In most school districts, gifted means the ability to pass a standardized test. I was identified as a "gifted" student in the fifth grade. I had failed the tests time and time again, but they kept at it with the testing. It was almost as if they wanted to make me "gifted." My superior performance on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills landed me in the 98th percentile, but that wasn't enough. That only indicated that I had the potential to be a "gifted" student. So, what else was needed to sort me into that highly sought after "gifted" category?
I never thought I was above average by any means. The failing results of the "gifted" tests did not do much to boost my motivation. This led to me failing two out of the four parts of the exam over and over again. If you're wondering which ones, it was the motivation and creativity tests. I wouldn't consider myself to be creative by any means. This whole thing of me typing my words to create an article is honestly a stretch for my creative abilities. But if I was creative, how would a test be able to measure that ability?
Interestingly enough, I passed the mental ability and achievement tests with flying colors. I had always had superb grades. In fact, they were so good that it led to more testing but no acceptance into the "gifted" program. The additional testing was to see if I was a good fit for the accelerated math program. This program would allow me to take a series of exams to see if I would be able to leap from fifth grade math to seventh grade math. I passed these tests, but I would attribute it to a decent ability to eliminate answers and then take an educated guess. However, I eventually passed the "gifted" tests. Well, I learned how to take the tests to get good results.
Fulton County may think "gifted" means that a child can perform exceptionally well on a test and that "gifted" simply means above average intelligence, but I beg to differ. I think that a real gifted student cannot be measured by a test. A test only looks for one type of student: a student who is directly modeled after the mold they have set to mean "gifted." A "gifted" student is someone who is exceptionally bright, motivated and creative, but this is just simply not the case.
Instead, I think there is a wide spectrum on what it means to be gifted. A gifted student is a student who learns in a way that is different than what a typical learning environment provides them with. They learn at a more rapid pace than their peers, and once they have learned something, there is little need to review it.
Gifted students also do not always outscore their peers. Their test scores do little to show what they are fully capable of. When we see low scores, we see the unmotivated learner and pass them off as lazy. Gifted learners typically struggle in normal classroom settings because the way the teacher is teaching the class is boring for them, so they get rather frustrated.
A gifted student is not a student with an insanely high IQ, but a student whose learning needs are different than the majority of other students. This may mean smaller classrooms or more lectures, but learning styles differ from individual to individual, gifted or not.
