“‘they find out what I can’t do, don’t want to do, and don’t like to do, and they spend the rest of the year beating me to death with it’” - former twice-exceptional student of Dr. Joseph Renzulli.

This was a moment in which Dr. Renzulli made a decision that would define his career: he committed his life’s work to find out what students:

✅ can do

✅ want to do

✅ like to do

and build authentic, interest-based learning experiences around the students, rather than the other way around.

After the launch of Sputnik in 1957, a young Dr. Renzulli, a then middle school science teacher, was put in charge of the gifted science program at his school. He was given students with 130+ IQs. The plot thickened when he snuck some quirky students in who he knew were just as bright, but were not on that list.

This led Dr. Renzulli to a major aha moment!

He realized that there were these 3 Key Factors that contributed to the students who were not on the original list of highly gifted students to do as well, if not better, than the students with the 130+ IQs!