How to support a Gifted and Talented child in the classroom in Mathematics - Essay Example

The common notion is that gifted children, having abilities superior than the rest, need less assistance in terms of education. However, what is often overlooked is the fact that these children are not necessarily, “academically gifted”, so to speak. Intelligence is not restricted to academics. As such, a gifted child may be exceptionally adept to reading but poor in arithmetic. In other words, giftedness does not encompass all fields, contrary to common belief. In fact, psychologist Howard Gardner has proposed Multiple Intelligence theory, postulating that there are actually eight intelligence domains – among them are music, linguistic and logic and mathematics (Visser, Ashton & Vernon 2006, p.487). Of these mentioned domains, an important subject of interest is Mathematics, which, as pointed by several researchers such as Mji & Makgato (2006, p.253), most students are poor at.

Nevertheless, given that the aspect of giftedness in terms of intelligence is multi-faceted, it is necessary to establish at this point how the concept of giftedness would be used in this paper. The subject of argument is the gifted children who, regardless of their astuteness in other aspects of intelligence, exemplify high prowess in Mathematics. Moving on, it was mentioned that a lot of students perform below average in Mathematics; thus, in response to this, various steps are taken to improve teaching skills of instructors in educating students in this subject.

But then again, given the common misconception on giftedness, gifted children are often overlooked in the classroom, with their special needs neglected. Diversity of Experience & Learning In the book written by Kennedy, Johnson & Tipps (2008, p. 40), it was argued that the point in dealing with gifted children is not to make them reach an achievement level that is established for all average students. Instead, support should be geared towards meeting the needs specific to these children. This is to say that children have varying experiences which may affect learning and performance (Bowman 1994).

Overestimating the abilities of gifted children which may lead to unintentional neglect of their needs may hinder them from achieving their full potential. The present curriculum in most educational system is designed for average students. In this scenario, the average students are benefiting more in the curriculum because they are learning things while the gifted students are just left listening to concepts that they have already mastered. The average students are compelled to study and practice in order to hone their skills.

In contrast, the gifted students do not need to struggle to learn. In most cases, this experience has taught them that everything comes out way too easy; hence, they may not be as receptive to new ideas as average students do. Since gifted students can easily understand and acquire skills due to the average pace of teaching, they usually suffer from boredom and frustration (Collins 2001, p.xiv). Further, since they are not challenged, most of them gradually lack motivation resulting to underachievement (Diezman, Faragher, Lowrie & Bicknell 2004, p. 8). As a matter of fact, there are gifted students who do not perform well simply because they lack interest or are occupied with perfectionism (CCEA 2006, p.6). In the long run, this lack of motivation may result to being left behind, achieving things below their levels.

Therefore, it is important to