The Journal of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children

The World Council for Gifted and Talented Children
Main characteristics needed in order to teach the gifted
The teacher of gifted children faces many complicated assignments whether teaching a
gifted class, operating 6 days a week, an enrichment program, operating one morning or one
afternoon a week, or teaching gifted children in a regular classroom, which is the situation in most
cases (David, 2008). The main characteristic of the "ideal" teacher of the gifted who can, using her
various abilities, respond, even partially, to the needs of the gifted child in the education system
include: personality characteristics, professional expertise and didactic abilities, knowledge in gifted
education and administrative abilities.
Personality characteristics
1. Have a positive attitude to high achievement, creativity, productivity and leadership;
2. Enjoy teaching challenging, innovative and inventive students;
3. Be able to admit both to herself and to her students when having no answer to their questions;
and
4. Have a strong tendency to study, develop and enrich herself academically and personally.
Professional expertise and didactic abilities
1. Be an expert in the subject matter taught;
2. Have a high motivation level to look for new, advancing learning materials and learning
possibilities;
3. Use many various learning abilities and techniques;
4. Be able to build learning programs tailored to the exact size needed;
5. Be able to set clear and precise aims for the exact target achievements;
6. Be both able and willing to help find data sources;
7. Be a crucial team member of product development; and
8. Be both able and willing to evaluate the students’ studies, results, and work outcomes.
Knowledge in gifted education
1. Be able to identify the unusual abilities;
2. Be knowledgeable enough to recommend Identification for giftedness when needed, and
influence parents to avoid the process when unneeded or even being possibly harmful;
3. Be able and willing to refer the student to programs, facilities or institutions specializing in
nurturing of the gifted;
4. The ability to differentiate among different cognitive abilities, variety of learning styles and as
many as possible subject matters, and plan the teaching accordingly; and
5. Have enough knowledge in areas such as giftedness and underachievement, professional
choices, planning the future and special problems frequently found among the gifted.
Administrative abilities
1. Organize enrichment activities for students and teachers;
2. Coordinate the regular activities of the school in general and the class in particular so that
outstanding students would be able to advance in their own individual level and pace;
3. Arrange for the time table coordination, as well as the different activities, obligations, duties and
rules between the gifted child’s regular and her or his special enrichment or acceleration classes;
4. Have access to new, innovative learning methods, learning materials, human sources that can
be used in order to supply the needs of gifted children and adolescents; and
5. Be cooperative of the team work necessary in all existing programs for the gifted (ibid).
Making lists of characteristics of the ideal teacher of gifted students is an interesting
theoretical exercise; it might contribute to the field of philosophy of education, and can serve as an
optional suggestion for training of pre- and in-service teachers. However, of the 4 groups of the
characteristic, in this article the focus will be on personality characteristics. The professional
expertise and didactic, the knowledge and administrative characteristics, which are (delete all) very
important, are to be discussed elsewhere (David, in press).
74 Gifted and Talented International – 26(1), August, 2011; and 26(2), December, 2011.