Excellent and gifted students: what teaching practices?

Abstract

Excellent students in Italy are identified with the secondary school students who demonstrate high skills (L. n.1 of 2007). Students with giftedness, according to the perceptions of some Italian teachers, do not always coincide with the vision of “excellence” that emerges from the school regulations. If for the laws the enhancement of excellence takes place through competitions in different fields, for some well-known Italian pedagogists (Becchi, 1963; Frabboni 1998; Baldacci, 2002) it should be achieved through a teaching oriented to the development of the talents of each one. In some Italian schools, where pupils with giftedness are involved, innovative teaching strategies have already been adopted that promote and value the different excellences.