CIt’s a small story that is causing discussion these days and which expresses a discomfort that is actually very great. The school, our school, has serious difficulties in including different children. In this case, the protagonist is one of those who are defined hyperactive children. Sometimes, and this is the case, they are children gifted, with an IQ above average, who are not helped to manage their difference, and their “gift”. In a third grade class in Rende in the province of Cosenza the parents of the other pupils arranged to leave an eight-year-old child“hyperactive” and gifted, only in class. In protest. A sort of mutiny.
Hyperactive (and gifted), he is left alone in class
The facts were reported by the mother, a lawyer, who sent a complaint to the prosecutor’s office. The head teacher has launched an internal investigation. The Minister of Education Giuseppe Valditara sent the inspectors. But, beyond the single story, and its dynamics yet to be verified, the episode makes you think. «Our school system knows how to respond to special educational needs of pupils? School regulations require that all students be welcomed, recognized and accompanied. In reality, this does not happen.” Maria Assunta Zanetti, scientific director of, explains it LabTalento, the first Italian University Laboratory, of the University of Pavia, which deals with certifying and accompanying children and young people with high cognitive potential.
A gifted person is not disabled but a “gift” is not a talent
Let’s go back to the child from Cosenza and what the news tells us about him. He had only been in the class for two days due to misunderstandings with some teachers from the previous class. The teachers, the mother explained, persisted in reiterating the need for a support teacher. But certification of hyperactivity with above-average intellectual functioning is not a requirement for recognition of disability. Because giftedness is not a disability. The child speaks Italian and English, plays musical instruments without having studied them and is very quick at calculations.
«Instead of valorizing it, they had excluded it», is the complaint of the mother, saddened to note that her gifted child had become the “retarded” one in the class. The complete absence of the children was a protest against him, considered an unwelcome presence. It seems that the mathematics teacher incited the parents who, on the class chat, organized the exclusion “plan”.
Beyond the internal dynamics of the story, which is of relatively interest to us, the school’s difficulty in creating a system and valorising difference is evident.
What does the story of the gifted child in our school tell us?
A gifted child is a child with a gift: it is no coincidence that the very evocative English term for gifted people is gifted.
But «children with a high IQ, around 140, can have an EQ (Emotional Quotient) of even 90, or 100», explains Zanetti. «This development asynchrony must be managed, otherwise a vacuum is created. And the child fills this void: perhaps by isolating himself and losing himself in fantastic worlds. Maybe hiring hyperactive behaviors».
Children with high potential, and a difficult life
Gifted children are approx 5 percent of the population. It means that in every class there is more or less one. Children that the school system mostly neglects. «The distribution of intelligence is a Gaussian curve», continues Zanetti: «at the center are the kids with average intelligence, around 68% of the students. School training courses take care of them. But on either side of the peak there are weaker intelligences, on the left, and stronger ones, on the right: segments of the population that the school system deals with little.” As in the case of Cosenza.
Often, too often, the school “solves” the situation of the weakest with support. As for the gifted, «teachers don’t “see” them as such, and would like to “normalize” them. It’s a enormous loss of human capital». Having a gift is no guarantee of success. For this to happen, it is necessary to work on the gift: only in this way does it become talent. And for it to work, the gift must be recognized.
Teacher training, personalized education, challenging activities
The personalization of education and the valorization of merit are the pillars of the new rforms of the Ministry, in the Valditara era. «But you need one specific teacher trainingand a “learning contract” that the child must also accept.” Even the gifted child must accept his or her difference and, for example, contemplate doing activities that are different from others, that are challenging for him.
There are different methodologies to support children and young people with high potential: methodologies to be implemented within the school. «The risk», concludes Zanetti, «is that this potential will be wasted. Or that he is lost from school. It is common: many gifted children in secondary school prefer home schooling, or parental education. And it’s a shame, for the kids but also for the school.
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