What is Gifted?

Ms. French's Approach to Gifted

There are three major components to the gifted class: humanities enrichment curricula, a focus on gifted traits, and a focus on college and career research.

Humanities

The Gifted class allows students additional in depth enrichment in the Humanities. Students take courses in the following: Art History and Criticism I, II, and III Honors, Literature and the Arts I and II Honors, and Humanities I and II Honors. While in class, students connect to history, world cultures, philosophy, literature, and art from pre-history to Ancient to the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment to the modern era. Students are able to further research areas of their interest from anytime in history. For gifted students who will not take art classes, the gifted course offers unique opportunities to study the value of art in our lives and throughout history. In addition, students further build upon their base knowledge of particular cultures and time periods in gifted. The focus is placed on independent research projects, creative writing, creating works of art and of course learning fascinating details to history. Students improve their critical thinking skills, their analytical skills and researching skills.

“In arts and humanities, students learn to contemplate and frame questions differently; creative and metaphorical thinking come into play. Questions are placed on a broader canvas, with context and an understanding of implications from the perspectives of individuals and groups.” ~J. Ottino

Gifted Studies

Students connect each year to their giftedness by reviewing, analyzing and improving their gifted traits. Students connect to the latest research in gifted education to better understand their talents, abilities and how to further enhance themselves. Students connect with their gifted peers in the gifted classroom and learn from one another on how to best cope with the very real demands placed upon gifted children not only by themselves, but by their parents, peers and even by their teachers. Students also identify the most common myths about gifted students and learn how to work around others who still hold these myths to be true. In addition, students learn the differences between fixed and growth mindsets and how they can benefit from working on a growth mindset. Students also focus on their complex learning modalities.

College & Career Research

Each year in the gifted classes, students complete a unit study on both college and career research. Students create a resume and update this each year in class. Students learn how to research colleges, what aspect to look for in a college and how to further develop their own skills and talents to become valuable to a college for admittance and possible scholarships. Every year, each Senior in the class is highlighted for each college they gain acceptance into. Last year, a student was accepted into over 40 colleges and received a total of over $2 million dollars of scholarships.This has not been the first time gifted students shine at college admissions. Gifted students apply, gain acceptance and attend schools including Yale University, Dartmouth University, Auburn University, University of Florida, Arizona State University, Stetson University, and so many more!!! Gifted students continually learn from Freshmen year to Senior year in the gifted class the benefits of researching colleges and how to build their resumes in specific categories including educational course work, summer programs, extracurricular activities, leadership positions, and so much more. Students gain invaluable resources in this course for bettering themselves for their bright futures.

Students Share Their Thoughts...

"Being in the gifted program has benefited me in many ways. It has helped me to think outside of the box and set academic goals for myself; but what sets it apart from other classrooms is how we are allowed to interact and collaborate with our peers. What I like about Gifted is that it is not like a typical classroom where we sit and learn about a specific subject, we are allowed to talk freely about the subject we are learning which helps us to not only learn the teacher's perspective on the subject, but also our peers' as well. We are also assigned many group projects, which encourages us to collaborate with other students and share our ideas. The gifted program is very easy going and is almost like a separate environment to get away from all of our other hard classes. Also what I like about this class is how Ms. French gives us fun projects that help us learn about the world and different cultures. Overall, the gifted program is definitely my favorite class and always the class that I look forward to going to everyday!" ~S. Sellers, FBHS, C/O '19

"I would highly recommend taking Gifted in high school with Ms. French. Not only is it a GPA booster since it's a weighted course, it's also a fun class! Ms. French comes up with assignments you wouldn't normally get to do in other classes. The assignments tend to be centered around cool art projects, but if you're not creative (I'm definitely not) and can come up with an appropriate alternative (i.e. a research paper about a similar topic), she is always willing to accommodate, which is awesome. In short, you won't regret taking advantage of the gifted program while in high school!"~M. Oakes, YHS, C/O '16

"Freshman year, gifted was such an escape and somewhere I felt comfortable and welcome (as long as you know the gifted knock). In gifted you never feel like a inferior lower class-men or superior upperclassmen its just one big family and super fun! Despite learning academic things, we also learn life lessons and how to deal and work with different types of people. Its hard to choose from my favorite gifted memory since there are just so many little moments that you cherish but I loved creating mosaics and the Jackson Pollock pieces we made! Ms. French is an amazing person and teacher and is always understanding and receptive to the students and creates a strong student-teacher trust in the classroom! Even though I only was in Ms. French’s gifted class for one year (extremely regret not taking it sophomore year), I feel like I can always talk to her if I needed something and I’m still a part of the Gifted fam! 10/10 HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS CLASS!!!!!!!"
~J. Baquet, FBHS/Bolles, C/O '19

"To me, Gifted has been an interesting class that provides the opportunity to learn something new every year. I've studied humanities, art history, and literature and the arts from Ms. French's Gifted Class. From doing art projects with unique artistic styles, to reading the oldest piece of literature in the world, Gifted involves endless ways to learn about the arts, and how art affects the world around you." ~L. Walker, C/O '18