Summer Gifted program
By Rachel Mittelman

Picture yourself in seventh grade, listening to your teacher drone on about pre-algebra and wondering when you’ll get to the interesting stuff—like the calculus problems you did last night. If you consider that scenario plausible, then you understand the rationale behind the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth (CTY), which gives gifted young students the opportunity to learn at their own level in an academic summer program.

“Most people were shocked that I wanted to go,” said Gila Stadler, who participated in CTY for five years. “School in the summer? Why would you want to do that?” Of course, the answer was obvious to Stadler and her CTY peers. Students who enter the program are characterized by a strong desire to learn as well as exceptionally high intelligence, and CTY allows them to study things they cannot learn in school.

Johns Hopkins University conducts talent searches to find children who might benefit from their program. Seventh or eighth graders who score at the 97^th percentile on a national standardized test can apply to enter the Talent Search and take the SAT (Standard Assessment Test), which is geared toward students graduating high school. Depending on their SAT scores, certain children are eligible for CTY’s three-week summer programs.

The programs are held on college campuses around the country, where students sleep in the residence halls, eat in the cafeterias, and spend six hours a day learning in the classrooms. Each student chooses one math, science, writing or humanities class, covering the equivalent of one college semester. Teachers often use creative, hands-on teaching methods; Stadler fondly remembers investigating a fake murder case in her genetics class, imitating the evolving beaks of Galapagos Island finches with her fingers to discover what shape “seeds” she could best pick up with each configuration, and the time the environmental science class held a protest outside the model UN. Rather than grading, teachers evaluate every student in writing.

Meanwhile, the children engage in two camp-like activities of their choice each day and have dances, color war, Olympics and Capture the Flag games on weekends. They also learn about other cultures, since CTY students span a variety of backgrounds and ethnicities. “People tend to go there with open minds because they want to learn and that extends to learning about the other people who are there,” explained Stadler.

And people who worry that programs like CTY might isolate gifted children and make them self-conscious about their intellectual abilities can lay their fears to rest. Many students react with relief and exit the program feeling far less alone. “In school I’d always been Gila the walking dictionary, Gila the walking encyclopedia,” Stadler recalled, “and there I was normal.” A sense of belonging combined with the stimulation their minds require may be the greatest gift these children can receive.