Week 3

Personality Variance, Special Populations, and Emotional and Spiritual Giftedness

This week’s readings and activities will focus on gifted populations that are exceptional within the limits of their giftedness. You will read about three specific areas. The first will discuss different populations, i.e. girls, boys, underachieving, poor/underprivileged, minority, and take a look at special populations/dual-exceptionality students, as well. Once again, these students have some similarities within the framework of being gifted, however they vary in their characteristics and needs. We will read about many of these populations, and you will be encouraged to complete some outside research on an area of your choice, as well.

The third area we will explore this week has to do with Spiritual and Emotional Giftedness. While emotional giftedness refers to the intuitiveness, sensitivity and related fears and worries of gifted children, spiritual giftedness is a bit harder to qualify. It is very important in any discussion of spirituality to define how the term is being used. Many people will assume that spirituality refers to a person’s religious life. In this context, however, spirituality refers to the gifted child’s connection to her/his own mortality, and/or to a “higher power.” Many children who are spiritually gifted worry about the big picture; the idea of our own existence on this planet and meanings of life may preoccupy these children. The populations of which we speak in this week’s topics are relatively small, even within the gifted population itself; however they are very relevant to any discussion of guidance and counseling.

We will begin this week reading about personality variance among different gifted populations. As you read, pay attention to the groups that interest you most. You will be asked to do a bit more research on that group later in the week.

( Reminder: This week/topic has the most work attached to it. If you are taking this course asynchronously, please plan on spending more time here than you will in other weeks/topics.)