Even the Best Have Difficulties

Abstract

To achieve top scores, students need not only talents and study skills but also they have to conquer various adversities successfully. This research focused on the study paths, the concept adopted from Hickman, Bartholomew, Mathwig, and Heinrich (2008), of Finnish straight-A graduates in general upper secondary education. In this article, we refer to these paths with the concepts of study processes or just studies. The purpose was to analyze what kinds of difficulties these graduates had faced and how they coped with them. Researchers gathered data from 14 Finnish straight-A graduates by mailing a request to write an essay and by interviewing them. The results showed how the graduates' core difficulties were related to their peer relationships because of the gifted students' standing out from the crowd, pressure set by their own ambition, and the burden of wide-ranging interests. The graduates seemed to employ resource-oriented solutions when coping with adversities and difficulties-in this study, the solutions were divided into three dimensions. Based on the results, it is relevant to ask whether schools could support gifted students better by allowing mistakes and failures and supporting students to confront adversities by providing models and tools for survival. It is important to emphasize that failures and adversities are not a sign of weakness.

Sense of belonging or feeling marginalized? Using PISA 2012 to assess the state of academically gifted students within the EU

“…Salmela and Määttä (2015) found in their study that straight "A" students found it difficult to maintain their high grades and have many friends. Peterson et al (2009) focused on negative life events of gifted students over an 11-year period.…”

Finnish High-Achieving Students’ Perceptions of the Best Practices in Teaching

“…Both low-achievers and high-achievers at school need teachers who express trust, appreciation, and caring toward students by their action and enthusiasm. These features help students to tolerate and manage burdensome studies, to recognize strengths in themselves to balance the performance-related demands, and to appreciate themselves and their achievements as they are (Salmela & Määttä, 2015;Salmela & Uusiautti, 2013;; see also Peterson, Duncan, & Canady, 2009. ) There are also interventions, such as the Penn Resiliency Programme (PRP) (Seligman, Ernst, Gillham, Reivich, & Linkins, 2009) and "You Can Do It!"…”

“…Students who are willing to study and interested in learning, such as straight-A graduates are (see Salmela & Määttä, 2015;Salmela & Uusiautti, 2013;, evaluate often positively their learning environments (Pulkka & Niemivirta, 2013). These students as high-achievers are significantly above the average students' grades.…”

Nine Contradictory Observations About Girls’ and Boys’ Upbringing and Education – The Strength-Based Approach as the Way to Eliminate the Gender Gap

“…Teaching can also focus on children's strengths and talent, and promote their flourishing. The strength-based approach (Carman, 2005;Linkins et al, 2015;Salmela and Määttä, 2015;Salmela and Uusiautti, 2015;Seligman, 2015) aims this kind of flourishing and is based on research conducted within the field of positive psychology (Peterson and Seligman, 2004;Seligman et al, 2009;Bernard and Walton, 2011). Strength-based education thus leans on the idea that every human being has their signature strengths (e.g., perspective, perseverance, humanity, fairness, etc.)…”