Reflecting on Gifted Education- High Ability Kids

An Interview with Roya Klingner: Reflecting on Gifted Education

1) Thirty years ago, you were involved with gifted students. Tell us about those years.

The
first president of World Council for Gifted and Talented children, Dr.
Iraj Broomand, started a program for gifted children in Iran about
 30
years ago. The kindergarten teacher recommended that my mother should
send an application for me to join that school. In order to join that
school, it was necessary for me to take a test. I passed this test with
flying colors and joined that school. All that happened a few years
before the Iranian revolution. I did not really know anything about
high ability, but I knew, I was different. That made me curious.

2) Who were your mentors and how did they influence you?

I
did not really have a certain person as mentor when I tried to find out
about who I am and giftedness. I bought and read a lot of books by many
different authors in different languages. Everybody I asked told me
that I was gifted but nobody really told me what giftedness really was
about. I did not want applause, I just wanted a logical answer.
Later on, I was influenced by the theories of Howard Gardner and Franz Mönks.

3) What kinds of changes have you seen in gifted education over the past 30 years?

The main things that have changed are:

• Definition of giftedness
• Grading of intelligent
• Social relationship with the topic of giftedness

4) What are you currently working on?

It was always my goal to help and support gifted children and
their parents. Now, I´m working freelance on it. I am also working on a
book to explain high ability to children.

5) What are some of the mental health issues of the gifted that need to be explored and examined?

There are still a lot of mental health issues of the gifted that need to be explored and these are some of them:

• sensitivity
• emotional stability
• social competence
• spiritual needs

6) What do you see as the main parenting issues?

• The handling of the situation that the child is gifted. Quite often parents are stressed with this.
• Teaching their children to handle normality.
• To know that high ability does not equal high performance.

7) How receptive are the schools to
gifted children? Are there nations in the world that seem to be more
eager to work with gifted pupils?

Unfortunately the situation in Germany for gifted children is far from optimal.

- Of course, a lot of nations are very eager to work with
gifted pupils like: USA, United Kingdom, Singapore, Iran,... However,
their goal seems more to be to make high performers than happy, well
adjusted gifted children.

8) What kinds of training do you think teachers need to work with gifted kids?

Teachers are taught more about learning deficiencies than high
ability. It is imperative that the education of teachers includes more
about giftedness theories and ways to support gifted children without
overstraining them or causing them even greater stress.

9) What kind of research are you currently engaged in?

At the moment I am working on a program for solution oriented
training for gifted children, mainly underachievers ( from de Shazer)
and together with my husband, we also are exploring
virtual-environments for possibilities of training gifted children

10) What question have I neglected to ask?

What do I wish for the future of gifted and talented children?

I wish more understanding and acceptance for this topic and happiness for those children around the world.

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