Teach Them All Like They Are Gifted

One of the things I feel we miss in education is that all students are gifted in some way. I have strong beliefs that we each have a gift and we have to grow in a way that helps us find that gift. According to the way we “label” students in education, a student may not specifically be a gifted math student. However, we can still teach like all students are gifted in math. Just differentiate.

Sometimes we are very quick to think about the “low” students first when we plan.  I’m not sure of the reason. Maybe it is because the school happens to be a Title I school and we serve a bunch of students with low ability.  Maybe it is because they are just elementary kids and we have this idea that we need to go easy in order to preserve some idea of self-worth.  Maybe you could add a plethora of other reasons why we just don’t push students to their fullest potential.  (Maybe we do it because we don’t want to the student or the parent to start whining about the grade.)

Regardless, teachers have a moral and social responsibility to press students so that they perform to their fullest potential.  In order to do that, I think the only real way to accomplish that is for the teacher to really believe (and I mean really believe) that every student is gifted.

Let’s not make it any more complicated than this: “Believe that every kid is gifted, then simply differentiate to the gift.” I’ve done this for years in my instruction.  And here’s the secret that I’ve never told anyone until now.   The result is usually that those critical end-of-year assessments show some amazing growth. Yes, there are some students that struggle to make the grade.  Yes, there are parents who complain, “My child has never made below an A.” But, folks let’s face it…life isn’t always going to be a “piece of pi”. Was your life easy?

Please understand, I’m not trying to be a mean teacher. I’m not even in the running for “Teacher of the Year”. I just have high expectations for every student, because I know without a shadow of a doubt that there is a gift in there somewhere.  We might not find it this year, but it is there.  The gift is really there no matter what the student can do!