UKC

Please could I have your thoughts

I've been asked by the school I work for to come up with a definition for 'gifted and talented' in outdoor ed.
This is common in academic areas, but we've not had to do it before.

Anyone any experience or thoughts on this?

thanks
Liz

In reply to Lizzie:

One I've seen before is something like...

Having a natural aptitude and having shown exceptional development in outdoors sports and activities. Able to get the best out of themselves and those around them when in challenging situations in the great outdoors.

In reply to Lizzie:

"Comes back with the same number of kids they set off with" was always considered adequate....

In reply to Lizzie:

thank you Peak DJ - that looks like a good starting point.
I don't know where to go to look for definitions of this - is there a website anyone could point me to?

thanks

In reply to Chris Harris:

>

A gifted and talented person aims for better than "adequate", they should come back with more....

In reply to Lizzie:

Firstly, 'gifted' and 'talented' both mean the same thing, no? Both words mean 'a remarkable natural ability' or somesuch.

In reply to Michael Gordon:


It's a buzz phrase in education.

In reply to DaveHK:
What's a buzz phrase?

In reply to Lizzie:

Are you *absolutely* sure it's not going to be a place to park the academically-hopeless kids, so that the school increases its G&Ts even in the face of missed academic targets? (If so, it's a genius bit of spin)

In which case, they might plump for something like 'students who are able to fully achieve their potential and maximise stakeholder investment in non-traditional, unenclosed active learning environments'.

In reply to Lizzie:

I thought g and t had been replaced by hap?

Anyway, I would be looking at common sense, high cats score on spatial awareness, understanding of environmental issues, low whine and winge factor, and a get on with it type attitude with leadership skillsand some concept of which way a map goes.

In reply to Lizzie:


Yep, plenty of both. It's a complete load of bollocks, and the reason you've been (t)asked to define it is that nobody else can.
Why not just call it "really good at it, and much better than the vast majority of other kids"?

HTH, JW

In reply to Lizzie:

I once walked into a school and took a look at the staff photographs on the wall in reception. My wife was there, with 'Gifted and Talented' below here photo. I giggled, probably too loudly, at her friend's photo with 'Special Needs' beneath it.

In reply to Martin not maisie:

Genius answer. More able and talented (MAT) is the vernacular in these parts. This begs the question, more able and more talented than what?

There are times I am very glad that I don't have kids. Why are the "systems" people so obsessed with putting youngsters into slots.

Mark

In reply to Lizzie:

Any of this help?
http://www3.hants.gov.uk/education/outdoor-education/peandsport/education-h...
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10114.aspx

In reply to Michael Gordon:

Gifted and talented refer to different things, certainly in education anyway.

Gifted implies a natural ability, someone who clearly has an flare for a particular area.

Talented implies a trained skill or ability.

In reply to Maestro:




youtube.com/watch?v=I1K6bOG8mj8&

Matthew Syed, in Bounce, certainly argues this. It may well be the case that in the rush to demonstrate progress and achievement in relation to targets, widening the scope of G&T frameworks to include non-academic subjects is just ghosting previous generations' access to technical, vocational educations.

In other words, we're belatedly realising that our straitened educational targets aren't ever going to work for a large minority of students, so governmental targets are doomed to failure; better to widen the net below the radar until the system succeeds. It would actually be better to find out what kids want to do - and then help them to do it.

In reply to Maestro:

Talented implies a trained skill or ability.

talented
Also found in: Legal, Financial, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.
tal·ent (tăl′ənt)
n.
1.
a. A marked innate ability, as for artistic accomplishment: has a rare talent for music.
b. Natural endowment or ability of a superior quality: The play has a cast of immense talent.
c. A person or group of people having such ability: The company makes good use of its talent.

Pretty much the same for every definition I can find. Going to really duck the system up when the kids start to just redefine words at their own convenience. No you can't mark that wrong, five is the word I use for the quantity you get by adding two plus two.

In reply to John Ww:


Thank f*ck! Maybe it's not just me...

Mick

In reply to Lizzie:


Children who are gifted and talented in outdoor education will

Learn to a read a map and use a compass early
Understand contours and be able to visualise the landscape
Be able to plan routes taking into account landscape features and expected weather.
Quickly be able to follow routes planned by others.
Be a to solve problems and quickly adapt to situations in the outdoors
Etc.

In reply to Hyphin:

Yep. 'Talent' has always referred to natural ability, not the ability to learn things when trained.

In reply to Orgsm:

Doing that makes a child talented?! Something tells me the word has lost it's meaning somewhat...

In reply to Orgsm:

Children who are well taught will do these things.

And the Etc may one day mean the difference between life and death.

Mick

In reply to Lizzie:


I teach music, and TBH in that context I'm sick of hearing those two words: they're way overused, difficult to define, and actually very unhelpful. They're all to do with fixed ideas about people, and tend to reinforce the status quo. Students get to know which category they are (supposedly) in, and a danger is that they become demoralised and resigned, or complacent and lazy, depending on status. What a shame you weren't asked to discuss enthusiasm, application, positive self-image, etc.

In reply to Chris Harris:


But are they the same kids ?

In reply to Hyphin:

That's exactly where the debate is at, though: we (as in, all of us) have always believed in natural talent - the kids we grew up with who were just *naturally* better at some stuff. For some of those things - like the fastest runners - they really were gifted: they had the naturally high ratio of fast twitch fibres, or high VO2 Max. But in the complex activities, Syed (and others) argues that it's actually early exposure to decent training - and the mythical 10,000 hours of meaningful practice - which makes the difference; from then on, with hard work, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Our - and the dictionary's - definition of talent (or even the concept of talent itself) may be invalid.

Not sure what you mean with the 2+2=5 analogy: this will always be wrong. The argument's about whether some kids are naturally more gifted at working out the real answer, or whether all kids can achieve it with the right handling.

In reply to Lizzie:

Strictly speaking, in an Dept Education sense, gifted refers to academic and talented refers to non-academic, higher than average, achievement.

So you would always be talking about talented in Outdoor Ed, perhaps via a measure of achievement that sorts kids into high, middle or low categories.

You need to know the levels of expected achievement to say what a HAP would be.

In reply to Lizzie:

Not of much help, but my son has represented the SW in climbing competitions, and this put him on the G & T list at his school.

In reply to Lizzie:

I never realised some folk like to consider these two words so much. I always thought g + t wasn't allowed in schools

In reply to bpmclimb:


I can imagine exactly this happening.

Back in the day, I used to love little back street bodybuilding/dojo places (this was before the mass acceptance of steroids) because they had fierce work ethics. There were obvious genetic differences between people (e.g. for martial arts, suppleness was massively prized; a pity I didn't have it). But culturally the genetic differences just didn't matter. What did matter was that you came in and you gave it well-nigh everything you could give. And you staggered out half-dead. And you came back again and gave it even more.

And guess what? Everyone improved!

Mick

In reply to Maestro:


Arson, for example?

In reply to bpmclimb:


would agree. People have different strengths and weakness which are impossible to overcome, but unless you are aiming to get to the top 1% in a given field, then pretty much anyone can improve at something if they try, regardless or being 'talented or gifted'. What varies is the level of effort required.

commitment, motivation, passion, dedication... character attributes have a far greater impact on how every person's abilities are utilised in life. The world is full of people who people always found X easy, or a gift/talent for Y, but simply couldn't be ar$ed, didn't, weren't able to, pursue it further for a 1000 different reasons. Everyone has their niche, somewhere.

In reply to Lizzie:

Isn't this cheating ms ?

In reply to Lizzie:

What happened to 'aptitude', which to my mind sits somewhere before G&T on a scale of the ability to excel at something. G should be exceptional IMHO, a career-defining ability that far exceeds the norm. T should be readily observable.