If you search online for any academic “gap” you are bound to find more than you asked for. There are achievement gaps and equity gaps and wealth gaps and so forth. Harvard and the National Association for Gifted Children and other big-name organizations are highly (and rightfully) concerned that our education system does not equally provide access to the same high level learning opportunities for all children. This is not a surprise or a new thing, and it certainly is well documented, and much is being done in those areas. Great efforts are also being implemented in the “research-leading-to-corporate-wealth-when-districts-need-to-buy-more-products pipeline” to focus on such gaps. But somewhere along the line we caused an even greater gap with all of these efforts to conform our students into the “big box” and our students are losing their desire to engage in the learning we pay big bucks to those corporations to measure.
There is now an even greater gap that I call the love of learning (LOL) gap between those who enjoy learning and those who do not, and not just within the student population either. Teachers are dropping out of teaching at an alarming rate and new professionals are less and less likely to choose teaching for a career (Strauss, 2015). Teacher evaluations have been tied to test scores in some states (Flannery, 2015), and according to a 2018 Gallup Poll even prior to the pandemic almost half of America’s teachers were looking for a different job (Mulvahill, 2019).
Teacher happiness makes a difference in student learning. According to Hernik & Jaworska (2018), students who are exposed to “joyful lectures” and humor are happier and more likely to remember more information than those who do not have such lighthearted class experiences. And Hernik & Jaworska (2018) state that “one of barriers to learning is a rigid and serious way of teaching.” When teachers are struggling to enjoy their jobs, it is difficult for them to teach with joy.
Students are enjoying school less and even losing creativity skills (Kim, 2011). Studies show that students have negative feelings about school (Moeller et al., 2020), and more students than ever were choosing to homeschool prior to the pandemic and even more since the pandemic started (Ray, 2021). In fact, according to Vlasova (2022):
There is an annual homeschooling growth rate of 2%-8%. However, there has been a significant increase in those figures from 2019 to 2021. By the end of 2020, about 9 million Americans said they had attended homeschool at some point in their lives.
Seemiller et al. (2021) studied over one thousand, two hundred students in the United States who were considered “Generation Z” (born between 1995 and 2010) to find out what they enjoyed most about learning. They found that these students valued “learning that is interesting, inspiring, relevant, and engaging,” where they can participate in “knowledge acquisition, learning for societal impact, and having instructors who are competent and relatable.”
Gifted students need more than a standardized education. They need to find connections with the learning so that they are motivated to dive deeper and extend the learning into relevant and more complex ways that are novel and interesting. Rote memorization or merely doing grade level work that they already understand can make them rebel against the system or make them dislike education at all. Some students entertain themselves by causing trouble or disrupting other students. Some just tune everything out and become chronic underachievers.
Gifted learners need teachers who can differentiate experiences to make learning meaningful and challenging. As Winebrenner (2000) stated, for gifted students “instead of offering extra credit, teachers should compact the curriculum, design alternative learning experiences, allow differentiated pacing, and agree on expectations.” It is important that gifted students can access projects and problems that are stimulating and allow for the practice of higher-level thinking skills. But if they are not given those opportunities, they may not even have the opportunity to show their actual potential. As Tomlinson (1997) stated, “It's difficult, if not impossible, to develop the talent of a highly able student with insipid curriculum and instruction.” Yet, since Tomlinson wrote that article in 1997, standardized learning has taken away even more of those learning options and in turn has taken away a lot of the challenge that has made learning interesting to gifted students in the past.
Many gifted learners are choosing to leave the public school system. Some attend private schools through private pay or vouchers in some states; some are homeschooling. And those who are left behind do their best to stay afloat. Not all of them are identified for services and many slip through the cracks. This is an issue of equity and districts across the country have failed time and time again to adequately create identification mechanisms that effectively find students in all population groups equally.
Underperforming students are hard to identify and most gifted programs are made for high achievers anyway. The LOL gap becomes wider and deeper between students who will jump through the hoops and those who never had a fair chance at even seeing the hoops in the first place. The more gifted students are underserved or not even identified, the more they will struggle to find their place in a square system not built for round pegs. Those who escaped the public system may flourish and leave those with less means and alternatives behind as the ones who are left in the system are further and further weighed down by their ability to see what is “possible,” but yet never truly available. The system full of depressed and overworked educators and scripted curriculum and standards that don’t fully meet their needs is hard to ignore for bright students who are alert to inequities and stay in-tune with current events. Gifted students know the system is broken and like the canaries in the coal mines, they are already singing- the ones with voices are singing goodbye songs as they leave the public schools behind. So now we need to find ways to save the ones who can’t leave.
The bright flight is happening. The love of learning gap is widening. And whether the lawmakers and policy makers notice or care will make or break the system eventually.
References
Hernik, J., Jaworska, E. (2018, March). The effect of enjoyment on learning. Conference Paper: 12th International Technology, Education and Development Conference.
Kim, K.H. (2011, Nov. 9). The creativity crisis: the decrease in creative thinking scores on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. The College of William and Mary, School of Education.
Moeller, J., Brackett, M.A., Ivcevic, C., White, A.E. (2020, April). High school students’ feelings: Discoveries from a large national survey and an experience sampling study.
Mulvahill, E. (2019, June 14). Why teachers quit. We Are Teachers. Retrieved at https://www.weareteachers.com/why-teachers-quit/.
Ray, B.D. (2021, Sept. 19). Homeschooling: the research, research facts on homeschooling, homeschool fast facts. National Home Education Research Institute. Retrieved at https://www.nheri.org/research-facts-on-homeschooling/.
Seemiller,C., Grace, M., Dal Bo Campagnolo, P., Mara Da Rosa Alves, I., Severo De Borba, G. (2021). What Makes Learning Enjoyable? Perspectives of Today's College Students in the U.S. and Brazil. Journal of Pedagogical Research, v5-1. Pp. 1-17.
Strauss, V. (2015, Nov. 20). Why today’s college students don’t want to be teachers. The Washington Post. Retrieved at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/11/20/why-todays-college-students-dont-want-to-be-teachers/.
Vlasova, H. (2022, January 7). Homeschooling Statistics: Breakdown by the 2022 Numbers. Admissionsly. Retrieved at https://admissionsly.com/homeschooling-statistics/.
Winebrenner, S. (2000). Gifted Students Need an Education, Too. Educational leadership: journal of the Department of Supervision and Curriculum Development. ASCD.