Dr. James Delisle and two former students
Dr. James Delisle: Giving to the Gifted
Olivia Mihalic, Kent State public relations student
Inspired to teach
Dr. James Delisle, professor of education at Kent State and teacher of elementary school gifted children, says he was inspired to teach gifted children while working as a special education teacher in New Hampshire.
“One of my students was a fifth grader by the name of Matt,” Delisle says. “He was said to have had an ‘emotional disturbance.’ He wasn’t the most charming young man. And he hated being in my classroom.”
Everything he learned in college on how to handle students in special education failed with Matt, Delisle says. But the problem wasn’t that Matt was having trouble with the current curriculum; rather, he wasn’t challenged enough. He would complete challenging activities with little difficulty, but when given a fifth-grade level assignment, he would write “irrelevant” across the page in red crayon.
“And he spelled the word correctly,” Delisle laughs. “That impressed me.”
One day, Matt came into school smelling like a skunk. He had been sprayed while tapping trees in his yard for maple sugar. After Delisle realized that making maple syrup in his basement was Matt’s passion, he changed his curriculum to maple sugar: the science of it, mathematical equations and the process itself. Matt turned around immediately.
“Matt had the attitude, ‘When I’m not challenged, why should I do it?’” Delisle says. “The problem wasn’t him. It was me. It was then that I realized that I needed to learn more about kids who are smart but do not perform well in regular school settings.”
So he did. Since that experience, Delisle has authored about 250 articles and 14 books on his research about gifted children, including the best-selling Gifted Kids’ Survival Guide: A Teen Handbook, which has been translated into Chinese as well as several other languages. He served for nine years on the Board of Directors of the National Association for Gifted Children and as president of The Association for the Gifted, a division of the Council for Exceptional Children. Now, Delisle directs the undergraduate and graduate programs in gifted child education at Kent State.
"Gifted children are identified, by law, in every Ohio school system,” Delisle says. “However, special services to address their unique needs are optional. It is the only area of special education where children identified as having identified learning needs may or may not have programs to address these needs. Pretty wacky, huh?"
Delisle says gifted children who are not recognized in a school system have many different hurdles to overcome, not only with the less-than-challenging curriculum, but the perception of the general public.
“Most people think if you’re smart, then you’ve got life pretty easy,” he says. “However, gifted children often establish a disconnect between the school and learning because the curriculum doesn’t match their needs.”
Inspiring future teachers
One of Delisle’s past students, Daniel Heath, sophomore special education major, says Delisle is one of the major reasons he is studying to become a teacher now.
“Dr. Delisle took us on monthly fieldtrips to different places including the West Side Market, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Great Lakes Science Center and Kent State,” Heath says. “The way he interacted with us and took the time to help us learn in creative and different ways inspired me to want to help children with different needs.”
Heath says he and his brother, senior communications major Adam Heath, still get together with Delisle on a regular basis. Last time, they went to Ray’s Place for a couple hours to eat and catch up, says Heath.
For the past 10 years, Delisle has blended his two careers, teaching college students about how to work with gifted children and working with gifted children one day a week at Twinsburg City Schools.
“Staying connected to children while I am teaching college students who will one day work with them helps me to be a better teacher,” he says. “It gives credibility to what I am saying. The experiences I share with my students happened yesterday, not 10 years ago.”
Learning from the students
After Delisle retires in 2008, he has been invited to teach in Beijing, Singapore and Tasmania, working with both gifted children and the adults who teach them. Following that, Delisle hopes to teach writing part-time in a juvenile detention facility in South Carolina, where he and his wife will soon reside.
"I'll have come full circle," Delisle states. "I began my career working with children with emotional and learning problems, some of whom were gifted. Who knows what kinds of intelligence I'll discover within the juvenile justice system?"
"I want to leave Kent State at a high point in my career — and now's the time," Delisle states. "However, I feel my time is still not up in working with kids. They still have much to teach me."
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 Learn more about teaching the gifted: read "No Child Left Unchallenged: Engaging the Gifted Child," from the Spring 2008 issue of Kent State Magazine.
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