For many people, labeling a child "gifted" is the worst thing we could do for the child, for other children, and pretty much for every human being on the planet. Obviously, I'm not one of the people who have a problem with the label.

One reason people have a problem with the label is that they think it gives children a "big head."  It might be true that some gifted kids develop an attitude of superiority, but that attitude can result from spending too much time with age-mates who are not their intellectual peers, with others who cannot understand them or think as quickly.

This is not to say that such attitudes are acceptable. They aren't.

Parents of gifted children know that their children need intellectually challenging material, but others may think that these parents are just pushing their kids. Indeed, there are some parents who are like that, but the needs of children who learn quickly should be met just as the needs of other special children should be met.

The Globe and Mail recently covered the issue in its article, For your kids, is gifted a bad word? What we often see is that parents of gifted kids try to get their child's academic needs met, and some parents are interested in getting their child labeled as gifted for other reasons. In some instances, it's an issue of parental pride. But in many other instances, the parents are simply trying to get their child the best education possible.

What I always wonder, though, is if non-gifted children do better in gifted programs than they do with a regular curriculum, wouldn't that suggest that there is a problem with the regular curriculum?

Why not make the regular curriculum more demanding? Then we can might see the label "gifted" in a different way.