High Achievers, Gifted Learners and Creative Learners

Hmm… I’m somewhere between A High Achiever and A Gifted Learner.

Thanks for the link. We are having our eldest daughter tested for gifted soon. That really helps my understanding. One of the problems with identifying a gifted person is the lack of a definition for what gifted is. Many organizations play off a variation of it meaning that a child simply excels in at least one area naturally.

Another way of thinking of the different groups: When given a test to tape together a ripped up page from a book 1. A normal learner completes part of the task and then gives up. Scores a C or D. 2. A high achiever completes the task even though it is hard. Scores an A with 100%. 3. A gifted learner easily completes most of or all of the task. The gifted learner put in the same amount of effort as the normal learner. Scores an A or B. 4. The creative learner instantly sees an alternate solution that creates a completely different work. Scores a D or F.

If excelling in school and in your career is important, being the high achiever is the desired trait. The creative learner is the undesirable trait. Even an high-achieving creating learner will have difficulty because he or she will be spending all of their effort on the wrong thing. For an employer, the creative learner is the desirable employee. They have the “outside of the box” abilities that is often talked about. It is still possible that the creative learners abilities could be bad for your business because the creative and new ideas that flow from your creative learning employer may be only good in that persons head, but have no application in the real world. This is the same risk one makes when buying high risk stocks. When they are valuable they make you lots of money. When they are not, you lose a lot of money.

Also, gifted learners usually specialize in certain areas. For example, a friend of mine find language arts to be very intuitive and can pick up nuances in language arts very easily. In his Russian classes he used to complete assignments by writing poetry. In his math class he could not pass the classes that where below College Algebra. My wife teaches ESE in a school that also has an IB program. Many of the gifted students that are in IB are also labeled ESE . This is difficult for many parents who; 1. want their child to be an over-achiever, and 2. do not want to have to deal with the social stigma of having their child labeled as ESE. This can be disadvantageous to the child who needs special exception made for them in certain areas, but their parents are fighting the school to have the ESE labeled removed from their child.

I believe my daughter is a high achieving gifted learner. Many things come very easily to her with very little explanation needed. Her memory is very good as well. Things that don’t come easy to her, she will get if she wants. For example, she was never good at the monkey bars. When she started school she complained to me that the other kids where able to do the monkey bars. Within short time she became a master of all things monkey-bar related. It’s not that doing monkey bars came easily to her, but that she put for the effort to soar past the kids who where able to do the monkey bars more naturally. On the other hand she has picked up reading the and writing beyond her peers with little effort. I have not witnessed her being exceptionally deficient in any area of learning. I am not her biological father, and our middle child, who is now three, learns at an average level. She is on par with other children her age. This does create some concern on minimizing feeling of inferiority as she gets older. Our youngest daughter is not even one yet, so who knows how she will be.

I am definitely a cross between Gifted Learner/Creative Learner, probably 80/20. I was in mostly GT classes throughout school, not many AP classes and graduated highschool dead-center of my class with a low C average.

I don’t take long to “get” things but will not put much effort into a subject that I don’t care about.

My mother showed me some old report cards I had. Weird things like, A, A, B, F, D, F – and comments on the F/D classes with things like “A pleasure to have in class”.

I really benefited from those GT classes, they were not traditional classes and fit my learning style better. That’s one of the many reasons I am going to an online University now, I like intense, self directed learning. Public schools don’t always offer that.

I remember taking “regular” classes in my senior year to have an “easy” time for the last year, it was awful. Those of us who got learned quickly and on our own, were held back by the rest of the class.

I’m not being arrogant or elitist, people learn differently that’s all. And believe me there are plenty of things that other people do better than I do, working on anything with tools comes to mind.

I found this very interesting, mainly having to do with the Creative Learner. Many of the traits and behaviors described for the CL may seem undesirable by society, even though it seems that without them our society would not be as advanced as it is. True, high achievers are important, and they accomplish much. True, gifted learners are important, and they have the potential to accomplish more than the average person. But what of the creative learner? With descriptions like this, who would want to be him? :

Daydreams; may seem off task. Shares bizarre, sometimes conflicting opinions. Overflows with ideas–many of which will never be developed. Is in own group. Relishes wild, off-the-wall humor. Initiates more projects than will ever be completed. Is independent and unconventional. Improvises. May not be motivated by grades.

Now, that’s excluding all of the other traits that are listed, all of which are incredibly positive and important. Even then, it seems that all of these traits are being stifled by the public school system, and many creative minds are being lost. Parents really only care for the high achiever or the gifted learner, and all the talk of wanting kids to be creative is really only lip service.