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E-zine The
Hidden Gifted
Underachiever Brent is a ninth
grade student who is failing English. His test
scores are high, but he never turns in any of the
required weekly writing assignments. He is
identified as a gifted student, and measured by a
standardized intelligence test his I.Q. is 140.
Brent says he doesn't want to follow the writing
prompts and formats required by the ninth grade
English standards, he's bored by the emphasis on
test preparation, and he doesn't care if he fails
the class. He thinks he might drop out of school as
soon as he's old enough. Janna is also a
gifted student. She is in seventh grade and has one
A and five B's on her most recent report card.
She's figured out how to play the game of school.
She knows which classes require little or no work
yet result in acceptable grades on her report card.
Janna never takes work home and completes what
little homework she has during homeroom in the
morning. She picks the easiest project or
assignment when she has a choice. She is satisfied
with B's and realizes that no one will get too
upset about her grades unless she gets a C. Last
grading period she calculated exactly how much work
she could skip and still get a low B in
math. Both of the
students described above are gifted underachievers.
Brent is the classic gifted underachiever with his
high test scores, drop out potential, and low
performance in class reflected by his poor grades.
Most experts in gifted underachievement have
studied students like Brent for years. But what
about Janna? Her grades and test scores do not
necessarily identify her as a gifted underachiever,
yet she most certainly is one! I would identify her
as a "hidden" gifted underachiever. Hidden gifted
underachievers are students who float along in
school receiving fairly good grades --- just good
enough so that they don't get hassled --- but in
reality they do very little. Typically they do
their schoolwork at the last minute, choose the
easy classes and projects instead of the more
difficult ones, and don't persist when faced with a
challenge or a complex problem. These students
learn to play the game of school but never really
learn how to be lifelong learners. They may have
poor organizational skills and non-existent study
skills. Yet they are often overlooked as
underachievers because their test scores are
acceptable ("proficient" in NCLB lingo) and their
report cards usually have no C's, D's or F's.
Typical Mindsets
that May Lead to Hidden
Underachievement Bolstering hidden
underachievement are several mindsets typical in
American life, pop culture and in the schools
themselves. 1. Expectation of
the 'Easy A' 2. Belief that
teachers should be entertainers 3. Message that
mistakes and failures are unacceptable 4. The 'Buy Now,
Pay Later' syndrome 5. Being gifted or
being an achiever isn't 'cool' Reversing Hidden
Underachievement As with any type of
underachievement, reversing hidden underachievement
is not easy. There isn't one answer, silver bullet,
or super strategy that will work for every student.
Instead, there are a number of different strategies
and approaches that parents and teachers can
attempt in order to see what works best with an
individual child or even with a group of students.
Suggestions include: Strategies for
Encouraging More Challenging Work Do specific
university or college counseling with your
students. Encourage them to visit college campuses
and if possible to enroll in summer or after school
programs offered by colleges. College seems a long
way off to many students. While they may say they
want to go to college someday, seeing first hand
the reality of work requirements and the
responsibility it takes to be a college student
often encourages them to do more challenging work
in middle school and high school. This is
particularly true for students whose parents have
not attended college. Use sports
analogies to help students understand the concepts
of goal setting, long range planning, effort,
persistence, and working toward one's personal
best. Almost all sports encompass these concepts.
Hidden underachievers, like most other students,
are often involved or interested in some type of
sport. Making the link between success in a game
and success in academics is an eye-opener and
motivator for many students. For example, in a
football game, players work for a first down
(short-term goal) in order to eventually make a
touchdown (medium-term goal) and ultimately make
several touchdowns to win the game (long-term
goal). Have a plan for
teaching organization and study skills. Show these
students how to memorize and learn new information,
plan for long range assignments, keep a learning
log of daily work, and make adjustments to their
plan as needed. Use formative assessments and
schedule checkpoint dates regularly so that hidden
underachievers are not throwing something together
at the last minute. Many hidden underachievers are
procrastinators because they think their work will
still be good enough to meet the minimum
requirements. Documentation and checkpoints make
students accountable all during the learning
process, not just when they turn in the final
project. Raise the benchmark
for hidden underachievers by involving them with
other gifted students throughout your region or
state via academic competitions, academic fairs,
club affiliations, contests, etc. It is easy to be
a hidden underachiever when you are the smartest
one in your class anyway. It becomes much more
challenging to be with a large group of gifted and
high ability students from your entire state or
region. The realization that there are many others
with high ability who are working hard is sometimes
just the impetus a hidden underachiever needs to do
more demanding work. Look for
opportunities to praise hidden underachievers for
their persistence and effort rather than for their
intelligence, ability, and/or how smart/gifted they
are. Praising gifted children for their
intelligence and ability or commenting on how smart
they are comes naturally for many parents and
teachers. However, research has shown that students
praised in this way tend to choose an easier task
over a harder challenge, and, when faced with
difficult tasks, are likely to give up. On the
other hand, students praised for effort try harder
when faced with a challenge and choose harder, more
difficult learning tasks (Dweck, 1999). Strategies for
Learning from Mistakes and Failures Show students how
to revise or change their strategies and approaches
to problems after a mistake or failure. Hidden
underachievers avoid failure and rarely learn from
it. Help them look at failure in a new way by
celebrating mistakes as chances for new learning
and more understanding. Have a motto that states:
"Failure is the opportunity to begin again more
intelligently." Pre-assess and
teach basic academic skills. Individually target
what each student needs to learn. Use curriculum
compacting for skills in which they can demonstrate
mastery and therefore should not have to repeat,
but don't automatically assume they already know
these skills. Hidden underachievers generally
develop gaps in their learning as their years in
school progress. Being proactive in finding these
gaps and working on them is an important strategy
for dealing with underachievers. Hidden
underachievers don't want you to know they have
academic holes, but identifying them is an
excellent strategy for dealing with this type of
underachievement. Include questions
that do not have one correct answer. Concentrate on
higher-level thinking and multiple possibilities.
These questions require more time, effort, and
thought and are not liable to be done in the five
minutes before the assignment is to be turned in.
Such questions are more open-ended, more
interesting, and are less likely to be approached
with a fear of failure. Have your students
learn about people who have overcome failure, made
mistakes, and learned from them. Use short stories,
biographies, novels, films, current events, and
interviews with neighbors, relatives, and friends.
Discuss the approaches and strategies these people
used in order to benefit and learn from their
mistakes. Ask your students to make direct
connections to their own lives. Strategies for
Encouraging Responsibility Spell out clear
expectations and rules and abide by them. This is
important for both teachers and parents. Don't have
classroom or household rules you cannot enforce. It
is much better to have just a few rules that are
non-negotiable than to have many rules you cannot
put into effect. Knowing you mean what you say is
important for hidden underachievers. Many have
learned to manipulate the system, their teachers
and their parents. Often they think the rules are
for everyone but them. A first step toward learning
responsibility is knowing that some adults mean
what they say and cannot be manipulated. Teach and model
responsible behavior. Gifted kids are quick to pick
up on hypocrisy and are the first to point out when
an adult says one thing but does another. This
provides them with a wonderful excuse to act
irresponsibly themselves. If you want them to act
in a responsible manner, make sure they observe
that you are consistently responsible in your
actions. Discourage the
'Parent-to-the-Rescue' syndrome. Well-meaning
parents sometimes find themselves in the role of
rescuers. Students who habitually leave notes,
books, homework assignments, etc. at home may
expect their parents to continuously come to the
rescue and to bring these items to school. The same
is true for items needed to complete projects at
home that are not thought about until 10:00 PM on
the night before the project is due. In order to
develop the child's sense of responsibility,
parents and teachers must set limits on such
behavior. My guidelines for coming to the rescue
are as follows: K-2 &endash; once every two weeks,
grades 3-5 &endash; once a month, grades 6-8
&endash; once a grading period, grades 9-11
&endash; once a semester, and grade 12 &endash;
never. Encourage parents
to designate daily chores for their children to do
at home. Contrary to what most children believe,
chores are not assigned to save parents time! In
fact, it takes much more time to supervise a child
getting a chore done than it would take to do it
yourself. Indeed, the reason for giving children
chores is that this teaches them responsibility.
Assigning chores is a good way to break some habits
typical of hidden underachievers such as a lack of
persistence, procrastination, and choosing to do
only the easiest task. Recommend that high
school students work at a job no more than 15-20
hours a week. There is some evidence that working a
limited number of hours can be beneficial in
developing responsibility, organizational and time
management skills, and independence. When this
happens, we hope our hidden underachievers will
translate those constructive skills, habits, and
attitudes learned on the job to their work at
school. However, a number of research studies
indicate that working more than 20 hours a week has
the opposite effect (Steinberg, Fegley &
Dornbusch, 2001). This is because working longer
hours takes away both study and sleeping time and
results in students being more irresponsible,
coming to school unprepared academically and
physically exhausted. Concluding
Thoughts From my own
observations and through discussions with both
teachers and parents, I have concluded that we have
an abundance of hidden gifted underachievers. Our
challenge is to motivate and encourage these
students to reach their highest potential and not
settle for 'just good enough.' Unfortunately, many
cultural trends and attitudes work against the
goals of excellence, high quality work, and
challenging learning. However, there are
a number of effective strategies that can be
implemented by both teachers and parents to
encourage these students and reverse the hidden
underachievement syndrome. Begin your approach to
this problem by choosing one or two of the ideas
discussed in this article and observe the outcomes.
Reassess after a period of time, and try another
idea. It is my hope that our hidden gifted
underachievers will become enthusiastic lifelong
learners. References Coil, C. (2004).
Becoming an Achiever-Revised and Expanded
Edition. Marion, IL: Pieces of
Learning. Coil, C. (1999).
Encouraging Achievement. Marion, IL: Pieces
of Learning. Coil, C. (2001).
Motivating Underachievers-Revised and Expanded
Edition. Marion, IL: Pieces of
Learning. Dweck, C. S.
(1999). Self-Theories: Their Role in Motivation,
Personality and Development. Philadelphia, PA:
Taylor & Francis. Steinberg, L.,
Fegley, S. & Dornbusch, M. (2001). "Negative
Impact of Part-Time Work." Adolescent
Behavior. E. Aries, ed. New York:
McGraw-Hill. A version of this
article was published in the Gifted Education
Communicator, Vol. 35, No. 4, Winter 2004.
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