I can remember elementary school. The milk cartons, that giant box of crayons with a built in sharpener, the Apple IIe’s where we played Oregon Trail, and those little foil sticker stars… you know, GOLD stars. You’d earn them on charts for learning your math facts, completing homework, turning in projects, even good behavior. Life was all about ‘Gold Stars’ back then. I think they were thought to be some fantastic motivational tool.
Let’s say you were a gifted learner and happen to be several grade levels above in math. You got LOTS of gold stars as you blew through the math facts. Or, what if you were a gifted writer and had the spelling skills to rival Webster, whoa… super speller gold stars! So, while the gold stars were piling up, you sat in class, waiting, wishing to learn something new, but you had to wait. You waited. Next year, nope, still easy. Somewhere along the way, people assumed that since learning was “easy” for you, everything was great. Some people even thought it was “unfair” that you got to go to the gifted program down the hall and work on a math project. Afterall, look at all those gold stars. You were learning…. right? Some kids didn’t have their stars yet, so you must just think you are “better” than everyone else. Right?
But, really, those stars didn’t mean you were “better.” They just meant you were “bored.” You had been finished with much of the learning before the school year even started. What did you need more than a gold star? Challenging work. Differentiated learning. Independent study projects. Someone to recognize that you were not learning or growing, you were just collecting stars.
People sometimes assume that “gifted” is a synonym for “better.” I think this comes from the days of gold stars. The more stars, the faster you learn, and well, in this line of thinking, the less education you need. Gold star means “completed.” But, education cannot be run this way and be productive. Education is not supposed to be a series of pages to finish or hoops to jump through. It’s supposed to be about growth and learning experiences. It’s supposed to be about meeting ALL kids’ needs. Yet, every single day, I read about programs being cut and gifted education teachers jobs being dissolved. That assumption, from the days of gold stars, that the “kids who already know it” will not only be fine, but are somehow already “better” is still there.
It’s not about being better and it never has been. It’s about needs. Look into a classroom and see the needs of every child, even those kids that need more of a challenge, more opportunity for deep thinking, crave creativity, and want the chance to struggle. It is those moments in learning that mean more than any gold star. Opportunities for learning that will shine for years to come.
