Columbus Cheetah, Myth Buster – Myth 1

In line with his New Year resolution, that in 2014 he will increase his efforts to bust the myths surrounding giftedness and advocate for acceleration and ability grouping opportunities for gifted students, and in preparation for a webinar and Global GT chat on Twitter for the next two weeks, Columbus Cheetah is updating his myth busting presentations.

Columbus Cheetah’s discussion of the myths surrounding giftedness are based in his own brand of cheetah logic and the wonderful analogy of the cheetah to the gifted person given in Stephanie Tolan’s wonderful article ‘Is it a Cheetah?’
http://www.stephanietolan.com/is_it_a_cheetah.htm

This myth is also often worded
“There is no such thing as giftedness”
“None of our students are gifted”
“In all my x number of years I have never met a gifted person”

Columbus describes the reasons that the cheetah population is so low as the combination of a very limited gene pool, environmental issues and failure to compete with other carnivorous species.

Like the cheetah, the gifted are a minority group in the population. Very often the physical and social environments favoured by the general population are not ideal for the gifted (especially in the area of education). The gifted often have neither the ability nor the desire to compete in the regular hurly- burly and are therefore vulnerable to being ignored, exploited or bullied.

Both the cheetah and the gifted need our help to survive and thrive.