Affecting eternity: Teaching for talent development.

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.

Henry Brook Adams (1907)

Most adults looking back on their childhood can point to a few teachers who influenced their lives. Little is known about whether these teachers share common characteristics. Little is known whether gifted teaching can be taught or is something innate in the gifted teacher. More questions need to be answered about whether influential teaching differs according to discipline, according to age, or according to learning style. If so, can such qualities be identified?

This article reports on two studies which differ yet both explore the issues of teaching and learning for talent development. The first, a study of teenagers, explores the factors which might encourage or impede the actualization of potential. The second builds on the literature about the complexity of teachers' knowledge and the impact of teachers' beliefs about learning and learners on their practice. It uses teachers' existing knowledge and beliefs to explore both the learning styles and appropriate curricular experiences for talent development.

Background: The Role of the Teacher as Seen Through Key Longitudinal Studies 

Three longitudinal studies on talent potential were influential in shaping the first project. The high achievers in the studies were drawn from different groups. The first is an adult group looking back, from the perspective of outstanding achievement, on their own development path (Bloom, 1985). The second (Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde & Whalen, 1993) is a group whose achievements are as yet only possibilities in adult terms. The third (Arnold, 1995) is a group who attained a high level at the school they attended. The majority went on, during the 14 years of the study, to become "hard-working, productive, adaptable adults" (Arnold, 1995, p. 293). Only a few, however, seem set on the road to eminence.

These studies viewed the path to outstanding performance as an apprenticeship, requiring different forms of support and challenge along the way. Crucial teaching qualities nominated by participants across the studies as being critical to their success included the capacity to awake passion for a domain, and to develop the determination and habits of mind essential for excellence.

Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde & Whalen (1993) pointed to the centrality, particularly for secondary students, of teachers' own passion for their subject and also to their capacity to translate that enthusiasm to teaching/learning experiences which generate what they describe as "flow experiences" - "the close, well paced match between task complexities and individual skills". (p. 185) Teachers' awareness of affective needs, linked to cognitive needs, was an integral part of these experiences. They identified three factors in "flow teaching".

* Flow teachers never stop developing their own interest in the area, nor do they take their skills at conveying that interest for granted.

* They minimize feedback which focuses on controlling the student, and maximize feedback which informs the development of skills. Their expectations are often high, but they model critical reflection, constructive use of mistakes, and acknowledgement of achievement.

* They are skilled at reading the shifting needs of learners, in terms of emotional as well as cognitive needs.

While lists of positive teacher characteristics are available in many general textbooks on talent development, detailed longitudinal studies such as those described here require different questions. It seems important to recognize the pathways which potential might follow on the way to becoming performance, and to aim to maximize the chance factor (Tannenbaum, 1986) of meeting with the right people or opportunities. Different experiences and goals are appropriate at different stages along that pathway although they vary from person to person.

Gagne's model (1995) of the pathway from potential (in his terms, gifts) towards performance (in his terms, talent), emphasizes the importance of intrapersonal factors as well as environmental factors in actualizing talent. But just as giftedness is not an either you have it or you don't factor, so do intra-personal qualities develop over time as a result of experiences and opportunities at school and at home. Yet since students differ in their ways of learning and in the paths they follow towards actualizing potential, it seems logical that different qualities in teachers are also desirable at different stages of the emerging talent.

Thus the question of gifted teaching becomes one of appropriate fit rather than one of gifted teachers' characteristics. Writings on learning preferences and thinking styles (e.g., Atkin, 1993, 1994; Gardner, 1983; Munro, 1993) encourage acknowledging the many learning styles within the talent potential group. The question then is how might the different pathways towards actualization of talent - in different domains, for different students - be plotted in a way that would be useful for curriculum planning? Moreover, what kinds of factors - inter-personal or intra-personal, in school or at home - influence the development of promise for better or worse?

The first study explored the factors that assist or hinder the development of promise by documenting the lives of teenagers identified by their schools as having the potential for outstanding performance.

Factors in Performance: An On-Going Study of Promising Teenagers

Structure of study

The study included 24 students in their second year of secondary school (approximate age 13) from five schools, including independent, state, co-educational and single sex. Their schools selected students after it was explained that this is an investigation of the ways in which talent does (or does not) actualize into performance. Data in the first year consisted of the following.

* Hour interviews with each student and one or both parents.

* Beeper project: for one-week students carried a pager which went off about 40 times daily. At those times, students completed questionnaires describing their location, their thoughts at the time, and how engaged they were in what they were doing. This was based on the work described in Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde & Whalen (1993).

* Interviews with teachers nominated by the students as being influential.

* Questionnaires for students and parents summing up the year.

These steps were repeated in 2000. The data will form a collection of stories of individual learners and the factors which influence them and be compared to the broader quantitative and qualitative findings from other studies. While the number of students from this study is relatively small, the richness of the data drawn from multiple sources presupposes a complex developing picture.

From the data gathered to date it is clear that the tasks of teaching and learning are inseparable. Students' discussion of their learning melds with their responses to their teachers; teachers' effectiveness in conveying knowledge and attitudes to their students is intimately bound up with their beliefs about the nature of their vocation and about particular students and situations. To give a flavor of the data, the cases of two students and the teachers they nominated as critical at the time of interview are described. The second part of the article discusses ways in which these findings might be used.

Two Cases

Towards creative achievement: Lewis(1).

During the interview with Lewis, aged 14, his fingers were never still. Constantly they molded a small lump of Fimo as Lewis spoke at 50 words to the dozen about his ideas for sculpting, for drawing, for making games, and for projects to fund the materials he needs for his art.

For Lewis, the domains about which he is passionate, at age 13 and 14, are art - specifically sculpture or ceramics - and writing; the crafting of language. For Lewis, it is the physicality of the experience which is important.

   ... the feeling of blank-minded happiness that I get when I work with
   anything squishy and malleable. That I can start with a block of clay and
   turn it into a person, an alien, a figure of mythology, ...  and almost
   anything I want.

   I used to make home-made dough at my Nana's farm. It was very salty and I
   remember I ate as much as I used. I enjoy it because I can make a
   functional object like a plate and turn it into an artwork.

In the second year of the study, the focus of the interview was development of the talent area. Influential factors, time spent on the talent area, and experiences of flow (Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde & Whalen, 1993) were explored.

It was not long before it became clear that in this case, such a line of investigation would be unprofitable. For Lewis, the area of talent just is. It is a part of everything he does. He packs a plastic container of Fimo with his lunchbox to have it there to fiddle with. He designs things constantly. Sometimes they are related to class work (last year a board game with carved figures won a prize in a national competition), but that doesn't make a difference to how much time he devotes to it. He carves with a knife, a pen, and a nail - whatever is available which is interesting to a researcher on talent development. It is not the issue to Lewis and his family.

The opening question of the interview was about changes and developments from the previous year. Lewis launched straight into it.

   Well, this year I've developed some strategies to stop me going off. If l
   start getting irritated - like too irritated - then I'll leave that, I'll
   put it aside and then I'll go on to do something else for a little while -
   for example another piece of homework. And when I've calmed down I'll go
   back to that and I'll think it through.

Lewis suffers from extreme anxiety about his school work. His parents say he cannot distinguish between tasks of different importance - between when a teacher says "It would be good if you did a bit more on this" and when the completion of work is essential. The pager - carried as part of the research study for a week last year - clearly caused both him and his family a great deal of tension, not only because it was mislaid several times, but because the need to fill in the sheet when the beeper went off meant stopping something else. He finds it difficult to organize himself, both in relation to homework and in relation to remembering what to take to which lesson.

Enter Mrs. Stevens. She was Lewis's year level co-ordinator in both Year 7 and Year 8, and taught him English in Year 8. In the words of his parents and of Lewis himself, she went far beyond what is expected of a teacher to assist him in organization, and also opened opportunities for him in his talent areas.

   Last year she was my year level coordinator ... What is really good ... was
   that she was willing to do so much for us - she was willing to go quite out
   of her way to help us be the best we could be. For example like I won
   Writer of the Month last year ... I still don't really know which [piece] I
   won for because Mrs. Stevens entered it for me and I'd be blasted if l know
   what it is.... she does that for students.... For example if she sees you
   doing well in a subject, she'll tell you about different openings in the
   subjects - she got everybody interested in Night of the Notables; she
   actually got me to do a talk to the Year 7's while I was in Year 8 last
   year just to say how good Night of the Notables was ...

In the 18 months of the study, Lewis did not mentioned any teacher for the subject of the activity that is at the center of his being. In the future, he will need someone to give shape and direction to his talents. But at the moment, there are other people who are crucial to the development of his skills - such as the After-School coordinator at his previous school who made Fimo available in the first place and allows him to buy it at the rates given to schools, and Mrs. Stevens, who says she "loves him to death" but will not let him escape the discipline of homework record books and due dates.

This is what Mrs. Stevens believes about talent development and the environment needed to nurture it.

   When a child makes a comment that shocks the pants off you - you just can't
   believe a child of that age has such understanding of a concept or their
   knowledge on some issue is just phenomenal. I guess that's what I'm
   thinking of [as potential]. Their abilities are often so much more than
   ours and it's exciting to think that perhaps we can channel them and
   perhaps they really can achieve phenomenal things with their life.

   They've got to be recognized as being different, they've got to be nurtured
   and their talents have got to be appreciated. They've got to feel good
   about their talents, and not think of themselves as nerds; I think that's
   really important. The word culture that you used before I think ... trying
   to get a culture in a year level.... trying to get a culture of kids
   achieving their very personal best. And not just that, but you know there
   are kids that can do a hell of a lot more than others and they are superb.
   Let's all clap them - that's the sort of attitude we have to develop.

When asked to talk about Lewis, most notable was her sense of her own responsibility to help him overcome his weaknesses.

   I do draw his attention when he intrudes by coming into my office every
   night, picking up papers that could be confidential. He's scatty in terms
   of memory ... He should have got an excellent award last year and he
   didn't. I think the reason was that he's just not getting assessment tasks
   in on time and I've got to wear that responsibility too. For example Lewis
   had a piece due in early last week and it wasn't until today that I was set
   to go to the kid and say, look you haven't given it to me - I'm really
   unorganized myself....

   [Interviewer: But still it's his responsibility, isn't it?]

   Yeah, but he seem to be benefiting from talking over his day with me and
   making sure everything's in his bag. [But he can be difficult because of]
   his lack of organization, his scattiness at times, and his perfectionism -
   he will stay up for hours doing homework. I'm not really sure - I think
   it's organization - a great little boy, not a nasty bone in his body. And
   he shows incredible patience with other kids - he fits in well.

Implicit in these remarks are the beliefs which underlie Mrs. Stevens' teaching practice. All of these influence her interactions with Lewis:

* knowledge of the needs of individual students, in terms of both the cognitive and affective domains;

* understanding of the kinds of experiences needed to nurture their potential;

* conception of a positive school culture; and a

* awareness of her own strengths and weaknesses -.

It is too early to tell what the long term effects of Lewis's contact with Mrs. Stevens are going to be. But it is appropriate intervention and understanding of his particular learning needs at a critical time in his development. Mrs. Stevens is the kind of flow teacher identified by Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde & Whalen (1993), skilled at reading the affective and cognitive needs of individual learners, and able to interrogate the effectiveness of her own practice. Art may be Lewis's field, but for this period of time at least, the critical gifted teacher needed to be in the area of structure and skill development.

The school achiever: Ashley

Ashley is a focused and determined student. He says "I would rather spend 5 hours and get an A+ than 2 hours and get an A." He is an academic all-rounder, who at various times has nominated both the sciences and the humanities as his preferred areas.

For him, the subject matters.

   When I go to [LOTE(2)] a lot of work is required, but the structure and
   brilliance of the language make it enjoyable to learn. When I am in this
   class I can forget the amount of other work in other subjects. It is a
   break from the everyday school rush.

What causes this kind of absorption? Is it simply the subject? What is the role of the teacher in creating the experience Ashley describes?

The teacher of this subject, Mrs. Wella, teaches several of the students in this study, and all of them love her. When she speaks of her subject, and of her vocation, her passion is clear.

   Many are called to teaching but actually it's very specialized. It's not
   easy but it's a very rewarding occupation ... I taught PE for a year but I
   didn't really like it and I wanted to teach LOTE - something clicked
   overnight - so back to university and I got a teaching studentship ... I
   guess I like to communicate the love I had of [the subjects]. I always felt
   I had an innate ability to communicate these things and I had the
   personality that might be suited to teaching. And I've never felt that I
   didn't since I started; of course there are days and there are times as we
   all have when you know you just feel terrible....

She is conscious of changing learning habits and expectations about classroom experiences. Some of these changes force her to adapt her classroom practice. However, she holds core beliefs about learning strategies in her subject area which she will not change, and which she believes remain effective.

   It seems to me that in the late 90's, children were unable to absorb what I
   could teach them in the early 90's ... Children needed to be entertained a
   lot more; they don't read as much ... They haven't been trained much in
   primary school as they were ten years ago to learn certain things by rote
   and certain things by heart which is very important in [LOTE]. Yet I've
   found that kids like it ... they like that little bit of structure, they
   like something they can understand and grab. They feel a sense of
   achievement.

   I'm a very active teacher in the classroom, I bounce around a lot ... I
   might sing a song for them - it's never planned ... it just happens that
   you get carried away, and sometimes the moment's right. Children need
   energy, children react to energy. You can't be still and so it takes a fair
   bit out of you ...

   The greatest reward is when you see a glint in a kid's eye and that genuine
   enthusiasm at 12 or 13 years of age, and you know you've put the glint
   there.

Mrs. Wella's remarks demonstrate that for her passing on subject knowledge is central to her conception of the vocation of teaching. Yet it is also clear that she monitors the ways in which students learn and the effectiveness of her chosen strategies; and that her beliefs about what works are based on her understanding of her discipline and on her years of experience.

It is clear from Ashley and the other school participants that Mrs. Wella's teaching inspires respect, admiration and commitment from talented students. Even so, some of her beliefs are not in line with current beliefs about active classrooms such as her demands for complete focus on tasks and forbidding casual conversation.

Discussion

From these case studies it can be seen that different teachers - a teacher concerned primarily with pastoral matters, and a teacher whose passion is quite clearly the subject - can both have significant impact on talented students. The students in this study - for the most part articulate and reflective 13 and 14 year olds - find it almost impossible to separate their attitude about a subject from their attitude to their current teacher. When they talk of how they came to enjoy their subject, or to see themselves as good at it, once again their thoughts are intricately bound with the teacher - her personality and her style of thinking/activities. This is Tom, speaking at Year 9.

   It was in Grade 3 (that I first came to enjoy math, and realize I was good
   at it). The teacher had a competition where you had to stand up in twos and
   she would call out sums. If you got it wrong you sat down. I got through
   the whole class twice before I made a mistake. So I think that was when I
   started to be good at math.

Clearly Tom must have been good at math before the day of the game. Indeed, his parents say he could count to 150 and beyond at the age of three, and when they told him to stop he did it backwards. But Tom's conception of himself as good at math dates from that point - where his Grade 3 teacher provided an activity that allowed for public and clear acknowledgement.

On the other hand, Jemma was widely recognized as being outstanding in English. In Year 8, however, she had a teacher who said he could not see why the girl had been acknowledged so highly - he could see no evidence of the passionate and reflective writing which to him were the indicators of talent in English. In this class Jemma achieved mediocre results, and the interview the following year found her describing herself as uncertain about her ability in English.

This teacher's attitude could have worked in quite a different way on another student. For instance, a student whose personal voice in writing had not been offered an outlet might have found one in this class. Also, a student with a different personality might have found it simple to dismiss the teacher and leave her own self image pretty much intact. So it seems that a formula for effective teaching, even within this particular population, may be hard to find, unless it be that there are different good teachers for different students. Given the pivotal nature of the teacher/student relationship in the fostering of talent, how are appropriate matches to be made?(3) One solution may be to begin from teachers' own beliefs about learning and teaching.

The second project described in this article explores teachers' understandings of talent development within their disciplines - in this case, history in secondary school. Through several discussions over an extended period, the goal was to use discussion of the strengths, weaknesses and learning styles of individual students to clarify both teachers' aims in teaching such students, and the most appropriate pathways for them through the school. The project builds on the literature of teacher knowledge and beliefs, and the impact of these on practice.

Maintaining the Passion: Explorations of Teacher Knowledge

The complexity of teaching: articulating tacit knowledge 

Much current learning theory is based on constructivist beliefs (e.g., Cobb, 1994; Phillips, 1995), which stress the importance of students making connections between what they know already and new information. It challenges teachers to identify and correct existing misunderstandings, and to ensure that new connections are sensible ones (Resnick, 1983).

It seems odd that the understanding of how learning works is not applied to teachers. Much recent research in the field of teacher knowledge has argued that teachers' values influence classroom action and educational opportunities in powerful ways (e.g., Ball & Wilson, 1996; Clark & Peterson, 1986).

Therefore, it makes sense that the first step is to identify existing beliefs and knowledge, and then to tease out how these affect classroom action. What is needed is a more detailed articulation of current classroom events and of teachers' intentions and beliefs (e.g., Peterson, McCarthey & Elmore, 1996; Turner-Bissett, 1999), as well as of the context in which the learning and teaching take place (e.g., Davis & Sumara, 1997; Little, 1999; Thompson, 1992). What would be the shape of professional growth if it began from teachers' own knowledge and ideas, and extended from that to apply new findings about effective teaching, learning and curricular experiences for talent development?

Most teachers continue in their profession because they love students as well as their subject (Landvogt, 1997). Because it is clear that passion for the task is important in effective learning, rather than creating checklists to identify teachers who have managed to maintain their passion for students and for their subject, perhaps we need to consider how to maintain that passion in other teachers. In a job that is increasingly multi-faceted, and increasingly demanding in terms of class sizes and expectations (e.g., Hargreaves, 1994; Johnson, 1990), time needs to be spent thinking about how the complex nature of the task might be articulated, and how teachers' knowledge, skills and interests might be most effectively used. Increasingly such investigations involve either equal collaboration between teachers and researchers (Cole & Knowles, 1993; Clark, Moss, Goering et al., 1996; Shulman, 1992), or the teachers themselves take on the role of researcher (e.g., Anderson & Herr, 1999; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993). Such action research and reflective practice are surely to be also encouraged in the field of talent development (Tomlinson, 1995).

The second project discussed in this article involves on-going collaborative work between teachers and myself as a researcher/consultant in a large (2200 students) girls' school in metropolitan Melbourne. The starting point was a paper I delivered at a lunchtime forum for staff (Landvogt, 1998), after which the head of the History department, Chris Jones, approached me to talk about ways in which we could explore the ideas further within her department. By her own admission, she had not been an advocate of gifted education because she was uncomfortable with issues of exclusion and selection, but she was attracted by the paper's focus on the developing learner. The points of engagement for her were the idea that giftedness is not a global characteristic, and that the path of talent development might vary from domain to domain. The work described here is the result of our conversations and also of the ways in which each meeting developed. It took place slowly (four meetings over a three semester period) because faculty meetings occur only once a term and were crowded with other agenda items. This was not set up as a neat research project but as a series of sessions for reflection, development and decisions about future directions. The objective was to provide the opportunity to discuss what talent in history might mean and how it might be nurtured, both within and without the classroom.

Interweaving theory to practice and back again: A case study of collaborative professional development 

Meeting one: Setting the stage

The purpose of the first meeting was to open discussion about the meaning of talent in history. Brief case studies were presented (for a sample, see Appendix A) to broaden the conversation to consider different ages and different kinds of learners within the talent potential population. Discussion then moved to consider in general terms the kinds of experiences, strategies and activities which might be beneficial for each of the students described in the cases at different stages through the school.

Meetings two and three: Why teach history? How should it be taught? How do different students learn within this discipline? What are the similarities and differences between being a talented Year history student and being a talented 7 Year 11 history student? How does one move from one to the other?

The second meeting was at once personal and on a large scale. Teachers spoke briefly about the meaning of history to them as individuals, and why they wished to teach it. They spoke about the areas or periods which meant most to them, and the big ideas they hoped to convey. They also spoke about their own learning and teaching preferences, and the challenges and benefits of these in terms of their existing classes. Two excerpts from the discussion are included below, based on the notes taken by one of the participants, to give a flavor of the kind of discussion which occurred. The first explores both the kinds of thinking required of high level history students, and the meaning of empathy in terms of history classes.

   Sarah and Cathy had included empathy as one of the characteristics of
   highly able history students. We began to explore what that means.

   Sarah: To establish an emotional connection, a feeling for reality outside
   their own experience -

   Lesley: And a feeling for ideas and attitudes outside their own ...

   Cathy: To walk in their shoes, that's what I hope for - to be in the
   trenches, to feel the mud ...

   Kamoya: Perhaps I don't aim so high ... I just want them to get out of
   their own ...

   Cathy: and to understand the notions of Empire - king and country ...

   Anon: Or more than that, maybe. Someone asked in my class, in a tone of
   frustration, "Why did they stay there? Why did they fight? Why didn't they
   just say - `No, I'm not doing that?"

   Kamoya: Perhaps that's a different kind of empathy - a higher one ... - the
   capacity both to feel what it was like - the horror and the dirt of it -
   and also to understand why they were there, and why they stayed.

   And so we moved to consider whether what we were talking about was a kind
   of critical empathy - the kind of feeling evoked by Cathy in our first
   meeting when she said that for her a goal of History teaching was "When my
   students are adults, and they' re waiting for the train in their suits and
   with their briefcases, I want them to understand they are there because of
   the Industrial Revolution, that they are part of something bigger, a kind
   of pattern ..."

   Kamoya's notes record: At a higher level that emotional connection needs to
   have a more analytical base, an awareness of different values and
   attitudes, some sort of questioning of what underlies the reactions of
   other people in other times.

Two teachers presented case studies of talented students in their classes, from which they had developed a tentative list of characteristics of able history students for discussion. This was followed by consideration of the existing curriculum, and the ways in which it did or did not meet the needs of the students we were describing. This continued in the following session. An excerpt appears below, based on Kamoya Peterson's notes.

Do our expectations of what we ultimately want for our students direct our course

Is this good or bad?

* we don't want to bore them with too many facts

* BUT we want to provide conceptual challenges for those ready for them - students and teachers should value history for what students ultimately gain, not measure the gain against some professional history standard.

* all school studies should encourage the potential for continued growth, whether it occurs or not, but this should not be seen as continually shifting the goal posts.

Does the ability to see themes and ask questions relate to age (and conversation at home) as much as ability?

* probably starts to emerge about Year 9.

* students who grasp the concept quickly can then apply it to particular studies, individual work projects

* value of individual work projects where students are too frustrated by group work.

* What are the links with English (perhaps for deciding suitability for acceleration?)

* reading level and rate

* analytical and comprehension skills

* How can we overcome the reluctance of younger students to reveal the intensity of their feeling of involvement?

* individual work

* contact with the teachers

* substitution of task

How do you phrase questions that encourage students to develop their ideas?

The summary demonstrates clearly how the conversation wove in and out from the big canvas of long-term goals to the equally important detail of effective teaching strategies for particular kinds of learners. The discussion was immediately useful to teachers while at the same time it expanded with complex and perhaps unsolvable ideas.

Session four: Exploring ideas

The fourth session featured the kind of discussion in which we too rarely have opportunity to participate. The head of department had observed, from the earlier discussion about the reasons for teaching history, that one of the commonalities was the desire to have students understand their place as Australians in the world. The meaning of being Australian is the subject of much soul-searching in this country, and she circulated a number of critical and provocative articles as pre-reading. For two hours these were debated, and while many issues related to classroom practice emerged(4), these were not the focus: the focus was to give teachers whose subject is ideas, the chance to engage with them with other adults.

Discussion

In terms of new units for talented students, these meetings have been so far only minimally effective: they were the impetus for the development of a withdrawal unit of work using the van Tassel-Baska (1995) model, and led to the development of several on-line units which have not as yet attracted a large number of participants, although it is growing.

But in terms of the following areas the meetings have been the impetus for ongoing discussion.

* encouraging teachers to think about the meaning of high ability within their subject area;

* empowering teachers to feel able to use their experience to talk about emerging talent;

* demystifying the field and talking about students as learners;

* and breaking down some of the negative feeling often generated around this group of learners.

After one of the meetings, the head of department wrote:

   I find it very encouraging and interesting to listen to History teachers
   articulating their approach, both to the discipline of History and to
   students with particular needs. While the focus was on the student, the
   discussion revealed much about what we are doing in our classrooms. It
   seems to me we have a staff who seriously consider the challenges of
   catering for individual differences.... we have moved beyond demanding a
   body of knowledge for its own sake, to an appreciation of the value of
   empathy and conceptual skills.

Concluding Remarks

Preliminary findings of the first study, documenting the lives of talented adolescents, demonstrated that different kinds of teachers are needed for students at various stages of their development. For Lewis, Mrs. Stevens' understanding of his emotional needs and her willingness to provide structures to develop his organisation, are the most appropriate forms of intervention for him at this time. For Ashley, the opportunity for deep engagement with subject matter, and contact with a teacher able to model passion for a domain of knowledge, have allowed him to experience a sense of flow which may prove to be the chance factor in years to come. While these teachers differ in style and motivation from one another, they share the following critical characteristics: commitment to students, love of their work, and the capacity to reflect critically both on student needs and on their practice.

Because talent development is now understood to be a pathway rather than a given (e.g. Treffinger & Feldhusen, 1996), it is clearly important that such teachers be available for students throughout their school lives. How are teachers to sustain and nurture such qualities? The second project built on an existing timetable of meetings to invite teachers to describe and reflect on the meaning of talent within their discipline, at particular ages and for particular learners, and to use these discussions as the foundation for appropriate educational opportunities.

What is the effect of checklists of characteristics of gifted teachers? Either they make some teachers complacent - "Yep, that's me", or they serve to make teachers uncertain and yet again unsure - "This isn't for me". The aim of the projects described in this article was to increase awareness of the many kinds of individuals which make up the group we might label students of promise - to observe their learning, and to provide ways of alerting teachers to the various pathways through their particular domains and the kinds of physical and mental tools students might need to equip them for their journey.

The key is to ask what is being taught, and to whom. To ask simply what makes a good teacher of the gifted, or even a gifted teacher, is to return to the thinking predicated on the understanding that there is such a thing as a gifted child. We have moved beyond that, and similarly we need to move beyond the idea that there is a formula for successful teaching. Instead, we have to look at the whole context in which the teaching takes place: the classroom, the school, the particular child, and the beliefs and values of the teacher. Rather than make the judgment that this, or that, makes a gifted teacher, we need to look at the development of the child within the area(s) of talent, and to ask what kinds of teaching characteristics are likely to maximise the "chance" factor. Most teachers can be the chance factor for some students. Few can claim to be so for all. With more effective opportunities to explore the match, in planning programs for students we might be able to maximise the likelihood of successful matches more of the time.

   Unless a person enjoys the pursuit of knowledge, learning will remain a
   tool to be set aside as soon as it is no longer needed. Therefore we cannot
   expect our children to become truly educated until we ensure that teachers
   know not only how to provide information but also how to spark the joy of
   learning.

Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde & Whalen (1993), p.195

APPENDIX A: Using cases in History

CASES IN HISTORY

What is case method? Why use it?

The purpose of this approach is to imitate the reality of classroom action with its unpredictability and its dilemmas. Cases can be of various types: real or fiction, resolved or unresolved, with or without a guiding commentary.

For the purpose of this meeting I have created a few snapshots of history students at different ages and of different degrees of ability. As will probably become obvious, I am not a history teacher - I'd be delighted to have the inadequacies of my cases drawn out! What I have tried to do is to begin from different types of learners, and to describe them as I have had them described to me. Then, from our collective knowledge of the kinds of provision available at different stages in the school - withdrawal, acceleration, out of hours, online and so on, perhaps it will be possible to begin to tease out what kinds of provision might be most appropriate for what kinds of learners, and the kinds of pathways we are and will be offering these students as they move through the school. Of course such pathways can never be fixed - but within the so-called "gifted education" section we are trying to move our thinking to consider long term goals, different kinds of learners, and the challenge of addressing different kinds and degrees of talent, which may emerge at different times in students' lives.

It would all be so much easier if we just knew what they were going to turn into when they grow up!!

CASE ONE: Jasmine 

Jasmine is in Year 8 and joined the school in Year 7. She is an avid reader; she reads at a level several years above her chronological age and devours on average 10 novels a week. She reads all kinds of fiction, but particularly enjoys detective fiction. She has also read many historical novels, guided by the school librarian.

Jasmine's written expression is of a high standard also, and she writes stories and poems in her own time. She is talented in art, plays piano and trumpet, and is above average in all subjects. She does not however particularly enjoy math and says she is no good at Science because her hypotheses are often incorrect. She enjoys class discussion and participates well - her projects are often slightly quirky in their approach. She is well behaved and reliable.

She has one close friend; she is not teased by other students but she is also not included. She says this does not worry her; she likes to be seen as independent and "original". She is very sensitive to others' feelings - she befriends those who are being bullied for as long as they need it, she "looks after" new students - and she cries over novels.

Her perception of History at this point in her life is that it is full of stories. As a small child she was sure she would be a princess - although her hair is the wrong color! - and the appeal of historical novels is in the story more than in the investigation of a particular period or culture.

CASE TWO: Chloe Chloe is in Year 9 and has spent her entire school life at the same school. She is a technological whiz and is constantly tapping away while teachers are speaking - she says (and her marks do not deny) that this does not affect her concentration.

She is outstanding in Mathematics and has won various distinctions and outside awards. Her intention is to be a geneticist, as her mother is, and she will choose a science-oriented program for her final years at school. Her written expression is of a high standard and she reads a lot - mostly science fiction. Recently she has dipped into Paul Davies etc.

She likes things to be clear-cut, and is focused in her work - she is the one who asks for the expected length of an essay and what question 4(b) means precisely. She is uncomfortable with open-ended discussion where a number of interpretations are possible. She says that she enjoys the humanities and regrets that her career choice will not allow her to continue with these subjects.

CASE THREE: Janet 

Janet is in Year 10 and is a conscientious and reliable student. She is in the B netball team, is doing grade 3 piano and sings in the chorus of the musical. Her work is always of a good standard - she works steadily, listens carefully and always does what is required. She is reasonably popular and her report last year was sprinkled with As and Bs (with a C for Science).

In choosing VCE subjects she could go in any direction. She thinks she would like to travel and then perhaps do a business course, teaching or speech therapy (she had a stammer when she was little). She has a good memory and enjoys reading; she likes writing stories and essays but is not keen on poetry.

GENERAL QUESTIONS

(which may or may not be worth using to guide discussion)

* What kind of paths do you see for each of these students as they move through the school? (You might want to consider whether there are differences between the history subjects offered at VCE and what those differences are; you might also want to ask about the differences and similarities between VCE and IB, and the kinds of students who would be best suited by each.)

* Why are you teaching History?

* What is the relationship between process and content in History?

* Is the answer to this different in different schools? How? Why?

* Are there developmental or curricular or ... reasons why this is so?

* What does acceleration mean in History?

* For what kinds of "end" results do you personally hope for the talented history students you have taught or are teaching?

* What is the effect of TER scores on the way history is organised in the college?

* What would you add to my "cases" to make them more truly reflective of your students? In other words, what kinds of qualities make different kinds of outstanding students of history?

REFERENCES

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(1) Pseudonyms are-used throughout for teachers and students.

(2) LOTE: Languages Other Than English 

(3) Mentors may be one answer to this question, although selection is complex and the process can be expensive. Detailed discussion is beyond the scope of this article.

(4) For instance, there was lengthy discussion about the discomfort of teaching about the white Australia policies of the 50s and 60s to students whose families would have been affected by them.

Julie Landvogt holds a Post-Doctoral Fellowship from La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia, where she is conducting a study on the influences which affect the development of talent in secondary school students. She also works collaboratively with teachers in classrooms to investigate the effectiveness of various content and strategies on different kinds of learners. She is the author of two books on nurturing talent: Teaching gifted children: Developing programs in schools (1997) and Probing deeper: Issues in gifted education (1998), both published by Hawker Brownlow Education.

Manuscript submitted April, 2000.

Revision accepted September, 2000.