A Study of Gifted and Talented Children In and Out of the Classroom in Educational Block Kangra of HP

Identification of the gifted and talented can pose a problem to teachers and education professionals because they are not a homogeneous group. The typical picture of the highly able child is of a hard-working pupil who diligently completes work, and is perhaps known as the class “swot” or “brain box”. In reality the picture is much more complex than that. Alongside the gifted achievers are those who - despite their gifts and talents - persistently underachieve due to boredom, lack of interest, or crippling perfectionism; young children who are cognitively advanced enough to play games with complex rule structures and yet not socially mature enough to deal with the frustration that occurs when their peers cannot grasp the game; children whose giftedness may be masked by the fact that they are not being educated in their first language or who have also have a disability. The vast number of definitions for giftedness and talent can be quite confusing. We have provided some of the better known definitions in the section below in order to give you an overview of the area. No one definition is perfect – highly able children can no more be fitted into one neat category box than any other child whose range of experiences has shaped his or her attitudes to learning and achievement.