Gifted and Talented Underachievers

It was hard to choose a path to take with this topic. As I look around the shed, I am pretty sure I can spot a couple of twice exceptional folk at least. Thinking of Tristan in particular, his knowledge and interests have little to no relevance to his schooling. There are only so many subjects that look at Finnish snipers of WWII. One of Bron's clients, is a young man who's profound ASD covers the brilliant mind from all but the most observant.

Instead of 2E, I have stuck with my own domain. Even if the 10% figure proclaimed by Gagne is off, say 5% of the community is likely to be gifted, that is still 5 or 6 students in my classes each year. As I researched and wrote the post, names kept jumping out at me. Anyway, here it is.

Gifted & talented topic 3: Under achievement
“80% of pupils underachieved a large part of the time… underachieving by at least one standard deviation”(Montgomery, 2009). Before we even consider gifted and talented, this statistic is frightening enough. Therefore, I am wondering how we are to readily find the invisible underachievers. This leads straight to another question, known as the forced choice dilemma: ‘do I fit in or do I let my gifts show?’

Simply watching the reaction of year nine students as they, or their peers, receive awards on parade – assembly south of the border – tells me that this social dilemma is very real and active. Gifted or not. A student I know quite well received a behaviour and effort award last week. As she walked up to receive the award, with a number of other students, her peer group giggled and she looked incredibly embarrassed, double folding the award as soon as it was in her hands as if covering up the evidence. Gifted students are just as likely, if not more so, to want to hide.

If talent is not valued by the peer culture, the potential and/or interests are likely to be hidden “behind a talent mask”(Bannister-Tyrrell, Merrotsy, Jones, & Gunn, 2016), though there are some that have found ways to get past the mask. While away from my realm of influence as a teacher, the Wii Gaay project (Merrostsy, 2006) – targeted at indigenous year three students – leads to a relaxed learning environment with a focus on “intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy enhancement.” The program is holistic in nature and success is ensured through “scaffolding and supported by performance and attributional feedback.” The holistic nature of the program is a key factor. Whether gifted or not, students succeed where they feel safe and comfortable. Though sometimes even this is not enough for students to make the leap.

Another year nine student I have taught spent most of the year doing the bare minimum to get by in English. In term three, a peer was moved to another class and another started spending more and more time away from school. She is more or less an outsider with the rest of the class. Her term three assessment was wonderful; the first A she had achieved in a long time. At the start of term four, she was still flying. Her contributions to classroom conversations were exceptional, leading the class in a lot of ways. She started the assessment well ahead of the majority of the class and I was expecting something special. Then came ‘I don’t know what to write’. Her planning was complete, the ideas within showing excellent analysis. In the end, she reverted to the bare minimum. Despite the support, the conversations, the scaffolding, she believes that term 3 was an outlier.

Self-efficacy is another of the key factors (Chaffey, Bailey, & Vine, 2003). The power of the mind to limit its own ability is profound. This is just one of the reasons why, when addressing underachievement, the intervention must be: long term and holistic, involve the school and the community, and address cognitive and affective development (Bannister-Tyrrell, Merrotsy, Jones, & Gunn, 2016). The time and energy must be spent ensuring that our school systems build students up. This needs to start in the individual teacher’s classroom, particularly when the system is not up to the job.

So what can the teacher control? Thankfully, there are many things. A student’s sense of comfort and order has a primary role in their ability to learn (Marzano & Pickering, 1997). Teacher/student relationships go a long way in developing this comfort. I am privileged to witness some wonderful teachers, of various teaching styles, build excellent relationships with students that others look past or even burn through. I like to think that the relationships – comfort – part of the equation is a pro within my skillset. The order is less so. The bit that I think we all struggle with is finding the student’s motivation.

Motivation needs to overcome intrinsic barriers. If we could just bribe our students to success, teaching would be a lot easier. I found this particularly insightful: “extrinsic rewards such as gifts and prizes actually caused a decline in motivation to learn” (Montgomery, 2009). I know a number of parents who pay for A’s. Positive support and self-directed creative work increases intrinsic motivation in the gifted learner and I dare say students in general. Montgomery highlights that when “challenging questioning, problem based learning and thinking skills are promoted” gifted students, and their peers, are more able to be engaged and motivated, forming an extrinsic factor within the teacher’s control. I will be reading more of her book, Able Gifted and Talented Underachievers, over the next few weeks.

Finally, it is important that we, as teachers, parents and a community, try to engage all students, particularly the gifted and talented. Studies like that of Barbara Black (1984) highlight the importance of unlocking a student’s potential. Without doing so, we risk losing more students. This is a loss for the student themselves and us as a community. Below I have added a list of characteristics from the Montgomery book. As I read through them, the second student I mentioned here jumped out at me. I hope I have the opportunity to teach her again in year ten.