Having had the privilege of teaching some truly exceptional students, I was prompted to ponder whether a school of a particular religious ethos had a particular vocation for such education.

‘For the sake of one child: the application of Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat’s words to twice exceptional students in the context of a Sacred Heart School.

‘For the sake of one child, I would have founded the Society’ wrote Madeleine Sophie Barat.

The words of the founder of the Religieuses du Sacré-Cœur de Jésus (RSCJ) find resonance in a Twenty-first Century educational context in which there is an endeavour to respond to individual educational needs. Attention to the needs of the one child is a charism of a Sacred Heart School and a mandate to shape teaching and learning in a manner that reflects the spirit of the teachings of the founder.

Education is recognized by Barat as presenting practitioners with challenges. There are frequent references in her 14,000 letters (Kilroy, 2000) to the challenges faced by the Sacred Heart schools and a recognition in the correspondence of a need for pedagogy that is adjusted to the needs of the individual child. Sophie Barat would have regarded schools that reflected the ethos she promoted as having a particular calling to respond to the educational needs of those described as ‘twice exceptional’.

Twice exceptional students challenge the educational culture which has been shaped by an emphasis on success in summative assessments in particular subjects. The initial exceptionality, which may be defined in terms of individual educational needs, may seem to militate against what might be deemed to be a successful outcome in terms of summative assessments, whilst the quality of giftedness, the second exceptionality, may leave the student feeling unchallenged, frustrated and alienated in a culture that may be unresponsive to needs of particular students. Reis et al. (2014) warn that:

‘These high-potential, talented students with learning and attention disabilities as well as social impairments comprise a unique population of young people who are at special risk for social/emotional difficulties and underachievement in school and subsequently in life unless educators and counselors are fully aware of their existence and needs’.

The needs of such students would have been accommodated in the vision of education espoused by Janet Erskine Stuart, who was the RSCJ superior of the Sacred Heart community at Roehampton in the closing years of the Nineteenth Century. Stuart envisaged an education at Sacred Heart schools that focused upon the student as a person rather than upon the particular accomplishments of that student. Stuart wrote:

‘What stands by us in life is, after all, discipline of mind, habits acquired, the power of steady application, and such knowledge of first principles as will enable new knowledge and experience of any kind to find its right place and true proportion in what has been already acquired. . . . We must regret that the aim in early years of education should be to reach something accomplished, instead of something well prepared, to which the analogies of all living organisms should have directed us, as well as experience of children and their needs’. (Monahan, 2019).

Stuart’s words seem to have a particular pertinence for a school shaped by the Sacred Heart ethos at the end of the first quarter of the Twenty-First Century. Stuart might have questioned the vocabulary employed in the process of summative assessment of Junior Cycle students, suggesting that the term ‘achieved’ was a reflection of something ‘accomplished’ and arguing instead that the focus should not be upon the summative, not upon the notion that something had been completed, but instead upon an ongoing process of the formative, a process that is perceived as organic, an apprehension of learning as something ongoing.

Stuart’s vision of education seems one that would have offered opportunities to students who might seek knowledge of first principles through metacognition, and who value working within a structured and secure environment.

Within a Sacred Heart school, an appropriate response to the work of Madeleine Sophie Barat and Janet Erskine Stuart would seem to be a special awareness of twice exceptional students, and to regard their education not as a challenge, but as a particular charism of the school. The most significant challenge in finding an appropriate response to the needs of twice exceptional students is not presented by the students themselves, but it is in addressing a contemporary educational culture which has been statisticized and monetized, where the focus tends to shift away from the formation of students, and switch toward education as ‘something accomplished’.

Josephson et al. (2018) propose strategies for responding to twice exceptional students that seem consonant with the desire of Stuart that knowledge and experience would find their ‘right place and true proportion’. The initial strategy they identify is to ‘emphasize the strengths of 2e students first.’ Josephson et al suggest that the implementation of this strategy requires that schools should ‘provide opportunities for student choice; allow the student multiple ways to respond to new content’.

Reis et al. (2021b) researched the academic experience of twice exceptional students. One of the themes that emerged was the importance for twice exceptional students to engage with advanced content, to be able to avail of enriched learning opportunities, and to be able to pursue interest and exercise choice. Reis et al. note that the interviews

‘consistently addressed the positive consequences of their ability to succeed in advanced classes, as well as pursue their unique interests, and complete projects that they chose’.

The positive educational experiences described by the students reflect an approach to the education of the twice exceptional that seems consistent with Stuart’s idea that knowledge should find a right place and a true proportion in the learning of the student.

Stuart regarded education as analogous to the development of living organisms and might have perceived such an analogy as being reflected in the work of van Gerven who argues:

‘Twice-exceptionality is a holistic concept referring to a situation where two exceptionalities (giftedness and a disability) coincide and interact. However, neither giftedness nor disability are homogeneous concepts. Ecological factors influence how these coinciding and interacting exceptionalities create barriers and chances for development and functioning’.

The provision of educational opportunities appropriate to the needs of twice exceptional students is perceived as an immediate necessity by Reis et al (2021b) who stress that

‘One thing is clear, unless teachers and counselors identify and develop the strengths of these students, many may fail to develop their talents and instead become underachievers frustrated with the remedial nature of the instruction and interventions they receive in school’.

Stuart would have agreed with the need for the development of students’ strengths and talents and in the case of the twice exceptional student might have felt that fostering of individual resilience and the creation of a capacity for flexibility were desirable elements of the educational experience. Stuart’s ideas may be inimical to the conventions of Twenty-First Century school leadership. In The Education of Catholic Girls, published in 1912, Stuart wrote:

The necessity for organization and foresight in detail among large numbers is also unfavourable to individual development. For children to find everything prepared for them, to feel no friction in the working of the machinery, so that all happens as it ought to, without effort and personal trouble on their part, to be told what to do, and only have to follow the bells for the ordering of their time—all this tends to diminish their resourcefulness and their patience with the unforeseen checks and cross-purposes and mistakes that they will have to put up with on leaving school. As a matter of fact the more perfect the school machinery, the smoother its working, the less does it prepare for the rutty road afterwards, and in this there is some consolation when school machinery jars from time to time in the working; if it teaches patience it is not altogether regrettable, and the little trouble which may arise in the material order is perhaps more educating than the regularity which has been disturbed.

In Stuart’s work there is a prioritization of the development of the individual student over the efficiency of the corporate entity; The Education of Catholic Girls reflects the sentiment of Barat that ‘For the sake of one child, I would have founded the Society’. Responses to the questions raised by twice exceptional students seem not only best educational practice, but an embodiment of the Sacred Heart ethos.

Josephson J., Wolfgang C., Mehrenberg R. (2018). Strategies for supporting students who are twice-exceptional. Journal of Special Education Apprenticeship, Vol. 7 :2.

van Gerven, E. (2024). Treasure Hunting for Golden Moments: A Systemic, Solution-Focused Approach for Addressing the Needs of 2e Learners. Journal for the Education of the Gifted. Vol 47:1, pp. 54-83.

Kilroy, P. (2000). Madeleine Sophie Barat, 1779-1865: A Life. Cork: Cork University Press.

Monahan, M. (2019) Life and Letters of Janet Erskine Stuart: Superior General of the Society of the Sacred Heart 1857 to 1914. London: Forgotten Books.

Reis, S.M., Gelbar, N.W. & Madaus, J.W. (2021a). Understanding the Academic Success of Academically Talented College Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. Vol. 52, pp. 4426–4439.

Reis, S.M., Renzulli, S.J. & Renzulli, J.S. (2021b). Enrichment and Gifted Education Pedagogy to Develop Talents, Gifts, and Creative Productivity. Educational Sciences. Vol. 11, pp. 615-623.

Stuart, J.E. (1912) The Education of Catholic Girls. London: Longmans.