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more critical about teaching the gifted and the talented.
That 36 of the 42 responding teachers — nearly 86 percent! — admitted that their own school cannot offer those gifted students appropriate instruction is a serious indictment of the overall ability of our school system.
It is important to teach the basics.
It is important to teach a trade to those graduating seniors who plan to enter the work force.
And it is important to offer those whose abilities are lacking the chance to catch up.
A school system in 1985 is expected to do that. It should be demanded of our schools.
But it is certainly no less important to offer those who can excel the instruction — the simple chance — to do just that. By not offering such courses, we may as well sit those gifted students — bound and gagged — in the parking lot for half the day. The education they receive in the asphalt classroom will be equal to what they receive inside the school building. About the only productivity that will result is their daydreaming. And unless that is encouraged and fostered and directed, that, too, is wasted energy.
We live in an area where private schools in surrounding counties are looking to lure these students who possess a special talent away from the public system. The public school systems of this country — fr'im the big-city schools right down to the grass roots level of Rappahannock County — need to keep all this creative energy and these bright ideas where they will do the most good — in their own community.
With that energy at home, we all benefit; we can develop a distinct community identity. Without that energy, we will be no better than the mediocrity we set out to achieve.
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