The Role of Parents and Educators by Optimizing the Potential of Gifted Children in Academics

Abstract

The problem that often arises in talented students is that children get bored quickly with regular teaching materials. Gifted learners are often unstable in their emotional development, resulting in a critical attitude, often seen cynically and defiantly. Gifted children feel bored when waiting for friends who are lacking in receiving material during learning. So that talented students find it difficult to adjust to other friends. As for the problem for parents who do not understand their children who have special intelligence and talents, they tend not to care and there is no response to strange behavior that arises due to the result of their children's talents. To optimize the academics of gifted children, special education services are needed, there are special accompanying teachers to facilitate and teach talented students. There needs to be adjustments to the curriculum, learning models, and assessments in the learning process in the classroom for gifted students even though the students are studying together with other students in the same class. The data collection technique used in the research of this article is using literature studies. Literature study is a series of activities regarding methods of collecting library data, reading, taking notes, and research materials. The sources used in this literature search use databases, google scholars, journals, articles, research reports, books. According to Ummai (2017), in Indonesia, quantitatively there are many children with academic talent. If it is assumed based on a statistical approach associated with the Marland Report's definition, the number of gifted children is 3-5% of the population. In Indonesia, the number of talented children is very large, almost the same as the number of elementary schools in small countries in the world. Assuming that 2% of the total population of Indonesia. If there are currently around 250 people in Indonesia, there are still 5 million talented children in Indonesia. With such a growth rate of Indonesia's population, 20 years later (in 2038) it is estimated that more than 1 billion students will have superior abilities (Media Indonesia, 2019). However, among the 2 talented children and the world of education, they tend to not achieve optimally, especially in the critical era of Multi- dimensional. Gifted children have special needs that need to be considered, so the role of both parents as the main agents for children plays an important role in determining what will be done in the future. Parents of talented children must be intelligent, careful, and also active to overcome problems that arise due to strengths that are also weaknesses of children. Educators play an important role in the learning process at school. The main task of teachers is to teach students by educating, directing, guiding, teaching, training, and assessing their students. So that the role of parents and educators is very important in developing children's academic potential.