Matthews, D. J. & Smyth, E. M. (2000). Gifted learners in Ontario enter the new Millennium: Common sense style? Alberta Gifted and Talented Education, 14 (2), 53-59.
Gifted Learners in Ontario Enter the New Millennium:
Common Sense Style?
Dona J. Matthews & Elizabeth M. Smyth
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
of the University of Toronto
Abstract
For twenty years, Ontario schools have had the legislation and Ministry guidelines that should ensure that exceptional learners, including gifted, receive an education commensurate with their abilities. Interviews conducted with key educators and advocates reveal that Ontario does not have a system in place that effectively ensures that this legislation is carried out according to the spirit or even the letter of the law. Informants reported that there is tremendous variability in the kind of education that advanced learners receive across the province. Although spending cutbacks are a problem, the biggest differentiating factor appears to be not funding, but rather the attitudes toward and understandings of gifted learners held by educators and communities. Future directions are discussed.
HISTORICAL AND CONTEMPORARY POLICY AND LEGISLATION
Permissive legislation allowing the provision of programming for variously defined gifted learners has been part of Ontario school law for almost a century. With the advent of Bill 82, Ontario's omnibus bill on the needs of exceptional learners, advocacy by parent groups had gifted learners included within the Special education legislation. Yet, the 20 years since the inclusion of special education within Ontario's education Act, has seen the rise and fall in the profile of, the funding for and the focus on programming to address the needs of Ontario's gifted learners
PROGRAMMING
Under the Education Act, "giftedness" continues to appear as an exceptionality which school boards must recognize and accommodate. While there are provincial guidelines that address education of gifted learners, the responsibility for translation into programming is local, and therefore highly variable. While local responsibility for programming carries the potential advantage of contextual sensitivity, it is highly vulnerable to local prejudices against the differentiated education of gifted learners, and to other educational priorities taking precedence.
A further problem in this regard is with the funding model. The previously earmarked Special Education funding has now been rolled into the general legislative grants. District school boards which place a lower priority on education of gifted learners can choose to allocate little or no funding for this purpose, which is indeed what is happening as Ontario experiences the educational cutbacks promised by our current government's policy strategy entitled the "Common Sense Revolution."
A recent statistical analysis shows that of the 2.1 million students in Ontario schools in 1997, 9.24% were designated as exceptional. Of these, 16% were identified as gifted; this means that approximately 1.68% of the population of learners is officially labelled gifted (Jordan, 2000). What education is provided to these 35,000 students? In order to get a sense of the state of the education of gifted learners across the province, the authors combined their ongoing work as researchers, consultants, and educators at the graduate and preservice level with interview data supplied by several key educational stakeholders.
Julian Kitchen is a leader in education of gifted learners in the province. He is Past President of Educators of the Gifted, Ontario (a body which includes teachers and consultants for gifted students), a teacher at the University of Toronto Schools, the program co-ordinator and lecturer in the secondary school option in programming for gifted learners for preservice teachers at OISE/UT. He expressed serious concerns about the education that is being provided for many high level learners. He said, "Overall, I see gifted students being increasingly underserviced in Ontario. Consultants and resource staff have been reduced significantly due to changes in educational funding. Since school boards are being challenged to find resources to meet the needs of average students and students with learning deficits, they sometimes will shortchange gifted programming."
Kitchen expressed particular concern for those students who do not fit traditional high-IQ models of giftedness: "My main concern is for bright students who are not covered by the current definition or identification policies. Students who are highly able in one or more domains who do not have a high enough IQ score, and students whose domain of ability is not factored into IQ tests are receiving no special programming whatsoever."
Michelle Worley has considerable in-the-trenches and leadership experience with the issues in the education of gifted learners. The mother of three identified-gifted boys, the Ontario President of the Association for Bright Children (ABC), and a longtime advocate for the education of gifted learners, she thinks that the funding cutbacks, while problematic, are being blamed for decisions that would have been made regardless, that the real problem is a widespread lack of understanding of the needs of gifted learners, coupled with lack of accountability of the boards to the province. Where boards implement vague identification and/or programming policies, and generally resist the legislation and guidelines about giftedness, typically nothing happens to prevent or change it. She said in some areas of the province, people have worked very hard for many years to gain programs for gifted learners, with little or no result. She commented that there is one reason for optimism in this regard, and that is that the Ministry of Education and Training is now keeping a folder for complaints about this kind of practice, and has agreed to keep an eye on patterns of complaints.
Worley's overview of the situation, based on many years of advocacy with parents, educators, and legislators through her work with ABC, is that it depends very much on where you are. She said that if the local board administration understands giftedness, and has the ability to translate that into sound pedagogical practice, then a child has a chance of getting a good program. Nonetheless, she said that in many situations, "Parents have to be proactive, or the kid gets nothing." She said that many teachers and board members see the education of gifted learners as an elitist frill that ought to be the first budget item to trim in times of budget cutbacks, and that such officials can play very effectively on parents' social conscience and guilt. She described situations where parents had been told that for their children to receive gifted programs, the board would have to cut services to physically disabled learners. It is a very effective angle: such parents frequently relent in their advocacy for gifted accommodations for their children.
Leslie Joynt is the parent of two gifted teenagers, the past Editor of the Ontario ABC Newsletter, and a Speech and Language Pathologist. She said that her two major concerns at this time were the ongoing public misconceptions of giftedness, and the absence of special education learning in teacher training processes. In her media work for ABC, she said she repeatedly encountered questions like, "Why should the gifted get ANY special service?" reflecting a complete lack of awareness, even among many educators, that without appropriate stimulation and intellectual challenge, gifted learners can have serious learning, behavioural, and/or psychological problems. She cited in particular problems that are created or exacerbated by some school cultures where there is strong peer pressure to not be bright, and the need for exceptional students to develop positive self-awareness and self-acceptance. She described a flexible programming model as optimal, where students can participate in some gifted courses, and other regular courses, in a climate where the identification/labelling issues are invisible or nonexistent, at the middle school and secondary level where rotation of classes occurs.
At the elementary level, Joynt said that she "strongly recommends/prefers total immersion gifted programs where the students stay together as a class all day long. This allows them to form friendships, avoid pull-out programs that make them feel different, and benefit from gifted group dynamics with the expanded depth of learning. This is hard to manage in a class where the pace must cater to the average. In the regular class gifted youngsters may get restless, mischievous or disruptive if they find the pace or work non-challenging.
An emergent problem in some regions of the province stems from the current Conservative government's "Common Sense Revolution" policy of creating some very large school boards by amalgamating smaller boards. Michelle Worley observed that with the recent amalgamation of six Toronto area boards into one megaboard, the board is too big for policy decisions to reach the classroom. With so many levels of bureaucracy and/or an administrative staff that is spread too thinly, teachers and principals are making decisions to run things as they wish, which too often means without much or any attention to gifted learners' needs.
Metropolitan Toronto, on the other hand, also has the advantage of having a very large population, and therefore of providing a variety of programming options at different schools, and in fact, there are several high schools in the Metropolitan Toronto area, both public and private, that address diverse kinds of gifted needs. Some cater to very specialized interests and abilities, such as the National Ballet School (for dance) and the University of Toronto Schools (for academically able students). There are several high schools directed at students with abilities in the arts; there is one with a focus on Science (Marc Garneau), and there are several for students who are more "typically" gifted, offering congregated programs for gifted learners, albeit with varying service provision models. There are also several alternative schools, some directed particularly at gifted learners who have had trouble fitting into regular high schools.
Jeff Mitz, head of Special Education/Gifted at Northern Secondary School in central Toronto, co-ordinates the largest program of its kind in Canada, although at $4000 a year, it is not large in its budget. There are 450 students from grade 9 to the end of high school participating in a flexible program in a very large composite high school, taking a wide array of courses at advanced and regular levels, depending on their interests and abilities.
While the Northern program continues to be strong and popular, Mitz said that there are many reasons to be concerned about the education of gifted learners in Ontario today, including programs like his. Because it is the teachers who make the difference in the program, it is a major concern that teachers' morale is so low right now. Mitz characterized many of his colleagues in the teaching profession as feeling "defeated, demoralized, and depressed". Echoing the comments of the other informants interviewed for this article, he believes that another serious concern is the lack of understanding of giftedness, even by board officials and decision-makers. He said that many in Special Education not only have no experience with education of gifted learners at all, but even invest effort in working to undermine or destroy gifted programming, with the belief that dollars put into gifted learners' education are being taken out of more needy children's learning.
Mitz said that his program continues to work well because he has the support of his principal, and because he has some flexibility and freedom in his position. He teaches half time, and invests the other half of his professional effort into making the program work, including counselling the students, meeting with the parents, and working with the teachers. He said that as far as he knows his is the only position of its kind; colleagues with similar responsibilities at other schools are expected to teach much fuller course loads. He would like to see the geographical boundaries relaxed, allowing even more cultural and socioeconomic diversity into a program which is already noted for its diversity and inclusionary practices. His experience is that the greater the diversity of background, the greater the benefits for all participants.
Even in Toronto, however, where there is a significant population base to support it and many social and cultural reasons to encourage diversity, there is not much programming diversity at the elementary level. There are some private schools focussing specifically on the needs of gifted learners in the elementary years (e.g., The Academy for Gifted Learners, PACE), and congregated classes that start at grade four. Two hopeful signs in the recent past in Toronto are that the new amalgamated board's identification policy allows for greater domain-specific variability than most of the previous boards (gifted identification criterion is now above the 98th percentile on the Full scale of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Third Edition (WISC-III), Canadian norms; OR above the 99th percentile on either the Verbal or Performance scale of the WISC-III); and that at-risk gifted classes have been established for primary students who require congregated gifted settings.
There are other school boards in Ontario that do not have huge populations, and that are in the process of developing excellent policies and programs. District school boards such as York Region District School Board and Simcoe County District Board of Education have been developing flexible inclusive policies that address gifted learners' needs at the high school level. Keys to the success of such policies include (1) teacher training, such that teachers come to understand and appreciate diverse levels and kinds of learning needs, (2) board commitment to providing access to teacher support, (3) a flexible curricular integration of extracurricular activities, like math contests, science fairs, and Advanced Placement courses, (4) creative use of the board's educational and other resources, such as developing cross-age groups of students with similar high-level interests and abilities in a given subject area, and (5) creative use of community resources, such as mentors.
It appears, then, that there is considerably variability in gifted provisions across Ontario. There are many good programs in the province, particularly in the Toronto area where a serious attempt is being made to consider the educational implications of a highly diverse population. At the same time, there are many schools and boards in the province (including in Toronto) where the needs of gifted students are considered less important than those of other exceptional learners, and where as a consequence little or no real accommodations are made to the special learning and counselling needs of exceptionally advanced students.
TEACHER EDUCATION
Although the Ontario College of Teachers certification program recognizes education of gifted learners within Special Education, it appears from a review of course calendars for Ontario's Faculties of Education that there is a scarcity of course offerings directed specifically at the curricular and counselling needs of gifted learners, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
There are Additional Qualifications courses on the education of gifted learners, but there are few opportunities for interested teachers to acquire these courses. Only a small percentage of those teachers who are expected to adapt instruction for gifted learners have had access to even the barest minimum of training in approaches and strategies. The concerns expressed by parent Leslie Joynt are well-founded. The fact that there are few opportunities within teacher education in Ontario that assists teachers in understanding and working with giftedness has to be seen as a very serious problem in an era when more and more gifted learners are being educated in regular classrooms.
ADVOCACY GROUPS
It was the parents' advocacy group, ABC, that spearheaded the move 25 years ago that ensured that the Ontario legislation included giftedness as an educational exceptionality that school boards had a responsibility to address. Through its provision of and support for Special Education Advisory Council members, ABC continues to play a critical role in ensuring that education of gifted learners stays on the provincial agenda.
ABC holds the province's only longstanding annual conference for parents, teachers, and gifted children. There have been many other attempts made through the years by other organizations to establish regular meetings, but the ABC conference is the only one that has managed to sustain sufficient momentum. The variety of board- sponsored major conferences and speaker series, so apparent in the 80's has dwindled to a trickle. Professional development sessions are still sponsored by the Educators of the Gifted of Ontario but diminishing budgets for teacher-release time prevents many from attending. As well, the presence of sessions associated with The Association of the Gifted (TAG) at the annual provincial Council for Exceptional Children conference has become a smaller and smaller focus over the past several years. Finally, the Canadian Symposium on the Gifted, launched by Ontario Council of Leadership in Educational Administration (OCLEA), has failed to become institutionalized.
Michelle Worley (Ontario ABC President) said that the bottom line of education of gifted learners in Ontario today is it is up to parents to understand the regulations and advocate for their children. At least, she said, Ontario does have the necessary legislation in place. Once a school board is willing to talk and think about education of gifted learners, the next step is to encourage them to look at providing a range of possible placements for diverse kinds of learning needs, instead of reverting to the "one size fits all gifted" model that is almost always used.
Future Directions
Inclusive model of educationIt appears that Ontario continues to be in a general move toward embracing diversity in the form of including exceptionalities in the mainstream, and moving away from segregation models or special classes. The Special Education Branch of the Ministry of Education and Training has been dismantled, and Special Education grants have been rolled into the general legislative grants. The focus on classroom-based special education instruction, however, has not involved any additional administrative resources, and in fact in those boards that have experienced amalgamations, central resources and positions have been eliminated. Anne Jordan, a professor at OISE/UT whose work has focussed on special needs learners, recently wrote, "Inclusive classrooms have become the norm for fiscal rather than moral reasons. Ontario teacher morale is at an all-time low. Teachers are leaving the profession in significant numbers...They do not know how to cope with the multiple innovations being demanded of them." (pp. 19-20)
Although there are significant problems with the movement toward inclusion, it is happening, and there may be ways that that can be good for gifted learners. It is true that the only way to address the diversity of needs that pertain to exceptionally advanced development is to provide as wide a range of learning options as possible, and this can be achieved most effectively with more flexible and inclusive policies. For the inclusive model to work, however, teachers must have the training and the available support required to adapt instruction to exceptional learners' special educational needs.
Sometimes educators forget that learning does not happen only in schools under the guidance of teachers. Extracurricular options can be important and useful ways of providing programming to students with exceptional learning needs, and become particularly important in situations where the school day programming is not as well-matched to an individual learner's interests and level as it might be. Some extracurricular options that are being used by many Ontario parents of gifted learners and by some schools, include the University of Waterloo math contests; TIP/Canada (Talent Identification Program/Canada), which provides Saturday morning and summer courses to gifted adolescents in subjects such as forensic science, web design, and creative writing; the Peel Summer Academy, a residential summer camp for gifted learners; courses at the Royal Ontario Museum, the Science Centre, Science North, and the Art Gallery of Ontario; Prime Mentors, which provides mentors for high level learners in disadvantaged circumstances. A list of websites and other options, many of which provide services by mail or electronically, can be found at the TIP/Canada website: http://tip-canada.org
2. A Centre for Giftedness in Ontario?
With no centralized agency for the co-ordination of and advocacy for the education of gifted learners, Ontario educators and advocates for the education of gifted learners struggle alone and independently. Ontario needs a centre for the study of giftedness that would be active in supporting and disseminating research; in continuing the work with gifted adolescents currently being done by TIP/Canada; in co-ordinating teacher training concerning gifted education at all levels, from preservice through additional qualifications, to the provision of inservice workshop; and in providing resources, connections, and support to all community stakeholders. While there is some recognition for the benefits which might accrue from such a venture, the current climate of fiscal downsizing seems to stand against it. Yet, among a critical mass of key stakeholders such a centre remains as a goal -as a way of making some real sense from this "common sense" approach to the education of Ontario's most underserved exceptionality.
3. Entering the New Millennium, Common Sense Style?
On 29 May 2000, the Policy and Program Branch of the Ministry of Education advertised 10 positions for secondees to work on various aspects of a new initiative -- a Special Education Project. According to the job posting, "The goal of this complex, highly-specialised, multi-faceted initiative is to increase accountability and quality in special education programs and services across the Province by developing program standards for each exceptionality and improving service co-ordination and access provisions. " (Reference: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca:80/eng/general/hr/225-234eng.html) . One of these positions is entitled "Education Officer- Giftedness." While the focus of this appointment is on accountability and program standardization, the presence of this position, as well as the four other positions listed as part of the Project Team (Autism, Behaviour, Developmental Disability, Mild Intellectual Disability), represents the first time in almost a decade that the Ministry is assigning Education Officers to work with Ontario Educators who teach pupils
with specifically identified exceptionalities. In spite of the fact that notice of these opportunities occurred at the end of the school year with a 2 week turnaround for application, and the fact that the emphasis is on accountability and standardization, we look forward to this position being used as a position of advocacy for Ontario's gifted learners as they enter the new millennium.
References
Jordan, A. (2000). Ontario, Canada: Reversing the gains made in special education . International Special Education Conference, Manchester, England. July.
Ontario Education Act: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca:80/eng/document/nr/00.05/comp.html
Education Amendment Act of 1980 (Bill 82):
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca:80/eng/general/elemsec/speced/edact.html
