
Definition
There are many derivations of the quote by Michelangelo regarding how he created his sculptures, but most are along this line of thinking, “The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there; I just have to chisel away the superfluous material” (Sethi & Nichols, 2018). As the gifted and talented discipline has yet to land on a unified understanding of the word giftedness, researchers, practitioners, and educators continue to chip away at both the bedrock and the superfluous material.
Questions to Ponder
· If what we need is gifted people who can cut through the failure to solve the serious problems of the world today, how would we identify and then nurture the talents of those gifted people?
· Why is the ability to solve a number-series problem a better indicant of “intelligence” than the ability to think of ways to mitigate worldwide disaster?
· Why are school grades more important criteria against which to measure intelligence than decisions that could make the difference between environmental preservation and destruction?
· Should not we be emphasizing, in our schools, the development of adaptive intelligence at least as much as the development of general intelligence, in that the former is what might help ensure that our progeny are able to benefit from whatever contributions we make to the world?
These are the questions that resonate today, as we lurch forward into an increasingly concerning future. Now more than ever, we need gifted people who can cut through the failure to solve the serious problems of the world today.
What is Giftedness?
There are many derivations of the quote by Michelangelo regarding how he created his sculptures, but most are along this line of thinking, “The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there; I just must chisel away the superfluous material” (Sethi & Nichols, 2018). As the gifted and talented discipline has yet to land on a unified understanding of the word giftedness, researchers, practitioners, and educators continue to chip away at both the bedrock and the superfluous material. In time, they will reveal the David and Pieta of the gifted and talented world with enough chiseling and persistence. In the interim, the discipline aches for a unified vision now, or conversely, a reconciliation of varying paradigmatic components (Dai, 2018).
The predominant paradigms which have emerged to date provide more clarity to the construct of giftedness. The gifted child paradigm relies heavily on the use of intelligence testing to identify those who fall well above the mean on a normally distributed curve (Dai & Chen, 2013). However, as Boring (1923) posited, intelligence is as the tests test it. Said another way, intelligence testing determines the very definition of intelligence, which is then tested (Maas et al., 2014). The logic is circular and problematic (Borland, 2009; Lo & Porath, 2017).
The central challenge in defining giftedness through the lens of the gifted child paradigm, is that even though giftedness includes some component of a quantified measure of intelligence landing above the mean, contemporary definitions within the gifted child paradigm concur that we have moved away from a definition of giftedness as just high IQ (Subotnik, 2012). Many suggest that those who are truly gifted experience a qualitatively different world than those who do not fall in that category, whatever that we may define category to be at this point in time (Dai & Chen, 2014; Silverman & Gilman, 2020). Therefore, to define a construct such as giftedness based upon another construct undergoing its own identity crisis such as intelligence, presents a multi-layered challenge to the discipline.
The talent development paradigm attempts to address giftedness by breaking away from the heavy focus on measures of intelligence and instead approaches an understanding of giftedness with a more holistic lens (Barab & Plucker, 2002; Dai, 2019). This lens moves from the more static approach to one which suggests that giftedness may be cultivated and coached (Subotnik et al., 2012). Although measures of intelligence are not completely abandoned, their emphasis is not critical to the understanding of giftedness through this lens. Like the gifted child paradigm, the talent development paradigm also struggles by relying on constructs that need further clarity such as cognitive and non-cognitive factors influencing giftedness, multi-intelligences, creativity and exceptional demonstration of abilities within specific domains (Schneider et al., 2016). Regardless, the ability to develop the talents and giftings of these unique individuals remains a key concern.
In this author’s opinion, the world is facing a need for an additional layer of chipping away to occur to further reveal what giftedness means. Sternberg calls for an expanded paradigm for giftedness and talent development that has received both criticism (Olszewski-Kubilius et al., 2017; Sternberg, 2017b) and support (Ambrose, 2017; McCluskey, 2017). In the development of this expanded paradigm, Sternberg (2017a) poses the question, “If what we need is gifted people who can cut through the failure to solve the serious problems of the world today, how would we identify and then nurture the talents of those gifted people?”
In developing the Active Concerned Citizenship and Ethical Leadership (ACCEL) model for understanding giftedness, Sternberg attempts to answer this question. Sternberg predicates the ACCEL model on the tenets of successful intelligence. Sternberg (2019a) defines successful intelligence as “the utilization of an integrated set of abilities and attitudes needed to attain happiness and success in life, however an individual defines it, within the individual’s sociocultural context.” The key components of successful intelligence are found in four main domains which Sternberg identifies as creative, analytical, practical, and wisdom-based (Sternberg, 2011). Therefore, giftedness is defined as having or developing strengths within those four domains.
Sternberg continues to empirically demonstrate that intelligence involves more than what is measured through IQ tests, thus providing further evidence that intelligence testing may measure a different construct altogether (Olszewski-Kubilius et al., 2017; Sternberg, 2017a). Such evidence supports the ACCEL model applicability (Sternberg, 2006; Sternberg & Sternberg, 2017; Sternberg & Williams, 1997; Sternberg & Williams, 2017). Sternberg (2019b) recently broadened his theory of successful intelligence into an alternative theory coined adaptive intelligence. Sternberg (2020) explicitly states,
Our work on adaptive intelligence is based on the notion that intelligence is and always has been primarily about adaptation to the environment, broadly defined. To persist in a notion of intelligence that has proven worse than useless in solving, much less even addressing, societal problems is negligent. It is an ostrich-like act of scientists sticking their heads in the sand. (para. 2)
Sternberg (2019b) then takes the theory of adaptive intelligence one step further and makes a compelling case that the measurement of g is not measuring intelligence at all. Table 1 (Sternberg, 2020) delineates the differences of g, often central to the gifted child paradigm, and adaptive intelligence.
Defining intelligence outside the realm of discrete cognitive abilities is messy. Defining giftedness without clearly understanding what intelligence is proves to be messier. And, as Sternberg advocates, potentially disastrous. I find myself returning to the questions posed by Sternberg (2017b), “If what we need is gifted people who can cut through the failure to solve the serious problems of the world today, how would we identify and then nurture the talents of those gifted people? Why is the ability to solve a number-series problem a better indicant of “intelligence” than the ability to think of ways to mitigate worldwide disaster? Why are school grades more important criteria against which to measure intelligence than decisions that could make the difference between environmental preservation and destruction? Should not we be emphasizing, in our schools, the development of adaptive intelligence at least as much as the development of general intelligence, in that the former is what might help ensure that our progeny are able to benefit from whatever contributions we make to the world?” These are the questions that resonate today, and I see and feel the urgency that Sternberg conveys as we lurch forward into an increasingly concerning future. Now more than ever, we need gifted people who can cut through the failure to solve the serious problems of the world today.
Table 1
Ten key differences between general intelligence and adaptive intelligence problems
Characteristic | General Intelligence | Adaptive Intelligence |
Type of Answer | Right or wrong | More adaptive or less adaptive |
Structure |
Well-structured: A clear path to a specific solution |
Messy structure: Multiple fuzzy paths to partial solutions |
Emotional/Ideological Resonance |
Low emotional/ideological resonance; This is usually clear. | High emotional/ideological resonance: Thinking may be clouded |
Life Stakes |
Low: few consequences is answer is wrong
|
Often high: A critical need for a good solution. |
Life Contextualizations | Decontextualized problems that are weakly related to life events
| Highly contextualized problems that are strongly related to life events |
Need for Problem Definition | None: Problems are presented with the test
| Great: One has to recognize that the problem even exists |
Time for Solution | Low: Can be solved in a few seconds to a few minutes
| High: Can be addressed over time but cannot be definitively solved |
Need to Search for Information | Low: Information needed for solution given in the test problem
| High: Information needed for solution requires research |
Need to Evaluate Information | Low: Information in test problem is generally consistent and credible. | High: Information sources are often low in credibility and mutually contradictory |
Note. Adapted from “Rethinking What We Mean by Intelligence,” by R. Sternberg, 2020, https://kappanonline.org/rethinking-what-we-mean-by-intelligence-sternberg/
References
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