Gifted African Americans

The number of African American students has always been low as compared to other groups of students. This warrants a lot of efforts by the government and other non-governmental groups to try to promote education especially for the gifted students. Black Americans students that are registered students in rep a less than twenty percent of all public students in America. Out of this percentage, only about nine percent are gifted education. Research shows that there is a large gap discrepancy and that many of the Black American students are gifted and still are not enrolled in the public schools that nature gifted students. This pauses a great threat to the quality of Black Americans we are going to have in the future.

Reasons for under representation in gifted programs

The main problem is that most of the people do not understand the requirements that are there for one to qualify as a gifted student. To many of the African students the definition of what gifted students are is unclear.

• National definition: According to the national definition, gifted students are students that show great evidences of special capabilities such as artistic, intellectual, leadership capabilities, creativity and in some specific academic fields. Such students are chosen to be provided with additional services and activities that may not be provided in the other ordinary schools to help them develop fully their capabilities. The other definition is that these are youths and children that perform well or show capabilities of performing better as compared to others of their age when exposed to the sane environment and experience. They thus will be provided with special school programs to help them achieve their potential to their fullest. The state is, however, keen to state that such students are many and can be identified form all populations and areas.
• Poor performances: In most cases, students are chosen and given aptitude tests. It has been noted that most of the Black Americans students and other minority students do not perform well in these tests. This is because most of these tests are built on cultural basis that make it difficult for most of the minority groups.

Finding a solution

The teachers and tutors should be on the fore front to make that all students that show strong capabilities as mentioned above should get a chance to get to a gifted education. They should care about the minority groups and especially the Black Americans and understand fully their learning styles. They should take into considerations the cultural effects that affect the performance of the minority groups.