Nurture of Gifts and Talents
Many schools and families have over the years raised their interests in nurturing their children’s gifts and talents. They wondered, what might we do at home or school? How might we develop our child’s gifts along with their social and emotional well-being? What if our child is not too interested in learning at school but interested in learning at home? At Lifetree Kids Kenya, we’ve acknowledged these queries and have come up with the following observations.
- Gifts and talents need to be developed. Without this development, children’s achievement becomes more stagnant with a resulting loss in student engagement and interest.
- Giftedness is exhibited not only within a specific domain, such as science or social studies, but also within an interest area such as animals or the history of Kenya.
- The presence or absence of a talent is dynamic, not static. Appropriate educational interventions can change its trajectory and influence the degree that a student becomes an expert in his or her field of study.
- Early recognition improves the likelihood that gifts will develop into talents. Moreover, some domains require early exposure and early identification because of their short windows for productivity.
