Obsession is multifaceted and may be a catalyst for important development of the person. The author discusses the concept of obsession and how educators might successfully guide the young gifted person who experiences obsessive periods.

After 30 years in the field of gifted education, and, more specifically, 30 years of studying the psychology of gifted students, author Tracy Cross has come to believe that the single greatest threat to the psychological well-being of gifted students is the mismatch between the school's curriculum and the student's needs. Cross argues in…

While it is true that every generation of children grows up with a different confluence of historical influences than the previous generation, the current generation of students with gifts and talents (SWGT) has matured during a unique time during which they have been immersed within an electronic social network. While some factors that influence…

In this column, the author uses the analogy of baseball to describe the lives of gifted children as a vehicle to think about similarities and differences. The author states that he has experienced how educators often gloss over the powerful and all-inclusive living conditions of high-ability students from financially impoverished backgrounds. In…

This article provides a succinct primer on some of the basic constructs that adults need to know to help keep students with gifts and talents from completing suicide. It focuses on the school as the primary context to look out for potentially suicidal gifted students. This makes sense, as students spend a considerable amount of time in school,…

The purpose of this column is to describe and discuss the use of personal narrative, how it influences the lives of students with gifts and talents (SWGT), and how it can be used as a tool to understanding their dreams and aspirations.

While serving as the Executive Director of the Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities, the author came to realize that the parents, faculty, staff, and students associated with the school seemed to have relatively dichotomous views about gifted education. This led to a study of the faculty and students attending both the academy…

Parents often adjust and monitor the effects of their efforts at punishing their children. Their approaches are wide-ranging and often idiosyncratic to the family's mores and values. Schools, on the other hand, tend to rely on policies to discipline students, often erring on the side of consistency rather than tailoring the actual punishment to…

In this article, the authors share their experiences and reflections on their trip to Saudi Arabia as participants of a 3-day workshop on giftedness sponsored by King Abdulaziz and His Companions Foundation for Giftedness and Creativity (Mawhiba). Delisle states that the trip to Saudi Arabia made him realize the importance of firsthand knowledge…

This article discusses eight topics on the social and emotional development of gifted children. These issues bring to light some of the current thinking that can be helpful to parents, teachers, and counselors. Understanding what giftedness actually is and is not, how to identify it, moving from an entity model of giftedness to an incremental…

It is believed by many that unsophisticated notions of elitism are the bane of the field of gifted education. Some claims of elitism are based on an interpretation of the founding of their country as inherently egalitarian. Educational opportunities that are tailored to student abilities are determined to be inherently elitist and therefore…

Metaphors influence one's perceptions and thinking, from fairly inconsequential concepts, to some of the most basic matters. A root metaphor is one that is foundational to other beliefs and conceptions. In this article, the author explores what she believes has become the dominant root metaphor of today's gifted youth. Here, she illustrates some…

Project Aspire was created to identify poor rural students with academic potential and to provide them with academic and counseling support in advanced placement courses and prerequisites. This article describes Project Aspire and its foundations; the relevant lessons learned from the literature on poverty, small schools, rural schools, and gifted…

While conducting research into the experiences of gifted and talented students, the author noted that an obvious part of their experiences was reflected in the stereotypes used in society to describe them--"nerd" and "geek." These terms had negative ramifications in the gifted students' perceptions: nerds were considered as socially inadequate,…

The social and emotional development of gifted students can be influenced by many factors. Genetics, experiences, learning, family values, perceptions, and interactions all contribute to the development of gifted children. Under the heading of experiences is students? use of computers. The potential effects of using these technologies is…