Талентовани ученици у регуларном курикулуму

Abstract

In our educational practice the term »talented students« is used off-hand and is easily attributed to those students who gain above-average achievements in various fields of teaching. As there is no agreement, first of all among psychologists, on the criteria for defining giftedness, the practice lacks valid and reliable instruments for identifying giftedness. Decisions to classify students into groups and programs for the gifted are most often arbitrarily made but are also the result of »external« i.e. non-professional elements, such as parents’ social or professional status, ambitious teachers and school principals. The paper analyzes the fit-into problem of children with »considerably increased demands for teaching« in regular teaching process, where it is implicit that there are no special classes for such children, special teachers, special curricula and special textbooks. The author pleads for differentiated, individualized teaching with flexible demands, where students with diverse interests and strengths can be happy and successful. The author is also warning us that children with great but unsa-tisfied demands in teaching turn somehow into handicapped persons, at least unhappy, their motivation for work drops, serious psychological and social problems emerge whose overall outcomes can be equally hard and tragic just like in children with special needs.