Photographic evidence

Hello again!

Another photographic post today, this one from almost forty years ago.

You likely know that my current academic research project involves exploring the adult lives of gifted girls. One of the dismaying findings in the research (and in the work of earlier researchers) is that most of our participants disavow their giftedness as adults. The reasons for this, in the research literature, at least, are complicated; but the sentiment itself makes me very sad.

Here, however, is a photograph of some gifted kids in late 1980. This was the enrichment class I attended one day a week. The year this photo was taken, the class was the largest it had ever been. Happily, I re-met a few of the students after junior high, although we lost touch again after high school (with the exception of Mark, who is now a Facebook friend). I particularly miss Jodie, whose education was supposed to end when she left high school; I hope that wasn't how things turned out for her, though.

Note that the class is fairly gender balanced and not completely white (although Edmonton overall was very, very white in 1980). There are also less visible markers of difference and inclusion in this group, which might contradict what earlier researchers have found about enrichment programming at large. Funding for this kind of education was eliminated in Alberta a few years later, and I am still grateful to have had several years of it. It made a positive difference for me.