No More Gifted Burnt Out Kids by Myra

No More Gifted Burnt Out Kids by Myra - July 2022 Scholarship Essay

As a gifted and talented student myself, the program seems like a good idea when we’re young, but in reality, it does more harm than good. To the kids not in the program, it may create a feeling of inferiority. To the kids in the program, it produces confidence, sure, but it also creates pressure on some students that can lead to, as most children in the media call it, gifted burnt-out kids. Ten years from now within the education system, I hope that the program can grow and change into something better or terminate permanently.

In my own experience, I tested into gifted and talented when I was in sixth grade right after changing from private school to public school. My mom taught at the school and had me tested. Shockingly, the test had less to do with academics and more to do with an artistic side. Could I figure out the right pattern? What puzzle piece fits this puzzle? What can you draw out of this odd shape? The program didn’t change much for me, yet the title changed the way I thought about myself and the people around me. I missed a lot of the fun aspects of gifted and talented that took place during elementary school where kids got to go to a class, no matter what test they took, that focused on learning. I even missed the class in fifth grade where they played the stock market game and other things that were meant to stimulate our minds. Instead, I was only in the gifted and talented English class which was how the school gave us our gifted and talented hours. From there, there were a few attempts to continue the programming, but oftentimes it would overlap with other classes we were in like band or history. That led to most students being unable to participate or unwilling to just because sometimes our classes with grades had to come first.

Now, that’s not the experience at every school, but it seems to be something relatable to most gifted and talented students. Schools stress the importance of gifted and talented students being the smartest kids in school. There was almost a pressure to take the hardest classes, but also a confidence that we were smart. But with that confidence, came its downfalls. As gifted and talented students get into harder classes, they often haven’t built study habits because they’ve spent most of their schooling being told they were so smart, that they didn’t need to study. The program can have an opposite effect on children not in the program, especially those who test and don’t get in, or those who are close friends with multiple people in the program. It’s almost as if the school is telling them they are stupid. This can falter those students' academic confidence and lead to a feeling of inferiority within those students, even though in reality the gifted and talented program doesn’t have much to do with being smart.

The program has more to do with creativity and the way gifted students' brains work. This often sticks all the neurodivergent students together in one classroom. These kids either already have or gain perfectionist tendencies which lead to the true spiral of gifted children. The idea of having to be the best and the smartest often leads to when studying or work gets hard, if we don’t get it right the first time, we won’t do it at all. I’ve found these tendencies in myself which have made school increasingly difficult, though I’ve known people where it’s been worse. Some will just quit trying altogether, destroying their grades just because they’d rather fail than not be perfect.

In the next ten years, I hope to see change as the program evolves. Firstly, the name should change from gifted and talented because singling out certain children and excluding others who are likely equally as talented under such umbrella terms harms more students than it helps. Even just changing it to a creative class or a class on learning that every kid takes in middle school before just letting the program fade in older years as it already does. There’s no need to single out students on the premise of whether or not they are a panel of teachers' ideas of smart or creative or “gifted”. Secondly, the program should focus more heavily on helping these students to learn and develop in their own way, helping them to overcome the need to be perfect all the time, and pushing them to understand that failure is okay, but there is a reason to put in the effort.

If that can’t happen, then I hope to see the program done away with entirely. Too many children are affected in negative ways; whether they begin to feel inferior like they must always be perfect, or as though there is some pressure to be the best, there is too much negative pressure and stigma now surrounding the program. Multiple past gifted students have come out on social media recently talking about how the program failed them. They now label themselves as “gifted burnt out students”. The program has not fulfilled its initial purpose of helping young creative minds find an outlet to express themselves and therefore either it needs to evolve or go extinct to help the next generation not become gifted burnt out kids.