How To Handle The Playground?

Small talk with other parents is one of the great minefields of raising gifted children. Over time, gifted children may learn various social norms of blending in (we can argue whether that's a good thing or not, though they often do). But when they are little, there's no such self-consciousness. Which can make the parent feel self-conscious in her place.

I have no idea about Jasper's IQ. We are leaving NYC so we won't be finding out as part of the pre-K testing for admission to the city's gifted programs. But either way, he's a bright and curious little boy who just turned four, and has the usual interest in dinosaurs, animals and, in his particular case, writing and spelling various words.

This creates some interesting situations. The other night on the playground, Jasper worked up the courage to ask another little boy and his mom to borrow their sidewalk chalk. This was the part of the whole sequence of events I was most proud of; we've been stressing that he doesn't need my help to join another group of kids playing, or ask to share a toy or join a game. Anyway, he was drawing various things, and the mom casually asked him what he'd drawn. "A mouse!" he said. Another mother glanced over. "How nice! Oh! HE WROTE MOUSE."

And he had. I guess it could have been worse. He could have drawn and labeled a parasaurolophus. I wasn't paying much attention since I was trying to keep my 20-month-old from killing himself on the playground climbing equipment. But I was summoned over to answer how old my son was, was he in preschool, how we were getting him to sit still and write and to make matters even worse, one of the mothers started comparing Jasper to her own 4-year-old. I tried to just tried to bat it all off, primarily because Jasper can not only write, he can hear. And I don't want him to think there's anything weird about writing words with sidewalk chalk, and I don't want him comparing himself with other children.

I am curious how readers of this blog handle such situations. How do you be polite and friendly on the playground, and let your child be himself?

What Would You Tell Graduates?

It's graduation season again. I'm heading back to Princeton tomorrow for my 10 year reunion. On some level, I think "oh, I can't believe it's been that long" and then I think back through various things that have happened during that time and realize, yep, it has been a while. Since this season always inspires nostalgia, those of us who make a living dishing out career advice tend to seize the occasion to write columns and such on what grads should know. I'm curious what readers of this blog would like to tell bright young people headed out into the world. I have a few thoughts:

1. You're going to switch jobs. I work with the Princeton Alumni Council's careers committee, and every year we ask classes approaching major reunions to take a survey about their career paths. Basically, almost everyone switches jobs within the first few years out of college, with many going to graduate school 2-5 years out. That's when people become a bit more settled on career choice. So your first job should be something interesting that you'll learn a lot from, with the understanding that it's probably more of a project than anything long-term.

2. "Find your passion" is a cliche... for a reason. We ask alumni to give us their words of wisdom, and probably at least half give some version of "find your passion" or "do what you love." It's a nice sentiment, but the reason people harp on it is that we spend a lot of time working. Not the whole of our 168 hours, of course, but a lot. The difference in quality of life between people who whistle while they work and people who are counting the days until retirement is huge. As someone who's trying to build her career and her family simultaneously, I would add that loving what you do is key to getting over various obstacles that combining the two can present. When you love what you do, you keep at it, which is important because...

3. You get better with practice. I find this absolutely wonderful. I had to give an impromptu speech for something in college and it was horrible. I now actually like public speaking. I like being in front of an audience and drawing energy from them as we find common ground together. Did I change personality? No. I just practiced public speaking a lot.

4. Life is a risk. I have taken a few calculated ones over the years. Submitting that first column to USA Today as an intern who'd been on the job 6 weeks. Having it published has led to just about everything else, including, indirectly, this blog (I co-wrote Genius Denied with Jan and Bob Davidson after they read a column I wrote about gifted education in USA Today a year later... co-writing that book gave me the opportunity to write others...) Moving to NYC without a job rather than getting a regular journalism job. Spending 18 long months trying to get a contract for what later became 168 Hours. Some risks turn out well and others don't, but few calculated ones end in disaster. You have to play career fairy godmother to yourself.

5 Be like Oprah. So it's been the last few episodes of her show this week. BNET had a great column about career tips anyone who wanted to build an empire could learn from her. A few? Bet big on yourself, nurture other people's talent (hello Rachel Ray, Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil...) and never coast. Wherever you are, you can always set your sights on something bigger and better, and work to bring yourself there.

What would you tell grads that you've learned over the years?

New York City, Gifted Classes and Seats

We've made the hard decision recently to leave New York City. We're actually moving out to the Philadelphia suburbs this summer, since my husband has been working in that general region and I can (in theory) work anywhere. The idea is to have more space for our growing family and hopefully let my husband have a bit of a calmer life. So I've been watching with a bit of detachment as many parents I know have had their 4- and 5-year olds take New York City's tests for its gifted programs and over the past few weeks have gotten the results back. (If we'd stayed, Jasper would have been tested next year).

This is a huge city, and thanks to decent outreach, many thousands of children sit for the test. I think it's great that NYC tries to test so many children, and I also think it's great that New York City starts gifted education in kindergarten. In many districts, the idea is that they'll all "even out by third grade" when, allegedly, any benefit gained via hothouse parenting or any gaps created by a less-enriching home environment will have been erased. So that's when you start. But this is patently ridiculous. Any reader of this blog who lives with a highly gifted child knows that their quirks, gifts and struggles don't all come out in the wash as they get older.

The issue is that New York City has not actually created enough seats to accommodate students who meet its definition of gifted. To qualify for the city-wide gifted programs, a child needs to score in the 97th percentile nationally on the qualifying tests. This year, 1,788 children did so. There are only 250 seats in the city-wide programs (there are others in neighborhood schools...but maybe not your neighborhood school). So it is still going to be a scramble.

One can argue about where, exactly, on national standardized tests the cut-off should be set. But it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to create a program that can't accommodate all the children who qualify. When you create fewer slots, gifted education starts to be a reward as opposed to an educational intervention for children who need it. In theory, gifted education shouldn't cost more than any other class, as long as you figure a way to keep class size constant (which you could do by combining grades or in NYC where schools may be close together, combining programs at one of the schools). So it's unclear why the situation is what it is. But hopefully, as this massive school system starts to change in other ways, the powers that be will think about this issue as well.

A Global Science Fair

Intel just announced the winners of the annual International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). I attended this fair when it was held in Atlanta in 2008, and it's certainly a step up from the usual vinegar volcanoes and plants grown in different conditions. You can read about this year's winners here.

Two interesting highlights? One, this is truly an international fair. Three Thai students won a $50,000 award for designing a new type of plastic out of fish scales. Southeast Asia is not short on fish, so this is a fun development (although apparently the bowls can't yet survive the microwave, so the team is tweaking the design). $50,000 will go a long way in Thailand, so it's cool to see science being rewarded there, and for students from various countries to be exposed to their peers in others.

Finally, Taylor Wilson of Reno, NV won Intel's Young Scientist Award for his project which figures out a low-cost way to detect nuclear material. Wilson's work is receiving funding from the Department of Homeland Security which (shockingly!) sees an application for this idea -- possibly in the Port of Newark close to my home. Anyway, Wilson is a student at the Davidson Academy, housed at the University of Nevada at Reno. One of the selling points of this school for gifted young students is that you can devote serious time to long-term, independent projects. We're certainly seeing the payoff from that now.

Gifted Education: Not A Smart Idea?

Over at the Globe and Mail, economist Frances Woolley wrote about some recent research into the performance of gifted students on No Child Left Behind tests. The conclusion of the research was that there were no outsized gains for these students who were just barely identified as gifted on NCLB tests... and therefore, according to the headline, gifted education may not be a smart idea.

I think Woolley and the researchers are completely missing the point.

I understand the befuddlement. An unfortunately high percentage of gifted programs don’t really offer accelerated work for gifted students. They send them on field trips or into resource rooms where you learn about mythology or some such enrichment topic. What gifted students need is academic work that challenges them to the extent of their abilities. An unfortunate number of gifted programs, operating under the idea that the gifted label is a "reward," also set the bar in a place where many kids whose needs could be served in a regular classroom qualify as gifted. We should not be particularly surprised that there are not huge gains there, or that some of these students might struggle in gifted programs that actually are challenging.

(Regular readers of this blog will also get a good laugh out of the idea that gifted kids get "more educational resources coming their way").

But most of my readers here are dealing with situations where a child would score in the 99th percentile on a grade level test. Put her in a gifted program and, guess what, she’ll still score at the 99th percentile. Because that’s as high as grade level tests go! But a good gifted program may actually allow her to interact with peers on a similar level, and do challenging work, as opposed to grade level work that she mastered years before that leaves her bored to tears. What's so dumb about that?

[Deleting the part about Carleton College -- as it's Carleton in Canada, not in US.]

Is "Most Likely To Succeed" A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy? Or Burden?

Sue Shellenbarger's Work & Family column at the Wall Street Journal today covered a fascinating topic: is the "Most Likely To Succeed" label a burden? For decades, graduating senior classes have voted on which classmate would be running the world at some unspecified future point. The people who win this award tend to be popular, smart and ambitious, which generally does bode well for one's performance in the labor market, according to Christy Lleras, a professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana, who's studied this topic. Shellenbarger cites Lleras's study, published in Social Science Research in 2008, finding that people who'd won this award earned 12% more than their peers 10 years later. A different survey by MemoryLane.com found that about 4 in 10 most-likely-to-succeed winners viewed the label as an inspiration.

On the other hand, about a third viewed it as a curse. Clearly not everyone who wins the most-likely-to-succeed label will have a stunning career. People may have mixed feelings about their careers in the first place, but when you add in the pressure that your classmates once expected you to achieve high school definitions of success, it can feel even worse.

I've been thinking of this in light of gifted students and their later career development. Many gifted students clearly feel a lot of pressure to succeed, much of it self-inflicted. When you're young, everything is possible -- you'll win the Nobel Prize in physics and the presidency, and publish best-sellers and perform piano on the stage of Carnegie Hall! Later on, not only do most of us have to specialize, many soon learn that success of the people-have-heard-of-you variety requires other skills beyond sheer genius. Persistence. Risk-taking. Long-term goal setting, etc. These are important skills too, but not necessarily ones we think of cultivating during the school years.

Anyway, I'm curious how people talk with their gifted kids about goals and career aspirations. Do you encourage total dreaming, or ever talk about the practical side as well?

Leaving High School Early... With Credentials

The New York Times (hat tip to GE reader Twin Mom) had an interesting piece the other day about a program in Texas allowing kids who've demonstrated enough subject mastery to receive a certificate that can be traded in for a high school diploma. The standards for the certificate are set by the state's top two universities, Texas A&M and the University of Texas, and while it doesn't guarantee that a kid will be admitted to either, the idea is that the certificate shows she'd meet their criteria. That makes it a definite step above the GED (which adults can test for at later points in life) which, while certainly helpful for employment and community college enrollment, isn't treated quite the same as a diploma -- and certainly not a diploma that indicates you could have qualified for Texas A&M or UT.

I think this is a great idea, and I'm surprised the idea isn't more widespread. What is the point of high school, after all? Is it to impart to children a certain volume of knowledge (academics and citizenship) or is it a holding tank until they turn 18? If the former, then there's no reason that people who've demonstrated that they've learned what they're supposed to learn can't move on. Finishing high school early allows one to finish college early, and then pursue graduate education or other things, without the often compressed 20s timeline dragged on schooling offers.

Does anyone know of any other states looking into a similar idea?

If Not Gifted, What?

There's an interesting discussion going on in the Title Nine post that I thought deserved its own thread. Namely, what word or words should we use to describe giftedness? Many people (including people who advocate for gifted education) don't like the word "gifted" though it's short and, at this point, pretty universally recognized for what it is. The word does invite criticism -- aren't we all gifted in some fashion? Other kinds of giftedness are sometimes qualified, like "athletically gifted" or "musically gifted" or perhaps for the models among us, "aesthetically gifted." Some folks use "intellectually gifted" to qualify it, or "academically gifted" which is probably the least offensive, though it raises questions too. After all, some gifted children aren't actually that good in school.

I've long blogged about using the words "readiness grouping" instead of "ability grouping" to talk about organizing classes into people who are prepared to handle certain material. It has nothing to do with age or innate talents. We all work at different paces and should be challenged to the extent possible. But I'm not sure what word is better than gifted, which is why I use it, and I'm sure many others do, too. I'm curious if people have great suggestions for other phrases that convey the same point.

Title Nine and Gifted Kids

I get lots of catalogs in the mail, one of which happens to be Title Nine, a maker of women's athletic clothing. I opened the current edition to see founder Missy Park listing "My definition of insanity." It was an 8 part list, with such things as "Any diet with one ingredient," and "our tax code" and... "'Gifted' children...How do they know??"

It's a bit puzzling, really. I mean, there are several ways they know. Some children really do exhibit exceptional intellectual abilities, at a very young age. And if that's not enough, there are multiple tests that have been rigorously prepared and studied that can ascertain when someone's IQ is outside the norm and there is a high probability he/she will need accommodations to meet her academic needs.

But of course, I think Park was coming at this from the perspective that it is patently absurd. Who could fathom such a thing as "gifted" children? I am quite curious what she thinks of the comments that several Davidson Institute bulletin board readers left on the online version of the list. I can sympathize to a degree. When I worked for Reader's Digest, writing the "Only in America" section, I once made a mocking list of "Museums Not To Build Your Vacation Around." I included a mustard museum, with the snarky line "thousands of mustards, not a hot dog in sight." Suddenly, there was a letter writing campaign to Reader's Digest from fans of this particular mustard museum. Dozens upon dozens. I kid you not. I was surprised, and I imagine Park is surprised that what she considered a throwaway line drew such ire.

On the other hand, I think giftedness is well enough established in educational research and pedagogy that it doesn't need quote marks around it. I do wonder why a catalog going after women who think it's OK to bust the norm (on the athletic side of things) would insult children who are busting the norm on another side of things. It's as if someone scoffed "Athletic children... how do they know??" Well... look at someone like Tiger Woods. That's how they know.

For AP Students, a New Classroom is Online

The Wall Street Journal has a fascinating article on the rise in online AP classes. The number of students taking Advanced Placement classes has soared -- with just shy of 2 million expected to sit for exams this spring, up more than 100% from 2000. However, not all schools can offer a full slate of such classes, and in an era of budget cuts, AP classes (which are often smaller than others even as the number of interested students has risen) are ripe targets. But given how standardized these classes are, there's no real reason that you have to be in a physical classroom with a teacher. A few states have charter schools that offer online versions of the classes, and there are national companies, the WSJ reports, that also allow students to enroll for a fee: Advanced Academics ($425 for a one-semester AP class), Apex Learning, Aventa Learning, Florida Virtual School, etc.

Online learning is tricky to get right. As reporter Sue Shellenbarger notes, "One potential drawback for socially connected teens: taking an advanced placement course online seems to require advanced placement time-management skills." It's hard to focus when Facebook and Twitter are one click away! Nonetheless, preliminary comparisons find that students who take online classes do just as well as students who take in-person ones.

I think this is a great trend, as the rise in online learning allows students to break through traditional barriers to taking advanced classes. A school system might balk at shuttling a 7th grader over to a high school for AP US History or AP Calculus, but no one can see how young you look online. Virtual learning is a great way for kids in rural areas to take classes that would otherwise be unaffordable for a small high school. And on the margins, it starts to change the notion that school is something you do in a certain building, with people of a certain age, during certain hours. That's a win for gifted students. I'm curious if any readers of this blog have incorporated online AP courses into their children's individualized learning plans.

Should Science Be Part of NCLB?

I know that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is not particularly popular within the gifted education community. The law definitely provides a convenient excuse for districts to divert resources from programs for advanced students -- something many seem to want to do anyway. But given that it's unlikely to be gutted, here's a different question: should science be part of NCLB?

Science teachers claim that, particularly at the elementary school level, schools have decided to spend much less time on science instruction since NCLB focuses on math and reading. On one hand, math and reading are pretty foundational, and lay the groundwork for all other subjects. Schools may be spending less time on science, but there are probably other neglected, important subjects too (like foreign languages, history, civics, etc.) that are losing time because of NCLB. Why just science?

On the other hand, broadening the standards movement to include other important subjects has upsides too, and science is certainly an important one. What is measured gets taught. The only way that some schools will start doing lab experiments with young kids is if they know it matters to their bottom lines and reputations. But will standardized tests actually cover scientific knowledge? Hard to know! I'm curious what readers of this blog think.

Google Enters The Science Fair Scene

Young scientists wishing to compete on a national (or international) stage have lots of options these days: The Davidson Fellows program, the Intel Science Talent Search, the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology, and ... Google.

Yes, Google has created a Google Global Science Fair (accepting applications until midnight eastern tonight!) for young scientists to demonstrate their experiments. Google hopes to differentiate its program by being strongly virtual: students upload information about their projects, and lots of people will be able to see what's been entered and judged. The vast majority of humanity will never attend a science fair in a conference center or school gymnasium, but people might check out a cool uploaded video on YouTube (hopefully demonstrating something more profound than the whole baking soda and vinegar volcano bit, but hey, the Diet Coke and Mentos video was pretty popular, so you never know...) The prizes also sound like fun, including a trip to Switzerland and a visit to the Galapagos islands.

The New York Times had a somewhat skeptical article about the contest a few days ago, asking if this was a bit of a marketing ploy to get young people hooked on Google's office products, but I figure hey, the more options the better! Anything that makes science more lucrative and interesting for young people is probably a good thing.

Differentiation, Tracking and Challenge

A recent feature story in the Quad City Times discusses a new "integration" program at North Scott High School that did away with honors classes for freshmen. In their place, students at varying levels of preparation take classes together. Teachers are charged with differentiating within the class. As one teacher puts it, her kids can choose "straightforward" or "hilly" or "mountainous" work. You can read the article (worthwhile, by the way) by following this link.

As long-time readers of this blog may guess, the results have been...mixed. Teachers who have done a lot of training in differentiation, and who are teaching subjects where it's more possible (like social studies) do OK with it. Others struggle quite a bit. As the language arts teacher points out, the most obvious way to differentiate would be to have everyone read the same novel then do different projects with it. But she has such varying reading levels within her class that this is hard to pull off. And some students, as she notes, aren't that into class. Dealing with those discipline issues holds everyone back.

What I find fascinating is the rationale for this de-tracking experiment. According to the article, "Administrators are hoping the end result will be more students signing up for Advanced Placement, or AP, classes." In the past, apparently, only the kids in the honors classes would take AP classes. But why is the solution to this to do away with such classes? An equally obvious solution, to me, would have been to offer more rigorous preparation within the other tracks. It doesn't seem clear why the presence of honors students in general classes would suddenly inspire others to sign up for AP classes later on in their high school careers. More, this seems to me like another excuse to get rid of the readiness grouping which many educators dislike anyway. By framing it in terms of increasing enrollment in AP it gives the movement a little push. But I'd be fascinated to see if rates of students scoring above a 4 or 5 on the AP tests they take go up significantly.

"Treating Students As Gifted," Giftedness and Assumptions

It has become fashionable, of late, to claim that giftedness is purely a construct. Children learn at different paces, and some kids who enter school ahead of others will later regress toward the mean and others will catch up. IQ has nothing to do with success, etc. We have heard all these arguments.

So I'm not surprised to see the spin on recent research out of Duke University, which finds that, "Schools that seek to help students who are underrepresented in advanced programs should treat them as gifted young scholars, an approach that can result in many of them actually performing at a gifted level within a few years." Project Bright Idea put thousands of young students through what the researchers deemed as "techniques usually reserved for gifted classrooms." Net result? 15-20% of students (and in many cases more) later reached the bar for academic giftedness, compared with 10% of a similar group.

So is gifted education a fraud? Not at all. These "techniques usually reserved for gifted classrooms" turn out to look a lot like...good teaching. According to the press release, "The project requires teachers to undergo regular and intensive training, energizing their profession and their classrooms by weaving together teaching strategies based on the work of national education experts... 'We are literally changing the knowledge, skills and dispositions of teachers so they believe children can learn. It is a lot about teacher expectation and belief,' said Mary N. Watson, the director of the exceptional children division of the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, who helped develop the project. In workshops and week-long summer institutes, teachers in the project are taught by national and state-level experts on how to develop students’ thinking and skills such as controlling impulsivity, posing questions and taking responsible risks."

I am not surprised that energized teachers who focus on developing students' thinking skills and controlling impulsivity get good results. I wish all teachers did this, and there's really no reason they shouldn't. If people think this is unique to gifted education, I think they misunderstand the whole idea.

But beyond that, the press release wasn't clear on how students were later identified as gifted, but the fact that 10% of students were identified as such even in the control suggests it may learn toward one of those very broad definitions that get gifted education in trouble. And I worry that the definition may be even broader. This research was funded by the Jacob Javits grant, which, as I wrote back in 2008, had been re-steered to fund programs that solved this problem, per literature from the Department of Education: "In 2007, 32 percent of all 4th grade public school students scored at or above the proficient level in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, compared to only 17 percent of students who are eligible for free or reduced price lunch under the National School Lunch program (i.e., students who are economically disadvantaged), 13 percent of students with disabilities, and 7 percent of students with limited English proficiency. Students from these three groups are significantly underrepresented at or above proficient levels on the 8th grade reading and 4th and 8th grade mathematics assessments." The idea was to find programs that can bring at-risk students up to the top third on standardized tests.

Which is great -- and definitely a worthy endeavor. But not necessarily what gifted education is about. To my mind, gifted education is about meeting the needs of children who are so far outside the norm that they can't be readily accommodated in good classes. All children should be treated as bright, capable scholars. All children should be challenged and their teachers should demand their best. But that has little to do with giftedness.

Early Enrollment: On The Rise?

The Davidson Institute graciously sends me a round-up of headlines from gifted and education news every week or so. These stories are usually all over the map -- a profile of a contest winner here, a closure of a gifted program there, often a Jay Mathews column -- but this week there seemed to be a ton of pieces on early or dual enrollment.

The basic idea is that sometimes course work is offered at the high school level or college level that isn't offered at the level below it, and sometimes students are ready for more advanced work in certain subjects, while still desiring a similar-aged peer group. Especially if educational institutions are near each other (a middle school is across the street from a high school; a community college is around the corner from both), why not allow students to take classes at any institution they want?

In Colorado, students can enroll simultaneously in community college and high school classes. The number of students taking college classes, according to this article in the Denver Post, has risen to 6,473 in 2010 from 1,750 five years ago.

Meanwhile in Chicago, according to a brief write-up in the Chicago Tribune, officials are moving toward a gifted middle school program that would enroll 7th graders, and allow them early admission to Lane Tech High School, one of the city's top public schools.

Over in Michigan, another article from ABC local news talks about a Carrollton program which partners with Delta College to allow students to enroll simultaneously in both. Students can graduate in four years with both a high school diploma and an associate's degree. If that's where you want to stop, you already have a credential for job hunting. If you wish to go on to a 4-year college, you can save lots of cash by having the first two years paid for.

Indeed, there are now so many dual enrollment programs in operation that the National Consortium of Early College Programs, which takes a slightly different tack, met last fall to "provide clarity of the traditional mission and purpose of early college." These programs, like Mary Baldwin's Program for the Exceptionally Gifted and Simon's Rock College, have students leave or skip high school completely to enroll in a 4-year college program.

I think all these programs have their places. The community college dual enrollment programs are sometimes aimed at helping at-risk students develop career interests but they can work perfectly fine for gifted high school or middle school students who want more enrichment and advanced course work too. And then some students are prepared to sail over high school, and so traditional early college programs are a great option for them. All of these are great options. And broadly, they help the public and the educational establishment see that just because you are 13-14 years old doesn't mean you have to be in 8th grade, learning a set group of things that only 8th graders are supposed to learn. Better to use all a community's resources.

Standards vs. Personalized Education

I apologize for the lapse of time between my last post and now. I'm deep in the weeds on book writing at the moment, which is always fun. It is the experience that feels most like "flow" for me -- the word that references being completely engrossed in one's work and unaware of time. I start in the morning, look at the clock and it is 4pm. Good stuff.

But anyway, I am emerging a bit tonight! I just read an interesting essay by Ronald Wolk in Education Week arguing that the pursuit of common, high standards is a waste of time. You can read the essay by following this link. Instead, education needs to be more personalized. On one level this is a very appealing idea, especially as we completely leave the factory era. Once, standardization was a virtue, everyone focused on the same thing. Now, every major employer seems to be searching for people who "think outside the box." Personalized education also recognizes that all children learn differently, and at different paces. In the context of this blog, personalized education recognizes that some children learn a lot faster than others, and that age has no more to do with what work you're ready for than height.

On the other hand... after reading Wendy Kopp's A Chance To Make History, I'm a little wary (as she is) of silver bullets in education in general. Personalized education is good, and so is some amount of testing. It's really hard to solve a problem if you can't even diagnose it, and Wolk's complete aversion to testing is a good way to create a world of no standards. Also, does he think that top-down teaching is even the norm anymore? Education schools everywhere are gripped by a "child-centered" approach to learning where we all discover the Pythagorean theorem on our own. That's one idea, or you can recognize that children don't know much, and need information crammed into their little brains. That's a big reason I read books -- to learn things I don't know. It's also why I attend speeches, which is roughly the equivalent of teacher lectures.

So my general thought is... all things in moderation. Yes, we need more personalization. We also need high standards, and probably some assessments too. All of this can work together to create a better education system than we have now.

The Write Start and Rip the Page

Long time Gifted Exchange readers know that nurturing the talents of writers is one of my biggest interests within gifted education. Often, we focus on talented young mathematicians as the obvious geniuses among us, and schools in general are more prepared to do acceleration in math than in other subjects. But good writing also requires training, discipline and challenge.

So I thought I'd share two books that crossed my desk over the past year (after their publisher, Trumpeter, sent them to me). The Write Start, by Jennifer Hallissy, features a series of activities designed to make young children comfortable expressing themselves in words. These include everything from writing love notes and press releases to making scrapbooks. Each activity can be adapted for four levels of young children: scribblers (very little ones), spellers (those who can write their letters), storytellers (those who can express ideas in writing), and scholars ("writers who have also become readers"). Hallissy is a pediatric occupational therapist, and believes that pen/pencil/crayon writing is a very important brain development step for young children. Since I learned writing and reading back in 1984 with an early computer program called Writing to Read, I tend to think that learning to write on computers is fine too. But either way, the more children come to believe that writing is fun, the better.

What happens once they get older? That's where Rip the Page! by Karen Benke comes in. This book for 8-12 year olds is billed as "adventures in creative writing." Children do various activities such as re-writing cliches, writing fortunes for Chinese fortune cookies, composing acrostic poems, writing a biography for a color, and writing in the same style as different poets. All can spark the imagination, and hopefully will start young writers in creating their own longer stories.

How have you nurtured your young writers?

Disability, Asperger's and software coding

I read a fascinating piece over at ZDNET asking this question: Does Asperger's make you a better software coder?

Adults with Asperger's, like adults with many kinds of disabilities, face discrimination in the job market. An interviewer may be turned off by a lack of eye contact or an inability to read social cues. And in office situations that call for a lot of group interaction, these may be real problems.

But what if you're interviewing for a job that requires profound attention to detail, and a methodical ability to follow exact guidelines? Then the personality traits associated with Asperger's might actually be a benefit. I don't know how this winds up working in real companies, but it's a good reminder that what is perceived as a disability is sometimes just a difference. None of us are normal, when you think about it.

California gifted programs on the block

Flexibility sounds like a good thing. In tight times, local school districts need to be able to use their stretched funds to cover their most pressing needs. But as anyone who's followed the issue of gifted education will suspect, educating highly intelligent children is rarely deemed a pressing need.

According to a recent New York Times piece (done in conjunction with The Bay Citizen), in California, a quick glance would make someone think that California funding for gifted education had only fallen a bit in recent years: from $46.8 million in 2008-2009 to $44.2 million in 2009-2010. But, as the article notes, "those numbers obscure a more important change: in February 2009, the California Legislature adopted a plan that allowed public schools to divert state money for gifted children to “any educational purpose,” including closing budget deficits."

And the diversion happened like a stampede. According to the article, "A study by the state Legislative Analyst’s Office, released last May, found that 68 percent of the 231 school districts surveyed had shifted resources away from education for gifted students since lawmakers approved the measure."

So there we go. Left to their own devices, only 32% of districts actually think that money appropriated for gifted education should go to gifted education. I know statistics like this are why many gifted education advocates believe that the only thing that will make gifted education a priority is a national mandate with teeth, similar to the one that exists for students with disabilities. As a generally fiscally conservative person, I'm always wary of mandates, and arguments that the things that I think the government should spend money on are somehow more worthy than things other people think the government should spend money on. Still, statistics like this are incredibly frustrating. It is hard to envision a more shortsighted policy than cutting gifted programs because, hey, that seems like the easiest way to solve the problem of paying this month's electricity bill.

Long term, this mindset will need to be attacked on a few fronts. First, gifted education advocates need to work with teachers colleges to expose more teachers to the needs and diversities of gifted students, and ways of meeting their needs. Right now, too many educators see gifted education as something for, as Mara Sapon-Shevin once wrote, "the kids with disposable income."

Second, gifted education itself needs to be yanked away from a reliance on short pull-out programs -- the worst of which involve doing something like taking the gifted kids to a science museum on a Friday when no one else gets to go. Everyone can benefit from enrichment and field trips, and 45 minutes of pull-out twice a week do little to truly challenge a gifted child. Acceleration is a great idea. So is broad based grouping by ability (or readiness, as we like to say here). Gifted education should not be seen as a reward. It needs to be seen as an educational intervention for kids who need it.

And finally, we need some high profile champions. Surely, some folks in the California legislature, in politics generally, in industry, in the arts, in journalism, were in gifted programs as young people and saw benefits from them. If this sounds like you, please step up and let the world know!

Grouping ... by distance

I studied abroad for a semester in Australia back in college, so I can attest that it is a rather vast country. A bus trip from Alice Springs to Darwin took several days, much of it through a vast and strange landscape filled with rocks, some desert scrub, and not much else. Of course, as in America, people live in the craziest outposts, and they have kids. And the kids need to be educated. And some children in small towns around Australia are gifted. How can the education system meet their needs?

One approach is distance learning. An article in the Central Western Daily called "Distance no barrier for gifted scholars" discusses the growth of the xsel Virtual Selective High School. Drawing students from an area the size of Germany, they can listen to lectures, and interact with teachers and classmates.

I think this is a great development, though I know that distance learning is often hard to get right. There is something very human about feeling closer to people when we see them face to face. I would imagine it is hard, as a teacher, not to feel more attuned to the children in front of you, rather than those elsewhere. On the other hand, as virtual conferencing software gets better, it can actually be done to a point where it looks like the people really are in front of you. It remains to be seen whether better technology will trick our brains into believing we are really there, but gifted education is a great thing to start with. After all, if the children aren't served virtually, they probably won't be served at all, unless they're willing to leave home for boarding school.