Giftedness and Talent in the 21st Century

the Life Trajectories of the Gifted and Talented
Figure 2. 21st-century model showing the impact of globalization on education systems
century. In that era, educational success was considered to be the result of pedagogy
that could provide basic, domain-specific knowledge and skills; consequently,
success represented by the elevation in the back corner of the model was moderate,
if it was achieved. It was moderate because it was missing some important elements,
which will become clear later in this analysis.
The dark, left-to-right trajectory arrow on the near-side surface of the model
represents the trajectory of an education system in the 21st century. If the philosophy,
curriculum, and instruction of the education system does not match 21st-century
demands it will push millions of students into the Hobbes trap where they ultimately
will be crushed by the macroproblems on the underside of the globalization wave. If
instead the education system matches 21st-century demands it could provide millions
of students with the discontinuous, quantum leap to the crest of the globalization
wave where they will be able to capitalize on the unprecedented macro-opportunities.
Using the American education system as an example, the Hobbes trap generates
creaticide and apartheid that derive from current pressures to push American
education back toward alignment with the worst forms of 19th-century pedagogy.
For example, David Berliner (2012) coined the term creaticide to stand for the
systematic killing of creativity in the American education system. The murder of
creativity comes from dogmatic adherence to accountability initiatives driven by
widespread, high-stakes measurement of superficial, narrow abilities through
standardized testing. The term “apartheid” appears on the model because it signifies
the pressure that influential but dogmatic, ignorant, and unscrupulous profit-seeking
educational reformers are putting on school systems to impose more high-stakes
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