gifted and talented
the casualties of excellence
Abbott Elementary is a spectacular show that revives the dying workplace comedy TV format and recontextualizes it to the Black experience with inner-city education.
In Episode 5 of Abbott Elementary, the character Janine realizes one of her students is extremely smart but exhibits behavioral issues. Janine deduces that when students don’t feel challenged, they are more likely to act out and thus fixates on establishing a program that can help gifted students reach their fullest potential. Throughout the episode, we see how this program causes a divide in the student body, as the “regular” students don’t get to experience the cool hands-on biology lessons the gifted students can.
In the B story, the adults on staff are themselves challenged by the implementation of new technology — we see how an older teacher, Barbara, struggles with reporting reading scores for her kindergarteners. Perma-substitute Gregory mentions to Janine that there are different ways to measure and acknowledge intelligence and excellence in students outside of gifted programming.
Children with abilities “significantly above the norm” in some areas are considered gifted, according to the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC). Many people associate academic ability in math or science with “giftedness,” but the NAGC makes it clear that gifted and talented children may perform above the norm in creative, artistic, intellectual, or leadership domains, or specific academic subjects such as math, science or language arts. If you are gifted and talented, it means you have academic or creative abilities that are above the norm. Frequently, states and school districts assess children who are in the top 10% of various academic or intellectual assessments to be “gifted and talented.”
-Staff Writers, Best College Reviews page
It's always funny to me when people hear I went to a magnet high school and graduated IB (International Baccalaureate) because their usual assumption is that the school was stuffy and preppy and predominantly white, which couldn't be further from the truth.
My school’s enrollment was 65% people of color, with an average of 44%-47% Black and 20-25% non-Black POC. Many of the teachers and administrators, including the principal and his immediate team, were also BIPOC. The median yearly income of the surrounding neighborhood was below $45K.
Yes, having access to a public (not private) school whose “regular" class track was still entirely AP-level and in general didn’t allow GPAs to fall lower than 3.0, is a privilege.
But if you were to ask me how many of my peers went on to an Ivy or became largely affluent in the past decade, the answer is still very few. Too few for all the pomp and circumstance of the program we endured together.
So what is the disconnect? How is it possible for people with such “bright futures” to suddenly become so lackluster, and their talent dulled?
This Bustle article talks about how gifted education sometimes causes adverse effects of its intention: students that received high praise and had everything planned out in their youth became adults with feelings of confusion, lostness, and burnout.
Being "gifted" may lead to fear of failure, avoidance of risk-taking, impossibly high expectations, or other issues in adult life, or you may just try to forget the label as soon as possible.
-JR Thorpe, How Being A Gifted Kid Affects You As An Adult
By the way, I’m not writing about school to bash on the concept of learning, or to bash on where people are in their journey. I actually love school and hope to go back someday, and I know many people who are outrageously talented whether or not they were the best students.
I love hearing my friend C talk about their students. Their students are not the typical buttoned-up, blindly obedient image society deems “model.” But still the youth come into class every day curious, insightful, ready to debate, and continuously defy what this “model” is. In turn, C gets to learn too, and better themselves as an educator and human. It’s reciprocal, community-building leadership.
That’s so valuable, and why I think everyone should have a real chance at getting an education. Regardless of their “eligibility” or image of perfect candidacy for special programs. Because it’s not just an education in the sense of books and papers. It’s also making friends, understanding your limits and how to push past them, learning how to hold conversation, dissecting large concepts, and exchanging new ideas in togetherness. Going to school may not be everyone’s favorite part of life, but everyone should have a chance to decide that for themselves instead of being disqualified before they can even try.
In “Open House,” Episode 10 of Abbott Elementary, Janine stresses about a parent not showing up for their child during the open house. This parallels Janine’s own memories of her mom not being present for her — her motivation to be the best teacher she can be. Later on, it turns out that the mom truly wanted to be present for her child but was just held up at work, and Janine’s assumptions were just projections of her own experience.
Though I know that I love to learn, I will say that most of my academic career was the manifestation of my family’s hopes, and even their failures. All throughout childhood, I was conditioned to earn nothing less than honors and that when it came time, I would only apply to prestigious, name-dropper schools (I didn’t get into a single one of those by the way). From a young age, I won speech contests, attended workshops, and was only allowed to associate with activities and peers that passed an approval process and reflected that “greatness.” Later on, I was the first to graduate college despite growing up 3rd-generation American.
But each year, I was incredibly lonely. Not in the literal sense of being a recluse or loner, but in the sense that I often struggled alone. On the outside, I was high-achieving, but inside I was spiraling, depressed, and dissatisfied. My impostor’s syndrome grew and I couldn’t bear the burden of disappointing others, so I stayed disappointed in myself. I had to suppress what bothered me or hurt me so deep down that it couldn’t ever distract me from my goals.
During my school years, I often didn’t feel like my life and my choices were my own. Everything I did always had to be for a greater purpose and by a greater sacrifice. That everything in an overwhelmingly generational sense was riding on my success. And it’s because of that trauma that I would sometimes cheat myself, convincing myself I’m too late or not ready or not good enough, falsely assessing the outcome before I can even begin. It felt safer to quit early on if I didn’t already envision excellence as an outcome.
This is a lie. Because anything you put your heart into should be considered excellence, regardless of the outcome. Ambition is a wonderful trait to have. But when we give someone else the power to give meaning to our actions, it comes at the cost of our health and happiness. That is way too much pressure to put on yourself. It is also way too much pressure to put on our youth. We should allow ourselves to dream and be ambitious without removing the enjoyment of life itself.
So really, right now I’m writing for the folks that may or may not have come from ideal homes or environments that rarely made them feel seen in spite of how hard they worked. I write for the folks that only found the support system they needed, within an institutional system that profited off of (and even at times exploited) their labor. Those who only received validation and affirmation and love as a reward for having something to prove.
I’m writing to let you know that you can believe in yourself without having to lose yourself. Don’t let yourself be a casualty of excellence. Excel at being you, and let everything else follow.
Questions to think about:
How can we better support our youth in achieving their goals/dreams, without breaking them down in that process?
Do we consider resourcefulness in the same realm of gifted and talented?
Is it lack that motivates greatness, or abundance?
How do we create ecosystems of abundance for folks that don’t exist within binary circumstances?