A breed apart
Melbourne Age, Monday November 17, 2003
Being labelled "gifted" can have traumatic effect, as one student discovered.
Schools, teachers and students must all be careful whenever the word "gifted" is used. Encouragement of a student is all well and good, but not when it leads to a false sense of security that is based on a regimen of achieving, winning and succeeding in everything that they do.
I am a 19-year-old female student in my second year of multimedia studies at a Melbourne university. This degree was my second VTAC preference, and the primary reason I chose to take it was the unexpected full scholarship the university offered me. The scholarship is automatically granted to the highest-ENTER student in each degree regardless of which subjects the student studied in VCE. Because the score for multimedia is somewhere in the low 80s (at last check, anyway), it wasn't hard to get the highest ENTER. Most students who achieved roughly the same ENTER as me (high 90s) chose to enter more demanding courses. I simply didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, and as a result ended up here.
Over the past two years, I have struggled to reconcile myself to the consequences of holding this scholarship.
Not only has it put extreme pressure on me to perform well in my studies (dipping below a low-distinction average will see me losing the scholarship), but it has also imposed upon my family, friends and tutors a singularly ignorant belief that I am, for lack of a better way to put it, good at what I do. Considering the unfortunate reality that my studies have, so far, borne absolutely no resemblance to my VCE subject choices (with the tentative exception of mathematics - which I study for only two semesters for the entire course duration), I feel uneasy with this.
In school, I was a fairly high achiever. In year 12, I chose to study a particularly volatile blend of subjects - physics, biology, chemistry, literature and specialist maths and, for the most part, relished the challenge.
In primary and secondary school, I was, on several occasions, selected to enter various
programs for -gifted students---. These were typically directed at students who excelled in linguistics or mathematics -one that I have never forgotten was an extended English program called "Horizons" in year 10. It involved taking students out of one English class a week, and gathering them together in another location to -expand their mental horizons".
Frankly, it did nothing of the sort. The exercises we were given were ludicrously simple; I would almost have preferred to stay in my normal English class.
There are still several impressions about "being gifted" that I haven't been able to shake since I left high school. First, academics looked at raw scores (test and exam marks, assignment grades) and immediately assumed my brilliance. Obviously, this was an error of judgement - and that may have been all it was, at the time, but of far more concern to me are the long-term effects such a decision has upon students.
During my formative schooling years, I was told that I was -exceptional" and "brilliant" that I displayed "an intelligence uncommon in others of my age". 1, and all of the other students who were caught up in this "gifted" whirlwind, were led to believe that we were semi-geniuses.
We were segregated from our peers, told that this was for our own academic betterment, and then subjected to insultingly mediocre aptitude tests.
Even then, I - and probably the rest of the students - realised that intelligence was not simply a measure of mental acumen, but a complex aspect of one's character involving,
among other things, the ability to use that "smartness" 'm various situations in a creative, innovative and effective way. To me, intelligence is and always has been about application, not knowledge.
We were seduced by the idea that we were a breed set apart It is heady for a young boy or girl to be told that they far outstrip every other student in their year level.
We liked being told that we were -advanced learners---. We didn't truly understand that they had made a mistake -perhaps not with all of us, but definitely with some.
We were groomed and trained to become creatures who believed that we were so intelligent that the school didn't know what to do with us.
Yet most, if not all of us, suffered from a crippling lack of self-esteem, and this flaw in our characters only grew as the years passed and we continued to be plucked out of mainstream studies in order to attend---giftedworkshops and programs. Our superficial
academic "achievements" became our sole means of measuring our worth in society.
Far from helping the students, many of us found that our elevated status put inordinate strain on our friendships with "non-gifted" students, which led to almost complete social isolation.
By the time we hit VC E, that " super-reality" had become our entire world - we couldn't survive without it. We had been built up too far, by then, to let ourselves fall - of our own accord, at any rate, which was probably why university became the blow that utterly felled us.
Today, I find myself in the predicament of being unable to make new friends. I vacillate between complete confidence and a feeling of intense inadequacy (whether perceived or real) and, as a result, I have never been able to solidify, in my own mind, what kind of stance I should take when dealing with other students who may or may not overshadow my own abilities.
I am painfully shy, and this has counted against me in my tertiary studies, as scholarship students are expected to bolster the university's public image by speaking to groups of secondary students about our experiences and dreams.
I have also discovered that - to my personal dismay - I am not as talented at picking up new ideas as my school teachers thought. I have been struggling to maintain halfway-decent grades, particularly during this past year, and it has been one long, hard slog devoid of any pleasure. There isn't even any enjoyment in learning, any more. This could, of course, be due to choosing a course that doesn't suit me or my abilities.
However, if that's the case, I would like to point out that those "gifted" programs did nothing to guide our study choices, either. We weren't encouraged to pursue the subjects we evidently excelled in; we were merely given test after test, again and again. You cannot tell someone, tell a child, that they are exceptionally talented, and then expect them to know what to do with that talent in the absence of any sort of guidance.
Educational instructors should never forget the importance of following up students after they have been exposed to these programs. Don't let them down the way my school did my fellow "gifted" students and me. And, please, make sure that the students actually are gifted before you tell them that they are The name of the student has been withheld for reasons of confidentiality.
