Greg Smith
Night of the Notables is a program for both gifted and talented that has received an enthusiastic response. It embodies many optimal features of gifted education (demanding research skills, longer time spans, deeper studies, wider research, flexible pacing, integrated study across subjects, advanced communication skills and personal creativity). This paper shows how it benefits whole cohorts.
'Night of the Notables' shows the autonomous learner at work. The students work at their own pace and to their own depth, free to move where they wish. They are learning, comfortable within their personal learning style and are encouraged to be creative about the products of their learning. The Night of the Notables Program serves and nurtures the autonomous learner. It features suitable role models for gifted and talented students.
Night of the Notables, within the Autonomous Learner Model, is a model program for talented children proven to be very useful for all. In it, each student engages in an in-depth study of one famous or notable person over the term, researching widely and comprehensively on that person with a view to performing as that person on this Night of the Notables. Night of the Notables stresses independent learning, wide and deep research, superior products, personal commitment and performance and the higher level thinking skills. It is acknowledged as a model program with a vocational vector.
Educating our gifted cannot afford to be haphazard; the gifted deserve real meat and real rewards for challenges met. This paper outlines how one program designed primarily for the gifted has been successfully offered to all students in a year level cohort so its special benefits reached all possible students, identified or as yet unidentified. In this way our gifted programming is neither 'boutique' nor elitist.
Our College has not formally adopted a definition or selection procedure for identifying the gifted, but we are strongly guided by Gagné's dynamic definition (1993: 72) which indicates that one's gifts or 'aptitudes' need rich environments or 'intrapersonal catalysts' to be nurtured into talents. Such a dynamic definition constantly challenges us to be open to new expressions of giftedness, to create richer learning situations and to build up a whole school environment that values the gifts of everyone while rewarding those who excel. His definition recognises the variety of influences on the individual, that giftedness is not just cognitive, and the powerful role of motivation and commitment that typifies gifted achievers. In the Gagné model, Night of the Notables is effective because it develops this socio-affective domain.
Night of the Notables eminently suits whole cohorts for it offers the same opportunities for all while enabling the more able and the 'hidden gifted' to flourish. In offering everyone the Night of the Notables Program, we teach all students that being notable is a dynamic process of identifying and developing naturally given gifts into talents by responding within environments, and we recognise at the College that adaptation, transformation and organisation are essential components of the lived experience of being gifted. 'Notables' offers these sequences and delivers services in school time to meet the varied learning needs of a wider range of individuals.
Any school worth its salt must build gifted and talented programs into its policy and timetable. Delisle (1984) reported that gifted students suffer in schools and called for specific changes to cater for their distinctive needs. Occasional add-ons, pull-outs and forays into thinking skills are just insufficient. Sequenced, challenging and differentiated programs need to be available to identify and continuously challenge gifted students. Quality gifted programming requires differentiated programs in planned scopes and sequences. Such gifted programs will serve gifted students much better by their inclusion in the regular timetable. They need to be planned, sequential, appropriate and substantial (VanTassel-Baska, 1995: 48). 'Notables' is a planned sequence embedded in the regular timetable.
We have found that what targets the gifted can be offered to all if tasks are open-ended. Programs that are truly differentiated in content, process, product and environment can cater for various 'intelligences' and the various learning styles if choice is built-in. If the focus is a broad-band theme like eminence, everyone can access it according to his or her own ability and commitment. In this way, equity defeats elitism, for everyone shares the same access to resources, and individual choice dictates the levels of challenge and outcomes and the pace and depths of learning.
Gifted learners deserve control of their own learning because they are different from other students by the intensity of their on-going interests, the desire to feed on achievement, the urge to learn faster, their need to know something specific and by their insatiable curiosity (Knowles, 1975). To learn effectively, one must be active in controlling one's learning, or in other words, one must have some autonomy. In short, gifted learners in exercising their autonomy are satisfying their need to find difficult-to-find role models for nurturing self esteem.
Night of the Notables aims to meet this central need while staying in the mainstream. As an intensive study of an eminent or notable high achiever, it has an affective purpose whereby the gifted student can identify with his or her chosen notable, understanding the nature and responsibility of having gifts and learning about the persistence needed to overcome difficulties and doubts that always surround the lived experience of being gifted.
Why study eminent people? A study of biography widens horizons and students' visions. It shows students, in rich concrete detail, the variety and possibilities in human lives, and that the famous are or were real people. It generates awareness of the possibilities for their own lives. Hence it can be a moral education revealing the distinctive values and motivations that famous people confront and their ways of dealing with them. It reminds the young that they can be active in creating their futures, that their lives can be very much of their own making.
Studying genius and eminence has a precedent in gifted education. In 1939, Leta Hollingworth initiated the study of biography of the gifted and taught this subject herself in her experimental programs. She felt that these children needed role models to learn how others like themselves had adjusted, sustained effort against odds, and contributed to civilisation. Biographies serve to inform students how careers are made and the various kinds of intellectual work needed in the world. Through these role models, Hollingworth encouraged the students to set high ideals, perfect their work, learn self discipline, and strive towards altruism and service to society.
An identification with eminence and achievement is excellent modelling for life. A study of eminent persons nurtures passions and interests, supplies strong motivation to succeed, and forms a career orientation while at school. It is simplistic to expect students to make career decisions early in life, but this program does open up possibilities and gives access in interviews and in correspondence to occupations they may not otherwise be encountered. The choices of characters of other students within the cohort also open up possible career options.
The program is designed so that all and especially gifted and talented students within the cohort are able to understand giftedness, and its problems and possible pathways to eminence in the community. In this way today, Night of the Notables plots the rise to eminence. In it, the students identify their Notable's personal gifts and traits, his or her family's influence, the education and preparation for fame, and the opportunities grasped and achievements made.
In the Night of the Notables, the students strive to find out all they can about their eminent person so they can identify with him or her. It is very interesting in itself to plot how a notable rose to fame, overcame difficulties and mistakes and coped with giftedness. Doing it, students strive to have as complete a record as possible of their chosen person's life and work.
Night of the Notables is sequential yet multi-layered so it can meet the needs of a wide variety of ability levels. It is appropriate as it emphasises student choice and commitment. It is substantial as it runs over ten weeks.
What is distinctive about Night of the Notables?
Justifiably, families become very involved in Night of the Notables, more than in any other study at school. It is very much a family affair when mum, dad and student, along with his or her siblings, trundle in with all the flags, signs, video gear, costume and food to help set up the display. Many hours of family discussion, planning and arranging go into this particular study and the parents always report they love being so involved in what their son or daughter does. Eminence is nurtured in a family just as genius appears in clusters. Families support their children's learning in this school program as no other study does. Doing Night of the Notables in the mainstream removes any charge of elitism about eminence, for in it, families and school community celebrate student achievements and aspirations together.
The program aims to engender identification with the chosen notable. The dynamic is that increased knowledge will lead to empathy with that chosen person. A second intended result is to increase self knowledge within the student and so focus his or her energies to set goals for achievement in the real world. A third is the attainment of life long research and communication skills. Students attain these goals according to their needs, capacities and commitment. With this in-built elasticity, the program has been successfully adapted for use in whole cohorts.
The program rests on Socrates' axiom that self knowledge is power and a fuller perception of one's personal circumstances, possibilities, options and limitations is itself beneficial and a realistic foundation for coping with giftedness. It intensifies present motivation and more remotely, it helps in making successful career choices.
In practice, the students are guided to select a notable person in their area of interest and to seek information from near and far to compose a complete profile of their Notable. They each devise what I have called a Fictional Scenario, a vision of what the world would be like without that notable person's contribution to it. Then on the night, they set up a Learning Centre with props, posters and models to present their Notable. Dressed as the Notable, they ask invited (adult) guests to discuss their Notable's achievements with specially designed open ended questions they themselves devise. As well, they offer memorabilia or serve the guests some food typical of their Notable's life and times.
Night of the Notables primarily nurtures the autonomous learner. It is the autonomous learner model in action. In Night of the Notables, the students work to their own advanced depth while the role of the teacher changes to support and encourage the student. The interim talk to the class and the end-products of performance and biography must meet both self chosen and publicly acceptable standards. Emphasising student choice and autonomy, it is a prime example of the optimal and desirable Type III Enrichment (Renzulli, 1986: 77). In short, the autonomous learner working in the Night of the Notables is in control of his or her own learning.
Night of the Notables is versatile. We have used it as a stand-alone program for gifted and talented students but it could be incorporated into existing frameworks such as interdisciplinary studies. It can be readily infused into existing frameworks. It is multi layered so it can meet the needs of a wide variety of ability levels. Being identified as gifted is not a requirement for starting Night of the Notables. The program satisfies highly gifted, moderately gifted and able learners alike, and caters well for slower learners too. As envisaged in the Renzulli revolving door self-selection principle, gateway identification is not a major requirement for starting Night of the Notables. This versatility is the key to its being inclusive.
Night of the Notables has a vocational orientation showing students that success in life is won, not just on academic records but on meeting exigencies, overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for oneself. This program's real world vector makes it vocational.
Night of the Notables has an extra-mural focus because it is about real people's lives and their achievements. Nothing is filtered in the learning process; the same first hand resources are available to the student as to anyone. Students have to record, collate, select, synthesise, evaluate and dramatise facts, events and opinions as no other program demands. Writing to unseen sources and requesting interviews of famous people or their descendants is exciting and new for the students.
Night of the Notables is a model cross-disciplinary study, bringing together many different kinds of learnings where students practise comprehensive research and reporting skills, master written and oral communication skills, demonstrate presentation and performance skills before an adult public, sustain commitment to a self chosen task, display artistic skills in design, preparation and creation of one's display, prepare their costumes and props, self monitor along the way, and apply self evaluation skills upon completion. We have found that this unique combination makes Night of the Notables a successful cross-disciplinary learning experience.
Night of the Notables could be categorised as a transaction model with a transformational purpose. It features discovery, negotiation, synthesis, and is strongly product oriented. Student products devised in the program easily become original resource materials for later generations of students. In it, all students learn to be producers not just consumers.
The program is challenging. The students report that they felt challenged both by the personal study and by their guests on the Night itself. They report how, after initial hesitation, they grew confident communicating their learning to adults. More able students are encouraged to choose twentieth century notables for a greater challenge. Night of the Notables has the advantage of encompassing multiple intelligences as they are presented in different people. Many different gifts and talents are celebrated in it.
Night of the Notables values depth over breadth, concepts over fact. Depth is its raison d'être as collected facts for the talk must then be integrated and assimilated into the specific framework of the Report or biography. It is a cumulative study sequence, with each stage leading to the next. Higher level thinking skills, such as sorting, synthesising, hypothesising and evaluating, are demanded. The study requires the formulation of over-arching questions to organise facts, opinions and materials from diverse sources. Two central questions: 'What drives this notable? How does one attain eminence?' provide a life-centred focus for problem solving research.
The Notables program teaches metacognition and self-management for self-monitoring one's progress. With longer time spans and freedom available in class time, the students manage themselves to meet its interim goals. The program values persistence, performance and creativity. Writing a biography requires personal reflection, arranging a display requires personal management and carrying out an effective evaluation requires honest metacognition. Night of the Notables steers a path towards 'critical self directed learning', critical in that the content and processes transform the learner's own self perceptions and build up self concept.
The program is 'technology relevant' (VanTassel-Baska, 1993) as students do use computers creatively both in word processing their formal biography, in internet searching and in preparing their learning centres for the presentation Night. The program requires new products: the annotated biography or Report of Research, the Learning Centre and performance on the Night, which are outcomes of significance. Outcomes need to be both learner relevant and publicly excellent since they are to be judged by oneself, parents, peers, visitors and the whole College community.
Night of the Notables becomes a vehicle for identification. My experience is that gifted students always do better in it; they find even greater satisfaction in the program than others do. Their self esteem is raised because it matches their educational needs. It acts as a suitable vehicle for identification by providing the 'action information' Renzulli spoke of with regard to such Type III activities. For us the Night of the Notables program becomes a means of revealing the 'hidden gifted', those who would not be found using pen and paper methods. Offering it to a whole cohort offers a broader gateway to gifted education, enabling us to activate underachievers. The growing excitement and the group dynamics inevitably lead to total inclusivity.
The Notables program is truly global and international. Students range far and wide for resources and are free to choose characters from any culture or nationality. Student choices of characters indicate our Australian multicultural diversity. Choosing religious, family, and cultural icons as they can in Notables, the students assert our diverse ethnic origins and values. This affirmation seldom occurs in other subject areas.
All educational experiences should aim to build up self esteem. A student's past learning experiences greatly affect his or her self concept and self esteem. Nurturing that self concept is surely the central focus of Night of the Notables. It is structured autonomous learning so that the student identifies with the chosen Notable in role modelling for the gifted life. Modelling how the eminent and notable found success is itself an optimal content and product. Students do find that modelling a successful intellectual peer broadens their self-acceptance and self-esteem. This program, with its focus on life and giftedness, offers evidence on the power of role modelling. All other students in the cohort can share in an admiration and celebration of their Notables.
The program's affective focus teaches that success is not always easy and that perseverance, opportunity and overcoming problems are involved in reaching eminence. In life, the gifted usually learn to cope with failure much later and more painfully than their chronological peers. In this program but in a vicarious way, however, they can learn about false starts, lost opportunities and failure, and by following the life of their Notable, they will see how to cope with success too. In it, they are guided to come to terms with its strong concomitant emotions. No other program we know of presents such an affective focus.
Night of the Notables offers school assessment strands. Clearly the program aims for more than benchmark competencies so all can recognise personal achievements and creativity. High levels of challenge are built into each stage of the program to encourage creative outcomes. Self assessments to recognise internal measures of success were included in 1997 and were considered quite novel. Our 1997 and 1998 versions also included parents' written comments in the assessment process. Cooperatively and uniquely, the final assessments were carried out by teams of parents and teachers working together.
Scope and sequence frameworks for a whole school curriculum could begin with the Night of the Notables program. Indeed the Autonomous Learner Model (Betts, 1991) of which it is a part, implements a self directed learning curriculum which is a holistic approach to school learning, stressing both intellectual and social and emotional growth. Gifted students in schools would be better served with such planned sequences across the span of years they are in school.
Night of the Notables is also an excellent vehicle for affirmative action studies. In it, students not only research and report on their chosen notable but they grow to feel for and with their notable. On the night itself, the students present themselves identified as that notable person. In 1993, for example, boys chose Mother Teresa, Queen Victoria and Dian Fossey of their own accord and each one was presented outstandingly well. Night of the Notables is a study of giftedness and eminence in both male and female characters.
Our experience shows that a study of eminence nurtures passions and interests, supplies strong motivation to succeed and crystallises a career orientation while at school. This program is a relevant and fulfilling way to cope with the phenomenon of being gifted.
I have devised this Night of the Notables program from Betts's (1991) Autonomous Learner Model. The seminal idea for Night of the Notables appears there. I have extensively embellished and structured his outline with detailed worksheets in my Student Workbook and supporting website.
More recently Betts (1996) outlined how it can be integrated into whole class and whole school settings, principally for the gifted students there but also to benefit everyone, 'to cast a wider net'. Hence at Terrace we have offered Night of the Notables to the whole cohort so that those who can will meet their own higher expectations.
Our Night of the Notables runs over ten weeks and is made up of the following sequenced stages:
a. The mini-biography
This is the first task in self monitoring. It is a record of reading, researching and selecting the most suitable references. Students are encouraged to look far and wide and find references outside the ordinary. Perhaps they would be busy writing letters or faxing a living Notable to obtain more detai led information or to secure an interview.
Thus the students research printed materials, biographies and press clippings to find details about their notable, to build up a comprehensive profile on the person of their choice, even interviewing them if possible. Then the students write a fifty-word mini-biography for the handout program on the Night itself. The collected mini biographies comprise the evening's handout program and supply guests with evidence of the students' work, as starters for conversations with them.
b. The fictional scenario
In this students define what their chosen notable has done for the world and society, how the world is enriched by his or her contribution. One way of defining this is to ask: what would the world be like without that individual's achievement? For example, what would the world be like without Edison's telephone? Was it a necessary invention? What kind of a world would it have been at that time? The account is necessarily fictional and hypothetical.
The Fictional Scenario occurs within a progress talk to the class explaining these hypotheses on one's Notable. This is a rehearsal for the Night itself and a chance for peers to test knowledge of the chosen Notable. It is here that Night of the Notables practises important higher level thinking skills. Giving these talks in the first person helps the modelling. I recorded in an on-going personal journal:
This change of point of view has sharpened the study considerably and the boys have taken ownership of their Notable (16 June, 1993).
c. The report of research
Superior products can be attained by offering choice. By encouraging a variety of products of learning to the cohort, gifted students can be enabled to pursue challenging tasks while the less able can also achieve useful outcomes appropriate to them.
d. The learning centre
The preparation, design and setting up of the learning centre for the Night takes imagination, planning and application. Following a menu is one thing, but preparation of one's own resources is indeed another. Synthesis of the learning is evidenced in the selection, preparation and coordination of pertinent posters, flags, board-games, puzzles, and a curiosity box of open-ended questions on cards. Students show artistic flair and inventiveness combining these elements. Props are important tools for visual learning. A well designed display raises curiosity and focuses interest. An optimal feature of this program is that it caters for the visual learner.
e. The presentation night
Before the night itself, the student will have done extensive personal and cooperative research, given a talk to the class for the Fictional Scenario, completed a mini-biography for the evening's Program Notes, and almost completed a Report of Research which should include the bibliography of references already consulted during the study.
Now comes the night itself when, dressed in the clothes of his or her chosen Notable, the student welcomes guests and in conversation, using the first person, shares his or her knowledge. Interestingly, we have found that students are nervous on the night about the uncertainty of the guests' questions, about acting and sustaining their persona throughout the evening, about coping with lingering doubts about their depth of research. Even so, the Night itself is inevitably a tremendous success.
f. The evaluations
The students can be required to complete questionnaires by way of self assessment after the Night. They each survey their own performance, record gains in self esteem, and note directions for future studies. Projects can be submitted for evaluation and rating. Everyone receives a certificate of participation and the more outstanding can be recognised by Excellence Awards.
Night of the Notables is inclusive because it serves heterogeneous class groups. I have devised a short rating for gifted programs where I would rank Notables as a Level I program because it occurs in the ordinary classroom in the ordinary timetable. A Level II program would typically be a pull-out parallel session for selected students in school time. A Level III program would be offered for volunteers and run outside of school hours and even off campus. Without an entrance gateway and without formal assessment products, Night of the Notables is an exemplary gifted program offered successfully in inclusive settings.
To summarise, the Night of the Notables suits as a program for modern Australian students. It both works to unify the cohort and to celebrate Australia's diversity. It recognises personal, historical and cultural differences to foreshadow the differences that giftedness itself presents. To locate the students in their own culture and to feel familiar with their cultural surroundings, we encourage our students to study someone preferably from the twentieth century, and someone alive and Australian. Parents, teachers and boys rate it a resounding success. Night of the Notables has become an important annual event in our school calendar.
Night of the Notables, as I have devised and implemented it, proves suitable for our College and perhaps is a model for Australian gifted education. It is adaptable and multi layered so it can meet the needs of a wide variety of ability levels. It emphasises choice and commitment by the student. It is motivational in that it gives students formal encouragement to pursue their chosen area of intellectual interest. The program makes more complex demands on the gifted student, such as more demanding personal communication skills.
Night of the Notables has a very real personal relevance for learning to cope with being gifted. It has a vocational orientation, showing students that success in life is won not just on academic records but on meeting exigencies, overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for oneself. Students show heightened perceptions of the future of their society and their own places in it as a result of doing Night of the Notables.
Finally, it has become and continues to be an example of how some materials devised specifically for the gifted and talented can be enriching for all students.
Betts, G.T. (1991) The Autonomous Learner Model for the gifted and talented. In Davis, G.A. & N. Colangelo (Eds.), Handbook of gifted education (pp. 142-153). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Betts, G.T. (1996) Facilitating life-long learners in the regular classroom. Our Gifted Children, 3 (5), 2-7.
Delisle, J. R. (1984) Gifted children speak out. New York: Walker.
Gagné, F. (1993) Constructs and models pertaining to exceptional human abilities. In K.A. Heller, F.J. Monks & A.H. Passow, International handbook of research and development of giftedness and talent. (pp. 69-87) New York: Pergamon.
Hollingworth, L. (1939) What we know about the early selection and training of leaders. Teachers College Record, 40, 575-592.
Knowles, M.S. (1975) Self-directed learning: A guide for learners and teachers. Chicago: Association Press.
Renzulli, J.S. (1986) The three-ring conception of giftedness: A developmental model for creative productivity. In R.J. Sternberg & J.E. Davidson (Eds.) Conceptions of giftedness (pp. 53-92). London: Cambridge University Press.
Smith, G.B. (1993) Night of the Notables: A program for gifted and talented. Our Gifted Children, 2 (1), 2-5.
Smith, G.B. (1997) Night of the Notables student workbook. Brisbane: St Joseph's College.
Smith, G.B. (1997) Equity, elites and eminence: Gifted programming for a wider clientele. Our Gifted Children, 4 (3), 10-14.
VanTassel-Baska, J. (1993) Linking curriculum for the gifted to school reform and restructuring. Our Gifted Children, September/October.
VanTassel-Baska, J. (1995) Appropriate curriculum for the gifted. In Feldhusen, J. (Ed.) Towards excellence in gifted education (pp. 45-67). Denver, CO: Love.
Headings to detail these concepts in research:
Brainstorm what constitutes eminence: Who are popular, who are eminent, who are notable:
Resources to open up the topic:
Teach and practise research skills:
Your study in stage 2, in particular, would feature:
Expand into Renzulli Type III investigations into eminence (teacher assistance with direction and production may be necessary).
Kaplan's Creative Thinking Skills in this third stage would encourage:
Williams' last five classroom strategies could be addressed here:
Use Bruner's third stage, symbolic representations and experiences, here to include: identify symbols of fame. power, wealth, leadership. Assess them.
Clearly it is important to make a choice of someone admirable and eminent. We do want the boys on the Night to represent a very wide range of choices so that really notable people are selected.
We want to ensure you recognise and admire contributors to humanity rather than flash in the pan achievers, so short-term rock stars are not best.
Key themes to study:
A study of eminent persons is very interesting in itself. You will be involved in a deep and broad study of one eminent and notable person using as many sources and resources as you can find. It is really a search for that person, what influences made him or her famous, what difficulties she or he endured, what drove that person on to become notable.
Please complete the coupon below asking you AND YOUR PARENTS to approve a choice based on your own interests; that way it will be interesting, relevant to you and settled between home and school. Your teacher will then sign and approve the choice. You must then stick with it throughout.
Our family has discussed and approved the choice of Notable for our son for 1999. This will remain our choice though the term.
Greg Smith is Coordinator, Gifted and Talented Programs at St Joseph's College, Gregory Terrace, Brisbane 4000.