Keeping Students Together, Gifted Or Not

By separating out the ‘gifted’ students from everyone else, we are supposedly doing a good thing for them. If we change our thinking just a little bit, we can do something even better for them, and, at the same time, do everyone else a favor, too.


One of the things that we know is that being around people who are more intelligent or have different skills rubs off, even if it’s not intentional. Just being in the room and hearing the questions that are asked, the methods used to solve problems, and the overall positive attitude pulls everyone else in those directions and leads to increased understanding. People don’t improve very much while hanging around people who are close to their own skill level and with the same skill set(s). Yet, we still expect the non-gifted students to advance and even excel.

One of the other things we know is that one of the best ways for someone to learn something is to teach it, or help teach it. While it is true that not all people with clear knowledge can teach very well, the attempt does improve their own knowledge even more.

So, what would be best, it seems, is to institute an educational classroom environment where there is a mixture of students, with the ‘gifted’ ones helping and teaching others. If a ’gifted’ student’s teaching skills are lacking, then the instructor can play the lead role, or find someone else to do so, and let the ‘gifted’ student with poor teaching skills assist. They can then also learn from one of the other ‘gifted’ students who possess better teaching skills.

This student-as-teacher role only needs to be a small part of their curriculum. It doesn’t take much for this to work for everyone, where no one gets left behind, figuratively and literally.