Award brings focus to changing perceptions of being gifted

  • Sep 22, 2014
  • Dr. Rena Subotnik

In September of 2013 I was visited by an enormous surprise and found out only later how hard my colleagues had tried to keep the secret from me. The venue was the American Psychological Association’s annual Education Leadership Conference

Lunch on the featured day of the conference is set aside for awards and recognition — usually given to members of Congress or their staff and to advocates who promote psychology to policymakers and the public. In the midst of award giving, Executive Director Cynthia Belar announced that a special recognition was about to be bestowed by Mensa. Mensa! This was a new phenomenon. I looked around the room and saw a couple of scholars who have written on issues of intelligence and thought to myself, “How wonderful that one of them will be acknowledged here at an American Psychological Association function.”

Dr. Belar invited Dave Remine, President of the Mensa Education and Research Foundation, to the podium. Before announcing the name of the Lifetime Achievement awardee, Mr. Remine described the awardee’s background, including the person’s active involvement in the field for more than 40 years, along with the fact that “she is author of numerous important publications.”

I was flummoxed. None of the people in the room whom I’d assumed he was talking about were female. Who could it be? Frank Worrell, one of the scholars on my mental list of possibilities for the award, elbowed me in the ribs. Although I am in my mid-60s, I couldn’t imagine I’d been at this for 40 years — I’m too young for that!

With a dramatic pause, Mr. Remine asked “Rena Subotnik” to come and receive the award. I was breathless and shaking as the room erupted in congratulations, and people — my colleagues, members I serve, scholars and practitioners — stood to signal their support. It was an experience I will never forget.

At Teachers College I was recruited by Abe Tannenbaum to get a master’s degree in special education of the gifted. With my newly gained expertise in hand, and after a few twists and turns through the late ’60s and early ’70s on the West Coast, I became a teacher of the gifted for Seattle Public Schools.

At no time up until that point or while I was pursuing a doctorate at the University of Washington had anyone ever said it was strange or in any way inappropriate to be concerned about the welfare of talented students. However, by the time I achieved my dream job as a professor at New York City’s Hunter College in the late ’80s, a radical change in attitude toward gifted education was in full bloom. Research, services or even discussion of talent development or gifted education were painted with a broad brush of elitism.

Since then, dissociating gifted education with elitism has been my major goal. The recognition I got for the Mensa Lifetime Achievement Award afforded me the joy of seeing my APA colleagues, most of whom are not focused especially on the needs of the gifted, celebrate the award.

We have a long way to go in changing perceptions, but receiving the Mensa Lifetime Achievement Award was a significant benchmark in the campaign for me. I am proud to join the list of illustrious previous winners in moving the field forward.