Gifted and talented education is at a crossroads. Turn right and speed off down the motorway, only to be frustrated by the rush-hour traffic of identification, strategies, tests, labels, targets and anxious children. Turn left on to the road less travelled, and there’s no crazed rush to a destination; rather a journey during which you can stop off frequently, take in the views, and enjoy the sensations and experiences that come with a focus on the processes, not just the products of learning.
The Gifted & Talented Pocketbook turns left at the crossroads. Using cartoons, diagrams, and visual prompts to support the text, it offers teachers a coherent framework for G&T education, including five learning tools for running classrooms where all pupils are stretched, challenged and motivated and where gifts are created and grown, not identified and measured.
The book considers definitions of giftedness, whether gifts are ‘caught’ or taught and whether giftedness is fixed or malleable. It highlights the role of intrinsic learning motivation when it comes to achieving high levels of success. The GRACE framework –Grow! Relate! Act! Challenge! Exert! – offers ideas for lessons, implications for policy and explains how to use five learning tools to stimulate considered, reflective learning: Logo Visual Thinking, Philosophy for Children, Thinking Actively in a Social Context, Dilemma-Based Learning, and Living Theory Action Research.
Author Barry Hymer, a former teacher and ed. psych., is now a consultant and trainer in the field of gifted and talented education. He is consultant editor of Gifted Education International and a visiting fellow at Newcastle University’s Centre for Learning and Teaching.
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