How Best To Educate Our Brightest Kids Three Views

“The opportunity to learn in an environment that stimulates rather than limits and to associate with one’s peers is not a special favor,” says Cynthia Fine, Spokane.

Fine, one of several readers who support a magnet school for gifted fifth and sixth graders in Spokane public schools, fears the program will be too small to accommodate all the children who could benefit from it. She also thinks transportation needs should be addressed.

“The availability of the program means little to people who cannot access it. I understand the costs of transportation are significant, but there are many district activities and programs, and students with special needs, for whom bus transportation is available. Gifted education should not be any different,” she said.

“An education which honors the gifts each person possesses and helps children reach their potential will make our community stronger, not weaker. To aim for the middle and make public education the great leveler does a disservice to all.”

Tom and Vicky Boubel of Spokane have two children in Tessera, a one-day-a-week program for gifted grade schoolers. They too support the full-time magnet school.

Gifted programs, the Boubels say, are not elitist. “The Tessera classes are probably more diverse in terms of social and economic background than most classrooms in District 81.”

“We are grateful for the gifted program because it helps to meet the educational needs of our children. Most parents we talk to have the same goal - matching the educational needs of their children with the programs available.

“Given the choice, we prefer our children participate in a classroom situation where the classmates can advance at a similar pace.”

Beverly Joplin, whose 19-year-old granddaughter is a former Tessera student, says pulling certain students out one day a week, disturbs the continuity of the classroom.

She favors the magnet school but said it isn’t the gifted programs, in whichever form, that are elitist.

“Let’s face it, society is elitist,” she said. “We have natural divisions in society.”

Joplin also said mixing gifted students into a normal classroom setting is unfair to teachers.

“Gifted children can be very disruptive in the classroom because of their natural curiosity. Then if they become bored, they’re that much more disruptive.”

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