[ OUR OPINION ]

Help for gifted students
essential for education

THE ISSUE Two summer programs offer opportunities for children with exceptional abilities.

AS do troubled or disabled children, gifted and talented students need supportive programs that enable them to develop their capabilities fully. So it is encouraging that two universities are offering them educational ventures in Hawaii this summer.

Talent Development Hawaii, a pilot project at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, will present four-week summer courses for students in grades 8 through 10. Johns Hopkins University's Center for Talented Youth will conduct two three-week sessions at Hawaii Pacific University for children ages 12 through 16. Students for the Johns Hopkins program already have been selected, but the UH classes are still available.

Children with exceptional abilities are usually identified at an early age and enjoy successful academic and professional careers, but many are not. Some of them seem distracted or disinterested in what's going on in their classrooms, often because they are bored by lessons that do not challenge them. According to the state Department of Education, 3.5 percent of high school dropouts have IQs of 120 or higher and as many as 20 percent of dropouts have superior abilities. If schools aren't able to provide proper instruction and incentives, their gifts are left idle.

As Karl Heinz Dovermann, a UH mathematics department leader who is heading the talent development project, says it is a shame that such children aren't nurtured. "We have lots of kids who are very smart and they need opportunities to grow," he says.

Besides needing greater challenges, gifted children flourish in an atmosphere where their differences are accepted. Such students often are misunderstood by others in their age group and an environment shared with their peers emboldens them. Although their intelligence or artistic skills may be advanced, they are still children who need emotional support and help in understanding the value of their gifts.

The university is in the best position to extend these learning opportunities to gifted students. The program fits in well with the so-called "P-20 Initiative" outlined last year by UH and the DOE that sensibly recognizes the merits of approaching education broadly from preschool through college. Partnership between the lower and higher educational institutions makes good use of teachers and professors, whose skills are needed to elevate scholarship for exceptional children.

The UH project aims to enroll 40 students, but Dovermann hopes that someday 200 or more children can take part and that it will be a permanent program. This all depends, of course, on funding and support from policy makers as well as the community.

Like all of Hawaii's young people, "gifted students are our future," Dovermann says. "If we don't give them opportunities, we will lose them and we will lose, too."