About Us
Mission Statement: Enriching the lives of gifted and talented learners, their parents and educators.
The Hawaii Gifted Association (HGA) strives to meet the needs of gifted learners in our communities by providing information and resources for parents and educators, and enrichment programs for students. We want to be an organization where gifted leaners can come together to meet, play and think with others who are like them, and to provide support groups for parents who may be sruggling with some of the issuues facing gifted children.
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| Definition of Gifted and Talented
(U.S. Department of Education, 1993): Gifted youth are children and youth with outstanding talent who perform or show the potential for performing at remarkably high levels of accomplishment when compared with others of their age, experience or environment. These children and youth exhibit high performance capability in intellectual, creative or artistic areas, possess an unusual leadership capability or excel in specific academic fields. They require services or activities not ordinarily provided by the schools.
Outstanding talents are present in children and youth from all cultural groups, across all economic strata, and in all areas of human endeavor. (Martin, D.E. (1996). Towards and understanding of the Native Hawaiian concept and manifestation of giftedness. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The University of Georgia, Athens.) In the Hawaiian community, one who excels with his or her given gifts is someone who is doing what he or she is supposed to do and therefore, the expression of that talent is a natural phenomenon, not an anomaly or deviation from common law. Consequently, the individual who early on shows an acute awareness and use of given gifts is nurtured just as much as another who does not. In the Hawaiian viewpoint of giftedness, there is an inherent understanding of purpose for developing one's gifts and the valuing of one another. The individual recognized by the Hawaiian community for outstanding abilities then, is one who develops, uses, and shares inherited gifts knowingly and to the fullest. From Karen Rogers: Dr. Rogers expounds on the definition of gifted and talented by French Professor, Francoys Gagne in her book, . Rogers writes, "Every Child is born with some ability or capacity--what we could call a strength--a gifted child is born with a comparatively greater degree of this ability or potential." She goes on to use Gagne's definition of "talent" as, "'extraordinary performace in a field of human endeavor.' Hence, according to Gagne, the child who is reading at sixth grade level in kindergarten is talented in reading, and the musician who can play Tsaikovsky's first violin concerto at age 10 is talented in music." | Our history:
The HGA was an active and successful member of the Hawaiian gifted and talented community for years, but interest tapered off as the children whose parents were running the HGA grew up. Now is the time for the second generation to take over for a rebirth of this vital community resource.
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