Reflections
February is Black History Month, and I was reminded of the Gifted Education Family Network Blog that recently featured an interview with Dr. Joy Lawson Davis on “challenges advocates must address in order to achieve equity and excellence in gifted education.“
Reading the interview again, the importance of being able to identify contextual factors from dispositional factors and targeted training for educators stood out to me. When we ignore considerations for contextual influences on behavior or performance, dispositional factors can be wrongly attributed. How can educators know what they do not know, until they are exposed to what they did not know before?
National Association for Gifted Children released a statement that “All gifted students won’t matter until all Black gifted students matter, too.”
Power statement, as a whole is made up of ALL its’ constituent parts. Any parts that are excluded makes the whole incomplete. Is this an oversight or deliberate actions? Intent is a separate issue from the current state of matter. Instead of getting focusing on intent, let us also be moving towards restoring the whole.