Ungifted

Dr. Shultz is the superintendent of the Hardcastle School District. At the novel’s outset, he is Donovan’s primary antagonist. He catches Donovan after his prank results in damage to the school gym but then loses him due to Dr. Shultz’s own carelessness. The central tension of the first half of the novel is when and how Dr. Shultz will find Donovan.

At the novel’s outset, Dr. Shultz is self-involved and feels overwhelmed by his many responsibilities. His rule is that no mistakes are allowed, but he cannot help but violate such an unrealistic ideal. His stiff and unyielding persona shifts over the course of the novel. Part of this is due to Donovan’s sister, Katie, who helps Donovan’s class earn their Human Growth and Development credits by following her pregnancy. Because Katie allows it, Dr. Shultz assumes she must be a generous person with a great family. This belief cannot coexist with his view of Donovan, her brother, as a terrible person who willfully destroyed a statue and is off somewhere laughing about it. More significantly, Dr. Shultz hears repeated testimony from Donovan’s classmates that he has been a community-builder and loyal teammate. By the end of the novel, Dr. Shultz is able to see Donovan as a whole person who is capable of making mistakes (like Dr. Shultz himself) but also contributing positively to his social group.

Chloe is a student in Donovan’s class at the academy. Though gifted, she longs to be normal, which for her means feeling connected and comfortable in social situations and attending dances, parties, and sporting events. From the moment he arrives, Donovan is an object of fascination for her, a living example of the normalcy she idealizes. She recognizes that he is not gifted but values him for his social savvy and real-life problem-solving skills, which his highly intelligent classmates do not possess.

Because Chloe idealizes normalcy, she struggles to understand why Hardcastle students would sabotage the academy’s robot. Donovan explains that the regular students envy the gifted kids. Hardcastle’s facilities are “ancient ruins” compared to the academy’s gleaming solar panels, extensive vending machines, and lockers outfitted with power cords (Hardcastle students are not permitted to use electronics) (91). Through Donovan, Chloe gets a glimpse of life on the other side, and she learns that sometimes, it is okay to break the rules. After Donovan is expelled, Chloe cuts school to visit him at Hardcastle and sees for herself how easy it is for kids to get lost in the chaos of such a massive school, where no one is exceptional. 

Mr. Osborne is Donovan’s homeroom and robotics teacher at the academy. Essentially kind-hearted, Mr. Osborne is the first teacher to appreciate what Donovan brings to the classroom. Donovan may not be gifted by any measure currently in use, but he has brought an invaluable zest for experiencing life to Mr. Osborne’s classroom. When he names the robotics team’s robot, Donovan transforms the class from a collection of individuals to a cohesive team by bringing a human touch to the highly-regimented, machine-focused group. Mr. Osborne also appreciates that it was Donovan who suggested an acceptable life experience to make up the Human Growth and Development course, after the administration claimed it would exhaust every available option to find a solution but came up empty.

As much as Mr. Osborne values Donovan, he recommends he be retested and supports the superintendent’s decision to remove Donovan from the academy. At the same time, Mr. Osborne misses him as much or more than Donovan’s friends and classmates. By the end of the book, Mr. Osborne arranges for Donovan to be allowed to participate in robotics at the academy even though he remains a full-time student at Hardcastle.

Noah’s IQ is a celebrated 206, the highest of any of the narrators in Ungifted. Noah experiences his IQ as a burden. He is not allowed to be human, let alone a child. His family and teachers expect him to live up to his potential; no matter what he does, he cannot escape the relentless expectations. Worse in his view is that he does not seem capable of making mistakes, a defining characteristic of being human. This belief gives his life an unreal, scripted quality and strips away the potential for surprise and spontaneity. In his desire to escape the burden of his intelligence and others’ expectations for him, he veers toward self-destructive pursuits—jumping off a speaker tower into a crowd WWE-style, smashing a competitor’s robot with a chair—because risk and danger make him feel alive. This resonates with real-life outcomes for highly-gifted kids, but Noah’s story takes a positive turn.

After Katie gives birth to her baby, Noah discovers his intelligence is fallible: He was sure from her sonogram that she was having a boy, but the baby is a girl. Noah is elated. Knowing his family and teachers would never willingly let him leave the academy, he contrives to be expelled and attend Hardcastle with Donovan. Donovan thinks Noah is crazy, but Noah wants to face the only thing that feels like a real challenge: being a normal kid.

Ms. Bevelaqua is a math teacher at the academy. She has an antagonistic relationship with Donovan from the beginning of his attendance at the school. She does not believe he is gifted and is determined to prove he does not belong. At an early faculty meeting, she suggests the selection process somehow failed, though the school principal is adamant that such a mistake is impossible. Her relationship with Donovan is not helped by an unintentional prank: while he is driving Tin Man, the robot’s lift mechanism accidentally catches on the hem of her dress and exposes her underwear.

Ms. Bevelaqua indulges Noah though he intentionally fails the math tests she administers because she believes that his IQ aligns with her observations of him as exceptional. This is not the case with Donovan, whom she derides as not special in any way. When he passes his retest, she is determined to prove that he cheated. Realizing that the teachers are not smart enough to catch their highly-intelligent students, she attempts to intimidate a confession out of them in interviews but fails. By the end of the novel, Ms. Bevelaqua has not changed; she remains a static character.  

Katie is Donovan’s older sister. She is pregnant with her first child. Her husband is serving with the Marines in Afghanistan, so Katie has moved back in with her parents. Katie initially dismisses the academy kids as misfits and geeks. She agrees to allow them to follow her pregnancy because Donovan threatens to stop taking care of Beatrice, her husband’s beloved dog who seems ill (in reality, she is pregnant). However, as she interacts with the kids, experiences their genuine enthusiasm and support, and receives the benefits of their insatiable quest for knowledge, Katie learns to value them for who they are, as they are. When her baby is born, Katie names her Tina Mandy in homage to Tin Man, the gifted kids’ robot.