Active Ethical Leadership,Giftedness, and Creativity

This commentary is focused on Robert Sternberg’s new Active Concerned Citizenship and Ethical Leadership (ACCEL) model. The new model is well conceived and goes far beyond existing models. It is especially attractive in that the emphasis is on ethics. Now more than ever before there is a clear need for education to support ethical reasoning and behavior, and if this is coupled with active and concerned citizenship, as Sternberg proposes, we may find talents that are as of yet untapped and enormously useful for society.     

The Color of Giftedness: A Policy Genealogy Implicating Educators Past,Present, and Future

This article offers a critical rereading of gifted education in the United States using a genealogical framework as defined by postcolonial theory. Using genealogy is appropriate because it sets the education profession within a family research tradition, implies the close connection between past and present, and enables us to systematically trace the evolution of exclusionary practices. The purpose of this article is to (a) demonstrate the utility of using historical research to undergird justice work in education, (b) show how gifted education policies and practices in the United States operate under a global context of whiteness and colonization, and (c) foster dialogue around ways educators can begin to disrupt taken-for-granted assumptions and work toward establishing more equitable schooling processes and outcomes.     

The Alphabet Children: GT,ADHD, and More

This research examined the relation of school-level changes in the reading performance of students in general and in special education to school environmental variables associated with effective schools reforms in 56 Southern California schools. Applying a joint production model of outcomes, we predicted that school-level general and special education performance change related inversely to one another and differentially to effective environ- mental characteristics. Results showed inverse relations between changes in general and special education students' performance in sample schools. Inconsistent and differential relations between environmental characteristics associated with effective schools and the performance changes of the two groups of students were also evidenced. The implications of these findings for the educational opportunities of students with mild disabilities in the context of contemporary general and special education reforms are discussed.     

Conceptualizations of Creativity: Comparing Theories and Models of Giftedness

This article reviews seven different theories of giftedness that include creativity as a component, comparing and contrasting how each one conceptualizes creativity as a part of giftedness. The functions of creativity vary across the models, suggesting that while the field of gifted education often cites the importance of creativity, the conceptualizations of creativity differ depending on the particular theory. The various models of giftedness can be interpreted from the context of current creativity research because certain elements of these conceptualizations can be found in social models, the evolving systems approach, and the domain-generality debate. An integrative perspective of creativity research reveals that some models of giftedness are more comprehensive and consistent in terms of the creativity literature.     

A Dynamic Approach to Giftedness: theory and practice

The aims of this research were to investigate the possibilities of developing the cognitive and creative abilities of recognised gifted children, and also of raising the development of “ordinary” children up to a level of giftedness. This experimental work, based on Vygot‐sky's Dynamic Theory of Giftedness, involved special procedures and an experimental curriculum designed to overcome children's psychological barriers to learning. Five school classes were involved: three experimental classes, two of these gifted and one of average‐ability children. Two further control classes were taught by conventional methods. Comparative assessments were made for 6 years between all the children, regarding cognitive development, creativity and social giftedness, revealing considerable undeveloped potential of “ordinary” children. Major factor influencing IQ changes included the differences in psychological mechanisms to overcome barriers to learning. Due to the experimental psychological curriculum, not only did all the children's cognitive abilities increase, but also their creativity. Hence, these new diagnostic and developmental procedures were found to be effective, demonstrating the high practical value of the Dynamic Theory of Giftedness.     

Contest, contradiction, and security: The moral possibilities of liminal education

The article develops a conception of education that we have named liminal education. Liminal education tries to counter the centripetal tendencies of the centre (particular that of the consumer market) by disclosing alternative positions in order to enable children to cultivate a critically reflective disposition. A second feature of liminal education is that it carries the potential to assist children in recognising that otherness is not the same thing as being alien. Finally, it is characterised by an embodiment of the notion of ‘communitas’, a state in which no one can have authority over another or see themselves as superior. For children who live within the dominant (centre) culture and who find security in consumerism, liminal education is important because it offers them imaginative possibilities which could give rise to alternative conceptions of the good life. Children in liminal communities will benefit from liminal education, because they will have a better understanding of their own position and those of others, which, we believe, will reduce the anxiety of loosing one’s identity and thereby the need to return to anxiously held foundational beliefs.

The school effectiveness movement: origins,shortcomings and future possibilities

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that the school effectiveness/school improvement movement has provided an antidote to the pessimism and fatalism of the 1970s. However, it is deficient in four important respects: (1) it places too much emphasis on the notion of progressive school management as the dynamic of change; (2) it fails to take full account of the characteristics of the education system as a whole; (3) it shows little regard for issues of social class; (4) it has little to say about issues of curriculum content and pedagogy.     

The Identification and Development of Giftedness as a Paradigm for School Reform

Based on ideas advocated by Paul F-Brandwein's The Gifted Student as Future Scientist, this article summarizes theories of intelligence leading to his theory of the three-ring conception of giftedness and how that theory led to the development of the Schoolwide Enrichment Model. The Schoolwide Enrichment Model provides a detailed model for total school improvement that can be customized based on the local resources, student population, school leadership dynamics, and faculty strengths and creativity of each particular school. The model consists of three service delivery components: The Total Talent Portfolio, Curriculum Modification Techniques, and Enrichment Learning and Teaching, which are brought to bear on three school structures: The Regular Curriculum, Enrichment Clusters, and the Continuum of Special Services. Implementation of this model provides a organizational framework for schools to become places for talent development.     

Communicating Love or Fear: The Role of Attachment Styles in Pathways to Giftedness

Although both giftedness and secure attachment are associated with advanced language and good socioemotional adjustment, not all gifted children are well adjusted. This article explores the consequences of attachment style on gifted development and examines whether early trauma can be rectified. The dearth of research on giftedness and attachment has necessitated the review of less direct evidence, including brain research and maternal depression. A partly empirical, partly conceptual picture is drawn to demonstrate that attachment styles can support, reduce, and even prevent giftedness. This is further illustrated by an experiment involving IQ scores that mimics the expected effects of early trauma and insecure attachment on test performance. The article concludes by suggesting that attachment style may contribute to a gifted spectrum.     

The Holmes reports: perils and possibilities

There has not yet been an attempt to categorize or critique the substantial body of literature that has arisen around the Holmes Group’s three reports regarding the treatment of teaching and teacher education: Tomorrow’s Teachers (1986), Tomorrow’s Schools (1990) and Tomorrow’s Schools of Education (1995). This article represents an initial attempt to do so, as well as to discuss what impact, if any, the Holmes suggestions have had on current practice. This literature revolves around the themes of gender, professionalism, and epistemology—themes which have dominated discussions of American teacher education for at least 150 years. Criticism of the reports accuses the Holmes Group of covering over and even perpetuating dilemmas related to thee issues with politically calculating pseudo-solutions. Favorable responses to the Holmes reports generally claim that they ‘professionally’ empower teachers by showing increased respect for teachers’ ways of knowing and doing in the classroom.     

About Creativity,Giftedness, and Teaching the Creatively Gifted in the Classroom

In this case study the author explored a teacher's beliefs about creativity and gifted‐ness and investigated the classroom practices of this teacher of gifted students for 20 years. Seven semi‐structured and 2 open observations were carried out in her classroom, and 2 prefigured interviews were conducted with her. She believed that creative children are those who are “free thinkers” and have “imaginative intelligence.” The thin line between an academically gifted child and a creatively gifted child is built by “imagination,” “emotional intensity,” and “curiosity.” In creative writing, she tried to implement activities such as learning to write poetry, personal narratives, research reports and essays posing solutions to real world problems, and mystery stories decorated with similes, metaphors and imaginative expressions. In reading, students analyzed characters, problems, places and times in stories and novels, and then rewrote stories.     

Creative Giftedness Is Not Just What Creativity Tests Test: Implications of a Triangular Theory of Creativity for Understanding Creative Giftedness

Creativity tests, at best, measure only a small sliver of the whole of creative giftedness. These tests assess aspects of creative intelligence. But creativity is at least as much a conscious decision and even an attitude toward life as it is a traditionally defined ability. This article discusses how well-intentioned gifted educators may be following the wrong path by overly relying on tests of creativity to measure creative giftedness. This article presents a triangular theory of giftedness that conceptualizes creativity largely as an attitude toward life rather than as ability based.     

The Objectivization of Cognition and Intellectual Giftedness: the case of V.I. Vernadsky

Traditionally psychologists study various characteristics and traits of giftedness (i.e. its external manifestations). However, new perspectives on intellectual giftedness arise from the study of its inner mechanisms, which make it possible to understand the psychological basis of giftedness. The objectivization of cognition can be viewed as one such mechanism. This occurs when the cognition of an individual goes beyond the limits of the subjective space into the “superpersonal world”, beyond the world of everyday interests, where the global problems of civilization, human beings, natural existence, and science are dominant, and where human thinking is concentrated on the analysis of the objective events of reality. This phenomenon is seen in the work of Jean Piaget, Albert Einstein, R.B. Woodward, and especially the Russian scientist V.I. Vernadsky.     

Racial Identity,Centrality and Giftedness: An Expectancy-Value Application of Motivation in Gifted African American Students

This article explores the interaction between racial and ethnic identity, racial centrality, and giftedness and then uses an expectancy-value motivation model as a framework for understanding how the interplay among racial identity, centrality, and giftedness contributes to the motivation of African American gifted students. The analysis begins by defining racial and ethnic identity and discussing their relationship to racial centrality. Next, the interactions among racial and ethnic identity, centrality, and some socio-emotional aspects associated with giftedness are examined. An expectancy-value model then provides a framework for understanding how race centrality, racial/ethnic identity, and giftedness influence the motivational patterns of gifted African American students. Suggestions for future research are provided.