The educational needs of gifted children are discussed in the context of the educational program at the Mirman School in Los Angeles (California). (DB)

This article, on issues that can inhibit the academic achievement of gifted learners, discusses needs of gifted students in general, gifted black students, and gifted college students and offers recommendations for university counselors and other helping professionals in working with gifted college students. (JDD)

This article describes several books published by Free Spirit Publishing which help gifted students to understand their giftedness. The books deal with such issues as parental pressure, teasing of peers, perfectionism, stress, underachievement, personal autonomy, self-esteem, lying, and strategies for success in school. (JDD)

This critique of J. Renzulli's models of gifted education suggests a weakness is the lack of school-based assessment procedures to guide decisions about a broader range of acceleration, enrichment, and other types of program options. Major ideas underlying Renzulli's theory are examined including broadening the talent pool, emphasis on products,…

This document consists of the four quarterly issues of the journal "Understanding Our gifted" published during 1998. Each issue of the journal generally has a single theme in the education of gifted and talented children around which all the articles are focused. The themes of these four issues are, respectively, "Educational…

This article challenges the assumption that a continuum of learning opportunities appropriate for exceptional persons is possible when the concept of normal distribution is used. It proposes an alternate model, a bull's eye, to accommodate the open-ended potential of the gifted population. (Author/DB)

No matter where gifted and talented students obtain their education, they need an appropriately differentiated curriculum designed to address their individual characteristics, needs, abilities, and interests. A program that builds on these characteristics may be viewed as qualitatively (rather than quantitatively) different from the basic…

Student leadership can become a malevolent force which can destroy or undermine individuals as well as the school community. Student leaders' roles in schools can also, however, be benevolent, leading to both personal development and school/community development. In schools for blacks in South Africa, black power and student power may combine to…

This paper reviews common emotional and social needs of gifted children. Two personality self-report instruments, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Murphy-Meisgeier Type Indicator for Children, are suggested for helping students gain self-awareness and self-acceptance, which will enhance their emotional growth toward awareness of others and…

Through the years, gifted adolescents have suffered from a lack of formal guidance from the school counselor. Probably the most common reason for the lack of quality counseling for the gifted student stems from the general yet erroneous belief that the gifted child can take care of himself/herself. Alvino (1981) noted that when counselors do work…

This article reports on the activities and interactions of a highly gifted 9-year-old boy working in a fifth grade classroom with students of mixed ability levels. School modifications to manage gaps between the boy's intellectual development and his social and emotional development took little account of his affective needs, and resulted in…

Gifted and talented adolescents have two primary social needs: to have normal social interaction with others and to develop an identity as a person who is gifted and talented. The choices an individual makes are always influenced by personal needs in a social context. Gifted children are members of a subgroup--the gifted--which has negative and…

A differentiated curriculum can provide the basis for discovering, serving, and nurturing academic talent across California's diverse student population. Differentiation provides tools to vary the curriculum or instruction so that students who have already mastered given material continue to progress and students who have a particular interest in…

Observations of interactions of mixed-ability groups revealed three persistent challenges (inclusiveness, enacting the ideal, and monitoring growth) in which gifted students can develop and exercise leadership skills. Specific student strategies are proposed for each challenge. The role of teachers in developing leadership skills of gifted…

Comparison of the fields of gifted education and middle school education indicates some major differences in such areas as organizing for instruction, how students learn, mainstreaming, delivery of instruction, affective needs, and the concept of giftedness. (Author/DB)