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Book Reviews
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Belle Wallace, Gifted Education International "Two distinguished educators with over 25 years experience have written this second edition for educators and parents. Their loving concern for children’s healthy development runs through each page as they discuss real-life concerns in a practical way that will reach readers. The main message is refreshingly clear: Gifted provision should ‘reflect upon individual differences, including social, emotional, academic, and developmental. --- [then educators and parents will be enabled to make] the best informed decisions, and they will find new ways to enable children to experience their world fully as an engaging place in which to live, laugh and learn’. (pg xviii) "Another major theme is the importance of primarily diagnosing the mismatch between a child’s potential and the provision of appropriately challenging educational experiences, rather than seeking to label a child as ‘gifted’ or ‘not gifted’. This emphasis reflects the beginning of a world shift that underlies the philosophy of creating opportunities for all children to discover and nourish their gifts – whether these are small ‘g’s or big ‘Gs’! The concept of potential, developmental ‘giftedness’ is inclusive and the message is clear – create exciting opportunities first and then observe and diagnose learners’ needs. Another emphasis throughout the text is the importance of developing the thinking processes of learning rather than assessing the fixed pre-determined end products. "Importantly, the voices of both children and adults are evident – making the text vibrantly grounded in real-life experience. "I recommend this humane and empowering text to all educators and parents – its message is clear – put the needs and the voice of the child at the centre of educational provision rather than creating a mechanised system into which a child must squeeze! A ‘one size fits all’ kind of educational provision does not allow for continuing individual growth." |
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Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., Lewis & Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology, Stanford University
“By presenting exciting new work on mindsets, as well as recent research findings on expertise and cognitive neuroscience, these authors show the importance of habits of mind in cognitive development. This book will prompt re-examination of many long-held beliefs!” |
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Dr. Frank C. Worrell, University of California-Berkeley, Discussant, Processes and Issues in Gifted Education: American Education Research Association Conference, Montréal, Quebec, Canada
"Talent is transformed into high performance through a willingness to try, invest time in guided practice, and persist when tasks are difficult. These authors describe ways to do just that." |
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Elizabeth Morley, Institute of Child Study, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto, Canada
"This book works on many levels to address giftedness and how educators' attitudes can support gifted-level achievement. The authors use Carol Dweck's Mindsets work to situate, and to challenge, traditional approaches to gifted education by exploring contemporary, research-based alternatives. "Matthews and Foster see the belief that intelligence is innate, unchanging and stable - a view that has long characterized educational theory - as what Dweck calls a 'fixed mindset'. The authors support adopting Dweck's 'growth mindset' model as a more accurate way of seeing intellectual capacity. They make the case that one IQ test, or the label that follows it, does not a lifetime of giftedness make. Rather, they see intelligence as something that develops over time, and in specific domains, enhanced by scaffolded opportunities to learn. The myths about giftedness, often probed by parents anxious to maximize their child's experience are all here, but are set into a growth context which suggests that persistence, effort, hard work and engagement are all vital factors for high achievement and that these can be supported and taught. "This is the book to reach for if parents are asking about how a school's program meets the needs of the gifted. It is a resource for thinking differently about giftedness and a welcome and scholarly contribution to the literature on high achievement." |
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Frances Degen Horowitz, Ph.D., University Professor; President Emerita, The City University of New York Graduate Center “A highly readable and accessible volume about the development of children with gifts and talents. Both practical and theoretical, it is informed by the most recent research, and it is filled with useful information and insights. It will be valued by teachers, parents, and counselors.” |
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Jackie Drummer, Board Member, Wisconsin Association for Talented and Gifted "Winner of the Canadian Exceptional Book of the Year (Exceptionality Education Canada), Being Smart about Gifted Education is a highly readable and accessible volume about all aspects of gifted education. It deals with current paradigm shifts in gifted education, creativity, diagnostics and testing matches and mismatches, gifted development, motivation and achievement, social, emotional and behavioral considerations, families and parenting, advocacy and teacher education, and educational decision making. Filled with many examples and suggestions based on years of experience and expertise, Drs. Matthews and Foster explore the 'mastery' model as a replacement for the 'mystery' model in gifted education. This book will encourage you to examine past practice in gifted education, and to think about present and future models that incorporate all that we are learning about brain research, teaching and learning." |
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James Borland, Ph.D., Professor of Education, Columbia University "Being Smart has become even smarter in its second edition. This is an essential book for anyone interested in gifted education." |
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Lorel Shea, BellaOnline's Gifted Education Editor “Being Smart About Gifted Education – A Guidebook for Educators and Parents is an updated version of the 2004 book, Being Smart About Gifted Children. The authors, Dona Matthews and Joanne Foster, have rewritten the book to include the most recent research on brain development, recent trends in the education system, and new ways of focusing efforts to meet the needs of gifted learners. "In the preface, the authors state, 'There is no single formula for living or working with gifted learners. People who want to support gifted-level development for the children in their lives – that is, to provide them with the best possible guidance, challenges, encouragement, and education- must begin by reflecting upon individual differences, including emotional, social, academic, and developmental.' The message is that gifted students should be recognized as having individual strengths and weaknesses, and that parents and educators should address needs in each subject as they arise. "This is a generously sized book, with over 400 pages of well presented information. Despite the book's title and frequent references to giftedness, the authors appear to dislike the word 'gifted' due to the implication that it is divisive. Those who work in gifted education will be familiar with how 'loaded' the term has become, with some people claiming that 'every child is gifted' while others cry out against gifted education as elitist. The solution, they say, is to focus on needs for accommodation on a subject by subject basis. The result of such a program would be to have every child learning at an optimal level and pace, which is referred to here as the ZPD or 'zone of proximal development'. Every students learns best when their work is neither too hard, nor too easy. In an ideal world, we wouldn't need labels of any sort, because every person would be allowed appropriate work in school and throughout life. I'm not convinced that we are ready to make that leap, but it's nice to think about. "I'll review the contents of several important chapters here. Chapter one is all about perspectives on giftedness and paradigm shifts. Chapter four delves into assessments and tests. Chapter five covers the aforementioned movement away from labeling, while still meeting the needs of highly able learners. The 'mystery vs. mastery' view of giftedness is quite fascinating. Chapter seven highlights alternative educational options, such as homeschooling, bibliotherapy, whole grade acceleration, second language immersion, and more. In chapter 12, we learn about teacher development and administrative support. "This is a thoughtful and instructive handbook which will be quite useful to teachers and administrators, as well as parents of gifted children." |
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Sally M. Reis, Ph.D., Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor Teaching Fellow, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Connecticut
“Rich with examples, this book highlights the importance of an optimal match between challenging and engaging school and home experiences and opportunities to develop gifts and talents! A practical, thoughtful contribution by two leading experts!” |
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Tom Padwa, underAchievers' Special Interest Group, Mensa "I immediately looked up 'underachievers' in (this book) and found concise paragraphs not only questioning the use of that label, and its possible effects, but also a set of criteria for a program that has been successful in motivating the 'underachieving' with interesting work. “Being Smart gives extra attention to the issue of 'gifted' education and programs that offer more work, rather than different work. All too often during my school days I believed that the only reward for doing work well was that I was given more work! That was not much of a motivator. "All the topics in Being Smart are addressed from the point of view of the parents, the teachers and the students, with anecdotal quotes that often provide a clearer picture than statistical data would do." |