Gifted Women and Teaching: A compatible choice?

This study questions whether feminism and educational interventions for gifted females have resulted in the devaluation of teaching as a career choice for gifted women. Based on life history interviews with 12 gifted female teacher educators, four key findings were revealed. All 12 respondents demonstrated resiliency and reflectiveness, the need for a creative outlet, a need for collaboration and community, and the desire to effect change. This study reveals, through the participants' own words and experiences, how careers as educators have enabled them to apply these characteristics and fulfill these needs which are common to many gifted across cultures.

Teaching is undeniably a gendered profession. It has been termed "women's work" (Biklen, 1995), a "traditionally female occupation" (Griffin, 1997), and a "feminized profession" (Stone, 1994). Even those who "choose to consider teaching an art ... must understand it to be also a gendered art" (Pagano, 1994, p. 253). According to Stone, "we know historically that gender bias has pervaded both the theorizing about and the actual practice of teaching" (p. 224). Such inherent bias has led to working conditions for teachers which include low salaries and status, a lack of autonomy and control, and isolation. Prevailing conditions and the doubly marginalizing classification of teaching as both women's work and a helping profession has resulted in its labeling by some social scientists as a semiprofession (Griffin, 1997, p. 10).

A goal of the Women's Movement has been to increase educational and occupational opportunities for females. Recently, within the field of education, there has been an explosion of scholarship focusing on the experiences of girls and women in schools. For female students in general, and especially for those identified as gifted, the most commonly recommended intervention to counteract gender bias has been to counsel them into math, science, and other traditionally male-dominated classes and occupations (Noble, Subotnik, & Arnold, 1996). Have such educational and counseling practices, coupled with the less-than-desirable working conditions in many schools and classrooms, resulted in female students being actively counseled away from careers as educators?

Current literature does not address this question. However, recent studies suggest that "feminism ... has contributed to the devaluation of the traditionally female occupations" (Middleton, 1993, p. 155), and that efforts of the feminist movement to increase the number of women in male-dominated occupations has strengthened the often-held belief that teaching is somehow less important than other professions. Within the literature on gifted women, such an attitude is especially prevalent. Studies by Arnold (1993), Kaufmann (1981), and Walker and Mehr (1992) all state that gifted women are overrepresented within the field of education as compared to other career fields. The authors of these studies seem to suggest that for talented women, choosing to teach is commensurate with their underachievement and loss of potential. Kerr (1994) makes this point much more explicitly in her longitudinal study of women identified as gifted, Smart Girls Two, when she writes: "At twenty-nine, most were homemakers, teachers, or nurses; only a few were professionals [italics added]" (p. 233).

Interestingly, in this same study, Kerr (1994) defined achievement as "the use of one's gifts and talents, as one understands them, to the fullest" (p. xi). Thus, achievement is recognized as a "woman's fulfillment of her own dreams" (p. xi). Does teaching not provide an outlet for the fullest use of one's gifts and talents? Can a career in education fulfill the dreams of even the most intellectually or creatively gifted women? Kerr goes on to say that "by defining achievement and career as the maximum use of talents in the pursuit of a vocation, perhaps women can stop defending their lifestyles and can search for those challenges that will allow fulfillment of potential" (p. xi). Does this only apply to those women involved in careers which meet some universally agreed-upon definition of professional? Must women with exceptional abilities continue to defend the choice to enter the field of education because it is viewed as traditionally feminine or intellectually limiting?

Like the participants in Kerr's study, I was identified as a smart girl based largely on my achievement in school. I am also a teacher, a teacher educator, and a feminist. As an undergraduate student and many times since, I have been told that I was too smart to be an educator. This has always struck me as the strangest of contradictions. As a doctoral student, however, I realized that my experiences were not unique. A number of other female teacher educators I encountered shared stories of being told they were too smart to teach. Although I recognized a number of patterns in the stories I heard from women I knew personally, I found very little research focusing on the lives of teacher educators.

Teacher educators are those individuals responsible for the development of future teachers. They have been elementary and secondary teachers and practice the art of teaching at the post-secondary level. While numerous studies have focused on historical and current experiences of women in educational and professional settings (Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik, 1996) and on biographical accounts of teachers (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990; Goodson, 1994), little research has been conducted and little is known about the life histories of teacher educators (Carter & Doyle, 1996; Newman & Peterson, 1997). Still less is known about the experiences of gifted women in the teaching profession (Arnold et al., 1996; Ford, Grantham, & Harris, 1997). According to Bell and Chase (1996), the "contextual and structural features of the professional world are central to understanding how individuals' talents develop" (p. 188). Perhaps, by gaining an insider's perspective on the education profession, we may better understand how gifted women function as teachers and whether their talents are enhanced or constrained within such a context. This study, then, focuses on the experiences of gifted women educators and how they feel their talents have been developed in their profession.

Methodology

An interpretavist perspective was used to examine the life histories of participants. Specifically, narrative methodology was selected because of its applicability to educational inquiry (Carter, 1993), its compatibility with feminist research techniques (Personal Narratives Group, 1989), and its appropriateness to understanding the lives of women (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule, 1986). As data were collected from 12 participants, a multiple case study analysis was employed to compare and contrast individual cases (Merriam, 1988).

Participants

The 12 respondents included in this life history study were identified through personal and professional contacts with the author. Four criteria were used to select participants. All of the respondents were women, practicing teacher educators, former classroom teachers, and recipients of doctoral degrees in education. The criterion that all participants have elementary or secondary classroom teaching experience was crucial to this study. The majority of doctoral programs and faculty positions in teacher education require that candidates have at least three years teaching experience so that they will have an experiential understanding of the classrooms in which future teachers will teach. This same experiential background was essential to the present study which focuses on career fulfillment in teaching at all levels. Participants share all of these characteristics. However, they represent widely diverse experiences and a range of ages, geographic regions, religious, cultural, ethnic, and economic backgrounds, and career stages. The classification of these 12 women as gifted occurred after initial data were collected. Each respondent would clearly fit within a variety of current definitions of giftedness based upon her career accomplishments, local and national recognition achieved through teaching evaluations, research, and publications, and personal attributes which are consistent with the literature on talent development in adult women.

Data Collection

Interviewing was the primary technique of data collection. Multiple, in-depth interviews were conducted with each of the participants over a two-year period. These interviews began very broadly with the prompt, "Tell me your life story" (Casey, 1993), and became increasingly focused upon classroom teaching experiences, decisions to pursue graduate study, experiences in higher education as both students and professionals, career histories, and the interaction of personal and professional lives. Participants also produced written texts exploring the relationship between their life experiences and their personal philosophies of education. Additionally, documents and educational artifacts were collected from each respondent. Curriculum vitae were used to verify dates and other specific details described in the field texts. Professional writing samples and artifacts were selected by the participants as evidence of their unique educational visions.

Data Analysis

Data analysis was inductive and concurrent with data collection as recommended in naturalistic inquiry (Merriam, 1988). For this study, data were searched specifically for stories of teaching and feelings about careers in education. Multiple interviews with each participant allowed each respondent to analyze her own life experiences. The researcher was also enabled to test developing analyses of the lives of the individual women as well as the connective themes among their narratives (Middleton, 1993). The visible linkages "between data, findings, and interpretation" (Mishler, 1990, p. 429) clarified throughout the study are a result of the collaborative relationship between participant and researcher created by this particular inquiry.

Limitations

A concern for "producing valid and reliable knowledge in an ethical manner" (Merriam, 1988, p. 163) was present from the inception of this study. To address concerns of internal validity within narrative research, several different techniques were employed: triangulation--including multiple sources of data and multiple methods of data collection (Mathison, 1988); member checks--continually checking interpretations of the researcher against interpretations of the participants (Guba and Lincoln, 1981); long-term, repeated engagement in interviews; peer examination of emerging findings; involvement of participants at every stage of the research process (Merriam, 1988); and the persistent documentation of researcher biases throughout the study (Peshkin, 1988). Concerns of external validity were addressed through two techniques to enable the reader to apply particular facets of the research to his or her own life: thick description gained from multiple interviews and multiple data sources (Lincoln and Guba, 1985); and cross-case analysis of 12 different participants' narratives (Merriam, p. 155). Confidentiality of participants was protected by using pseudonyms and broad geographical descriptors throughout the study.

Results

Four themes emerged from the interviews which link the individual narratives of respondents with respect to career fulfillment: resiliency and reflection; generativity and innovation; connection and collaboration; and change. All of the findings are interrelated and must be understood as embedded within specific contexts. Some of the examples chosen to illustrate one theme could also be illustrative of another.

Resiliency and Reflection

The single most salient characteristic that united the narratives of the 12 participants in this study was their response to adversity. All of the participants in this study have demonstrated resiliency in overcoming diverse obstacles. Such obstacles include childhood abuse and neglect, poverty, sexual molestation, eating disorders, debilitating illness and accidents, abusive marriages, divorce, death of a spouse, racism, and, for all of the respondents, sexism. Intense self-reflection has enabled them to transform pain into growth and to achieve success and fulfillment in both personal and professional domains. It is through response to adversity, then, that the characteristics of resiliency and reflective thinking become intertwined. Habits of reflection and resilience are required of effective teachers, and these 12 women believe their careers as educators have offered them numerous opportunities in which to use and strengthen these attributes.

Although these women entered the field of education with differing motivations and expectations, they all proclaimed overwhelming enthusiasm for teaching. However, early in her career, each respondent quickly became aware of discrepancies between her love for teaching and the circumstances under which she was expected to teach. Grace, who began her career as a high school English and drama teacher, recalled:

   While my opening teaching experiences were very, very fulfilling in terms
   of what I was teaching because I was opening kids up to the worm of poetry
   and literature, I would say definitely my first four years of teaching were
   very, very frustrating. I would tell people I think I cried every day for
   four years. Because there were supervisors saying, "Why is there so much
   noise in here? Why are these kids moving around?" And I would say, "But I'm
   teaching. Why does that matter?"

Gina, an early childhood educator from a rural background who is deeply committed to social justice, stated:

   I guess I'd describe it as really enjoying being with the children, liking
   them and getting reward from them, but not getting reward from the system
   at all. Always feeling like it was a problem with the principal, always a
   problem with what I wanted to do ... feeling like I didn't fit with the
   system at all.

For Paige, a former elementary teacher who characterizes her upbringing as working class, her refusal to fit into the system resulted in her being fired from her first teaching position. Still, this experience did not quell her love for teaching, as she expressed in the following statement: I have always loved teaching. Even in the year I was removed from Catholic school, I loved the teaching ... it was only the administration and the abuse that I hated.

Although the circumstances under which they were expected to teach were often stressful, their love of teaching actually provided solace and comfort to these women when their personal lives were even more difficult than their professional lives. For example, Rose, a teacher educator in gifted education, commented, I think at times in my life when there were a lot of changes going on, like when I was going through my divorce, and when my father died, my teaching sustained me and provided me with an outlet. Instead of allowing adverse circumstances within the profession to take them away from teaching, then, the women in this study sought ways to focus on the fulfilling aspects of educational careers and change the negative aspects.

One way they accomplished this was through reflection. All 12 participants are extremely reflective individuals who are engaged in continual introspection about their personal and professional choices. Self-reflection has been required of each woman as she has overcome obstacles and dealt with the residual effects of traumatic experiences. In many instances, through retrospective reflection, these women have been able to transform their past traumas into opportunities for growth. Several of the participants discussed how they have effectively applied this transformative reflection specifically to their experiences as teachers. For example, through retrospective reflection, Paige was able to transform the experience of being fired from her first teaching position into an opportunity to find a position in a school with which she was a better match. Grace has also re-visioned her early experiences with supervisors and critics in this way: I don't know that I see any of these as negative, though they may have had an initial negative impact. I see them as part of my learning experience because I grew so much from each of them. Envisioning inhospitable conditions as opportunities for growth and change is one way that these women have responded creatively to professional adversity.

All of the teacher educators involved in this study believe that engagement in reflection is absolutely crucial to the professional development of teachers, and they feel that careers as educators have enabled them to enhance their own reflective natures. For example, Libby, a teacher educator in literacy and a former special education teacher, described how her reflections about her experiences with one of her own teachers transformed those negative encounters into positive classroom practice: I learned from her how much my attitude influences the students' attitudes. Now Libby deliberately reflects upon what attitude she might be conveying to her students. Grace believes that teachers must engage in reflection in order to develop reflective habits in their students. She stated, If teachers don't have a sense of self-affirmation, they can't help kids self-affirm. And to teach children to self-affirm and self-actualize has to be our goal. Jolie, a brilliant and prolific writer from a working class background, helps her students develop a tendency to relentless scrutiny of one's own position just as she practices herself.

Generativity and Innovation

All of the women who participated in this study are creative individuals. Each has found an outlet for that creativity in a career in education. They believe that, as educators, they have been allowed to generate new ideas and create unique career paths. Specifically, by providing opportunities for artistic expression, for experimenting with unconventional methods, and for assuming a variety of professional roles, careers in education have met these women's needs to be generative. Although such numerous and varied involvements exert countless demands upon the time, energy, emotions, and affections of the respondents, they embrace the complexities of their lives as educators.

During several interviews, the relationship between teaching and artistic expression was mentioned. Paige has sung professionally and toured with bands. She said, I have always had a flair for performing. Even as young as first grade my voice was unique. Indeed, her students can attest to her talent as she often sings and makes music in her classes. She sees this combination of teaching and performing as a natural one: Education has always been somewhat of a performing art to me and a natural outlet for my talents and my interests. In looking for ways to express her own creativity through teaching, Paige finds ways to encourage creative expression in her students as well. This is also true for Grace who dreamed of becoming an actress on Broadway:

   I entered education by default, but then I realized how much I really loved
   being around kids and how much I loved to teach. I thought, "Gosh, I really
   want to be on stage. I want to be a star. But I really like this teaching
   stuff." It was very, very rewarding because I was able to direct plays. All
   those things I enjoyed doing I could orchestrate and bring to life myself.
   I thought, "Why do I need to go to Broadway? My Broadway's right here.

Jolie, Bryn, Rose, Carly, Caroline, and Libby also described experiences of creative production through music, drama, writing, and the visual arts in which they participate jointly with their students. Finding these opportunities for artistic expression in the midst of more routine tasks is another way that the participants have created career fulfillment.

Like Grace, Bryn, a beginning teacher educator in gifted education, says she became a teacher by default and yet stated unequivocally that she loves teaching. The opportunity to be creative is one of the primary reasons she feels this way. She commented that every year is a series of new challenges. Even in the most mundane tasks, she looks for--and finds--ways to express herself creatively. Amy, the respondent with the longest experience as an educator, also stated that teaching is new every year. New students are invigorating for me! Carly, who defines herself as a literacy scholar, believes that as both a teacher and a teacher educator, the potential for innovation and exploration in education is boundless. For Mara, now a dean of a college of education, creativity has been her response to stressful situations:

   I never had a classroom when I was teaching. It was always in a hall, in a
   closet, in a surplus room along the way. So it's been a matter that you
   learn to be creative and make the most of it. I think that's been the best
   experience I've had throughout. I never seem to find myself in a
   traditional situation whether it be as a classroom teacher or as a reading
   specialist or a reading or college professor or a dean.

Such non-traditional experiences are the basis for Mara's vision of her career as generative and innovative rather than restrictive and oppressive. She stated, I would not function well in an environment where structure and direction were dictated to me on a day-to-day basis. All of the participants in this study believe that teaching has allowed them to create their own directions, and they choose to envision many of the obstacles, such as those described by Mara, as challenges and opportunities for innovation.

Finally, teaching is made up of a number of diverse professional roles to which teachers can apply a variety of existing skills. Additionally, careers in education have enabled and required these women to gain new skills which they could never have anticipated. All 12 respondents listed a seemingly infinite array of tasks in which they have been involved, both as teachers and teacher educators which include research, lesson planning, course planning, writing, editing journals and newsletters, administrative duties, committee membership, advising and mentoring students, community board representation, conference and staff development presentations, leadership positions in professional organizations, and supervision of preservice teaching. Mara best summarized how a career in education has allowed her to explore numerous and varied interests and enact innovations:

   You can create in this position a lot of beliefs, directions,
   opportunities. You can serve as leader, but you don't have to lead down the
   straight and narrow. You can create, build a path as you go. And that's
   what a career in education has allowed me to do. I never started out to
   major in education to end up being a dean. I sort of chopped this path as I
   went and what seemed to be appropriate and right and fun and exciting were
   these paths along the way. So it's let me create as I go.

Connection and Collaboration

Making connections, both with other people and among ideas, is vital to the lives of these women. Forming and maintaining relationships, while essential in their personal lives, is equally important in professional contexts. Creating intellectual communities for themselves, their students, and their colleagues plays a major role in their career fulfillment. These women also believe that everything they do in their private lives influences their public lives and vice versa. All of the participants moved effortlessly between stories of their own children and families and stories of their students and colleagues in the life history narratives they constructed for this study. They each expressed the belief that careers in education are particularly well-suited to such connections between personal and professional domains.

For Caroline, a beginning teacher educator who had an impoverished childhood, this connection between the personal and professional was the most appealing aspect of a career in education. She had suffered through a number of unhappy relationships in her personal life and saw teaching as a discrete set of technical skills, but while working with a student, she made the following discovery: I learned it's not the techniques that are important. It's the interpersonal skills that are very much more important, which launched me into being more interested in education than ever. Paige also expressed the importance of relationships with students:

   My students have always been my extended family. Each one was special to
   me. I thought that God had intended me to have a herd of children of my
   own, but it seemed that I was always intended to love other people's
   children.

Both Caroline and Paige have found fulfilling relationships with students that have helped them compensate for less fulfilling relationships in their personal lives.

They discovered that teaching requires more than loving students, however. Caroline discussed the tremendous number of hours she spends with students teaching them the skills she believes they need to be prepared professionals. Paige described her similar experiences:

   As with your own children, you realize that love is not enough to help
   students. They need to have the knowledge and skills (including
   self-knowledge) to make it. While the love comes easily, helping them find
   the knowledge and skills does not always--and really must be worked for.

Finally, her relationships with students have been rewarding to her regardless of the age of students she is teaching:

   My soul is as much in the classroom with my undergraduates or graduate
   students as it ever was when I was teaching my fifth graders. Granted, the
   students' base of knowledge, their maturity, and their personal goals are
   different, but graduate students still require a sense that they matter to
   you and they too need knowledge and skills to succeed in life.

For all of the participants, the combination of creating personal relationships with and providing life-enhancing skills to their students is what makes their careers as educators fulfilling.

Grace discovered this to be particularly true for students whom others often find difficult to love. She vividly described her feelings about the behaviorally disordered high school students she taught: They were termed bad kids, but they were wonders. I spent time with students who nurtured me and taught me to celebrate tenacity and persistence. Through her relationship with these students, she claims that she, even more than her students, experienced transformation. Carly, too, was especially affected by her relationships with those students who were hard to love. She recalled her experiences as a fifth grade teacher: I always felt that I could reach the kids that the other teachers couldn't stand having in their rooms and that I could make a difference with them. Now, in her capacity as a teacher educator, she commented on how she intentionally involves students in research for their growth as well as her own and admitted that there are things that I would not read, that I would not do, if it wasn't because of our relationship. In this way, her students mentor her as she mentors them. Jolie explicitly outlined teaching strategies she has developed to teach students to take themselves and others seriously, and to see themselves as members of an intellectual community. Because these 12 women have experienced feeling like outsiders both as students and as teachers, they have worked especially hard to create learning communities for all students.

Establishing relationships with colleagues is also important to this group of women. However, not one participant discussed any particularly supportive collegial relationships they encountered as elementary or secondary teachers. On the contrary, a number of them described situations similar to those experienced by Carly: The other teachers focused very much on keeping straight rows and keeping paper off the floor. And I think, in part, that that influenced my stress because I knew that wasn't what I valued. Like Carly, all of the participants encourage and value creativity in their students because it is critical to their own fulfillment. This is not typical of many teachers, they believe. Gina described in detail the differences between her values and those of the teachers around her:

   I remember teaching second grade and the third grade teachers finding out,
   for reading, we were going to the library and choosing books. We were not
   using basal readers. And the teachers saying, "Well, I don't care what you
   let them read, but don't let them read those third grade basal readers"

In fact, this feeling of being different from their peers contributed to many of the participants choosing to leave elementary or secondary teaching positions. However, they did not leave teaching altogether. Instead, they all looked for ways that they could more effectively combine careers in teaching with creative expression and collegiality.

As teacher educators, these women have found the opportunities for making connections with colleagues to be more abundant, although both Caroline and Carly discussed how they have had to consciously create these opportunities for themselves. Libby described how her colleagues at her university supported and nurtured her as she was completing her doctorate elsewhere. This was also evidenced by the numerous letters from her colleagues, contained in her portfolio for promotion and tenure, which highlighted her contributions to the community of learners at their university. In a written statement, Jolie emphasized the importance of collegial relationships:

   Over the years it has come to be that all of my friends are also my
   colleagues--both here and at other institutions. I take seriously the
   notion that we form a community because intellectual work--whether teaching
   or writing--is an act of communication in its most fundamental sense.

Like the other participants, Mara is aware of the need for creating intellectual communities, how infrequently this happens in elementary and secondary schools, and how often this isolation results in teachers leaving the profession. In her role as dean, she is determined to change this, as she described: I am so committed to creating a different environment, in the elementary schools especially, to let teachers really function as professionals in that environment, to work together, to work with parents, to work with community, to work with kids.

All of the respondents believe that careers as educators enable them to make connections between their personal and professional interests and concerns. As Gina stated, In terms of separating the two, I never separate anything from anything. That is me! Work is always tied up with the personal for me. Carly asserted, Whatever I'm interested in and want to learn more about finds its way into my teaching. Both Krista, who grew up on a farm and has served on several national committees for educational reform, and Grace discussed how experiences with their own children influenced their teaching. Krista stated:

   A lot of my teaching philosophy comes from my own son's experience in
   schools and how negative it's been for him. And I think if it's that
   negative for him with all the support we have at home, then how can we make
   it better for all kids?

Grace is the only African American participant in this study, and several elements interacted to sharply define her vision of education for a diverse student population. Although Grace had taught for several years before her children were born, she stated that her educational vision became crystallized through their experiences. When they were infants, and she began reading to them, she realized that they were not "seeing themselves in books, so as she said, I was beginning to go and look for books that looked like my children." She continued, This love of reading in my kids assisted me and what I was doing in the classroom.

Both Krista and Grace described how they used negative experiences of their own children to make educational changes for all children. However, making connections between so many competing demands is not always easy, as Amy stated:

   There have been times when I thought I didn't do a good job at anything. I
   wasn't as good a teacher as I should be; I wasn't as good a mother as I
   should be. It's a struggle, but I think every working woman has thought
   that before.

She added, I am very nurturing, very family-oriented, and social. Teaching combines tremendously well with the other kind of life I wanted for myself. The remaining respondents have also found this to be true. While careers in education seem particularly compatible with connecting personal and professional interests, the creativity which these talented women bring to their teaching helps them to recognize and to act upon opportunities for such connections.

Change

Change has always been a focus of these 12 women. They are all invigorated, not threatened, by change. Each respondent continually seeks ways to change herself, to change the educational system, and to change the lives of her individual students. This desire to touch lives is viewed as a mission or a spiritual calling by the majority of these women.

Mara best expressed the need for continual change which is shared by the other respondents when she stated, I don't like status quo. I don't like change for change's sake, but I think that we always have to continue to grow and learn wherever we are. Change is exciting! Change is not a threat. The one professional regret that Amy expressed was based upon not making a career change sooner:

   The one negative thing I would say is that I think that I stayed in my last
   position too long. I have a ten-year rule. I think everyone should make a
   significant change in her professional life at least once every ten years.
   Now, because everything moves so fast and change happens so rapidly, I
   would change my ten-year rule to a five-year rule--or even shorter, I just
   feel that your creativity is not sharp when you remain in the same position
   for more than five years.

All of the other participants also commented on how they are professionally invigorated by change. They feel a stronger need for change than for stability, and careers in education have enabled them to meet this need.

Lifelong learning has been the avenue along which these women have pursued personal change and growth. Although these twelve women all received advanced degrees which eventually took them out of elementary and secondary classrooms, they began graduate study because of a desire to gain new knowledge which would enhance their teaching. Amy remarked that she began graduate school for the following reasons:

   Basically a lack of training in being able to meet the individual
   differences of students, particularly high school reading students. I
   really didn't think about going back to graduate school to better my own
   position, I just knew I needed to gain new skills.

Paige expressed similar sentiments:

   The degree was a means to become better in my role as teacher. I wanted to
   know more so that I could help my students better. The masters and the
   doctorate were just natural progressions along my pathway to become an
   expert teacher.

Grace discussed the criticisms she encountered during teaching and how she looked to graduate school as a means to address them: Because I got so much feedback about my classroom management, about my methods of disciplining, I decided to go back to school because I figured that was the best way for me to become a good teacher. The tension between their love for teaching and the feeling that professionally they were not good enough led all of the participants to enhance their teaching through continued education.

Some of the participants did begin graduate education as a route to a university position, but none of them sought advanced degrees in order to leave teaching. Instead, they all saw continual learning as the medium through which they would become the best teachers, regardless of the age or level of students they would be teaching. As elementary and secondary teachers, and in their current positions as teacher educators, these women are required by their profession to be lifelong learners. The reading and research that are required to plan lessons and courses and to design and carry out research of their own are appealing facets of their careers in education.

All of the women interviewed discussed their desire to change the system of education. Jolie stated, I once said that I teach because I want to change the worm. I was much younger then, but I still believe that the engine driving all our teaching is the engine of change. Gina expressed similar sentiments when she stated, I really felt like there were a lot of teachers I was teaching with that should not be in teaching. I thought maybe I could change that. Grace believed that as a high school teacher, she did not have the kind of power to effect the type of change she envisioned, as she described:

   Teaching special ed was really where I started this whole transformation
   about what we should be doing in teaching, what we should be doing in
   classroom management, and I thought, "You know, people aren't listening to
   me. We should be doing this and this and this." Nobody cared. It was just
   like, "You're just a lowly teacher. Who cares? That doesn't make any sense.
   That's just you with your pie-in-the-sky notions. Miss Enthusiastic,
   thinking you can change the whole worm. You can't change the whole world.
   These kids are this; these kids are that." So I really started
   contemplating getting a doctorate so people would listen to me. Because
   that's the only way they'll listen to me--if I have d. r. in front of my
   name. So that's what I'm gonna have to do.

By becoming teacher educators, the participants in this study feel that they have been able to influence the type of institutional change which they first recognized as necessary while they were classroom teachers. However, they believe they would not have been able to effect the kind of changes they envisioned if they had remained in elementary or secondary teaching positions. Finally, the idea of service to others, of heeding a spiritual calling, or fulfilling a mission through teaching was a theme expressed by the majority of respondents. Amy, who grew up in a time and a place where those around her saw her future options as limited, stated, Education allows you to have the greatest amount of influence in the lives of others of any profession, I think. And I always knew I had to do something for others. She feels that she was able to accomplish this goal through teaching at any level, as she described:

   I love teaching. I love connecting with students, especially those who go
   on to have careers in education, either in classroom teaching or in higher
   ed. It makes me feel as though my influence lives on. It gives me a sense
   of purpose to feel that my students are following in my footsteps.

While Amy believes that she was able to make a difference in the lives of others through all of her teaching, she became a teacher educator out of:

   A desire to make a larger difference. I felt that going into teacher ed
   would allow me to multiply my influence. Teaching in the classroom allowed
   me to touch a certain number of students, but training future teachers
   allowed me to touch a far greater number.

Krista, too, described how she believes her position as a teacher educator has allowed her to multiply her influence, I want to make a difference. I really want to make a difference with kids ... I feel like the way I can impact children now is through teachers. Grace spoke movingly of her desire to change the lives of all students and of her mission to increase the numbers of African American and Hispanic teachers. All of the teacher educators who participated in this study believe that teaching allows them to touch the lives of others, often transforming them from lives of despair into lives of hope, but always changing them for the better. Through careers as educators, these women are able to use their talents for the benefit of others while fulling their own needs of reflection, generativity, collaboration, and change.

Discussion and Conclusions

In examining the compatibility between fulfillment of potential and careers in education for gifted women, the literature in gifted education and teacher education have much to offer one another. This study indicates that the participants are clearly fulfilled in their careers as educators. However, they have had to overcome a variety of obstacles in order to create professional lives that are fulfilling. In their review of studies of remarkable women, Noble et al.(1996) state that "overcoming adversity is a familiar refrain in gifted women's stories" (p. 427), and that "there are many ways in which adult giftedness can manifest itself ... including transcendence of traumatic circumstances" (p. 432). Certainly, the participants in this study have encountered a multitude of obstacles they responded to with resilience in order to achieve both personal and professional fulfillment.

Much of the adversity they have faced has occurred at the intersections of gender, race, and class. Giftedness adds another dimension to such double or triple marginality for those women who came of age in "a society that has found it extremely difficult to recognize and accept the giftedness of women or members of racially/culturally different groups" (Evans, 1996, p. 372). However, resiliency has also been documented in studies of gifted women from non-dominant cultures such as the Native American women studied by Napier (1996), gifted Polish women studied by Lynch (1996), and gifted working class women studied by Miller and Kastberg (1995). According to Kitano and Perkins (1996), "The finding that academically gifted women from around the world share similar motivational characteristics, including determination to succeed and persistence in response to obstacles, may contribute to identification and support of their giftedness" (p. 39).

Particularly in their professional lives, the respondents in the present study "transformed adversity into creative productivity" and "interpreted problems as challenges" (Noble et al., 1996, p. 432). According to Friedman (1996), "Current research identifie[s] reflective judgment as a standard of high-cognitive development" (p. 352). Noble et al. (1996) state that "Talent development is an ongoing and lifelong process that requires cognitive and emotional flexibility and reflectivity" (p. 432) such as that exhibited by the respondents in the present study. Like them, the gifted women studied by Noble (1994) and by Friedman were able to "confront, accept, and learn from conflict, crisis, and tragedy" in order to "become intellectually productive and fulfilled" (Friedman, 1996, p. 359). Such reflectivity is particularly necessary for teachers who wish to change the face of education as noted by Greene (1978). She stated that teachers must "reflect upon their own life situations, to speak out in their own ways about the lacks that must be repaired; the possibilities to be acted upon in the name of what they deem decent, humane, and just" (p. 71).

The participants in this study responded to professional challenges with not only resiliency and reflection but also creativity. The relationship between creativity and giftedness has been so well-documented that the two terms have become almost synonymous (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996; Kerr, 1994; Noble, 1994). Certainly, creativity is often defined as a specific form of giftedness. Torrance (1992) coined the term "beyonders" to refer to those individuals involved in creative production. Among the characteristics of beyonders are love of one's work, feeling different, and the courage to be creative (p. 131), all of which were amply demonstrated by the participants in this study. Each of the participants in the current study confirmed that she felt different from those around her at various stages of her life, and all of them felt particularly different from their colleagues as classroom teachers. This is consistent with other literature on gifted females (Kerr, 1994; Noble, 1989; Silverman, 1995). Part of the reason these twelve respondents felt different was because they were aware of their intellectual potential. This same self-awareness enabled them to see discrepancies between education as it was actually being practiced and their beliefs about how it should be practiced. This prevented the "many coping strategies functional for first year survival" as teachers from becoming "habituated" as they often do (Zumwalt, 1989,p 174). Instead, through reflection and creativity, these women were able to "turn teaching itself into an art form" (Middleton, 1993, p. 19) and create alternative educational visions for themselves and their students.

A particular component of creative giftedness that has been discussed in the literature on gifted women is that of multipotentiality (Noble, 1987; Walker & Mehr, 1992). Kerr (1994) cited the "ability to combine roles" (p. xii) as a characteristic of the eminent women she studied. Certainly, careers in education offer numerous opportunities for assuming diverse professional roles and positions as demonstrated by the twelve teacher educators profiled in the present study. Creating unique career paths has not always occurred in comfortable spaces for these women. Going against the grain in educational institutions can cause women to experience continuing marginalization (Middleton, 1993, p. 99). However, the ability of these twelve women to create opportunities for their own fulfillment in a less than hospitable environment is further evidence of their resiliency, reflectivity, and creativity in response to adversity.

Numerous studies have claimed that, typically, interpersonal relationships exert a powerful influence upon a woman's life (Josselson, 1987; Mercer, Nichols, & Doyle, 1989). Gifted women are no exception. In her study of gifted female graduate students, Reis (1995) found that "a closeness between personal and professional lives was evident in this population of gifted females who often did not distinguish between personal and professional accomplishments" (p. 166). Based on similar findings, Hollinger and Fleming (1992), Noble et al. (1996), and Silverman (1995), all suggest expanding definitions of women's giftedness to include a focus on maintaining personal relationships. Recent research "suggests that many women are more comfortable with academic and professional environments that reflect values of relatedness, in addition to individual achievement" (Arnold et al., 1996, p. 5). Such environments were so important to the women in the current study that, when they were not present, these women found ways to create them. Professional environments that value relatedness may exert even greater influence on women from non-dominant cultures which are group-oriented rather than individualistic (Evans, 1996; West, 1996). Recognizing this need, as well as the lack of collegial communities within most school systems, Grumet (1988) urges teacher to create communities of support for one another just as the participants in the present study did.

Based upon her study of high school valedictorians, Arnold (1993) argued that "the current structure of employment, education, and family institutions polarizes even intellectually talented women into primarily family or primarily work orientations" (p. 175). However, none of the participants in this study seem to be represented in that statement. Instead, they all admitted the significance of both personal and professional accomplishments to their individual fulfillment and indicated that their lives would be far less meaningful without their engagement in both arenas. One of their responses to these dualistic drives has been to create ways to connect the personal and professional through careers as educators. Again, a career that allows connections between the personal and the professional may be more appealing to women from cultures that place an even greater emphasis on the caretaking role of women. Such "culturally-influenced world views" must be carefully considered when counseling gifted women in finding careers consistent with their own values (Kitano & Perkins, 1996, p. 39).

According to Noble et al. (1996), there are three levels of influence to which gifted women may aspire:

   Becoming a self-actualized individual who positively influences people
   around her is one level to which gifted women may aspire. Entering the
   leadership arena in an organization, community, or institution constitutes
   a wider sphere of influence. And transforming a profession or field through
   unique creative contributions is the traditional gauge of adult
   giftedness--eminence (p. 429).

The teacher educators who participated in this study aspire to all three of these levels, and a number of them have already made significant contributions in each of these areas. Each respondent believes that, as an educator, she is uniquely positioned to touch lives within an ever-widening sphere of influence and to effect change at both the individual and institutional level. Studies suggest that for teachers this is not an unrealistic goal. The diverse gifted women in studies by Kitano and Perkins (1996), List and Renzulli (1991), and Miller and Kastberg (1995) all reported at least one teacher who influenced the development of their talents. The need for teachers "to serve as role models, advocates, and cultural translators" (Ford et. al, 1997) is even more critical for students of color and from minority cultures and foreign countries (Kitano & Perkins, 1996).

Both Napier (1996), in her study of gifted Native American women, and Bell and Chase (1996), in their study of gifted female school superintendents, found that the women they studied possessed desires to effect change similar to those expressed in the current study. Interestingly, both of these groups of women were also educators. The female educators in all three studies also view teaching as a mission or a calling. This sense of teaching as a spiritual calling has been supported in numerous studies of educators (Dorney, 1991; Middleton, 1993).

Viewing their careers as missions is also characteristic of the "beyonders" described by Torrance (1992). Friedman (1996) actually encourages gifted women to choose teaching as a vocation because it is "a profession that artfully uses intellect to reach the soul" (p. 365). She believes that gifted women who are "reflective practitioners ... can best motivate and nurture reflective giftedness in others" as teachers (p. 365). Such a view of teaching lends support to the notion that careers in education can be compatible choices for talented women. As Noble et al. (1996) state: "For many gifted women from both the margins and the mainstream, service can be a powerful motivator for fulfilling their potential" (p. 431). Kerr (1994) defines a career as "the passionate, energetic pursuit of a goal that persistently calls to you" (p. xi). Surely the passion and the fulfillment of a spiritual calling exhibited by the women in the current study would elevate them above the level of "paraprofessional" to which teaching is often relegated.

Although teaching is typically viewed as a traditional occupation for women, the respondents in this study have chosen to re-vision it as innovative and challenging through their active engagement in creating opportunities for change and growth. Sadly, to achieve the kinds of change and autonomy that they desired, these women all had to leave elementary and secondary schools. Fortunately for gifted women, professional options in the field of education do exist beyond the elementary or secondary classroom. By venturing into teacher education, and thus higher education, these women have been able to widen their sphere of influence and contribute to the transformation of their profession. However, they are all pioneers in a field which, while viewed as feminized, is still dominated by males at its highest levels (Snyder & Hoffman, 1992). Perhaps in their present positions they may help to "remove the hidden obstacles that gifted women face who aspire to the heights of their chosen fields" (Silverman, 1995, p. 12). In transforming the field of education, they might also create intellectual communities which support gifted women who choose to enter this traditional field rather than belittling them.

REFERENCES

Arnold, K. D. (1993). Undergraduate aspirations and career outcomes of academically talented women: A discriminant analysis. Roeper Review, 15, 169-175.

Arnold, K. D., Noble, K. D., & Subotnik, R. F. (Eds.) (1996). Remarkable women: Perspectives on female talent development. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Belenky, M. F., Clinchy, B. M., Goldberger, N. R., & Tarule, J. M. (1986). Women's ways of knowing. New York: Basic Books.

Bell, C. S., & Chase, S. E. (1996). The gendered character of women superintendents' professional relationships. In K. D. Arnold, K. D. Noble, & R. F. Subotnik (Eds.), Remarkable women: Perspectives on female talent development (pp. 117-131). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Biklen, S. K. (1995). School work: Gender and the cultural construction of teaching. New York: Teachers College Press.

Carter, K. (1993). The place of story in research on teaching and teacher education. Educational Researcher, 22, 5-12.

Carter, K. & Doyle, W. (1996). Personal narrative and life history in learning to teach. In J. Sikula (Ed.), Handbook of research on teacher education (pp. 120-142). New York: McMillan.

Casey, K. (1993). I answer with my life: Life histories of women teachers working for social change. New York: Routledge Press.

Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1990). Stories of experience and narrative inquiry. Educational Researcher, 19, 2-14.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: The work and lives of 91 eminent people. New York: Harper Collins.

Dorney, J. A. (1991). "Courage to act in a small way": Clues toward community and change among women teaching girls. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Harvard University.

Evans, K. M. (1996). Counseling gifted women of color. In K. D. Arnold, K. D. Noble, & R. F. Subotnik (Eds.), Remarkable women: Perspectives on female talent development (pp. 367-381). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Ford, D. Y., Grantham, T. C., & Harris, J. J. III. (1997). The recruitment and retention of minority teachers in gifted education. Roeper Review, 19, 213-220.

Friedman, A. A. (1996). Deborah and Judith: Case studies in reflective giftedness. In K. D. Arnold, K. D. Noble, & R. F. Subotnik (Eds.), Remarkable women: Perspectives on female talent development (pp. 351-366). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Goodson, I. F. (1994). Studying the teacher's life and work. Teaching and Teacher Education, 10, 29-37.

Greene, M. (1978). Landscapes of learning. New York: Teachers College Press.

Griffin, G. (1997). Teaching as a gendered experience. Journal of Teacher Education, 48, 7-18.

Grumet, M. (1988). Bitter milk: Women and teaching. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.

Guba, E.G., & Lincoln, Y.S. (1981). Effective evaluation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Hollinger, C. L., & Fleming, E. S. (1992). A longitudinal examination of life choices of gifted and talented young women. Gifted Child Quarterly, 36, 207-212.

Josselson, R. (1987). Finding herself. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Kaufman, F. A. (1981). The 1964-1968 Presidential Scholars: A follow-up study. Exceptional Children, 48, 164-169.

Kerr, B. A. (1994). Smart girls two. Dayton, OH: Ohio Psychology Press.

Kitano, M.K., & Perkins, C. O. (1996). International gifted women: developing a critical human resource. Roeper Review, 19, 34-40.

Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

List, K., & Renzulli, J. S. (1991). Creative women's developmental patterns through age thirty-five. Gifted Education International, 17, 114-122.

Lynch, S. (1996). Four remarkable Polish women: Antecedents to success. In K. D. Arnold, K. D. Noble, & R. F. Subotnik (Eds.), Remarkable women: Perspectives on female talent development (pp. 93-115). Cresskill, N. J.: Hampton Press.

Mathison, S. (1988). Why triangulate? Educational Researcher, 17, 13-17.

Mercer, R. T., Nichols, E. G., & Doyle, G. C. (1989). Transitions in a woman's life: Major life events in developmental context. New York: Springer Publishing Company.

Merriam, S. B. (1988). Case study research in education: A qualitative approach. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Middleton, S. (1993). Educating feminists: Life histories and pedagogy. New York: Teachers College Press.

Miller, D. G., & Kastberg, S. M. (1995). Of blue collars and ivory towers: Women from blue-collar backgrounds in higher education. Roeper Review, 18, 27-33.

Mishler, E. G. (1990). Validation in inquiry-guided research: The role of exemplars in narrative studies. Harvard Educational Review, 60, 415-441.

Napier, L. A. (1996). Nine native women: Pursuing the doctorate and aspiring to positions of leadership. In K. D. Arnold, K. D. Noble, & R. F. Subotnik (Eds.), Remarkable women: Perspectives on female talent development (pp. 133-148). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Newman, A., & Peterson, P. L. (Eds.) (1997). Learning from our lives: Women, research, and autobiography in education. New York: Teachers College Press.

Noble, K. D. (1987). The dilemma of the gifted woman. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 11,367-378.

Noble, K. D. (1989). Counseling gifted women: Becoming the heroes of our own stories. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 12, 131-141.

Noble, K. D. (1994). The sound of a silver horn: Reclaiming the heroism in contemporary women's lives. New York: Fawcett Columbine.

Noble, K. D., Subotnik, R. F., & Arnold, K. D. (1996). A new model for adult female talent development: A synthesis of perspectives from remarkable women. In K. D. Arnold, K. D. Noble, & R. F. Subotnik (Eds.), Remarkable women: Perspectives on female talent development (pp. 427-439). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Pagano, J. (1994). Teaching women. In L. Stone (Ed.), The education feminism reader (pp. 252-275). New York: Routledge.

Personal Narratives Group. (1989). Interpreting women's lives: Feminist theory and personal narratives. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Peshkin, A. (1988). In search of subjectivity--one's own. Educational Researcher, 17, 17-21.

Reis, S. M. (1995). Talent ignored, talent diverted: The cultural context underlying giftedness in females. Gifted Child Quarterly, 39, 162-170.s

Silverman, L. K. (1995). Why are there so few eminent women? Roeper Review, 18, 5-13.

Snyder, T., & Hoffman, C. (1992). Digest of education statistics 1992. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.

Stone, L. (1994). Toward a transformational theory of teaching. In L. Stone (Ed.), The education feminism reader (pp. 221-228). New York: Routledge.

Torrance, E. P. (1992). The beyonders in a thirty year longitudinal study of creative achievement. Roeper Review, 15, 131-135.

Walker, B. A. & Mehr, M. (1992). The courage to achieve: Why America's brightest women struggle to fulfill their promise. New York: Simon & Schuster.

West, J. I. (1996). In God's country: Rural gifted women. In K. D. Arnold, K. D. Noble, & R. F. Subotnik (Eds.), Remarkable women: Perspectives on female talent development (pp. 69-80). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Zumwalt, K. I. (1989). Beginning professional teachers: The need for a curricular vision of teaching. In M. Reynolds (Ed.), Knowledge base for the beginning teacher (pp. 173-184). New York: Pergamon Press.

April Whatley is an Assistant Professor in early childhood teacher education at Berry College, Rome, Georgia. Prior to completing her doctorate she was a gifted educational specialist for an Education Service Center in Texas.

Manuscript submitted June, 1998.

Revision accepted November, 1998.