“Give her some enrichment!” “Provide some enrichment.” “Well, I gave her extra when she finished early.” Have you heard this before?
How many gifted programs are heavily based in enrichment? How many schools attempt to address the needs of their highest level learners by simply adding more on? One way to think about enrichment, by definition, is in food: to increase the food value of by adding more.
Okay, think biscuits.
Think of regular, everyday, school curriculum as a biscuit. Scoop on some spices, maybe some gravy and boom… you have the same biscuit with a little extra flavor. In some schools, kids are just tossed more biscuits. Does eating two biscuits make them any more right for meeting needs?
But, think about what kids identified gifted need. If, statistically, they already know 50% or more of the curriculum before the year even starts, why feed them biscuits at all? What about differentiation? By definition: to change, to alter. The recipe for biscuits? It needs a complete rewrite. The flour needs to be mixed with something else, altered, changed. Think pizza crust, loaf of bread, cake. Different…not more.
More? It fuels the argument of “elitisim.” It causes already thin budgets to be tightened even more. It gets misconstrued in every way.
Not more. Different.
Different? It can be embedded in the school day. It can be rewritten to be right. It can fit seamlessly into any flexible learning environment. It can be a class that’s part of the school, not some room on the other side of campus.
It’s about new recipes, meeting needs, and the right kind of learning. Every. Single. Day.
