In societies, we are all subject to stereotyping. Stereotyping begins to influence us from a young age, if not from birth. Depending on economic status, race, gender, or even where we live, it is likely that other people will form preconceived notions about us before we even speak to them. Based on our backgrounds, personalities, or perceived intelligence, we may be subject to being labeled before we know what our labels mean. During schooling age, children are intellectually tested for teachers and parents to have an understanding on how their students or children perform currently, and how they will perform in the future. One label that a child may be given is that of “Gifted and Talented”. With this label comes accelerated, and academically segregated, learning. This raises the question of: How does “Gifted and Talented” labeling affect a student’s academic performance and self perception? Jillian Gates, a doctoral student at Purdue University, tackles this question in her academic article “Children With Gifts and Talents: Looking Beyond Traditional Labels”. Along with this article, Robert Johnson, a member of the National Council of Teachers in English, writes on the subject in “Challenging the Cult of Excellence”. The two authors address the question in different ways.

In her article, Jillian Gates advocates for a change in how gifted and talented children are labeled. As stated in the abstract, she believes that labeling can have both negative and positive effects on children. These effects are in the realm of self perception as well as those from their peers. Gates’s article is peer reviewed and she used many references to studies on the topic, rather than just using her personal accounts. That being said, she does use examples from her experience with Gifted and Talented (G and T) children. Gates also separates different ideas in her article by using bolded topic sentences prior to discussion. In the section called “Shifting the Terminology”, Gates recalls to us a conversation she had with a child who did not get into a G and T program at her school, “No one took the time to talk with her and explain that just because she was still in the regular-education classroom this did not mean she was not gifted. I happened to mention in a conversation that giftedness was one of her many character- istics. The child stared at me and asked, “I’m gifted?” “Yes you are!” I replied. The look of intense relief on this child’s face was painful to see.” Gates explains that the child grew to have a false perception of her intelligence due to her not receiving a label, and that G and T became so intertwined with her identity, that having it ripped away damaged her self-esteem. She uses this example to give further evidence to the study she had quoted earlier. This anecdote by itself doesn’t hold much weight, but when used as a supplement to a study, we as readers can put ourselves in either her or the child’s shoes to understand this situation better in context. Gates’s article is well constructed, easy to read, and is heavily evidence based. She has credibility to speak on the topic due to her education, and has a small number of personal references. These references are mainly used to paint the reader a picture of the effects on labeling, rather than just telling or writing out data from experiments.

Robert Johnson’s piece is much shorter in comparison to Gates’s. Johnson relies heavily on his experience as a teacher to back up his claims against G and T labeling. His piece is an excerpt from a symposium called “Being Special”, a publication by the Nation Council of Teachers of English. The source establishes Johnson’s credibility as being an English teacher. He discusses how he has seen labeling affect his and his colleagues’s students. Unlike Gate’s article, Johnson relies entirely on informal data. He argues the definition of the word excellence has an entirely different meaning to him than the definition instilled in labeled children. The students, that he speaks on behalf of, view excellence as perfection while he sees excellence in provocative thought and willingness to make mistakes. Johnson explains that G an T students care more about staying true to their labels and strive more for perfection than knowledge. The students are afraid to make mistakes, which is not excellence. There are a couple of biases in this article: Johnson is an English teacher for a certain age group and the only population he discusses are in his school building. This article is quite informal, and there isn’t any solid evidence that shows the connection between academic achievement and labeling that he is proposing.

Both Gates and Johnson write compellingly on the subject of Gifted and Talented labeling. While Gates writes more scientifically, Johnson writes purely using his own experience. Though their methods for persuasion were different, there were still some similarities between the two. Both authors supported the claim that labeling children Gifted and Talented has the power to affect academic success as well as impact self-imagine.