Everyone wants to be smart. You do your homework, you pay attention in class, all with the hope of getting a good grade and getting smarter. And who knows, you may get a little smarter.
However, no matter exactly how hard you try, there will always be those who are naturally a step ahead.
Those students are the ones in the Gifted Program.
Some of us may remember in elementary school when that group of kids would get to leave for the day to go to the Creative Learning Center to take specific classes. Or maybe in middle school, when those same kids would get to go to “stretch” instead of regular old language arts.
In high school, the program is very simple. The students are left with nothing but a resource office and a couple of counselors to help guide them on their way.
And that, in a nut shell, is the high school gifted program. A single resource office that sits in the Writing Center with two resource teachers, waiting for a brilliant student to come in needing a little guidance.
The administration, in the last year, has cut one and a half counselors, leaving only five counselors to deal with the large number of students who come to them daily. Why the one and a half resource positions in the gifted program are still filled is beyond me.
Mary Parish, one of the two gifted resource teachers, said the gifted program and the school’s regular counseling program are very similar.
“There’s some duplicity between the two programs,” Parish said. “We offer advice on college and testing, among other things.”
The difference, Parish said, is the advice if often different. This advice often involves encouraging the students to take more challenging classes. However, the same advice could be offered by guidance counselors, as it was to me before I enrolled in four AP courses.
Having a resource office available for those who have been identified as “gifted” may certainly benefit those with the highest IQs, but to those who have to use the regular counselors, the situation becomes difficult when trying to get an appointment with your counselor.
One might wonder if the school and all of the students in it would benefit from the addition of another counselor, instead of refilling the gifted resource positions.
Considering the purpose of the office and the number of students using it (465 students, or 20 percent of Marquette’s population), making access to ones counselor would benefit all students seeking to take challenging courses and apply to decent colleges, not just those who have been identified as “gifted.”
