A woman named Desi, who was one of those so-called gifted students during her adolescence, recently revealed that the program’s true purpose wasn’t to inspire and challenge the smart kids, but to keep them busy.
Gifted programs in schools have long been a topic of debate and discussion among parents, teachers, students, and school administrators. A plethora of studies and statistics have time and time again proven that gifted programs aren’t as helpful as people seem to think.
A woman revealed that the true purpose of gifted programs in school was to keep smart kids busy.
In Desi’s video, she responded to another creator who questioned the purpose of gifted programs in schools. Desi explained that gifted students who often understood concepts quickly would become bored and, therefore, begin disrupting the class.
“Not just disrupting class by making noise, spinning in your chair, that sort of thing. You start to ask the teacher too many questions, too many in-depth questions. Answering your questions is taking up time where she can actually be teaching the rest of the kids what they’re supposed to know,” Desi recalled.
Once teachers realize that gifted students quickly grasp the concepts they’re taught, they no longer need to be in the classroom at all. “They’re gonna give us the numbers on the standardized test, just give them the freaking test. Tell them that they’re uber special, give them IQ tests, just give them endless supplies of science projects and arts and crafts.”
Desi pointed out that when she thinks back to her time in the gifted program at school, none of the assignments or projects she completed ever advanced her or the other kids’ knowledge. They were just meant to keep them busy. “The point of the gifted and talented was not to support the gifted and talented,” she insisted. “It was to seclude us from the ‘normies.'”
Gifted programs are flawed in a variety of ways.
While many parents strive to have their children placed in gifted programs at school, research shows that, most of the time, students in these programs end up struggling more than if they were kept in regular classrooms. Most often, gifted students become anxious, insecure, and depressed adults because of how much value was placed on their intelligence during childhood.
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Gifted programs are also notoriously known for exacerbating segregation in schools. In New York City in 2019, the School Diversity Advisory Group, a group commissioned by then-Mayor Bill de Blasio, recommended doing away with all gifted and talented programs. That same year, Seattle attempted, unsuccessfully, to eliminate its programs to alleviate school segregation.
According to federal data, nearly 60% of students in gifted education are white compared to 50% of public school enrollment overall. Black students, in contrast, accounted for 9% of students in gifted education, although they made up 15% of the overall student population.
“You know, where there’s a magnet school of the gifted, they’ll oftentimes put it in a mostly brown or Black school, but you walk down the hall, and the gifted program will be mostly white faces,” Marcia Gentry, a professor of education studies and the director of the Gifted Education Resource Institute at Purdue University, told Education Week.
“People talk a lot about, well, if we get brown and Black kids in [gifted education], it’ll be good for the brown and Black kids, but it goes further than that,” she continued. “It’s actually good for the program because it brings diversity of views and discussion and of culture. So not only does it enrich the kids [of color] we put in there, but it makes the program better for all the kids who are there.”
Desi clarified that gifted programs vary by district, and some are better than others.
She clarified in a follow-up video that she was referring to the gifted and talented programs in many elementary and middle schools, not to high school AP or honors classes.
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Desi explained that while it’s not a bad thing that the gifted program was “just special ed on the other end of the curve,” we need to get into the habit of calling out these things when we see them. She also acknowledged that school districts all have different levels of resources, which makes some gifted and talented programs better and more productive than others
Desi also responded to comments from “gifted” viewers who argued that they never caused disruptions in class and would simply sit at their desks reading a book. To that, Desi remarked that just the mere presence of a student doing something differently than everyone else was a distraction in itself.
“You weren’t moving with the natural ebb and flow of classroom participation, therefore you’re a problem,” she claimed. “Now, did I like being a part of the gifted and talented program? Absolutely. Would I go back and do anything different? Probably not.”
Desi’s own experience in a gifted and talented program aside, the reality that these programs often alienate and hinder a child’s educational development means there needs to be a deeper look into the system. If these programs truly need to exist in schools, there needs to be a way to actually challenge these kids and prepare them, both intellectually and socially, for what lies ahead as they grow up and encounter more of the world.
Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.
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