NAGC Blog

As I replayed in my head the accounts of various athletes’ journeys to Rio, I reflected on the parallels between elite-level athletics and gifted education, and I thought how much we could learn about developing exceptional ability from what we saw during those two weeks.
This blog post by Felicia A. Dixon, professor emerita at Ball State University, is an excerpt from Teaching for High Potential (Spring 2015).
This blog was first published as a letter to the editor in the Washington Post on August 7, 2016.
Earlier this year, in his final State of the Union address, President Barak Obama asked, “How do we give everyone a fair shot at opportunity in this new economy?” Education is a powerful tool to help do that. However, we know that this is not necessarily the case for children with extraordinary gifts and talents—particularly those bright students who are racial and ethnic minorities, economically disadvantaged, or learning English as a second language.
With the first days of school just a short time away, even the most seasoned teacher feels a variety of emotions. I am about to embark on my eighteenth year in education, and while excited for the hustle and bustle of daily planning, instructing, evaluating, and encouraging my students, I still feel a bit of hesitation about getting to know a whole new group of them. 

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