What are my talents? This question preoccupied Lineke van Tricht from a young age. In fact, as an adolescent, she felt like the dumbest girl in the class. Van Tricht: “I wasn't, of course.”
A few years later, Van Tricht discovered her talent when she started teaching Dutch and English at the age of 23. “My father also worked in secondary education. He saw many colleagues come and go, and watched as others kept going even though they didn’t enjoy teaching.”
He advised his daughter: give it two years and then decide whether it’s for you. Van Tricht: “I really enjoyed standing in front of a classroom. When I moved on to the role of department manager and I first came into contact with giftedness, I immediately wondered: how do I make sure that these pupils thrive too?”
“We have the gymnasium”
She remembers that moment very well. After teaching for nine years, she was promoted to department manager at a secondary school and pretty soon had to prepare her first Open Day speech. “I thought I would be able to answer all the questions. But then one of the fathers present asked me: how do you mentor gifted children? I had to look it up for him, and got no further than: we have the gymnasium (grammar school). I called colleagues who worked at other schools in the area and discovered there was little expertise on giftedness within schools. Eventually, this man's daughter did join our school and I immersed myself in giftedness, among other things by taking a course on the subject.”
Gifted talents
More than 16 years later, Van Tricht no longer teaches in school. She now has her own agency. She did not have to think long about the name: Bureau Talent. “In my agency, we focus on something that didn’t exist until recently: education, guidance and course materials for gifted young people aged 10 to 18. Among other things, we provide teachers with guidance on how to adapt existing course materials to the learning needs of gifted young people.”
When Van Tricht reflects on the answer she gave that father at the Open Day, she realises how much more knowledge she has now. “Even in the first year of Bureau Talent, I realised that the groups of gifted pupils I worked with weren’t a reflection of society.”
Equal opportunities
Van Tricht is now completing a PhD at Radboud University, with a focus on equal opportunities in education for the gifted. “My research focuses on the motivation of gifted students from families with a low socio-economic status. These pupils are less likely to be recognised and acknowledged as gifted. To make it easier to recognise them, we conduct other tests to assess giftedness, including a partly non-verbal intelligence test.”
This variant focuses more on potential and less on performance. “In the existing tests, having a large vocabulary and being able to reason logically is important for a child to be recognised as highly gifted. Children of highly educated parents clearly get more of that as part of their upbringing than children of less educated parents.”
The tests from her research show that giftedness is not only found at the gymnasium. “And not only among the type of pupil everyone thinks of when they hear the word ‘gifted’: the white boy with glasses asking lots of smart-ass questions.”
She continues: “And yes, it takes some children a while to get used to the fact that they scored highest in the test. There’s no such thing as a typical gifted pupil. Everyone has their own qualities, pitfalls, challenges, and needs. My talent is providing tailor-made education and guidance to help young people find and further develop their talents. I want the adolescents I work with to discover their own talents at a young age!”
Some tips from Lineke on how to recognise, acknowledge and deal with gifted pupils as a teacher:
- “Be aware that gifted children could also be the ones you don't expect. Not just the standard type who is always playing the smart aleck. Yes, that child too may be gifted, of course. But a pupil who exhibits challenging behaviour or, on the contrary, is really withdrawn may also behave in this way because they aren’t being challenged enough at school.”
- “Take a critical look at your own teaching method and make sure that the characters in it are portrayed as diversely as possible. For example, don't always use names like Maria, Gerrit, or Pieter. Make sure you also include Stanley, Farida, or Osama. Not only in words, but also in images. Take a look around your classroom and check that your posters also communicate a diverse picture to your pupils.”
- “The most important thing? Increase your pupils’ confidence to be able to recognise a gifted pupil in the first place.”
Courses on offer at Radboud University
Radboud University believes that we should not label children, young people, and adults with high-level skills, but instead provide them with what they need by contributing to discovering, recognising and challenging hidden talent. Find out more about our study programmes, collaboration opportunities, and tailored-made programmes in the field of giftedness.
Photo: Jakayla Toney via Unsplash