A Study Of Preparation Of Teachers For The Gifted And Talented In America

The gifted and talented children are valuable human resources for a country, are potential highly sophisticated talent. According to the sixth census data in 2010, there are 22.6 million children who are between zero and fourteen in China’s mainland. According to the gifted and talented proportions theory, one to three children in 100 are gifted and talented, so there are about 2,260,000 to 6,780,000 gifted and talented children in China. Providing high quality education for these gifted and talented children has much strategic and realistic significance for a country. Training good quality teachers becomes the key issue for it. The United States is one of the world’s superpower countries, not only the economic development is in the front of other country, but also is the education,the preparation of teachers for the gifted and talented children in America has been top in the world. The preparation of teachers for the gifted and talented children in China started late, compared with the United States there is a big gap. Therefore, it’s necessary to study the preparation of teachers for the gifted and talented children in America, and take our nation’s reality into consideration, so as to get some correlated enlightenments for the preparation of teachers for the gifted and talented children.By ways of literature analysis, historical methodology and comparative methodology the article tries to analysis the preparation developing process、nationwide standards and training programs of the teachers for the gifted and talented children in America, then sum up its successful experience. At last, I get some correlated enlightenments by taking our nation’s reality into consideration, so as to make the preparation of teachers for gifted and talented children develop faster and more healthily. This paper consists of six parts.The first part is the introduction, which introduces the reasons why I choose this subject, researching significance, the current researching situation of domestic and foreign countries, researching methods, and gives definition to the keywords.The second part sorted out the developing process of the preparation of the teachers for the gifted and talented in America. I divide it into three stages:germinating stage, development stage, reform and perfecting stage. I also introduce in details the development situation of every stage.The third part tells about the teacher preparation standards in gifted and talented Education in America. I introduced and analyzed the teacher preparation standards in gifted and talented Education in America which acts as a "compass" in teacher preparation from its foundation、 national Initial and advanced preparation standards.The fourth part is about the training programs of the teacher preparation for the gifted and talented in America. This part reappears the teacher training programs for the gifted and talented in America longitudinally from three periods, training in advance, training in duty and further education. In aspect of training in advance, it describes its training aims, training models, ways of curriculum implementation and curriculum content. In aspect of training in duty, it tells about its training aims and training content. In aspect of further education, I summed up the aims, the content and the models of further education.The fifth part introduces the successful experience of the preparation of teachers for gifted and talented in America. Based on the former several chapters, I summed up seven main successful experience of the preparation of teachers for gifted and talented in America:Highly value the importance of the education of gifted and talented and the preparation of teachers; Develop high-quality Nationwide Teacher Preparation Standards in Gifted and Talented Education; Construct "training in advance--training in duty -- further education" as a complete teacher training system for gifted and talented; Emphasize the preparation of inclusive teacher for gifted and talented; Emphasize the preparation of teachers who respect diversification; Emphasize the preparation of teachers who have solid professional knowledge and skills; Use flexible training methods.The sixth part tells about enlightenments from the preparation of teachers for the gifted and talented in America to our country. At first, introduce and analyze the current situation of the preparation of teachers for the gifted and talented children in our country in three aspects (training in advance, training in duty and further education).Then, based on the American successful training experience, and taking the current situation of our nation into consideration, I get seven enlightenments:Enhance people’s awareness of gifted education and the preparation of teachers for the gifted and talented children, in order to get wide support for the preparation of teachers for the gifted and talented from them; Balance the relationship between the preparation of teachers serving in gifted education and serving in general education; Set up professional associations of gifted education,and formulate nationwide gifted education teacher training standards; Integrate content relating to gifted education into all kinds of teacher training process; Reform the models of training in advance;Found integrated training mechanism of training in advance, training in duty and further education;offer gifted education in colleges and universities.