Opción A - 1 · Inglés PAU Navarra Ordinaria 2022

Opción A

IS BEING GIFTED REALLY A GIFT?

Were you one of those kids with the “gifted” label at school? Maybe you did an IQ test, or went through a series of workshops, or had a few meetings with parents and teachers. Being in the top three percentile of intelligence or pushing the roof of IQ tests does definitely change the game a bit, shaping your adult life. It seems that many gifted kids tend to channel their abilities into one particular field, usually “applied or prestigious subjects” like physics and math. They are shaped into their future paths not only by their own wishes and aptitudes but, to a greater extent, by what society believes gifted people should grow up to do, as it is what is expected of people with the label.

Are gifted children born with that condition or do they acquire it through childhood? Some specialists point out that there's no such thing as a gifted child. According to Professor Deborah Eyre, most people, unless they are cognitively impaired, can reach standards of performance associated in school with the gifted and talented. “Curiosity, persistence and hard work, together with the right support in developing those approaches at home as well as at school, are the ingredients needed to become gifted”.

Nevertheless, it is perhaps the work of Benjamin Bloom, another distinguished American educationist, that gives the most pause for thought and underscores the idea that family is intrinsically important to the concept of high performance. Bloom's team looked at a group of extraordinarily high achieving people in disciplines as varied as ballet, piano, tennis, math, sculpture and neurology, and interviewed not only the individuals but their parents, too. He found two patterns of encouraging and supporting parents: those who had enjoyed and become hooked on those disciplines in their childhood, and those who didn't excel in those fields as children, trying to vent their frustration on their kids, so that these would outperform their parents. In both cases, the adults had worked very hard and consistently with their offspring.

Now this question arises: are gifted students high achievers at school? They are expected to be. But many gifted students do not succeed at school for many reasons—boredom, lack of a challenging curriculum, coexisting learning disabilities and teachers not knowing how to cope with their “intellectual talent”. It is in the schools' hands to adapt themselves to the gifted children's needs, providing environments that are stimulating for their cognitive, physical, emotional, and social needs. As for you, if you are a highly intelligent teenager, appreciate your gift, take pride in it and don't be scared to be great!

1. Answer these questions about the text. Use your own words wherever possible (2 points, 1 each).

a.

What is Professor Deborah Eyre's opinion about gifted children?

b.

What are the reasons why many gifted children do not succeed at school?