literature review

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Gifted education has been a hot debate across the globe. Educators during training do not enroll in gifted education programs and thus cannot identify students with high ability to achieve maximum goals in education (Brown, Renzulli, Gubbins, Siegle, Zhang & Chen, 2005). There is a big problem in the education sector regarding the identification and monitoring of gifted students. Failure to identify and monitor talented students is a great problem and challenge in the education system. Gifted students can perform excellently in mathematics, sciences, and technical courses. However, the talented students are unable to socialize with their people, resulting in isolation. The isolation and reprimand from their people make them depressed. This situation is a problem since it prevents gifted students from performing to their maximum limit. The research question is how educators can enhance gifted education in their institutions?

Identifying and monitoring gifted students is the responsibility of the educators in the education sector. I would like to change the situation to expose the teachers in seminars, workshops, and benchmarking to ensure teachers are equipped with the knowledge necessary to support gifted students. I would ensure I incorporate the senior educators in the education sectors to support teachers willing to sharpen their understanding of gifted education. I would also encourage the senior management of the schools to establish guidance and counseling departments to support talented students who might be psychologically stressed. Gifted students are always alone and are less interested in the social aspect that happens around them. Some teachers with less knowledge in gifted education tend to think that those students have mental challenges or disorders.

Ensuring teachers are proactive in identifying the gifted student through enhancing their knowledge through attending the seminars, workshops, and benchmarking from organizations with effective strategies to support the talented students is very important in the students' lives. Since gifted students are mainly identified between the age of four to eight years. At this stage, students can perform well in technical subjects such as mathematics, sciences, and technology if teachers with sufficient knowledge can identify and monitor these students to continue performing well in technical subjects. However, teachers cannot identify talents among young children; the kids are more likely to suffer psychologically and fail to realize their full potential.

A report written by Danielle Dreilinger in 2019 indicates they are many gifted students from community unidentified as talented students in the United States. The author indicates that more than three million and six hundred thousand are supposed to be identified as gifted due to incompetence in gifted education (Stambaugh & Ford, 2015). The report indicates that school from low-income families only identifies less than ten percent of the talented students in their institutional. Based on the wealthy schools, teachers can identify more than thirteen percent of their total population as gifted. Better school environments allow the teachers to engage in seminars, workshops, and benchmarking to identify and monitor their talented students. However, low-income schools may lack resources to support their teachers to enroll in courses that will equip teachers with the knowledge to support gifted education.

Identifying and monitoring gifted students directly negatively impacts the students, the healthcare sector, and the country's economy. First, students are not able to achieve their academic goals. Thus most of them end up enrolling in courses that were not their initial target. The process discourages the students in the university and may prevent them from completing the university education (Worrell & Erwin, 2011). Most of the students in primary and secondary schools suffer psychologically, leading to depression among gifted students. The students overwhelm the healthcare sector by rehabilitating the students in case of advanced mental illness. If the students are not well monitored, the country is likely to lose great minds that could assist the country in advancing in technology innovation, mathematic, and sciences.

The research will enable educators across the globe and particularly in the United States, to become proactive in attending gifted education-based programs. The senior management in the school sectors should support the teachers mainly involved directly with students to enroll in courses that enhance gifted education. The curriculum developers ensure gifted education is part of the curriculum for student-teachers. Therefore, gifted education should be compulsory to ensure teachers are well equipped to identify talented students in schools. Through the research, students will benefit since they will be able to identify their talents and achieve the highest educational goals. Proper identification of talented students will enable early medical intervention through the therapist to psychologically support gifted students.

The first theory that supports my approach is the Theory of Adaptive Intelligence which indicates that the ability for students to perform well does not only depend on their IQ (Sternberg, 2019). Other factors such as politics, social and economic play a critical role in identifying the strength of a student. The paper shows that low-income schools are less likely to identify gifted education than wealthy schools. The other theory that supports my approach is Gardner's Multiple Intelligent Theory, which indicates that people are not born with all the intelligence. Thus, gifted students should be supported through monitoring, effective assessment, and individualized programs to realize and enhance their talent.

References

Brown, S. W., Renzulli, J. S., Gubbins, E. J., Siegle, D., Zhang, W., & Chen, C. H. (2005). Assumptions underlying the identification of gifted students. Gifted child quarterly, 49(1), 68-79.

Stambaugh, T., & Ford, D. Y. (2015). Micro aggressions, multiculturalism, and gifted individuals who are Black, Hispanic, or low income. Journal of Counseling & Development, 93(2), 192-201.

Sternberg, R. J. (2019). A theory of adaptive intelligence and its relation to general intelligence. Journal of Intelligence, 7(4), 23.

Worrell, F. C., & Erwin, J. O. (2011). Best practices in identifying students for gifted and talented education programs. Journal of Applied School Psychology, 27(4), 319-340.