Meeting Gifted Students' Needs: Lessons From Little Man Tate

Introduction: The World of a Gifted Child

The film Little Man Tate provides an inside view into the world of an intellectually gifted child. While many educators only have the opportunity to observe a gifted child in the classroom setting, the movie allows the viewer to see the child's entire world. This film provides a solid foundation for recognizing that a gifted child is still a child. Intellectual giftedness must be addressed, but not through busy work or by treating the child as an adult simply because of their advanced thought processes.

The film provides a backdrop for understanding the social, emotional, and cognitive needs of a highly gifted student. Fred is an eight-year-old gifted student being raised by a single mother. The entire movie revolves around all the adults in his life finding their footing in his world. Teachers and parents of gifted children are often faced with the dilemma of challenging the child's mind while still allowing him or her to simply be a child.

Social Needs and Peer Relationships

The social needs of a gifted child — both in the movie and in the broader literature — must be met with age-appropriate activities, while at the same time acknowledging that the child perceives the larger social picture far more clearly than non-gifted peers do. For instance, on a playground a gifted child may attempt to reason with a peer he has a conflict with by exploring the root cause of the other child's anger, while non-gifted children would simply avoid the problem student. This can backfire: the gifted child's approach angers the others even more, and they begin to target him.

It is important to work with a gifted child in the classroom to help him or her understand why others do not always think the same way, while simultaneously providing an outlet for higher-level thinking.

One way to handle this in the classroom is to allow the gifted child to take charge of a social task — leading a discussion, selecting a playground activity, or something similar. Care should be taken to promote the sharing of ideas so that the gifted student learns to consider other perspectives, and so that classmates recognize the gifted student as someone with a positive contribution to make. What should be avoided is assigning the gifted student responsibility over other students in roles such as grading or decision-making. Such arrangements would further set the gifted student apart in a setting where he or she may already feel different from peers.

Academic Enrichment Beyond Busy Work

Academically, the gifted student does not need busy work. Gifted abilities are not about requiring more of the same tasks; they are about requiring higher-level thinking challenges. A gifted child often finishes work early and can become disruptive out of boredom. One effective approach is to set up a dedicated area in the classroom where the gifted student can quietly work on self-directed projects after completing assigned work. Whether it involves growing a silkworm, hatching a chicken in an incubator, or studying a foreign language, the gifted student would be permitted to move to the project area and explore a wide range of topics. To support the gifted child's social growth, other students who finish their work early could also be invited to join and assist with the projects.

Another way to challenge a gifted child academically is to provide differentiated assignments. Gifted children tend to generate many questions. There are accounts of gifted children who were persistently unhappy in class because they were not encouraged to ask them. A productive strategy is to keep a running list of questions that cannot be answered during the lesson. The gifted child could then choose a partner, and together they would be responsible for locating the answer and sharing it with the class. This approach satisfies the gifted student's hunger for knowledge while promoting social growth through collaborative inquiry. As differentiated instruction research consistently shows, matching the level of challenge to the learner's readiness is essential for engagement.

Conclusion: The Whole Gifted Child in the Regular Classroom

The needs of a gifted student can be incorporated into a regular classroom. The teacher must be diligent about not treating the child like an adult, and must avoid using the gifted child as a model or example to the rest of the class. The teacher must also remain aware of the social and emotional issues that may arise from the tension between the gifted student's chronological age and his or her conflicting intellectual ability.

Ultimately, Little Man Tate reinforces what gifted education research makes clear: intellectual giftedness must be addressed holistically. A child who is gifted is, first and foremost, still a child — and every instructional decision should honor that reality.