THE ORGANIZATION OF WORK WITH GIFTED CHILDREN IN THE COUNTRIES OF EUROPE AND ASIA (BASED ON THE INTERNET MATERIALS)

One of the main problems of modern education system is early identification, training and upbringing of gifted and talented children. There is a large amount of information in the Internet that reveals the actual experiences of working with gifted students in leading European and Asian countries. Sources in the Internet became the main object of study in this paper, which is aimed at compilation and systematization of the dynamic information provided in the Internet. It reflects the current state of work with gifted children in leading European and Asian countries who have been selected according to peer review results of education quality within the framework of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Guided by the hypothesis that persistently high test results of pupils of top ranking countries of the PISA are mostly the result of effective work with gifted children for their identification, assistance and intellectual development and consequence of the implementation of the triad in schools: good teachers, comfortable schools and thoughtful curricula, the authors analyzed the experience of Asian and European countries included in the top of rankings 2009 and 2012 for the purpose of investigation of international school, universities and associations experience concerning training of gifted children. The paper analyzes the principles of identification, training and support of gifted children; it considers research activity and teacher development programs in the field of gifted education. The most serious work on training and retraining of teachers in the field of gifted education was revealed in Europe, where ‘European Council for High Ability’ (ECHA) was established and the special program of postgraduate education was elaborated. The paper also highlights and compares the main directions and forms of work with gifted children in the examined regions. It was revealed that the methods of gifted children identification are considerably varied. In Europe, for instance, the most common assessments are being made by teachers, parents, and psychologists as well as the self-identification of children, intellectual competitions, and a variety of tests to determine the mental development and creative thinking are taken into account. Otherwise, in Asia different IQ tests, contests, and the Unified State Exam are most popular. European and Asian methods of work with gifted children are partly intersected (special classes and experimental programs in the ordinary public schools; educational Olympiads in specialized and elite schools; additional extracurricular education; individualization and enrichment of teaching, university centers, etc.), however, many of them are specific. Thus, in Asia there are ‘superschools’, extra private tutor schools, children conferences and international collaborative research work. In Europe gifted children are allowed an ‘early entry’ in education, ‘classes skipping’ and ‘early school leaving’; joint classes of high school students with gifted children, a partial exemption from compulsory curricular and self-learning are practiced, and specialized summer camps are organized. The research results enable to adapt and put to use the experience of leading European and Asian education systems in the field of identification, support and development of endowments in contemporary Russian education system.

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