FROM TEACHERS’ BELIEFS ABOUT GIFTED STUDENTS TO POSITIVE EDUCATION OF THE GIFTED

Abstract

This paper examines two important topics relevant to the field of positive education: a) intellectual giftedness as one of the inherently positive characteristics of students and b) teachers’ beliefs about gifted students. Teachers are considered to be representatives of educational institutions whose role is to contribute to the development of positive characteristics and enable positive subjective experiences of all students. Positive education relies on students’ cognitive and non-cognitive strengths and tends to contribute to their academic achievement and well-being. An important prerequisite for positive education of gifted students is that teachers understand their characteristics and educational needs. Teachers who do not understand intellectually gifted students’ characteristics can contribute to their academic underachievement and dissatisfaction in the educational context, mainly due to the phenomenon of self-fulfilling prophecy. In this paper, research findings regarding teachers’ beliefs about non-cognitive characteristics of gifted students, their status in the peer group and the nature of student–teacher relationship are being compared with the findings of previous empirical research studies which investigated gifted students’ personality traits and their actual relationships. The comparison indicates that teachers’ assessments regarding certain personality dimensions are accurate – when they perceive gifted students as more open to experiences, equally conscientious and less agree- able than typical students. In contrast, teachers mistakenly attribute elevated neuroticism and introversion to the gifted, which is inconsistent with the well-established research findings about the personality traits of gifted students. Findings on the perception of gifted students’ elationships with typical peers and teachers also indicate that they are perceived as maladjusted and having socio-emotional issues. This perception might be due to gifted students’ negative reactions to inappropriate educational settings and teachers’ misinterpretation of these reactions. It is also possible that certain characteristics, which are more often present in gifted students – more pronounced assertiveness, less pronounced gregariousness, as well as lower scores on the facets of modesty, altruism, tender-mindedness and lower agreeableness in general – are negatively interpreted and perceived as undesirable. We argue that teachers should modify their peceptions ‒ instead of considering giftedness as vulnerability they should consider it as a resource. This would contribute to teachers’ competencies for positive education of gifted students including their cognitive and socio-emotional development. Besides, it would possibly increase the likelihood of the gifted students’ satisfactory relationships with their teachers and thе overall more positive experience of education.