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Abstract

A. Harry Passow was intensely devoted to encouraging and enhancing differentiated education for the gifted. But he was never an ideologue who refused to listen to critics or even to those who would shut down such programs. The spreading influence of attacks on special services to able children has, therefore, led me to prepare this paper as a memorial tribute to Harry's steadfastness in defending the rights of the gifted as well as his open-mindedness toward contrary views on the subject. Presented here is an attempt to encapsulate the opposition's major objections, along with the responses that I shared with Harry over more than 40 years of our working together and developing what, for me, was the closest, most precious friendship I have had outside of my immediate family.

The critics' strongest charges are against (a) fostering elitism in schools by singling out the gifted for quality education, (b) the naïve and prejudicial ways of testing for giftedness, (c) the inequity and inadequacy of ability grouping, (d) the fallacy of current practices that allows out-of-context mind training exercises to serve as curriculum enrichment, and (e) the failure of programs for the gifted to influence programs for the nongifted.

Compared with the campaign to delegitimize special education for the gifted, there are social and cultural realities that may pose an even greater threat to the nurture of excellence as we know it now. These trends include (a) the growing desensitization to high culture among youth, who are distracted by an unrelenting assault on their visual, auditory, and cognitive receptors, as communicated through the popular media and world of entertainment; (b) deconstruction in the fine arts, music, and literature that places the subjective responses of the viewer, listener, and reader above the quality of these works and the genius of their creators; (c) doubts about the traditional assumption that scientific exploration and discovery are self-evident virtues even when their side effects may prove dangerous to the well-being of humanity; and (d) the movement towards dividing society into a rainbow of subcultures, each with its own identity and traditions, its creative idioms, its cultural tastes, and its consequent unique standards of excellence.

Recognizing how fragmentary, faddish, and vulnerable to extinction enrichment programs could be, Harry Passow spent the better part of his career supporting quality programs for the gifted, which might otherwise collapse under the weight of criticism and the pressures of modern cultural and social life. He did it for the sake of these extraordinary children and for the world they will, we hope, serve with distinction some day.

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Programs for the Gifted: To Be or Not to Be

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