영재교육의 최근 이슈에 대한 논의

A Discussion on Current Issues for Gifted Education

Currently, the real world of cutthroat competition is increasing the need for capable human resources. Accordingly the area of gifted education will have a stronger impact in our society. The history of gifted education in Korea is not very long, therefore we need to take into consideration some of the issues that the U.S and Europe have faced in order to set our direction for the future. The aim of this article is to review four main current issues in Gifted Education. First, how do we understand intelligence and creativity as giftedness? Second, how do cultural differences affect identification and educational programs for gifted students? Third, how should we handle the special subgroups among gifted students? Fourth, how should we construct and apply educational programs for gifted students? In order to understand intelligence and creativity as giftedness, it is necessary to examine the changes in concepts for intelligence and creativity. In considering the issues for cultural differences and giftedness, it may be useful to start out by examining cultural differences, culture and psychological characteristics, and comparative culture research. For the issues involving special subgroups of the gifted, we need to examine gifted underachievers, gifted females, and the disabled gifted. In order to understand the application of instructional programs for gifted education, it may be helpful to start out by examining opportunities for acceleration, home schooling, PBL teaching strategy, and equality vs. excellence. Up to the present, gifted education has been focused on improving creativity and thinking skills but issues on disadvantaged groups, minority groups, and socialㆍemotional problems for the gifted students are becoming crucial tasks for the future gifted education. One of the major factors to decide the future of the gifted education is the establishment of human resources. To meet with this, universities and our government must put forth the effort and devotion for developing our gifted education, and at the same time provide assistance to the gifted students themselves for them to achieve self-actualization.