“We decide on the basis of some test or series of tests that this kid is gifted and this one is not. And then we imbue that giftedness as if it is somehow something very, very different, rather than all it is saying is that this person is performing better in a particular domain.” So in a sense you are saying that many are very gifted but not all will get the Nobel Prize? Exactly. Some get it, some don’t. Because even within that gifted range, that level, there is a range of performance. Sports always provide a good example. What percentage of college students who play in the NCAA go into the NFL or the NBA? It’s something like one to two percent. Those are all gifted people, but we have the Michael Jordans and the others. We have the stars and the non-stars. So that in fact… is Michael Jordan better than anybody? He is a gifted basketball player, and in basketball skills he is or was here [raises hand way above head]. But that’s what he is. And because of that he has a lot more money, too [laughs]. Right? But that’s about it. But we have done this in gifted programs. So is it fair to say that these are reasons the UC Berkeley Gifted Program was renamed the Academic Talent Development Program (in 1983)? Yes, the admissions process began to focus more on development than test scores because talent, including academic talent, is developed. And the interesting thing about this is that in education, we have actually placed much less emphasis on the development of academic talent than we have on other talents. So then what do they call the summer programs for gifted and talented at other major universities? A number of them are called ‘talent search programs’; that’s the Johns Hopkins model. That’s where if you are in seventh grade you had to get a certain score, say 700 on the SAT, to get in. And if you’re in eighth grade you need to get 710. So there were these rigid cut scores. And if you didn’t
make that cut score you weren’t accepted. There is now a recognition that, in point of fact these tests have measurement error, and what they do is exclude students who are perfectly capable but who just didn’t do well on that particular test on that particular day. Is there some definition of gifted in the research literature that ATDP subscribes to? We have not thought about it, but I think our philosophy is in keeping with Renzulli’s definition of ‘gifted,’ that it is ‘above average but not necessarily superior ability, plus task commitment and creativity.’ In other words, working hard plus creativity will ultimately give you success. And I think that that is in some sense the model we operate on, rather than IQ models that would limit access to only the people who have the superior ability, the above-130IQ score. I guess if you were to measure IQs in ATDP, you would probably find IQs as low as the 114s. I heard someone mention the big fish in the little pond effect. What’s that about? The big fish, little pond effect is that the person who is very competent in his or her local setting may go to another setting where suddenly he or she is no longer the most competent. Let me give you another sports example. The best athletes from each country get chosen to go to the Olympics. And what happens? At some point there are eight finalists from however many hundred countries who sent athletes to participate in this particular competition. What happens is the people who you are comparing yourself to have changed. It’s the same thing that happens when you go to law school or into a Ph.D. program: The comparison group
“One can probably argue that everybody in the physics department here in Berkeley is within the gifted spectrum, but not everyone has won a Nobel Prize.” 12 connected