The Story of Marie, David, Richard, Jane, and John: Teaching Gifted Children in the Regular Classroom PHYLLIS SALTZMAN LEVY

• Marie, David, Richard, Jane, and John are very special. They are extremely academically talented, all with 10's above 140. None of them had been previously diagnosed as gifted or placed in a gifted program. I found them in my seventh grade classroom last September. These students have several things in common. They all happen to be very nice human beings and they are anxious to make significant contacts with others. They all work with astonishing speed when solving problems. They continually surprise me with the ever increasing quality of their work. All five students belong in the seventh grade chronologically. They are all good looking, healthy kids. But this is where their similarities end. What do the regular classroom teachers do when such special students are placed in their classrooms? In this article,

Copyright 1981 The Council for Exceptional Children

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I intend to report what I have done. It has "worked" for four of the five students described. Some general remarks. portraits of each of the students, and observations will be given, as well as some basic advice from one classroom teacher to others about teaching gifted students. I hope that teachers who specialize in teaching the gifted and talented may als6 benefit from a regular teacher's perspective. GENERAL ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT TEACHING

When teaching in the public schools. I begin with certain assumptions about the students. Those most relevant to this article are as follows: 1. Every person has gifts. A major function of the classroom teacher is to help students realize those gifts and learn what can be done with the gifts. Marie, David. Richard, Jane. and John have academic talents that need encouraging and direction.

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2. Each student has the right to be individually diagnosed at a certain academic "level" and taken as far as his or her abilities allow. 3. One classroom teacher cannot individualize sufficiently to meet the needs of all students. Therefore, peer tutoring/ teaching becomes a critical part of the classroom routine. 4. One classroom teacher cannot (with one mind) cover content interesting to all students at all times. Therefore, students should be allowed to select their own content for a project as often as possible. The teacher is primarily responsible to teach process skills. Several examples of these process skills are discussed in the portraits of the five students. 5. Sharing is a necessary part of each class period. When a student shares current work, the audience (class) is exposed to a new stimulus. The audience is encouraged to ask questions, and, in answering them, the speaker may gain new insights into the problem. The experience of sharing only serves to enrich the classroom environment. 6. Being a "freak" of any kind is a lonely experience. This includes being a freak of the super intelligent kind. These children need as much compassion and attention as th'ose who have other serious problems. 7. Academically talented students need to be taught school survival skills so that they can survive the system and keep their talents intact. 8. The Chinese proverb "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, feed him for a lifetime," provides insight into what to emphasize when teaching. I work hard to make students raise to consciousness the

process they use when solving problems and to teach them to value working on the problem as much as solving the problem. THE PORTRAITS Academic talent means noteworthy ability to use intellectual processes. These include the sequential, verbal, and linear processes as well as the spatial, holistic, and connective processes. The academically talented can direct their focus of attention to a problem and use one or more of these processes to find the solution to the problem. They do this consciously. It is something like the violinist reaching for the violin when wanting to make music. The academically talented use their minds as one would a finely tuned instrument. Academic talent does not ensure success in school, which requires conformity to social and academic norms. Academic talent implies that a student is significantly beyond the average cognitive level of students of his or her own age. Often, the academically talented student does not or is not able to conform to social norms. Other reasons for lack of school success for talented students include boredom and resulting discipline problems, inability to stay at the slow speed of the teacher, frustration, and feeling so different from others that the student becomes alienated and has a poor self concept. The five students profiled in this article are considered gifted because of their academic talents. All of them have exceptional access to their own brain power. However, as you read each portrait, it will become evident that not all of them have been successful in school.

M AR IE

Marie is a quiet person. She is a straight A student, but I doubt that any other teacher has taken particular notice of her. She is very organized, keeps an assignment book, always does high quality work in the way the teacher asks, and is able to stick with problems until they are solved. Sometimes she has trouble acting like a seventh grader; she never seems completely relaxed or easy going. She has one good friend in the class but often works alone. The first week of school she completed several writing assignments for me. These gave me the clues that she was something special. With her permission, I have included the follOWing excerpts: Math and reading are my favorite subjects unless my teacher rushes me or holds me back. Here are some reasons Why I chose the informal program: 1. Going at my own speed is important to me. If a teacher gives me too much or too little time to get down a concept I feel that I don't work as well. 2. Sometimes I am confused and don't know why, so I can't ask questions. 3. I need a teacher to be on my level and still be someone to look up to. 4. It is very important to me to be understood.

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5. I need the space around me to be neat, if it is cluttered I feel rushed. Please understand this. Thinking things out is usually very easy for me. I like to say that I usually think clearly but when I am angry my thinking becomes a blob of thoughts that are all mixed up. When I am reading a good book my mind is the main character's mind. When I work on a math problem I am part of that problem until it is finished. Sometimes when I lay in bed or anytime really, I think of an argument that I feel like , might have. My mind usually goes a bit too far though and I never have the argument. When someone interrupts me from whatever I am doing it takes some time for me to get back into it. My mind is really pretty hard to explain.

Marie's insightful writing helped me to understand that she had already learned to use her mind as an instrument and that she was able to do special things with it. I needed more information and support for what I was beginning to believe about Marie. I had a conference with her mother during the second week of school. I learned that Marie had never been diagnosed as gifted, nor had she ever been in a gifted program. She had been in several schools due to the marriage problems of her parents. It was a long and painful divorce. Marie lives with her mother and brother and makes frequent Visits to her father and stepmother. Her home life is now stable and happy and she is surrounded by love and good sense. Her mother has been very supportive of all the special arrangements I have made for Marie. Marie seems to have learned toughness and sensitivity from her mother and creative problem solving from her father, and she has gone beyond them both. Understanding Marie's home life helped me to be a better teacher for her. I am not really sure which process skills Marie has learned this year. She seems to learn them as if she knew them all along. I believe that she has learned: 1. To consciously consider how she does what she does. Marie has never before had to tell someone else what her thinking process included. I frequently require her to write papers, draw diagrams, and discuss her thinking processes. 2. To communicate the progress of her mind's work to others. Her writing skills have been exercised and I have taught her new ways to organize written work (outlining, footnotes, paragraph structure). Her speaking skills have been involved when she stands in front of the class to share. 3. To value work in process as well as the finished products of her work. She had never before been given "credit" for working on an unsolvable problem. 4. To take advantage of the work of others' minds. She has learned that it is acceptable to "leapfrog" from someone else's work to do her own. Some examples of starting places she has used include her father's explanation of the Pythagorean Theorem when laying floor tile with Marie, a peer's beginning experiments with the surface tension of water, and a scholar's writing about alphabets.

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Each of these four process skills will allow Marie to go about the work she needs to do. I have made few special accommodations for Marie. I have private conferences with her about her work only about once a month. I have made arrangements for her to work for me this summer as a research assistant (a mutually beneficial arrangement). In the beginning of the year I "lent" her a hardbound blank book in which to record her process. When I gave her the book, she asked me to write questions for her which would direct her writing since she did not know what I meant by recording her thinking process. The questions I prOVided were: • • • • • • • •

What gave you the idea in the first place? How did you get your mind ready to work on the idea? What did your mind do while it was working? Did you run into any problems? What were they? How did you resolve them? How did you know you were finished? What was the product of your work? What does the product itself reveal about the way your mind works? When you finished the product, did your mind stop working on this idea? What happened?

Finally, I have told her about certain other students in the class with whom she might want to make social connections. Other than these, no special accommodations have been needed since the school routine does not interfere with Marie's own work, and since she has found company within the classroom.

DAVI D

David has a "Woody Allen" sense of humor and he sparkles when he smiles. He works alone almost all of the time, although he has identified other students who can help him or work with him when he needs it. He has already focused his content interests to physics and flight and all of his projects are done in this area. He has worked on Einstein's Theory of Relativity, balloon flight, and the Smithsonian Museum's exhibits on flight. David speaks and writes very slowly. In second grade, his teacher recommended that he be retained. He received a pending failure notice this year from his health teacher. The depth of what he says and writes is often remarkable, a possible result of his "slow" speed. The first day of school, when asked what I needed to know about him to be a good teacher for him he responded, "Mrs. Levy should know that if I try to write very fast I don't write well. I'm not very good at spelling either." David is very organized and is able to focus his attention on a problem until it is solved. David is a nice boy, capable of noteworthy mind activity, who has done acceptable work at school and has had some very negative responses from teachers. It took me longer to diagnose David's talent than Marie's. I was intrigued with his statement about speed. During the second week of school, when I gave all of the students a math test for placement, he did exceptionally well. But it was not until 5 week later that my journal shows that I was fully

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aware of David's talent. This awareness resulted from his sharing an explanation of how paper airplanes fly and what could be done to them to alter their flight patterns. Thus, by the end of the first 6 weeks of school, the diagnosis was made, although no single incident caused this insight. It resulted from his consistently excellent work. In January, David shared Einstein's Theory of Relativity with the class as a math project. He clearly understood the concept but was unable to communicate any of it to his peers. It was this communication problem that led me to contact David's parents. David's family is very close, very supportive, and very reasonable. It is the traditional nuclear family except that his father works in another city so the family does not always live together. I called his mother to ask her to begin to look for a place where David might find someone who could talk to him. She was very responsive and has subsequently (as has his father) actively researched public school programs for the gifted. Although David does not have companionship at school, he does have it at home. He is a very happy and sensible child, an obvious result of a close and supportive family. Probably, the most important process skill David has learned from me is how to play the school game. The tutoring

RICHARD

Richard, my smallest seventh grade student, is well liked by his peers. He understands how the system works: he knows that his seventh and eighth grade academic record will not "count" for anything in his future and his school performance reflects this knowledge. He does as little as possible. He has many interests and uses them in his projects. He is a British citizen and often elects to study that country. He and John (described later in this article) are extremely involved with the microcomputer's memory map. Richard also is interested in flight and with David did a small project on flight patterns. He knows how to take advantage of his academic talent, and he chooses to do so only when he is interested. I met Richard before school started. His mother called to ask if the two of them could come to meet me. Richard was trying to decide if he wanted to be in my class or not. At that time, his mother told me he was gifted and that she was con-

TEACHING Exceptional Children

I have given him was stimulated by the notice of pending failure in health class. I asked him if he knew there was trouble, and he said yes. When asked what had happened, he told me that he had failed the only test the teacher had given that grading period because he had studied the wrong information. I asked David if he had talked to the teacher and when he said no, I suggested he go to the teacher and ask her if he could either take the test again or do an extra credit assignment to make up the grade. We talked about how teachers like to help students and how they like to feel needed. We also talked about the fact that each teacher has a different teaching strategy which a student must understand and conform to. The health teacher's test required memorization and rapid recall. David remedied the immediate problem and did not fail the course. Subsequently, we have discussed how to expend the minimal amount of energy to get A's from teachers who make him do their work instead of his own. David is still not a straight A student, but he has not had any trouble in school since our conversations began. I have made many special accommodations for David. He is one of three seventh graders (all of whom are my students) in the school system who is taking a foreign language. Normally, this program begins in eighth grade. To do this, he attends only half of his math and science classes. Second, I arranged for David to talk to scientists at the university on several occasions. This effort failed because David did not understand what they said to him, and he did not ask questions because he did not want to impose on them. (Needless to say, we discussed the pleasure of answering questions for a serious, interested student and David's responsibility to ask questions until he understands what is being said). Third, David is now leaving school early once a week to work at the local Center of Science and Industry. He is reviewing all of their displays and will work for them as a volunteer after completing the review. Fourth, I am now trying to get the school system to provide a tutor for David. None of the last three special arrangements has been particularly successful. But my job is to keep trying to help David to make connections.

cerned that he have a good year. Thus, when school began, I was alert to Richard's behavior, looking for data to support his mother's assertion. His extensive knowledge of trivia and his ability to solve problems presented by other students in the class were proofs of Richard's capacity. In Richard's case, the diagnosis was made for me. The first week of school, Richard wrote the following: My mind can give me images. It allows me to see something that is there, and something that is not. I can transform things. Change them, metamorphize them. I see swords that clash in imaginary battles. Everything from the gentle sighing of the wind through a tree to the mad clash of stray mutts locked in vicious combat over a bone in the street. I am not sure that Richard has learned any process skills from me. He is clearly in control of his own school experience. He knows how to use his mind as an instrument to accom-

plish a task of interest. When he wants to do so, he is able to organize himself to complete any task. He knows how to deal with teachers. The only thing I have done for Richard is to make certain curricular arrangements so that he can go about his own business of learning. Richard is able to teach himself with very few supports. Several special accommodations have been made for Richard. He is one of the three students in the school system taking a foreign language in seventh grade. Like David, he misses half of his science and math classes. For the first 5 weeks of school I suggested that he not do the standard assignments. Rather, he had the option to use his school time to study a topic that interested him. He was not interested in doing an assignment that would require a complete personal investment when he could do assignments that required a minimal investment. The third special accommodation for Richard was to make the microcomputer available to him. The computer belongs to the school and is available for every teacher to use with students.

JANE

Jane is a musician, writer, and mathematician (although she continually states that she dislikes mathematics). She is a school success. However, she has had trouble with one teacher who gives her short, simple, daily assignments. Jane has trouble staying at such a slow speed and has occasionally fogotten to do an assignment or study for a test in this teacher's class. Her grades have suffered. Jane often works alone and this saddens her. She is seeking a female friend of her own age. Sometimes the loneliness is so painful that she has to fight tears. On two occasions, during private conferences with me, the tears have spilled over. Because of scheduling, Jane was not a member of my class until the sixth week of school. She is the only one of the five students in this report about whom I got the first clue to academic talent via a standardized intelligence test. The test results were provided soon after Jane arrived in my class. This datum was supported by Jane's ability to solve mathematical problems rapidly. She is quiet enough so that I might not have noticed her if I had not individualized. More recently, Jane has been using the microcomputer and a programmable calculator, revealing her abilities more strikingly. My diagnosis of Jane's knowledge and skill level occurred later in the school year than for the other four students. I have never made contact with Jane's parents. I casually met her mother when she was assigned to substitute for me, but there was no time for conversation about Jane. To Jane, I have both taught process skills and done counseling. She already was an excellent student and had some sense of independent research when she arrived in my classroom. The two process items that I taught her were: (a) how to select an appropriate topic to share with the class and (b) how to identify math problems to ponder as independent projects. The counseling interactions included: (a) the value of asking for help from another human being when one is hurting and (b) ways to deal with teachers such as the one mentioned previously (e.g., asking for several

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weeks' assignments to complete in a day and handing them in). Few special arrangements have been made for Jane. Each time one is suggested she shies away from it, indicating that she wants to be a "normal" seventh grade girt. Occasionally, she does not attend her regular classes so that she can participate in projects such as a partial production of King Lear. Allowing her to have the time, space, and encouragement to do her own work within the regular class schedule is almost all that has been done.

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J0 HN

John's enthusiasm and energy make him stand out immediately. He loves life and shows it. Each morning he dances (sometimes literally) into my room and says good morning. His intellectual energy matches his physical energy level. However, John is failing in school because he cannot get himself organized to meet any external requirements, even if those requirements are tailored to him individually. Allowing him to choose his own assignments or the topics of the assignments does not work. He can (or will) only focus his attention when he owns the work completely. John always has other students with him and is well liked. Unlike the other students, John does not play the school game, nor does he seem to want to learn how to play it. Unlike the other students, his best writing is peppered with spelling and punctuation errors and he is not a good test taker. Unlike the other students, John cannot complete a project of reasonable quality at the last minute, if necessary. Also, he cannot pretend to be tuned in to the classroom events in progress. This skill of looking like one is listening even if one is dreaming seems necessary to succeed in school. At such times, he is often in conversation with a friend or doing unrelated seatwork (e.g., examining the computer reference manual) rather than listening to the speaker or doing the required assignment. Unlike the other students, John has trouble controlling his anger and is also very moody. With all of these school skills lacking, John is bound to have difficulty in achieving school success. Since assignments were not handed in from the onset of the school year, diagnosis of John's academic talent was difficult. During the second week of school John became involved in a math project including geometric construction. The work was outstanding and he was able to sustain interest in the project for several weeks. During this time, he interested many other students in this work and taught them how to do it. This, John's responses to my questions, and his responses to the sharing of projects done by other students led me to seek more information about John's intellectual limits. By January, his near insatiable interest in books emerged and his involvement with the microcomputer began. His interest in dance and drama did not become apparent until February. The process of learning about John has been slow and I am still discovering new attributes as the end of the school year approaches. Making a contact with John's parents was a challenge. Until February, I assumed that my verbal messages requesting conferences sent via John were reaching them. They were not. In February, I sent home a note and the response was immediate. At the conference, I requested they get a tutor to help John organize his homework time. I recommended he work with the tutor daily. The parents made the arrangements, the tutor was hired, and John's grades rose immediately. However, the tutoring ended after 9 weeks and his grades plummeted again. I have not been able to determine the reason for this. His parents seem very supportive of what I am trying to do in school and are anxious to keep in contact with me. John is beginning to learn (a) how to organize his time, (b) how to hold the focus of his attention on an externally assigned project, (c) how to use "marathons" to get his work completed ahead of time, and (d) how to identify projects to

TEACHING Exceptional Children

do which he has not previously done. On none of these has John completely succeeded. Organizing his time includes school time and home time. The first is very difficult for John due to the number of distracting stimuli in the environment (particularly other students). He has had more success organizing his home time in a productive way. I have helped him to make plan sheets and the tutor was most helpful in this area. For John, holding the focus of his attention is very hard. He is now focusing on the computer: this interest he has held and developed for 5 months. He was also able to maintain interest in the partial production of King Lear for the necessary length of time. Other than these projects, John is not able to hold his focus on a project long enough to finish it. One solution to this problem is for John to finish the assignment on the day it is made, even if it was designed to take 3 weeks. When I suggested this to John, I called it the "marathon" approach and the name has remained. This technique really works for him. I told him I would be delighted to accept any work he had early. For some reason, John can deal with the notion of "early" whereas "late" for him seems impossible. On no occasion, when the due date was passed, did John hand in an assignment late. I also agreed to keep work for other teachers until their due date if he completed it early. John now asks for assignments before they are made (and gets them done). "Marathoning" is helping John to keep from failing the seventh grade. Until the computer arrived in the classroom, none of the work John did was new to him. Some of the projects were a mere replication of projects he had done previously. A few were extensions of past work. He seems to have trouble in making the first step into new territory. Probably, it's personal insecurity. Thus, encouraging John to explore new content is difficult. His venture into the world of computers gives me hope that he is beginning to solve this problem. Special accommodations I have made for John include getting a tutor to help him get organized, having a computer in the classroom, helping him to contact computer experts who can answer his questions, and deliberately putting him in the position of classroom computer expert as a way of honoring him.

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OBSERVATIONS

Needless to say, I am very fond of each of these students. With each, I have a unique relationship. They have taught me a great deal about teaching and learning. Marie, David, Richard, Jane, and John deserve special attention. They need both adult and peer companions and they need some reference base to keep in touch with in order to continue to know their own identity and real existence. WHAT DO REGULAR CLASSROOM TEACHERS DO WHEN SPECIAL STUDENTS ARE ASSIGNED TO THEM?

This section is offered with humility. These items have worked for me, but I am still learning what can be done for academically gifted students in the regular classroom. 1. Make assignments that include choice. The choice can be in the content as in a term paper required for the class in which the students choose their own topic. The choice can be in the process as in a literature project to be done on a specified book in which the students choose a dramatic excerpt, diorama, mobile, or any other expressive form. For students like Marie, David, and Richard who have a clear interest in pursuing their own topics, choice within an assignment acts as a motivation technique. 2. Have the students share regularly in class about the work they are doing. There should be required and voluntary sharing, as well as encouragement of the audience to ask meaningful questions. I would not have acted so promptly on David's behalf had he not shared his Einstein project. Sharing benefits the presenter by allowing him or her the opportunity to communicate about and reflect upon the project, the audience by giving them new information, and the teacher by allowing him or her to gain insights into the student's interests and cognitive processes. 3. Make parent contact. The least that will happen is a clearer understanding of the student. The best that could happen is that the parents will join you in making special accommodations for the student. Every little bit helps when one has a full class load. 4. Teach them how to play the "school game." Students should be aware that teachers are people too and that each teacher has a unique teaching strategy. You can get clues about what needs to be taught from the problems the students are having in school. David and Jane are noteworthy examples of students who need this information to prevent failure. Neither of them had previous awareness of the differences in teachers' expectations.

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5. Emphasize the process of problem solving as well as the products of student work. Process means the procedures used when solving the problem; these often vary from problem to problem. Frequently, these children will tackle problems on which no one else has worked if they feel secure that their effort will be valued by the person in power. Of the five students, Marie reacted most dramatically to this emphasis on process. She began to see problems to work on everywhere in her environment. She took on the behavior of a scientist. 6. Provide time for students to do their own work in school. This might mean a release from assignments made for other students. David, Richard, and Jane all required released time in order to pursue their interests adequately. Teacher flexibility becomes a critical characteristic for this suggestion. 7. Encourage career exploration by these students: they should be familiar with the fields that exist. Perhaps they will invent a new field! However, do not force premature specialization or commitment by these students. Only David, out of the five seventh graders, had a clear picture of his career interests. 8. Try to find tutors for these students. Obviously, regular tutors will not be able to do the necessary job. Perhaps university professors would be willing to work with them, on a limited basis, to teach them specialized content and answer questions. This is a suggestion with which I have had no success. 9. Individualize as much as possible. By looking at each student separately, you begin to see his or her unique talents. This helps in diagnosis of academically talented students. If I had not individualized instruction, I would not have realized the extent to which these five students were different. 10. Let them teach you what they need. By listening to them and observing them, you can make guesses about what is needed. All five of these students are articulate. They also appreciate a good listener. I constantly experience delight in my encounters with them. 11. Let them teach each other. Often my students teach each other content and processes that are way beyond my comprehension. As the teacher, I am not responsible to be the sole source of knowledge. I see myself as a facilitator of student learning. Richard and John taught each other more in 5 months of computer instruction than I could have in a year, considering my other teaching responsibilities. They also provided each other with more minutes of instruction than I could have done in several years of being their classroom teacher. 12. Enjoy them. They are interesting people who are fun to have in class.

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