Joe Renzulli’s Three-Ring Concept of Giftedness
I’ve been reading a bit about Joe Renzulli and I like his Three Ring concept of Giftedness. According to Renzulli, there are three important factors for the development of gifted behaviour: Above average ability, creativity, and task commitment.
Renzulli defines Creativity as the fluency, flexibility, and originality of thought, an openness to experience, sensitivity to stimulations, and a willingness to take risks. Task Committment is motivation turned into action (like perseverance, endurance, hard work, but also self-confidence, perceptiveness and a special fascination with a special subject). Renzulli argues that without task commitment high achievement is simply not possible.
I like how he has identified these three aspects. One thing I wonder about though, is ability innate or is it learned? I like to think that almost anybody can learn to do almost anything, if they have the perseverance.
As a child, the one that is gifted has to have a loving, same gender parent (or a person of the same gender, to look to who shows interest and or favorability to the child). The child will not develop self-confidence if s/he is constantly ridiculed for being ‘different’ by a parent type person.