Gifted Students and Social Stigma
Gifted Students and Social Stigma
Gifted Students and Social Stigma
Philosopher Benedict Spinoza said, "Man is a social animal" (Kaplan 278). The desire for social acceptance, whether recognized or denied, is part of human culture. People yearn for it, obsess over it, and alter themselves to obtain it. Humans can spend their entire lives unsuccessfully attempting to achieve a level of social status they believe will validate them. Acceptance is denied for superficial reasons varying from clothing to cliques. However, it is also denied due to innate elements of personality. Stigmatizing others for a natural characteristic not only seems unwarranted but also unfair. Yet, a stigma is imposed daily on gifted adolescents who neither deserve, nor know how to deal with, the disparagement. One group particularly stinted in terms of social acceptance is gifted students. Intellectually exceptional students are socially stigmatized. Often, their intelligence inversely correlates to their social abilities. The more precocious the gift the less adept the social skills. And the spectrum of the stigma extends from negative peer perceptions to an inability to interact socially with their peers, the extreme of which can result in suicide.
The origin of the social stigma is often educators and parents, those ideally associated with student guidance and support. The advanced ability of most gifted children is identified at a young age. And, in the current educational system of teaching the fundamentals and helping students to just get by, gifted students are not challenged. Director of the Area Service Center for Gifted Education in southern Chicago, Joyce Van Tassel states, "The system itself does not demand much of these students. We 're worried about minimum competency and back to basics these days, but these kids already know the basics" (Johnson 27). Because intelligent children are already competent in terms of educational basics, they proceed to question the nature of
Gifted Students and Social Stigma
Philosopher Benedict Spinoza said, "Man is a social animal" (Kaplan 278). The desire for social acceptance, whether recognized or denied, is part of human culture. People yearn for it, obsess over it, and alter themselves to obtain it. Humans can spend their entire lives unsuccessfully attempting to achieve a level of social status they believe will validate them. Acceptance is denied for superficial reasons varying from clothing to cliques. However, it is also denied due to innate elements of personality. Stigmatizing others for a natural characteristic not only seems unwarranted but also unfair. Yet, a stigma is imposed daily on gifted adolescents who neither deserve, nor know how to deal with, the disparagement. One group particularly stinted in terms of social acceptance is gifted students. Intellectually exceptional students are socially stigmatized. Often, their intelligence inversely correlates to their social abilities. The more precocious the gift the less adept the social skills. And the spectrum of the stigma extends from negative peer perceptions to an inability to interact socially with their peers, the extreme of which can result in suicide.
The origin of the social stigma is often educators and parents, those ideally associated with student guidance and support. The advanced ability of most gifted children is identified at a young age. And, in the current educational system of teaching the fundamentals and helping students to just get by, gifted students are not challenged. Director of the Area Service Center for Gifted Education in southern Chicago, Joyce Van Tassel states, "The system itself does not demand much of these students. We 're worried about minimum competency and back to basics these days, but these kids already know the basics" (Johnson 27). Because intelligent children are already competent in terms of educational basics, they proceed to question the nature of
Bibliography: Wallace, Margaret. "Nuturing Nonconformists." Educational Leadership. 57.4. (1999): 44-6.