Education
Education

Does labeling some students gifted limit the potential of others?

By Maureen Downey
Aug 12, 2016

If you want to start a debate, mention at a PTA or PTO meeting changing how students are admitted to gifted programs in our schools.

Many parents want their children in gifted programs, which depend on several factors for admission. Once admitted, students have specialized lessons, smaller classes and more academic opportunities.

They also get the label of talented and gifted.

But what of the students who are not labeled talented and gifted? Are they left with the sense they have less potential than their classmates?

Today, an Emory junior — who went onto to earn a National Merit Scholarship for her high academic abilities and a long list of other honors — discusses what it felt like to be one of the ungifted in elementary school. She writes, “What happens when a second grader is told she isn’t gifted? What happens when she continues to hear this until she believes it?”

To read more, go to the AJC Get Schooled blog.

About the Author

Maureen Downey has written editorials and opinion pieces about local, state and federal education policy since the 1990s.

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