How can we better support gifted students?

Brian: Sometimes the regular classroom can be a really boring place, especially if you have already mastered the material and you’re ready to move on to something else. I think sort of my view of what gifted education can bring is it brings that joy back into teaching.

Kevin: According to a report by Purdue University’s Gifted Education Research and Resource Institute, more than 3.3 million U.S. public school children are labeled as gifted. The report also noted that as many as 3.6 million more students should be labeled as gifted, but have been overlooked. How do schools identify gifted students? How can schools ensure quality and equity and access when it comes to gifted education? What challenges do gifted students face? And what do these students need to thrive? This is “What I Want to Know,” and today I am joined by Dr. Brian Housand to find out.

Dr. Brian Housand is the Coordinator of the Academically or Intellectually Gifted Program at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. He’s the creator of Gifted 360, a professional learning experience, delivering student-focused activities to promote curiosity and creativity. Brian has worked in education as a classroom teacher, a teacher of the gifted, and a university professor for more than 20 years. He joins us today to discuss how we can better support gifted students. Brian, welcome to the show.

Brian Housand, welcome so much to “What I Want to Know,” and it’s really good to have you on the show. I appreciate your work. And, you know, before we get into the meat of what you do, looking at your background, Brian, I was just struck by how you’ve embraced all these things that are magical and fun, all things Disney, “Star Wars.” I mean, talk about your childhood and what led you to sort of this world of what’s possible that sometimes is cloaked in this world of make-believe.

Brian: Yeah. First of all, thank you, Kevin, for inviting me to be a part of what I’m thinking of as a very large table and a very big conversation. Yeah. I mean, growing up, I had sort of a lot of those sort of serendipitous moments. I am an only child, and I can remember at a very early age just being fascinated with sort of the world of tomorrow. And I can remember also at that young age just begging my parents to go see this new movie that was, you know, coming out. I saw a commercial on television for this thing called “Star Wars,” and I knew that it was going to be this pivotal moment in my life.

And I can still remember being, like, that 6-year-old kid going into the theater and, like, the feel of the seat and kind of the stickiness of the floor. And I just remember seeing and watching what was taking place on the screen and seeing my entire life just unfold. I thought of what’s going to be possible? Where are we going to go in the future? And what’s this place called the 21st century even going to look like? And when am I going to get a droid? And what difference is that going to make in my life? What is this thing called the force, and how do I fight for good and against evil?

Kevin: What’s fascinating about that, Brian, I mean, you’ve lived long enough now, obviously we both have, but we’re getting close to some of that stuff.

Brian: Yeah.

Kevin: I mean, it’s closer than what we ever could have imagined it would have been when that initial “Star Wars” movie came out. What about that world led you to the education space and the work you’re doing now?

Brian: You know, I really kind of looked at those types of worlds with science fiction and all of the things that were happening with Disney as living in this world of what is possible. Instead of saying all of the things that we can’t do, what is it that we can do and how is technology really going to influence what it is that we have access to?

If we think about, you know, during the times that we grew up and where it is that we are now, like we’re in a completely different world. Things that we now take for granted of life within 2023, I mean, even 5 years ago where, I mean, the idea was impossible. And I think that we just continue to see that transformation, that technology plays as a part of that. And for me, I really wanted to kind of be sort of one of the innovators or on the cutting edge of that. How do we take those opportunities and provide them to as many learners as possible? How do we make it entertaining? How do we engage our learners’ curiosity and keep them propelling towards that future so that they’re working to make tomorrow a better day than it was yesterday?

Kevin: You know, we’re going to talk a little bit about Gifted 360, the organization that you are working on, working with rather. But beforehand, this whole idea of working with gifted students, what led you to that particular area in the education space? Because that’s a discrete area.

Brian: Yeah, absolutely. So I grew up as a gifted child. I was identified when I was in the second grade. I was an early reader. My mom stayed at home with me up until I was in the fourth grade. And also, as a first generation college student, she was there teaching me everything that she knew at that point. And school for me was pretty boring. Kindergarten, first grade I came to school knowing how to read. And I can remember taking an individualized IQ test in the second grade. And up until that point, that was literally the best day of school that I had ever had. Suddenly I had this adult that was there, much in the same way that my mother was, kind of asking me really cool questions, and she was interested in absolutely everything that I was saying, writing things down, taking notes.

And after that, you know, the test results came back, and they were like, “Yeah, you know, your child is gifted.” And my mom was like, “What does that even mean?” And so we really kind of had to work through that.

So growing up in gifted programs, they were really sort of kind of my salvation, where they kept me engaged in the school process. And after I became a classroom teacher, I realized that the regular classroom was not the magical place that I had remembered it being as part of a gifted program. And I really wanted to look for ways that we could find opportunities to better meet the needs of the students that were even in my regular classroom, students that were asking interesting questions, that were starting to turn off to school, even at the ripe old age of 10. Suddenly they were not really interested in doing the things that they were interested in the year before. And I thought, “There’s got to be a better way. Let’s figure out what we can do in the name of gifted education that’s going to provide more of those opportunities to more students.” And that’s kind of where it all started.

Kevin: Let’s go back to that question you said your mother asked when they said you were gifted. What does it mean to be a gifted student?

Brian: Kevin, that is a really fantastic question. I think, during our conversation, I’m going to use two separate two-word phrases a lot. The first two-word phrase that I’m going to use probably with you is “yes and.” It’s a classic improv technique. Meaning that, yes, I totally agree with you, and there’s something else to consider.

The other piece that typically would define how I consider what giftedness is, is “it depends.” I work at the university as kind of one of my primary jobs, and I have trained teachers on how to be teachers of the gifted for the past 15 years. And they come into that first course like wanting me to give them the answer, kind of expecting that there’s an answer out there. And I’m like, “There’s a lot of ways that we can define what giftedness is and what giftedness isn’t. And I’m not going to tell you what that answer is. All that I’m going to tell you is that it depends. It depends upon the context, what it is that we’re really looking for.” And at first they get really upset with me and frustrated. And then, after a while, they start to realize that “it depends” may be one of the best answers that we have when it comes to trying to define something like giftedness.

Kevin: And what does that mean for parents who have children that they feel may be gifted based on their interpretation of that it depends? For instance, we know that there are over three million students identified as academically and intellectually gifted, let’s say. All right? But then we also know that there’s about the same number that may fall in that category that have not been identified. And yet, you know, parents sometimes know there’s something that’s a little different about their child compared to other children or their other children. And yet when they ask about it or go to school, sometimes schools really aren’t sure how to deal with this. So talk a little bit about how you dig a little deeper if you’re a parent to try to figure it all out.

Brian: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that it’s very confusing for parents. I mean, as you identified, they see like this particular child, they’re doing things differently than their other children or other children their age.

Kevin: Yes.

Brian: And I think that that’s really part of that “it depends.” The other piece that you really already kind of mentioned there is that we typically define giftedness as something that is academic in nature. How are you performing in school? Are you playing well when in that sort of educational environment? But then there’s also sort of this intellectual piece. Maybe you have something going on intellectually or cognitively that’s allowing you to think differently or doing creative things that doesn’t necessarily transcend over into traditional academic environments.

I think that as a parent, as educators, as advocates, the first and most important thing to do is really kind of start that conversation. Ask a lot of questions. Be really inquisitive, really curious, saying, “I’m noticing these types of behaviors. Can you tell me more about that? Are they demonstrating that in school? And how can we make these creative behaviors, how can that be activated and even encouraged within an educational setting? And what can I do as a parent, as a caregiver in order to help support that level of learning?”

Kevin: Yeah. I think that makes a whole lot of sense, Brian. But let me ask you this. You grew up as a gifted student. You’ve been in this work for many years. Talk a little bit about some of the most misunderstood aspects that relate to “gifted students.”

Brian: Yeah. I think that the misunderstood part is that gifted students are all exactly the same. We expect gifted students to be really good at school and always make good grades and always do the right thing and make those positive good choices.

Just to go back a little bit to kind of the “Star Wars” piece, one of the ways that I’ve tried to explain this over the years is through the lens of looking at droids, specifically R2-D2 and C-3PO. Now, they are both classified as droids, in the same way that we might classify kids as gifted, but they could not be more different from one another.

I mean, you’ve got C-3PO, and he’s kind of like a classic gifted student. He’s fluent in more than six million forms of communication, always calculating the odds, maybe a little bit of a worrier, highly intelligent. And then you’ve got R2-D2. He’s sort of like this classic, creative, gifted kid, always solving problems. You kind of think he’s goofing off and sort of making jokes, but you aren’t exactly sure what’s going on there. And they’re completely different from one another, yet we classify them as the same thing.

And the same is true for gifted kids. I mean, we have sort of those C-3POs in our classrooms. They’re always those teacher pleasers and doing just the right thing at exactly the right time. And then you’ve got all the R2-D2s that are out there, where they’re just, you know, on that sort of edge of like using their genius for evil, finding themselves bored in the classroom. And then when they get bored, they want to create sort of havoc and chaos. And that can be really frustrating for teachers, for parents. And I think that we have to really stop thinking of gifted kids as just being this one thing and realize that there is a wide, wide range of what it could look like. Again, it goes back to that “it depends.”

Kevin: Yeah. You know, Brian, I absolutely love that reference to the “Star Wars” character. It makes a lot of sense, and it kind of crystallizes and illuminates your point about “it depends.”

And that leads me to this other question related to kind of this, stigma may be too strong a word, but the impressions associated with gifted students. The old-school sort of impressions are the academically proficient student who’s a teacher pleaser, who always gets straight A’s. But as you alluded to with your reference there, that there’ve been a lot of shifts, and the shifts now recognize that if you’re gifted, then it could be a whole range of different talents and skill sets. Where do you see it heading, you know, going forward? Because now with, you know, the focus on the arts and culture and other talents beyond just, you know, being able to do well on a standardized test, we’re starting to appreciate as a society, and correct me if I’m wrong, the diverse talents that individual students have. Where do you see this going?

Brian: Yeah. I mean, I think we’re definitely headed in a positive direction with that. That realizing that giftedness isn’t just that academic piece, that there are a lot of different ways that we can be gifted. That we could be a gifted artist or a gifted musician, or a gifted scientist, a gifted mathematician. I think really kind of transitioning into instead of using gifted kind of as that noun, using it as that adjective to describe what are we gifted at, is kind of an interesting way to reframe that.

The other piece that I hope that we’re realizing is that our students are interested in a wide range of interesting topics. Things that we didn’t even know that existed 5 or 10 years ago, now that they want to know more about. Many gifted kids, not necessarily all, have this sort of heightened intellectual curiosity or intensity in the things that they’re passionate about. And they’re way into the things that they are interested in and not at all interested in the things that they are not. And they really want to take that time to go as far and as fast and as deep as they possibly can.

And I think that, thankfully, living kind of in the age that we have, we have access to infinite amounts of information about whatever it is that we want to learn about. And we can do that. We can go as deep, as far as fast as we want. And I think we should help our students develop their interests, develop their passions and do just that. Not just focusing on the curriculum that they have to learn this year. Most of them have already mastered that. Let’s find out the things that they want to know more about and let them go and explore those things.

Kevin: You mentioned curiosity, and that leads me to ask you to speak more about Gifted 360, because one of the things, as I understand, that Gifted 360 is promoting is, you know, creativity and sort of encouraging that curiosity in gifted students. So talk a little bit about Gifted 360, how it came to be and what you’re involved in.

Brian: Yeah. So with Gifted 360, what I really wanted to do is to change the way that professional learning is delivered. I do a lot of consulting with different educational organizations, mostly within the gifted sphere, but then also working with schools, districts, doing a lot of traveling and presenting.

As we all know, 2020 was a very different year, and suddenly there was no longer very much traveling or presenting as a part of that. And one of the things that I started getting asked to do a lot was to do virtual presentations. It’s like, “Our teachers still need professional learning. Can you do, like, a six-hour, all-day professional learning workshop, like on Zoom?” And I said, “No, I do not want to do that. That is a horrible, horrible idea for us to like sit there as professionals trying to learn in that way. The research doesn’t support it. Our adult attention span is maybe 15 to 20 minutes on something that we’re actually interested in. We’ve got to really cut that back.”

So with Gifted 360, I was kind of taking workshops on professional learning that I was already doing, and I wanted to make it targeted toward the adult learner. How can we help educators learn new things, learn ways to engage their students within their educational settings, but also make it fun and interesting? So really kind of taking sort of a chunk-sized approach of, “Gosh, you can pay attention maybe for five minutes to this activity. Let’s give you some new information, have you do something with that information, and then give you something also that you’re going to be able to take to your classroom to present to your students starting tomorrow, that’s going to really get them thinking in new and interesting ways.”

So it’s been really kind of a fun project to work on. I’ve got a few courses related to that, again, that I’ve worked with individuals, with schools, with districts, and even state organizations.

Kevin: Now how do schools respond, and particularly if they’re in one of your professional development sessions, how do schools and teachers respond to what you’re presenting to them? Because I would guess now that much of this is new territory as the whole notion of what a gifted student is as being redefined in our society.

Brian: Yeah. I mean, I think that for most educators, I would say that they themselves are curious. I mean, nobody necessarily goes into education because they want to build a whole classroom of just good test takers. You go into education to become a teacher because you want to change the world. You want to improve the lives of the young people. You want to have that just beautiful moment when you’re teaching and you see like the light bulbs go off and they’re able to connect something in a way that they were not able to connect before.

And I think that a lot of what or at least I think gifted education has been and the difference that it’s made for me as a professional and also made for me as a student was having more of those opportunities to have those light bulb moments, to create those connections. Sometimes the regular classroom can be a really boring place, especially if you have already mastered the material and you’re ready to move on to something else. I think sort of my view of what gifted education can bring is it brings that joy back into teaching. It brings that creativity, that freedom that perhaps you lost along the way.

Kevin: Yeah. A couple of more practical questions, Brian. What resources are available to parents for kids that they have that may be gifted?

Brian: Yeah. Well, I tend to think of this from let’s talk about it from an organizational standpoint.

Kevin: Yes.

Brian: And so I think of, you know, looking for a set of national organizations, organizations like the National Association for Gifted Children. Or looking for an organization that supports more of the social and emotional side of that. There’s an organization called SENG, that’s S-E-N-G, which is Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted. I think looking at those two kind of organizations from the national level is a great place to start.

I would also say depending on what state it is that you live in, look at what state gifted associations might be out there, what sort of resources and programs. Look at local universities within your state to see what types of programs that they might be offering.

Contact your school district to see if they have like a parent support group. As many districts all across the country have kind of parent groups that have parents coming together, talking about the needs of their students and their kids and really building that collaboration piece together.

I think that one of the most important things for everyone to remember is that you don’t have do this alone. You aren’t in this by yourself. There are thousands and thousands of other people that are going through the same experience, trying to figure out, “You know, what do I do with my gifted kid?” Let’s have some of those conversations and really create those connections. Realizing that power comes through having those conversations.

Kevin: Yeah, well said. Brian Housand, I have one last question. It kind of relates to the resources question. But a lot of parents and teachers may be listening, and if you’re a parent or a teacher and you believe you have a gifted student, let’s talk about the starting point. What should they do?

Brian: Yeah, I would have the conversation with the student, with the child about what their experience is. Oftentimes giftedness is sort of shrouded in mystery. Even, you know, me kind of casually talking out the “it depends” response. Ask them what they’re thinking about, what are they feeling.

I think also there can come power in looking at resources like profiles of gifted, looking at . . . I know one of the key pieces for me, as I was becoming a teacher of the gifted, was looking at sort of the work of Mary Frazier. She was from the University of Georgia.

And she did some work kind of in the late ’90s around this thing that she called the TABs, looking at the traits, aptitudes, and behaviors of potentially gifted students. And as a part of that, she identified, based upon the research at that time, kind of these 10 different factors that many gifted individuals tend to demonstrate. They may not necessarily demonstrate all of these, but they tend to. Things like motivation, a wide variety of intense interest. Oftentimes they are really good at communicating, problem-solving ability, having a vast storehouse of memory, the inquiry or curiosity piece, having insight into things especially at a younger age, having imagination, creativity, and also the last factor there, humor. Many gifted individuals are able to sort of see connections between things that are often very humorous. Many gifted kids and individuals that I’ve worked with over the years just really enjoy wordplay. And they can kind of make those funny and interesting connections at a much more rapid rate than maybe a typical individual might be able to. So never underestimate the value of humor in looking for giftedness.

Kevin: Yeah. I’ve actually heard, Brian, that many comedians are gifted, and that really speaks to your point. Brian Housand, you’re doing terrific work. Thank you so much for joining us on “What I Want to Know.”

Brian: Thank you, Kevin. It’s my pleasure.

Kevin: Thanks for listening to “What I Want to Know.” Be sure to follow and subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you can explore other episodes and dive into our discussions on the future of education. And write a review of the show. I also encourage you to join the conversation and let me know what you want to know using #WIWTK on social media. That’s #WIWTK.

For more information on Stride and online education, visit stridelearning.com. I’m your host, Kevin P. Chavous. Thank you for joining “What I Want to Know.”