The risks of being gifted: pedagogical and teaching challenges for educators

Paper

This paper is focused on the analysis of specific theoretical and empirical evidence on the challenges and risks of being gifted. Gifted individuals posses a number of unique personal, intellectual, emotional and social traits that can potentially make them vulnerable during their personal and social development in family, school, peer groups and leisure time surroundings. That, which is often considered a "gift", can in many cases become a "risk" for the personal and social development of talented children and adolescents, due to the misunderstanding of the concept of giftedness by parents, teachers or other educational experts, as well as school peers and the general social environment. The risks and vulnerabilities often have negative outcomes for gifted children and adolescents, as they can lead to problem behavior, social isolation and depression, procrastination and general academic failure. The paper aims to explicate the specific empirical results of studies on the diverse aspects of being a gifted individual, with special regard to the concept of asynchronous development and increased personal and educational needs, as well as the importance of quality teaching and curriculum adaptation. The paper describes the dominant issues of being gifted, based on available research literature, and recommends examples of good practice and successful pedagogical approaches in teaching gifted individuals. The paper also presents statistical data from an original survey with elementary and high-school teachers in 2018 and 2019, on their methods and experiences of working with gifted pupils, as well as their attitudes on the most important challenges of teaching talented children. The data was analysed using SPSS statistical software with descriptive and inferential procedures, such as the t-test for independent samples, ANOVA and correlation analysis. The survey results presented emphasize the importance of motivating and enabling teachers to identify and motivate gifted pupils, implement specific teaching methods and strategies, as well to receive continuous professional feedback and support from their peers, parents and academic experts.