high school graduation.

[miffy]

I did two IQ tests when I was younger, one was to get into a class at a private school for above average students with erm, problems staying focused....(the class was called Multi Age Class, no mention of gifted!) & I have no idea why I did the other one. I scored high enough to become a member of MENSA on both tests. My sister never did one, but she is much more intelligent than I am. Our mother is a teacher & hates/hated the 'gifted' thing & scoffs at people who refer to their children as that.

One of my close friends is probably the most average of the circle, yet she has 2 bachelors degrees, a grad dip, got an amazing grad job & is studying law part time after work all by the age of 26. Her success is down to HARD work & determination.

Being too smart & a bit lazy makes it really easy to get through school without putting in much effort or developing any study skills. The way I research & write essays is terrible.

[bluelady]

holy crap, how bad is your district???? If your students were representative of the general population you would have had at least a dozen (assuming hundreds means two hundred kids). We can't all live in Los Alamos or Palo Alto, but wow, that's amazing.

I've worked in 3 separate districts over my career and they were all quite good. I think it's a difference in education systems more than anything else. We don't have "gifted" programs. Nor do we have SPED programs. We offer our "special ed" kids the resources they need without the label. I currently teach in a school of 500. I believe that only 3 of our students are needy enough to not be integrated into a regular classroom in some way, shape or form. At the same time, we do offer AP programs in the Sciences, Math, English and French, and most of our top performers do take those classes. But they are not labeled as "gifted kids". They're just kids taking AP. Last year, 3 universities offered on of our kids full-ride scholarships. All he had to do was choose. The word "gifted" never came up.

And, maybe a lot of it has to do with my own interpretation of the word gifted. I'm teaching Grade 9 math at the moment. I have 14 kids in that class. Four of them have grades in the 90s. Only one is failing. Of the other 9, their grades are in the 70s and 80s. I have smart kids. I know this. But none of them can show me the cognitive processes I would need to see in order (for me) to label them as gifted. Smart? Yep. Able to take AP courses? Most of them. Gifted. Probably not.

For me, gifted needs to be more than taking what I've taught them and spitting it back at me. In my mind, if you've listened well, done the work I've assigned and studied, you should be able to perform well on the test. With a smidgen of problem-solving skills and the ability to inference, you should be able to do very well. That's not gifted, to me. The one student I believe was gifted was taking what I taught and anticipating what else could be done with it. She would come up with her own problems, ones that were well beyond what I was asking them to do, solve them and then come to me to ask me if she had done it right. It was like she knew what I was going to say before I said it. To me, that is gifted. If I teach you to find the area of a cone, and then you can find the area of a cone, that's not gifted - that's learning.

And, in the spirit of full-disclosure - I graduated high school in the top 10% of my class. I got two scholarships to university and entered an Engineering program. And promptly flunked out. Two years later, I went back to university and finished an Honours program (albeit not in Engineering) on the Dean's list. After that, I was accepted to a very competitive Education program (I was one of 60 chosen from 600 applicants). I think I'm smart, but I wouldn't consider myself gifted.