The beauty of public school is the opportunity to serve the broadest section of students. Students can receive education and services from kindergarten through senior year, regardless of ability. Much emphasis is put on “exceptional learners,” whose diverse needs differ from the average, median student, but many people forget that those students are a spectrum. While most resources and personnel in a school are directed at serving those with learning differences, the opposite end of the exceptional learner spectrum is often entirely ignored. 

Through no fault of their own, the nature of public education strives to serve the average student adequately while attempting to elevate the underperforming, underserved, or learning-disabled student through programs, services, and resources. This method means that they are focusing their efforts on the lowest-performing students, leaving those who perform above average to fend for themselves. In some cases of students with learning differences, so much emphasis is placed on meeting their needs in a deficit area that educators and parents neglect to nurture the areas in which they show promise. It is not uncommon to find that a student with a diagnosis of dyslexia happens to be outstanding in mathematics or a student with dyscalculia is a highly gifted writer. Gifted students may receive praise for their efforts, but that is generally where the attention on them ends. The assumption is that students who do well in school without assistance have everything they need for success, which is why outside of advanced coursework tracks in the curriculum, high-performing students have few to no resources designed to challenge or meet their needs.

Teaching to the Median, and the Impact of Gifted Students‍

Gifted but unchallenged learners often stagnate by high school. To them, school stops being a place for growth and becomes a rigidly defined set of expectations they must meet to remain high-performing and thus achieve success. Many gifted students are burned out by the time they begin applying to college and have developed the mentality that education is a means to an end to achieve their ambitious goals rather than a continuous process that serves to exercise curiosity. This mindset develops because the public education system caps their ability through grades, convincing a student that regularly earns A+ grades that they’ve mastered their subject. There is nothing else to learn, no further room for improvement. Teaching to the median means limited exposure to complex materials that encourages critical thinking about the content instead of reinforcing vocabulary and reading comprehension. Without sufficient challenge, gifted learners top out quickly, leaving them bored, disengaged, and even cynical about the learning process entirely.

The Value of ELA Enrichment for Gifted Students‍

Enrichment programs, like Learn to Write Now, offer gifted students the outlet they seek to stretch their abilities and promote continued growth in multiple ways.

1. Smaller class sizes offer the benefit of individualized instruction that considers each student's strengths and areas for growth. This tailored approach allows advanced students to work at a pace and level that best meets their needs, maximizing their potential for success.
2. Gifted students can strengthen their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills by engaging with complex texts and tackling higher-order tasks.
3. ELA enrichment programs allow students to expand their knowledge by delving deeper into subjects of interest through research, essay writing, and debate, fostering intellectual curiosity and encouraging them to become lifelong learners.
4. Complex materials require students to analyze, evaluate, and synthesize information, cultivating critical thinking and problem-solving skills that benefit them in higher education and beyond.
5. Many incoming college freshmen are often surprised by how different homework looks in college compared to high school, where they take more tests and write less. While some testing is necessary for any subject, many majors emphasize research, writing, and analysis over the memorization and recall essential for testing. 

Gifted students have been done a disservice by public education, and programs like Learn to Write Now serve to remedy that. Academically gifted students can be equally at-risk for drop-out or underperformance despite their abilities simply because they are dissatisfied with the public school experience. Warning signs may include increased cheating due to lack of motivation, apathy towards school, and frustration. If your gifted learner appears to be struggling and under-stimulated, LTWN offers a myriad of classes designed to stretch and nurture talented students.

‍