Interview With Joyce VanTasssel-Baska

Abstract

Paula Olszewski-Kubilius: Joyce, you have been working in the field of gifted education for over 25 years. In your opinion, what have been the most significant changes that have occurred during that time? Joyce Van Tassel-Baska: One of the most significant changes has been the talent search programs, both in terms of the mechanism to identify highly gifted students via the Scholastic Aptitude Test and the variety of intervention models that have sprung up in order to serve those students once they have been identified. I would put the talent search in the context of a larger phenomenon that I have seen in the past 25 years: the role of external agencies in providing for gifted and talented learners. These agencies include universities and other special organizations that offer programs and services to families. I think that the greatest developments in the field actually have occurred through these alternative programmatic approaches, not through basic school-based education for the gifted. The second area that I think I would be remiss not to mention is the role of computer technology in what can be offered and provided to gifted and talented students. I think the Stanford EPGY project is indicative of that. But, I also think that the different by-mail programs that have sprung up also are indicative of what can be done through alternative technologies. PO: Can you comment further on your statement that external agencies have had a more profound effect than school-based efforts on providing services for gifted student? JV: That fact is both heartening and depressing at the same time. When I first came into gifted education, it was the grassroots efforts offered in local school districts that we all focused on primarily. That golden age effort that began in the early '70s was quickly derailed by the middle '80s because of schools' concerns about elitism and because of the lack of follow-through funding that would have allowed deeper program development and expansion efforts at local levels. During the middle '80s, agencies other than local schools were very wise to see a need and try to fill it. PO: Do you feel that there has been an area of research that's been most effective in influencing the field of gifted education? JV: I would say that the talent search-based research efforts have had the most profound influences on both policy and practice in the field. I would say that the research done on participants in the talent search programs has been the only systematic research agenda that has really been assiduously pursued in gifted education. It has been pursued by multiple individuals at multiple universities with particular foresight, and all of it is focused on tracking the precocious development of children. There is no other program like talent search with such a solid research base to back up its practices and procedures. PO: Is there any hope for school-based programs for gifted students? JV: I am quite pessimistic about this, yet I think that there is always hope for school-based programs. There will always be islands of excellence--schools that are excellent and outstanding programs within schools--but I think that they will remain islands, unfortunately. I think that such schools will be schools that are less subject to fads and trends, more impervious to influences from the broader social context. There are not a lot of school districts that meet those criteria, but there are some. I also think that it is only in those kinds of places that gifted education will be treated seriously and allowed to develop deeply. PO: What do we do better now in the field of gifted education than we did 25 years ago? JV: Oh, I think we do everything better than we did 25 years ago--when we do it. PO: But the problem is that we are not doing it as much as we were doing it then? JV: The problem is that we are not doing systematically what we are capable of doing. …