5.1 As discussed in Chapter 3, it is not always easy to identify giftedness in children, particularly in their early years. The Early Childhood Education Council of New South Wales informed the Committee that 'child development in these years does not occur at the same rate in all areas, and children may exhibit advanced levels of performance in some areas but not others'.1 Young gifted children, nevertheless, often behave in ways that indicate that they have special gifts. Ms Slattery, a consultant employed by the South Australian Children's Services Office, observed that parents notice their children have particular skills and talents at about the age of two years.2 Another witness, Mrs Carlisle, Co-ordinator of Explorers Unlimited, remarked:
. . . youngish children who are gifted do not sleep long hours, ask awful questions, and have an intense capacity to work at a thing and stick with it.3
Mr Comerford, President of the Victorian Association for Gifted and Talented Children, observed that gifted children have an insatiable thirst for knowledge. He suggested that this may cause problems in the home, where the child may have to compete with siblings for attention.4
5.2 Older gifted children may be difficult to identify, especially if their talents have not been recognised and nurtured when they were young. Gifted children who are frustrated at school, for example, may react by withdrawal or regression. Dr Boyd, a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at the University of New South Wales, informed the Committee of a gifted six year old girl who became so frustrated, by being held back at school that she would go home and suck a dummy.5 Mr Comerford remarked that the gifted school-aged child may be discouraged from asking questions because the teacher's reaction is so often 'see me at the end of the class' or 'wait until I get this group settled and then I will come back to you'.6
5.3 Many witnesses who gave evidence to the Committee expressed concern about the social and emotional needs of gifted children. Parents observed that highly gifted children may have difficulty socialising with their age peers.7 Some gifted children whose educational needs are not met may behave in a disruptive way. One parent remarked:
Teachers do not know enough about these children to recognise that they are acting up because they are bored and that they have been bored for the last five years. There is a lack of stimulation to the child so, to amuse himself, he fools about.8
Another parent was concerned about the disruptive behaviour of her gifted son in the classroom and in the playground suggested that gifted children need to be taught strategies to cope with teachers who do not appear to understand their situation and to cope with a curriculum that might be boring.9
5.4 When asked by a member of the Committee about the capacity of gifted children to devise coping strategies, one mother responded:
It depends on the children. My son, for example, used to read at least a book a day at school in years 11 and 12. He was quite happy to do that and that was his way of coping, along with playing 'battleships' . . . but my daughter could not cope. Temperamentally, she did not think it was wrong, but she thought it was impolite to the teacher, however deadening the lesson was, and so she suffered a lot more.10
Dr Boyd suggested that gifted children must come to terms with both their giftedness and their insecurity if they are to avoid the response of hiding the talent so as not to appear different. They may require professional counselling.11
5.5 Some studies of the classroom behaviour of gifted children have been undertaken in Australia. Mrs Geraldine Skinner, a higher degree student in the School of Education at the Canberra College of Advanced Education, observed and interviewed fourteen intellectually gifted Canberra children who were clearly bored by the lack of challenge in the classroom. Mrs Skinner found that none of the gifted students was notably disruptive. None questioned the teachers' competence or authority. She speculated that this was because the students recognised that such behaviour would be unproductive in the authoritarian environment of the schools they attended.12
5.6 The majority of witnesses agreed that most gifted children need to associate with their intellectual peers. A parent of a student in the acceleration program at Melbourne's University High School, Mrs Withell, remarked:
. . . one of the two big benefits of the program is the support that the children give one another. For once they are in with their peers. They are not different; they are not isolated because of their abilities and talents . . . So many of them go through primary school as just one kid standing out, trying to hide or becoming a behaviour problem to attract attention or to gain approval. Many of them find that when they get into the program they are with a supportive peer group and that is tremendously important and beneficial, through adolescence particularly.13
Professor Blakers, speaking of the students who have attended the Mathematics Summer School, reported that participants 'have also learnt the excitement and stimulus of working with a group of intellectual peers - a mode of working which will be a major source of their continued development after the completion of their formal education'.14
5.7 Students who spoke with the Committee observed that they felt more at ease when educated full-time with their intellectual peers than in classes of mixed ability. Deborah Marshall, a Western Australian secondary school student compared her experience in a Year 7 full-time withdrawal class with that in a Year 6 part-time withdrawal class. She remarked that the former 'was better because we had our class group and we did all our work together instead of being part of two class groups; you did not feel part of the class when you went back to your [Year 6] group'.15 Olivia Schmid, a student at the McDonald College in Sydney, remarked on the difference between her current school and her former school. She observed:
At my old school I felt I did not belong. I did not relate to [the other students] at all because they did not have any interest in what I did. I felt almost as though I was from another country. Then when I came to the McDonald College I was in my world. I belonged. You become a different person because you feel you have found your place in the world.16
5.8 Comments made by parents indicated that gifted children, when educated in classes of mixed abilities in comprehensive schools, lacked companionship. Parents of students in the UHS acceleration program reported that, prior to entry to the program, over half of the children had few or no friends. After joining the program, a quarter of the children had 'dozens' of friends and all had some.17
5.9 The Tasmanian Government's evidence referred to the difficulties that gifted students may experience if their values and attitudes are markedly different from those of their age peers. Age peers of average intelligence may not be able to meet fully the social, emotional or intellectual needs of gifted students, particularly where there is a discrepancy between the emotional maturity of gifted students and their advanced intellectual understanding. A lack of peer contact and even social isolation may then result. The Tasmanian Government's evidence suggested that gifted children need the psychological security of a climate in which they and their talents are respected. They may need help in developing specific social skills to avoid isolation.18
5.10 Gifted children are often pressured by their age peers to conform to age and gender norms. As a result, they may attempt to hide their gifts. This may occur at any stage in the development of gifted children, though the tendency is particularly pronounced in adolescence. Dr Srzednicki, Reader in Philosophy at Melbourne University, remarked:
There is a considerable amount of hounding and unpleasantness for the child who shows too much ability. The child may have to pretend that it has not got ability, with results which are very often damaging for the child's life in the future.19
5.11 Gifted students and their parents also commented on the undesirable effects of peer pressure. A dance student from the McDonald College told the Committee of his experiences at an all-boys school. He observed:
I had to do what I thought everyone else wanted me to do because if I did something different I would then get bashed.20
Parents of students at James Ruse Agricultural High School in Sydney informed the Committee that 'the problem of "negative peer pressure" is a very real one, in that children who achieve well academically are often subjected by their peers to pressures, both physical and mental, and such pressure has undesirable consequences'.21
5.12 Mr Ralph Pirozzo, a teacher at Caboolture High School in Queensland, who has worked extensively with gifted under-achievers, also commented on the problems that may be caused for gifted children by their age peers. He remarked:
Often, in order to avoid being isolated and rejected by their peer groups, they [gifted children] conform to their classmates' achievement level. The need to be socially accepted at times becomes so strong that they purposely fail tests, feign ignorance, ask foolish questions and give irrelevant answers that are intended to be amusing to the rest of the class.22
5.13 The evidence available to the Committee indicates that many gifted children do not perform at anywhere near their potential. They are 'under-achievers'. Many may perform at, or slightly above, the average achieved by other students of their own age but they are capable of much more.
5.14 There is ample evidence of under-achievement among gifted children. Mr Pirozzo, for example, referred to research findings which showed that half of all children of high intellectual ability under-achieve at school.23 Dr Boyd referred to studies of under-achieving gifted children who experienced emotional and social difficulties.24
5.15 There appear to be several reasons, apart from the pressure to conform with their age peers, why many gifted children under-achieve. Some may have individual traits that inhibit success. In Australia, many will not have received an appropriate education. Research has shown that unfavourable family environments and religious and cultural factors are influential in determining children's academic performance, motivation and achievement.25
5.16 Mrs Gross, President of the South Australian Association for Gifted and Talented Children, commented that the pattern of under-achievement which can lead to such a waste of talent is shown to start as early as primary school. She continued:
Many gifted students begin by deliberately underachieving in order to be accepted by their peer group. Others are forced to work at the level of the grade they occupy, which be may several years below their abilities. Gifted students who are continually presented with work far below their level of ability may never have the opportunity to develop desirable study habits; if, later in their school careers, they are faced with intellectual challenge, they may not have the skills or applications to cope with it.26
5.17 Dr Boyd's research included case studies of gifted children who had failed to reach their potential because of their family environment. In one case, a gifted girl left school after completing her School Certificate to obtain a job as a checkout operator. The girl came from a family in which neither parent had attended school beyond the age of fifteen, and who could not perceive the value of continuing education.27 Another case reported by Dr Boyd was that of a boy who began to fail at an academically-orientated independent school because of conflict at home. This performance improved, however, after professional counselling.28
5.l8 Many witnesses informed the Committee that schools contribute to the under-achievement of gifted children. The Federation of Parents and Citizens Associations of New South Wales was one organisation which made this assertion.29 The Federation suggested that the school environment could be improved by the use of multiple-age groupings, student release time, mentors, early entry, acceleration, withdrawal classes, cluster groups and peer counselling. In the Federation's view, a more responsive school structure would better meet the individual needs of all students, including those of gifted children.
5.19 Under-achievement among gifted children may become irreversible, if it continues for a long enough period. Miss Branchi, Deputy Principal of Our Lady's Assumption School, Perth, observed:
If children are not recognised at an early age and are allowed to sit there, they will switch off, and if you get them too late in life you cannot actually switch them back on again.30
Mrs Mackenzie, Counselling Co-ordinator with the Queensland Association for Gifted and Talented Children (QAGTC), informed the Committee that under-achievement and other undesirable behaviour 'can begin in the very early days of primary school and become habitual'.31 Mr James Gallagher, former President of the World Association for Gifted and Talented Children, considers that under-achievement is not a transitory problem, brought on by one unsympathetic teacher, but rather a problem which stems from basic personality and social problems.32
5.20 The evidence showed that many parents were overwhelmed by the problems associated with caring for a gifted child. As mentioned in paragraph 5.1, young gifted children usually possess insatiable curiosity, perseverance and little need for sleep. Whilst not every gifted child possesses these traits, most have sufficient of them to make raising such a child more of a challenge than usual.
5.21 Parents who appeared as witnesses referred to the difficulties involved in raising gifted children. One mother recounted her experiences with two of her children. One child had been placed in a full-time extension class in Year 7, had attended vacation classes at a College of Advanced Education and had gone on camps for gifted children. The child subsequently went on happily to a special interest centre at a government high school The other child, although gifted, had missed out on full-time extension. This child was bored, loathed school, and behaved disruptively. This child, however, was able to attend vacation classes. The parent commented:
. . . $45 [the cost of the vacation classes] was 'cheap' to have my son constructively and happily occupied for five days of the school vacation, which has so often been a nightmare . . . Having a truly gifted child can have a devastating effect on family life . . . there is not the slightest doubt that such children and their families need special provisions and resources in order to maintain their sanity.33
5.22 Another parent informed the Committee that her two gifted children 'are both emotionally and physically draining on us as parents . . . there is almost a psychological warfare raging all the time'.34 In her submission to the Committee, this mother suggested that if she had been directed to the right professional ten years ago, her family's problems may not have been so immense. Moreover, she considered that if her son had been challenged at school in ways that were meaningful to him, his life would have been more rewarding and he might not have engaged in disruptive behaviour to gain attention.35
5.23 Some parents are over-ambitious and may develop unrealistic expectations of a gifted child. This may have adverse consequences for the child. Speaking of the effects of acceleration programs generally, Mrs Murphy, an Educational Psychologist with the Victorian Ministry of Education, observed:
The children, as very high achievers in primacy school sometimes come from ambitious pressurising parents, and are anxious and tense when they enter the programme. Any failure to realise parents' expectations adds to the anxiety until children can become neurotic.36
Mrs Murphy's evaluation of the UHS acceleration program indicated some students involved in the program might have ambitious parents. These were children who, on the High School Personality Questionnaire, 'were above average in conservativeness, guilt-proneness, control (to the point of being compulsive) and anxiety'.37
5.24 Some parents probably over-estimate their children's gifts, but this is not as common as might be expected. In some cases, it would be difficult for the parents to fail to identify a gifted child. It does not require much discernment, for example, to identify precocity in a child who teaches himself to read by watching Sesame Street before he is two years old.38
The available evidence, discussed is Chapter 4, suggests that parents are more likely to underestimate their children's gifts than to exaggerate them. An aptitude for music, for example, is not likely to be obvious or recognised in a non-musical family, or creativity in a non-creative one.
5.25 Parents of gifted children often feel isolated. Mrs Mackenzie observed:
. . . one of the problems that people face is not only that the children have a sense of social isolation but frequently the parents do too because they find very early on, in the pre-school years frequently, that they cannot talk to other parents about the abilities of their children. They are looked at askance and are considered to be bragging . . .39
Mr Ken Imison, President of the Australian Association for the Education of the Gifted and Talented, considers that it is the pent-up frustrations from not being able to talk about their child to their friends and from lack of provision for the child at school that results sometimes in the 'fairly difficult' parent bent on fighting for the child's rights.40
5.26 The evidence suggests that if appropriate educational provision is not made for the gifted child, the entire family tends to suffer. If the gifted child has the good fortune to be born into a family which is able and willing to provide a stimulating and rich cultural or intellectual environment to compensate for the school's inadequacies this may lessen the suffering. Children from less fortunate backgrounds are more reliant upon the school. If the school fails to provide for their particular gifts, such children, at best, may under-achieve and, at worst, may develop serious behavioural problems.
5.27 Parents realise that their gifted children need an appropriate education. Some parents therefore have tried to influence schools in their locality to make provision for their children. Perhaps for this reason, parents of gifted children are often depicted as being pushy and demanding rights from schools and some parents may make what teachers consider to be unreasonable demands. This has sometimes brought them into conflict with teachers and principals who, even if they acknowledge that the children are gifted, cannot or will not make special provision for them. Ms Bond, President of the QAGTC, commented:
. . . if you are a parent of a gifted child and your school is not interested in catering for gifted children, you can wave the policy [the Queensland, Education Department Policy on the Education of Gifted Children] in front of them as much as you like, but you are not going to get anything done for your child.41
One father informed the Committee that when he approached his son's headmaster to ask if any provision could be made for his talented son, the response was a flat refusal. The headmaster was not interested in having any special programs. He would not refer the child to the Education Department or have him tested in any way.42
5.28 In the face of such daunting negative reactions from some of the teaching profession, the more assertive parents often try to fight the system. The less assertive attempt to cope as best they can with the problems experienced by a child who is not receiving an appropriate education. A frequent parental response in areas where public schools are not zoned is to move the child to another school. Where zoning is still practised, some families move to another district where schools may make provision for gifted children or may make the necessary financial sacrifice to sand the child to a private school.
5.29 The evidence indicated that many parents would prefer to have their gifted children educated in the State school system, provided that that system were flexible and responsive to the needs of the child. Should that not be the case, then a considerable number would turn to the private schools. On the basis of the evidence it received from non-government schools, the Committee is unable to comment on the respective levels or merits of the provisions made for gifted children in the government and the private school sectors. It is interesting to observe, however, that in Western Australia, part of the motivation for the introduction of programs for gifted students in government schools was to counter the drift away from government schools.43
5.30 Even where parents are fortunate enough to find a teacher or a school prepared to make educational provisions for their gifted children, they remained concerned about the continuity of programs from year to year. Members of the PACE Committee in Victoria, for example, described the insecurity they experienced over the threats to the continuation of the acceleration program at University High School.44 Parents informed the Committee of cases where a teacher of one grade had encouraged their gifted child for that year but who was followed the next year by a teacher who taught to the 'average', and expected all children to start at a base line.45 One parent from Perth observed:
. . . the routine and unavoidable event of re-classification of our primary school . . . meant the abandonment of its excellent programme for gifted children, resulting in disillusionment and disappointment for the children who had thrived in this environment and who looked forward to its continuation. There need to be Departmental mechanisms to minimise the effect of such events and staff changes, so that children such as these will not be disadvantaged.46
Staff of Carey Baptist Grammar School in Melbourne, when describing to the Committee the provisions for gifted children made at the school, commented on the need for a systematic approach from Preparatory to Year 12.47
5.31 Gifted and talented children's associations are not associations of children, as their titles might suggest, but associations of parents and teachers and other interested adults. The associations were formed mainly to provide support for parents of gifted children and to assist parents to obtain a suitable education for their children. The associations' membership may not be typical of parents of gifted children as a whole. A representative of the Queensland association remarked:
. . . people come to us when they see a problem, so we have a biased sample of people who are our members.48
The submissions made by that association, the other State associations and the national association demonstrate that whatever their membership, the associations take a broad view of the issues involved in the education of gifted children.
5.32 One association, the Queensland Association for Gifted and Talented Children, has taken a particular interest in counselling parents of gifted children. One parent remarked:
Guidance and counselling need to be available to parents of such children so that careful, informed decisions can be made regarding the nurture of this precious resource. All too often, when parents venture to suggest that their child is intellectually talented, they are regarded with suspicion and distaste by departmental personnel, and have to do battle with the authorities year after year in an attempt to provide an appropriate education for their child.49
5.33 The QAGTC received $15,000 from the Commonwealth Schools Commission for a counselling training project. During 1984-1985, two psychologists conducted an eighty-hour training course for ten volunteer parents of gifted children. A training manual was produced for dissemination to other parent groups or guidance officers. An Information and Counselling Service is now operating in Queensland and a referral network has been established.50 A further grant has enabled the QAGTC to produce a training video for volunteer counsellors. The services provided by the Information and Counselling Service of the QAGTC are used extensively and are much appreciated by the users. One parent observed:
It [the Parent Counsellor Service] provides a full-time service where parents can receive support in their worries and crises as well as advice as to where professional help may be received.51
5.34 Mr Cranston, a Senior Education Officer in the Queensland Department of Education, informed the Committee that 'the success of provisions for gifted education is dependent upon the attitude, knowledge of issues and enthusiasm displayed by teachers'.52 Miss Evans, who represented the National Council of Independent Schools, remarked that the key to the successful treatment of gifted and talented students in any area is in the teaching.53 Professor Blakers also commented on the role of the teacher in the education of gifted children. He observed:
Many mathematicians (and also of course many whose gifts lie in other directions) recall with gratitude and affection a particular teacher who gave them the first indication that they had a special gift, and that it was something precious that should be carefully nurtured.54
5.35 The greatest barrier to be overcome before appropriate education can be provided for all gifted students may be the negative attitude of some teachers towards such students, and their opposition to the making of special educational provision for them. A Queensland Government representative observed:
. . . one of the biggest problems that we face is the attitudes of principals and teachers towards the education of the gifted . . . people pay lip service to the needs of the gifted but when they actually come to making provisions in their schools and classrooms, they seem to be saying that they have limited resources and in that case those resources should really be directed towards the non-achieving or under-achieving children . . .55
5.36 There was evidence that some teachers resent or feel threatened by gifted children.56 One parent advanced the theory that this occurs particularly in the case of the highly intelligent child.57 Another parent claimed her gifted son had been victimised by a teacher.58 One association for gifted and talented children suggested that too many teachers still believed gifted children would 'float to the top' unaided and that the children needed 'sitting on' to stop them being precocious.59
5.37 In her study mentioned in paragraph 5.5, Mrs Skinner found that, although teachers reported feeling quite comfortable with gifted students, they showed evidence of insecurity the more the gifted students contributed to the class. All the lessons Mrs Skinner observed were closely directed by the teacher end thus allowed the gifted students little opportunity to contribute or to interact with the teacher.60
5.38 Dr Bartak, a Senior Lecturer in Education at Monash University, observed that teachers often seem to be unwilling 'to promote children performing at their optimum levels because in some way, they think it is unfair to other children if somebody shines'.61 Professor Start provided the Committee with an example of this attitude. He had witnessed an incident where a kindergarten teacher had refused to allow a little girl to her name on her bag, because it would hurt all the other children who could not write their names.62 Because of this attitude, the child who could write her name has learned that you don't learn to write because it will hurt people or, if you do, you don't tell anyone. The seeds of deliberate under-achievement have been sown.
5.39 The co-ordinator of the Talented Children Program at Deakin University, Mr Hudson, made the point that an enlightened approach within the classroom may be more important for the education of gifted children than the allocation of material resources. He observed:
If we can develop a willingness by teachers to accept the fact that the talented child is worth while educating and that the challenge that the talented child presents is a worth while challenge to any educator - if we can, as it were, change the present education philosophy or the attitude of schools and teachers - then perhaps we would have achieved the most important breakthrough without any need for additional resources.63
5.40 It appears that if teachers have some experience of special programs for gifted children, they become less antagonistic towards them. Teachers at the Perth high schools which conduct SSPP classes apparently have become supporters of the program. After exposure to gifted children in the University High School's acceleration program, teachers' attitudes changed. Mrs Murphy observed:
During 1981, many teachers in the school were hostile to the programme for ideological reasons . . . However, in later years, this attitude seems to have disappeared - most teachers seem to went to teach in the programme, particularly because the children are "so easy to teach" and "so enthusiastic".64
5.41 Although a change in teachers' attitudes would be necessary for adequate provision to be made for gifted children, teachers would also need to acquire appropriate expertise. In many cases, additional study would be required, especially for primary school teachers teaching mathematics and science. Even teachers with good formal qualifications in the subjects they teach may need to undertake further study. Mrs Carss, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Education at the University of Queensland, observed that most mathematics teachers were not aware of recent advances in the subject.65
5.42 Whilst the matter of the teachers' mastery of their subjects is important, so is their understanding of how children behave and how they learn. Miss Tindale, Curriculum Co-ordinator of Ivanhoe Girls Grammar School, representing the National Council of Independent Schools, remarked:
. . . to really teach students well you have to motivate them, you have to be very enthusiastic about your own subject. It does not necessarily mean that you have to have an enormous knowledge of it, but I think 20 years ago teaching techniques were different and you were seen as the imparter of all knowledge, in a way. A teacher in a classroom today is not seen in that light.66
Mrs Strnad, a member of the Humanist Society of Victoria, also suggested that the teacher should be perceived not as the giver of all knowledge, but as a helper to gain knowledge.67 A similar point was made by Mr Michael, a full-time teacher of gifted children at the Embleton PEAC in Western Australia. Mr Michael suggested that teachers of gifted children should be humble, that is, they should accept a superior collective intellect. He observed that teachers should be able to admit they do not know all the answers, and to say to children, 'I can show you where to look . . . I can introduce you to people who may be able to help'.68
5.43 Mr Michael listed for the Committee the qualities that he and his colleagues considered important for successful teachers of gifted children. The list included an ability to use management systems to provide for individualised instruction, the acquisition of teaching strategies which build on the characteristics of able children, including higher level thinking skills and creative problem-solving techniques, an understanding of research and practice concerning gifted education, an ability to develop an information and resource network, a broad cultural background, technological literacy end future orientation.69
5.44 Whilst the qualities suggested by Mr Michael undoubtedly represent the ideal, the Committee would expect that through appropriate pre-service and in-service training, more teachers might come close to it. They should be sufficiently enthused to become involved in gifted education, either in the regular classroom, in a withdrawal situation, or through the provision of mentors.
5.45 The Committee would be surprised if any teachers could be found who could meet all the criteria listed by Mr Michael. Nevertheless, the list may be useful for people planning teacher education courses. The Committee discusses teacher training and other issues relating to the employment of teachers in Chapter 7 of this report.
