Giftedness and talents: Identification, development and support

Abstract

The paper gives a review of investigations of gifted and talented children their development and education, and of publications about this topic published by the Institute for Educational Research. The findings show that support of giftedness and talents has been continually under study over the past twenty-five years and the results have been communicated in six books and over fifty papers. One scientific meeting was organized on identification of the gifted and encouragement of giftedness in school while a volume of papers reporting results obtained was communicated at national and international meetings and published in the Proceedings in Serbian, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese and Rumanian. Examined problems of gifted individuals and their development in childhood and adolescence were and still are among those current in Europe and the world. There is explicit tendency to apply collected data and findings in school practice, however in this country school practice is far away from what regulations say. There is a need to formulate numerous proposals and to check and upgrade them in actual practice. The treatment of the gifted has undergone considerable limitations in this country due to socially unfavorable trends that have led to lowering of the entire education standard in the past decade. More efficient application of existing knowledge about gifted and talented is the desirable future in encouraging them to display and use their individual abilities, talents and creativity.

U radu je dat pregled ispitivanja koja su izvedena o darovitoj i talentovanoj deci, njihovom razvoju i obrazovanju, i publikacije koje su o ovoj temi objavljene u izdanjima Instituta za pedagoška istraživanja. Uočeno je da se podsticanje darovitosti i talenata kontinuirano proučava poslednjih dvadesetpet godina, a rezultati ovoga rada saopšteni su u šest knjiga i preko pedeset članaka. Organizovan je jedan naučni skup posvećen identifikaciji darovitih i podsticanju darovitosti u školi, dok je značajan broj radova sa rezultatima do kojih se došlo izložen na domaćim i međunarodnim naučnim skupovima i štampan u zbornicima sa tih skupova na srpskom, engleskom, francuskom, španskom, portugalskom, japanskom i rumunskom jeziku. Ispitivani problemi darovitih pojedinaca i njihovog razvoja u detinjstvu i mladosti bili su i sada su među aktuelnim u Evropi i svetu. Izražena je tendencija da se prikupljeni podaci i saznanja primenjuju u školskoj praksi, ali je školska praksa u nas još uvek daleko od onoga što zakonske mogućnosti predviđaju. Potrebno je da se brojni predlozi razrade i u neposrednom radu proveravaju i poboljšavaju. Rad sa darovitim učenicima u našoj sredini pretrpeo je značajna ograničenja izazvana širim društvenim nepovoljnim kretanjima koja su dovela do pada standarda celokupnog obrazovanja u poslednjoj deceniji. Efikasnija primena postojećih znanja o darovitima i talentovanima predstavlja poželjnu budućnost u podsticanju ispoljavanja i korišćenja individualnih sposobnosti, talenata i kreativnosti.