Why and how should a society devote special resources to the development of giftedness in young people for the twenty-first century? If we agree that the goals of gifted education and talent development are to maximize young people's opportunities for self-fulfillment and increase society's reservoir of creative problem solvers and producers of…

It is difficult to say exactly when or how ideas originate and if and why they earn acceptance, but this author believes his theories evolved because of his background as an educator and a pragmatist who believes "validating" an idea through practical implementation is as important as the idea itself. For the author, there are considerable…

This myth that the gifted constitute a single, homogeneous group is addressed by the authors in this article. They respond by saying that there is no single homogeneous group of gifted children and adults, and giftedness is developmental, not fixed at birth. Research in the past few decades has pointed to the ways in which gifts and talents vary,…

The main argument of this article is that human living systems are open, dynamic, intentional systems and, therefore, are capable of building ever more complex behaviors through self-organization and self-direction. This principle underlying general human development is also applicable to the development of gifted and talented behaviors. These…

In this study, a team of researchers conducted multiple observations in 12 third- and seventh-grade reading classrooms in both urban and suburban school districts over a 9-month period. These observations focused on whether talented readers received differentiated reading curriculum and or instructional strategies. Talented readers were defined as…

This response to an article regarding the tension between talent development and personal growth in gifted education argues that dissociation of these two aspects is conditional, not a constant state of affairs. Contingencies and processes responsible for the dissociation are identified and ways to integrated these two perspectives are discussed.…

Two studies of gifted high school dropouts (n=3,854) found many dropouts were from low socioeconomic-status families and racial minority groups, had parents with low levels of education, and participated less in extracurricular activities. Dropout behavior was related to student's educational aspiration, pregnancy or child-rearing, gender, and…

Students' preferences for creating potential products were explored through use of "My Way ... An Expression Style Inventory". Analysis of data from 3,532 students allowed examination of content and construct validity for the instrument. The article suggests practical applications for the inventory in talent-development programs such as those…

Intended for inservice trainers of teachers of the gifted and talented, the Instructional Management Systems approach is noted to provide a model to assist trainers in the design, development, and dissemination of information about teaching strategies and instructional materials. (SBH)

Described are group training activities (Type II Enrichment) and small group and individual investigations of real problems (Type III Enrichment) which along with general exploratory activities (Type I Enrichment) make up an enrichment model for gifted student programs. (SBH)

The article reviews the background and implications of adjudication hearings of a case in which a gifted specialist was retained while a senior teacher without special training was laid off. (CL)