Social inclusion is essential for every single learner in any form of education. For a long time social inclusion referred to children with special needs, as it was believed that talented learners would make their way anyway, not considering the fact that they might have problems of feeling integrated, due to their outstanding potential.
Although there are a few schools just for the gifted, the majority of schools is attended by learners with a wide range of abilities. It is a great challenge for the educators to respond to the different needs of the learners, so that each learner feels comfortable and integrated.
Most important is the awareness among educators that learners, who have higher-than-average intelligence, talent or potential should on the one hand be treated in the same way as all the other learners, on the other hand they often need other and more difficult tasks to avoid boredom, as explained in chapter “Motivation through individualization.”
These learners need praise and recognition in the same way as averagely gifted learners do. Sometimes their biggest aspiration is to be accepted by their classmates and to have friends.
So, one of the main tasks of the school and the educator is to create a learner-friendly environment, in which each learner has the opportunity to develop well, in which learners can sometimes work on their own projects and at their own personal pace. In this way the mutual understanding among learners is trained and social inclusion becomes self-evident.