Final Project

Reflective Paper of My Study

08/13/15
Hyeseong Lee
Teachers College

Due to its lack of material resources and small land size, Korea highly values human
resources. And, because of the value of human resources, the nation tends to discriminate in
favor of the education industry. Especially in 1960-1970s, when the countrys economy was
being actively developed, one of the easiest ways of ascending ones current social status was
through studying. This trend has continued for decades to present day, and thus the
enthusiasm for education in Korea is still overwhelmingly high. When I went from
elementary to high school, my parents and I were no exception as well. Considering that I did
not or could not find any other aptitudes, what I could do for my future was just studying as
hard as others did. Unfortunately however, this aimless goal during my schooldays did not
help me determine a passion or goal to pursue, and I eventually quit high school to find a new
path, one year to graduation. This period made me think a lot about developing aptitude and
interests, which could also lead determining the path to future jobs. I conclude that there
should be more educational help for children to experience and search for what they can do
best.
When looking around, the situation was more serious than what I expected. One of
my best friends who was interested in fashion and beauty was preparing for a civil service
exam because of their parents opposition to her initial interests. In addition, when working as
an elementary school teacher, most of my 6th grade students also blindly studied, not knowing
what to pursue and what interests them. They all just studied without goals, and followed
what others did. I thought it would be great if people could lead their lives while doing
something they can do well and that they liked. That time, an idea of gifted education came to
mind. Many of the gifted students have some specialized ability on a certain field and tend to
develop that skill into a professional one, with a help of gifted education. I thought students
who are not labeled as gifted also have certain potential talents that can be well developed.
Thus if gifted education is generalized and broadened to every child, I believed, all

individuals could be benefit from it.

Consequently, before studying gifted education, I strongly assumed that gifted
education should not be the main tool to fostering this, as this may only help the students who
are regarded to be superior to others, but should play a role to help every student to find their
best inherent talent among their many abilities. As often is the case, it is always disputable
when only the top 3-5% of the students are identified and selected for the gifted program. The
question to be addressed was about the students who are failed to be in the program because
they are ranked 3.01% or 5.01%. What is the difference of their abilities between the top 3%
and the top 3.01%? This question occurs not only when children are selected by a relative
evaluation, but also falls under absolute evaluation. Although the general gifted education
program uses the objective index similar IQ score - most widely known numeric index of
intelligence no one can tell the significant difference between the students of score 135 and
134, when the limit line for gifted is 135. For this ambiguity, I thought the gifted students
should not be selected by the comparison with others or by the single index of intelligence.
Due to my strong faith in the impact that comes with the expansion of gifted
education, I remember that I asked to Professor Borland during class about the reason why
gifted education does not focus on every childs talent development. I was curious if it is
because of the lack of funding and support, or the opposite views on this idea. Certainly, I
still agree on the idea of generalizing gifted program to all, however, new ideas and different
thoughts appeared, since I learned a diverse set of knowledge in the MA program. The
problems and issues that gifted education faces are not as simple as I had initially thought
before I began my study. First of all, I came to recognize the problems and limitations, which
would be caused when gifted education unilaterally focuses on developing childrens talent.
Traditional gifted students with high intelligence and exceptional ability might be neglected,
and the gifted education can lose its legitimacy and pretext. Thus I believe that gifted

education should pay balanced attention on both fields, what is also often named, gifted and
talented.
In addition, new understanding and reappraisal of the acceleration method was my
biggest change after studying. I previously had a negative perception on acceleration, and I
am certain that I was influenced by my educational background in Korea. As mentioned
before, because of Koreas obsession with education, many parents register for afterschool
private institutions or hire tutors who can help their children study. The problem is that the
children are sent to these institutions, not because they have difficulties following the
contents at school, but because they want to study at an advanced level of learning. Advanced
learning mainly composed of the acceleration of math and science, and the programs vary
from english to art and music. Many parents believe that their children can move ahead of
groups and outcompete others at school by taking sufficient private lessons. As the majority
of students take lessons to excel and study advanced contents, it caused a lot of side effects,
such as excessive competition. This made me build a negative viewpoint on acceleration, and
I had strongly believed it is no use to learn faster, but it is much more helpful to learn indepth.
However, the condition and stance of the acceleration program which many of
scholars in gifted education advocate seemed pretty different in the States. Acceleration is
one of the essential and efficient methods to motivate gifted students. I came to understand
the shortcomings of current enrichment program as it is widely used at the pull-out gifted
program and camps for gifted. Due to its lack of sequence and guidelines of curriculum, the
programs are run in a hodgepodge manner. Consequentially, the acceleration program can be
a benefit in some sequential subjects, and can be a solution for gifted students to meet their
intellectual appetite.
During the program, I also came to crystallize my position on the direction of gifted

education. There is not enough financial support and policy to support gifted education,
compared to the other educational fields. The main reason would be the conception of the
gifted education to be an elite education system and is the most segregated program, full of
middle class families. This can be a true enough fact in some cases, however, additional help
and support is needed, and the bias of perception on gifted education also needs to be
changed. I think, even without gifted education programs, most of students from upper class
families still can maintain a quality education, because of their parents financial access to
resources. Whereas, situations are more serious with gifted and talented students from low
income families who lack essential support. In spite of their full potential, they might lose
their timely opportunity to grow up into successful professionals due to not enough systemic
support and care.
Adequate attention and support for general gifted students are also necessary. They
are often reported to have experienced emotional and socializing problems in the school. It is
hard for them to share their knowledge, thoughts, and feelings with their friends. The
situation is even worse for minority gifted students, such as gifted students with disabilities
(twice-exceptionals), people of color gifted students, and LGBT gifted students. Along with
loneliness, gifted children also often suffer from the pressure to meet peoples expectation.
They can get even more stressed when they feel they are not ranked at the top anymore. As
such, gifted students are also the ones who require sincere protection and assistance in
different ways. In addition, in my opinion, there is still lack of research on the conflict
between the gifted children and their siblings, and the ideal roles and parenting methods for
the parents with gifted children. To conclude, I hope gifted education can find its own way
and be more accessible in a more welfare-based perspective.
There are many other types of knowledge that I acquired through this program:
diverse models and curricula for the gifted, gifted minorities, different intelligence tests,

differentiated curriculum, and the changes in perception of intelligence. However, frankly

speaking, the more I learned about the concepts of gifted education, I became more muddled
in the previous ideas that I supported and have thus changed and evolved in this thinking, as
there seems to be no right or wrong answers for all the problems that gifted education faces.
Probably it is because the concept of giftedness is socially-made, deduced by an agreement
from the intellects of the age. An example could be the change of the index defining and
measuring humans intelligence; it is absolutely represented by IQ tests in the past still, it is
most commonly used index in general public however, it is more expanded by adding new
concepts such as humans creativeness and critical thinking abilities. This indicates that the
direction and the concepts of gifted education can also be changed, based on the future
scholars of gifted education.
For the next year, before applying for the doctoral program, I am planning not only to
read more articles and books in this filed, but I also want to participate conferences in gifted
education so that I can hear new voices from other scholars. In addition, as a culmination of
my current educational experiences and to broaden my perspectives, I am going to work at an
elementary school in Michigan. I wish to gain practical experiences that can connect theories
and practices.