A Conversation with Giftedness Expert, Dr. Steven PfeifferPart 1
Steven Pfeiffer is a popular speaker on topics related to raising successful, high-ability children. He is Emeritus Professor at Florida State University. Prior to his tenure at FSU, Dr. Pfeiffer was a Professor at Duke University, and served as Executive Director of Duke’s gifted program, TIP. He also served as Director of Devereux’s Institute of Clinical Training & Research, headquartered in Villanova, PA.
Dr. Pfeiffer has worked as a Pediatric Psychologist at the Ochsner Clinic and Medical Center in New Orleans and served as a Clinical Psychologist in the U.S. Navy Medical Service Corps. Trained as a clinician, Dr. Pfeiffer enjoys an active clinical and consulting practice, and speaks internationally on topics related to successful parenting and the social-emotional needs of high ability kids. Author of 200 articles and book chapters, he is lead author of The Gifted Rating Scales, published by MHS. Among his most recent books, he authored Serving the Gifted (2013; Routledge) and Essentials of Gifted Assessment (Wiley; 2015). He is Editor-in-Chief of the APA Handbook on Giftedness and Talent (2017), Springer’s Handbook of Giftedness in Children (2018, Second Edition), and The Social and Emotional Needs of the Gifted: What do we Know?, co-edited with Tracy Cross and Maureen Neihart (2015; Prufrock Press).
A long-time advocate for the socio-emotional needs of children, Dr. Pfeiffer testified at the White House and before the Italian Parliament. Eminent scholar Alan Kaufman of Yale University considers Professor Pfeiffer, “Among the small group of the world’s leading experts in the (gifted) field…” His websites can be found at: Steven Pfeiffer Psychology and Gifted Assessment Insights.
Day:
There is a lot to explore with regards to the conceptualization of giftedness, so I’d like to start by narrowing our focus down. Imagine aliens arrive on Earth, and you have the task of communicating with them about the future of education on our planet. How would you describe giftedness to these aliens? What would be some key elements or pieces of information that they would need to understand to grasp the construct of giftedness fully? And by the way, these aliens have very short attention spans!
Dr. Pfeiffer:
What a creative and fun question to start off this interview! I would probably begin by taking the aliens on a tour. I would show the aliens – hopefully they are friendly creatures! – a few ‘typical’ classrooms, both in the USA, and classrooms across the planet. So that the aliens could observe and make their own initial inferences about what actually occurs in typical classrooms, both in the elementary grades and in the middle and high school grades.
I’d also invite them to join me in observing gifted classes in action, both in the public schools and in private and boarding schools, and in summer programs. I would encourage them to make their own initial inferences and hypotheses about what they observed. Then I’d invite them to ask me questions about what they saw and their impressions of regular and gifted education (and special education!) on Earth.
My hope would be that they would accurately describe the state of affairs of regular and gifted education in 2019-2020 on Earth! This would save me the chore of having to explain for them typical curriculum and instructional pedagogy on our planet!
Of course, I would explain the history of how we have defined “gifted” and the challenges that we still face – almost 150 years later – in agreeing upon our definitions and how to properly go about identifying gifted students! MHS, my test publisher, would insist that I show them our new Gifted Rating Scales products, as an example of how we’ve gone beyond the IQ test in identifying gifted students in the schools!
What would be particularly enjoyable would be to dialogue with them, over a nice bottle or two of wine, about the exciting innovations that are occurring here in the USA and internationally in terms of educational initiatives – for regular learners, special-needs students, and gifted learners. I think that it would be valuable to include discussions on what’s happening here in America and globally in serving special needs learners with disabilities. To provide the aliens with a full and complete picture of the state-of-education here on Earth!
I guess I would invite a few colleagues in the gifted fie
