Today in our interview series we have Carolyn K., the host of Hoagies' Gifted Education Pages. Twelve years ago, this mom began compiling links to gifted education resources and articles. She called the page Hoagies because her husband's nickname had been Hoagies in high school and college, and so she became known as Mrs. Hoagies, and so the webpage became a Hoagie family effort. If you want to know why his nickname was Hoagies...you'll just have to go check out the webpage.
These days, if you're the parent of a newly identified gifted child and you go online to Google "gifted education," Hoagies is the first place you'll land. She joins us today.
GE: Who should check out Hoagies?
CK: Hoagies' Page is for everyone who knows a gifted child... Or is one! Hoagies' is divided into three parts: Parents; Teachers, Administrators, Counselors and other professionals; and Gifted Kids & Teens. The Parents and Teachers pages are full of articles and annotated links to other resources on just about every subject in gifted education: Identification, Parenting, Gifted Programs, Differentiation, Free Online High School Courses, Twice Exceptional Children, and hundreds more. Resources include research, professional resources and parent success stories, by authors including Miraca Gross, David Elkind, Kathi Kearney and dozens of others.
The Kids & Teens pages are lesser known... 20+ pages of child-safe links by topic, from Art to Space, Brain Teasers to Math, even a page of fun Multiplication links for practice. Plus the Hot Topics Reading List - a different kind of reading list, organized by topic then reading level, with topics including Early Readers, Math, Science, Biography, Classics, Cartoons, History, Puzzles, Social Stuff, Being Gifted, and more! There are also 15 pages of Toys and Games that gifted kids love, featuring many small toy companies who have developed great games that you won't find on the shelves of your local store; a page of Software titles that gifted kids love for more than just a day; Movies featuring gifted kids in a positive light;
Magazines; Contests; and even Nerd Shirts - those great T's featuring pithy sayings or likenesses of your favorite nerd.
Hoagies' Gifted Education Page is for everyone!
GE: You've been at this for 12 years (a lifetime on the web) - what have you learned while building and maintaining your portal? Anything you were surprised by? Is the web changing much about gifted kids and education?
CK: I have learned that there's still not a lot of information out in the
public on gifted kids. Most pre-service education programs don't teach about gifted children at all, and teachers come out of school with no knowledge of gifted, or worse, with misconceptions. Counselors, psychologists, and physicians, too! It's up to these professionals to learn about gifted kids after their formal education. The good news is, there are a *lot* more books and other resources than there were 12 years ago.
I've learned that parents of the gifted often feel alone and isolated. That's how I felt 12 years ago, and that's how many parents who write me feel today. The internet allows us to find information, but more important, to find each other. It's so relieving to learn that we are not alone!
The web has changed a lot, for those who use its resources, but I'm always surprised when I go to a conference and the majority of the attendees have never heard of Hoagies' Page, or worse, any of the resources that Hoagies' Page points to on the 'net.
Technically, I've learned the importance of keeping content fresh, keeping old links correct, and keeping the site looking new but quick and easy to load for folks still on slow connections in rural areas.
So far Hoagies' Page has been able to avoid accepting any paid advertising but I'm not sure that can continue; it must start to pay for itself. Our only income is through our affiliates programs... Visitor purchases made through our links to Amazon, Discovery Toys, Barnes & Noble and dozens of other affiliates (click here) on (the site) don't cost visitors anything, but support Hoagies' Page with a few pennies on each purchase.
GE: Any stories from readers that moved you? Has Hoagies made a difference?
CK: I get stories every week from parents, teachers, gifted adults and even teens who've benefited from Hoagies' Page. Compliments are always welcome.
"Your web site is totally impressive and you've gotten to be an expert yourself along the way, in MANY areas related to gifted." -- Peggy
"I want to thank you for Hoagies. If not for your website,
I wouldn't have found the GDC, my daughter wouldn't have been tested, I wouldn't know about Nation Deceived, I wouldn't know that there are other kids much like her, and she'd still be on the edge of a total breakdown, miserable at school." -- J.K.
"I first write to thank you for your tremendous website! This past year, I feel like I have passed through "Gifted 101" to "Doctoral Thesis in Gifted Ed!" Until last year, I had only "mythological" knowledge of the term "gifted." I came into a situation where I felt compelled to advocate strongly for my oldest daughter. I know I could never have done so successfully without all of the wonderful information you offer on your site." -- A Mom from Pennsylvania.
Here are a few of the most heart-warming stories:
"Without Hoagies, my entire family would certainly be MUCH worse off, and my local schools would still be badly damaging ALL the gifted students attending them. If the impact has been anywhere near as great in other places, the good resulting from Hoagies is IMMENSE!" -- Margaret
"I have you to thank for my not only being able to recognize and accept that I have a gifted child, but understand why I always felt like such an oddball my entire life - because I too am GT" -- Sarah
"I just wanted to send you a great big THANK YOU from Australia. About 5 years ago, in total frustration I sent in a couple of lines of text about my PG son literally being taught to twiddle his thumbs in 4th grade. Sensing my distress you wrote a lovely personal email to me validating my feelings about the lack of education my son was getting. Your website was a catalyst for us taking the leap into the last 4 years of homeschooling and it has been a joyous decision for our family. A few weeks ago my son started studying at a University in Sydney after completing the educational requirements and interviews for early entry. He is now a fulfilled happy young man and I am eternally grateful to you as you gave us the knowledge and courage to create the educational environment our son needed. Best Wishes."-- Trish
All these stories really encourage me to keep going. If I can help just one person each week, it's worth it. I think Hoagies' Page has made a difference.
GE: What's the biggest misperception about gifted kids (or their parents?)
CK: I'd say the largest misperception is that gifted kids already have "too much," and don't deserve anything different in their education. I think ALL kids need an appropriate education, and now that we're focusing on the lower-achieving kids (which is a good thing!) many schools are ignoring the high-achieving kids. And I think the solution is simple: let's educate ALL kids starting where they are and moving forward at their pace. Every child deserves to learn every day, every week, every year.
And the parents? There's a mis-conception that we're just pushy parents, that our kids are no different, it's just that we're pushing because we think our kids are "better" than everyone else. Gifted kids aren't better, they're just different. And sure, some parents are pushy, but most of us are just desperate to help our kids grow up happy and healthy. Learning is a big part of all kids' lives; gifted kids need to be happy and healthy in learning, too. That's what all parents want; parents of the gifted are no different.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Facets of Gifted Education: Richard Whitmire
In our continuing conversation with people involved in different aspects of education, we turn today to Richard Whitmire. Whitmire long served as the education editorial writer for USA Today, writing "voice of the paper" editorials. He recently finished a book manuscript about the challenges boys face in school.
GE: What's the most surprising change you've seen in education during your time covering it?
Whitmire: The acceptance of the fact that far more students -- including minority students from low performing high schools -- need at least some college is a huge change. Before, we could rely on the best and brightest from private and suburban schools to fuel our economy, but both the economy and the nation's demographics have changed. Trying to turn that corner is what the education reform movement is all about. It appears likely to go on for years.
GE: Do you think most education reporters are interested in gifted issues? What would make them more interested?
Whitmire: I think reporters like to write about gifted child programs mostly because they have high readership appeal. Either your own child is gifted, you think your child is gifted or you resent the children who were pulled out for gifted programs -- any of those categories will guarantee readership. At the same time I think reporters are very cynical about these programs -- lots of "Volvo brigade" jokes. Frankly, those jokes are partly warranted. School districts often treat the programs as something they need to do for parents rather than something they ought to be doing.
GE: Tell us a little bit about the book you have coming out.
Whitmire: Why Boys Fail, due this fall, is a reporter's take on the boys issue. Because the federal government continues to duck the issue, the entire field has been turned over to psychologists, psychiatrists, ideologues and others who have books to sell, lectures to be paid for, etc. I'm not saying their theories are wrong, but I do think there's a central cause for the problem, a cause that's already been identified in countries such as England and Australia where government investigators have stepped in. In short, what they've found is the world has become more verbal but boys haven't. The failure by schools to help boys adjust to the early verbal demands placed on them (today's preschool is yesterday's second grade) is the core problem. The other stuff -- video games, rap music, etc. -- is chaff.
GE: What's the most surprising change you've seen in education during your time covering it?
Whitmire: The acceptance of the fact that far more students -- including minority students from low performing high schools -- need at least some college is a huge change. Before, we could rely on the best and brightest from private and suburban schools to fuel our economy, but both the economy and the nation's demographics have changed. Trying to turn that corner is what the education reform movement is all about. It appears likely to go on for years.
GE: Do you think most education reporters are interested in gifted issues? What would make them more interested?
Whitmire: I think reporters like to write about gifted child programs mostly because they have high readership appeal. Either your own child is gifted, you think your child is gifted or you resent the children who were pulled out for gifted programs -- any of those categories will guarantee readership. At the same time I think reporters are very cynical about these programs -- lots of "Volvo brigade" jokes. Frankly, those jokes are partly warranted. School districts often treat the programs as something they need to do for parents rather than something they ought to be doing.
GE: Tell us a little bit about the book you have coming out.
Whitmire: Why Boys Fail, due this fall, is a reporter's take on the boys issue. Because the federal government continues to duck the issue, the entire field has been turned over to psychologists, psychiatrists, ideologues and others who have books to sell, lectures to be paid for, etc. I'm not saying their theories are wrong, but I do think there's a central cause for the problem, a cause that's already been identified in countries such as England and Australia where government investigators have stepped in. In short, what they've found is the world has become more verbal but boys haven't. The failure by schools to help boys adjust to the early verbal demands placed on them (today's preschool is yesterday's second grade) is the core problem. The other stuff -- video games, rap music, etc. -- is chaff.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Kyle Hutzler, 2008 Davidson Fellow, on school reform
We're continuing in our Facets of Gifted Education series with Kyle Hutzler, a 2008 Davidson Fellow. Hutzler, a junior at Huntingtown High School in Huntingtown, MD, won a $10,000 scholarship in the "outside-the-box" category for a paper on education reform, and what Americans expect of their schools. He joins us today.
GE: What were the big findings of your paper?
HUTZLER: My paper argued that choice, accountability, and school autonomy are complementary pillars of effective school reform. Using this as my guide, I wrote a comprehensive policy paper that proposed a national framework designed to unify our educational standards, afford successful schools more autonomy in defining their curriculum, focus, and operations, provide greater tools and mechanisms to improve our underperforming schools, and empower students and parents to choose the school that is best for them. Tuition would be paid for by the federal government based on metrics designed to encourage schools to teach beyond the test. In essence, my paper centers on redefining the definition of what "public" schools are, which should be, in my opinion, independent, non-profit, free, competitive, and accountable institutions.
GE: What would you advise President Obama to focus on from an education perspective?
HUTZLER: While my paper emphasizes a national, federal-led "grand bargain" for education reform, many of its proposals can implemented independently and concurrently by the federal and local governments. From a national perspective, we should continue to move towards coherent, unified standards that reflect a united democratic and economic interest in a quality education that transcends the haphazard standards of individual states.
GE: Locally, what's most important for governors and local school boards to focus on?
HUTZLER: State and local governments can work at the same time to enhance school autonomy and promote individual choice. The latter is important not only for its recognition of education as one of our most important rights, but also because it introduces market mechanisms that (if coordinated with the proper incentives) spur underperforming schools to improve. On a more individual level, I proposed in my paper that as part of the tuition and accountability structure, outstanding schools should be given strong incentives to recruit students from underperforming schools – an opportunity unavailable without some degree of choice and autonomy. Freeing up the labor market for teachers is just as important, allowing schools to price talent for what it is really worth and attract the diverse, qualified "new army" that President Obama seeks.
GE: What's the worst educational idea you've seen floating around?
HUTZLER: In my paper, I refer to the No Child Left Behind Act as the educational equivalent of the Articles of Confederation. There should be no mistake that NCLB is flawed, but a reversion to the aimless system that proceeded it, as some argue, would be far more dangerous. Moving beyond NCLB to achieve the duality of national standards and funding coupled with independent schools is the most natural, logical step if it is communicated clearly and effectively. What makes education reform unique compared to any of our other policy debates is that all of us, regardless of our political perspective, share the same ends: the opportunity of a world-class education for all.
GE: In your personal experience, what do schools do well and do poorly for gifted kids?
HUTZLER: The fundamental principles of individualized instruction, flexibility, rigor, and expanding opportunities and experiences are the same for all students, whether they are the most gifted or the most at-risk. Schools should welcome acceleration and encourage intensive research projects for the gifted. Our schools should be flexible enough to accommodate students who will finish high school in three years just as much as those who need five. The closer we move to a "grade-less" school, where students advance subject-by-subject, not year-by-year, the more effective our education system will become.
GE: What were the big findings of your paper?
HUTZLER: My paper argued that choice, accountability, and school autonomy are complementary pillars of effective school reform. Using this as my guide, I wrote a comprehensive policy paper that proposed a national framework designed to unify our educational standards, afford successful schools more autonomy in defining their curriculum, focus, and operations, provide greater tools and mechanisms to improve our underperforming schools, and empower students and parents to choose the school that is best for them. Tuition would be paid for by the federal government based on metrics designed to encourage schools to teach beyond the test. In essence, my paper centers on redefining the definition of what "public" schools are, which should be, in my opinion, independent, non-profit, free, competitive, and accountable institutions.
GE: What would you advise President Obama to focus on from an education perspective?
HUTZLER: While my paper emphasizes a national, federal-led "grand bargain" for education reform, many of its proposals can implemented independently and concurrently by the federal and local governments. From a national perspective, we should continue to move towards coherent, unified standards that reflect a united democratic and economic interest in a quality education that transcends the haphazard standards of individual states.
GE: Locally, what's most important for governors and local school boards to focus on?
HUTZLER: State and local governments can work at the same time to enhance school autonomy and promote individual choice. The latter is important not only for its recognition of education as one of our most important rights, but also because it introduces market mechanisms that (if coordinated with the proper incentives) spur underperforming schools to improve. On a more individual level, I proposed in my paper that as part of the tuition and accountability structure, outstanding schools should be given strong incentives to recruit students from underperforming schools – an opportunity unavailable without some degree of choice and autonomy. Freeing up the labor market for teachers is just as important, allowing schools to price talent for what it is really worth and attract the diverse, qualified "new army" that President Obama seeks.
GE: What's the worst educational idea you've seen floating around?
HUTZLER: In my paper, I refer to the No Child Left Behind Act as the educational equivalent of the Articles of Confederation. There should be no mistake that NCLB is flawed, but a reversion to the aimless system that proceeded it, as some argue, would be far more dangerous. Moving beyond NCLB to achieve the duality of national standards and funding coupled with independent schools is the most natural, logical step if it is communicated clearly and effectively. What makes education reform unique compared to any of our other policy debates is that all of us, regardless of our political perspective, share the same ends: the opportunity of a world-class education for all.
GE: In your personal experience, what do schools do well and do poorly for gifted kids?
HUTZLER: The fundamental principles of individualized instruction, flexibility, rigor, and expanding opportunities and experiences are the same for all students, whether they are the most gifted or the most at-risk. Schools should welcome acceleration and encourage intensive research projects for the gifted. Our schools should be flexible enough to accommodate students who will finish high school in three years just as much as those who need five. The closer we move to a "grade-less" school, where students advance subject-by-subject, not year-by-year, the more effective our education system will become.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Facets of Gifted Education: Q&A with George Peternel
Many years ago, as a 7th and 8th grader at Clay Middle School in South Bend, Indiana, I participated in something called the "Midwest Talent Search." This program, which had gifted middle schoolers take out-of-level tests, and then offered summer and other enrichment programs, was always quite exciting for me. I liked taking the SAT, comparing my score with other MTS participants, and I loved the summer camps, which were basically the highlight of my entire year.
These days, the MTS is called NUMATS (Northwestern University Midwest Academic Talent Search), and today on Gifted Exchange, as part of our Facets of Gifted Education series, I'm happy to present a Q&A with George Peternel, associate director of Northwestern's Center for Talent Development.
GE: Why are out-of level tests important for gifted kids?
PETERNEL: There are a host of reasons why out-of-level (above-level) tests are important for gifted kids. Here are a few.
Most of the tests that gifted elementary and middle school students take are grade-level tests that are far too easy for them, especially the state-tests. There is little challenge and the high scores provide little satisfaction for the student.
Above grade-level testing is a more accurate measure of a gifted student’s academic abilities.
Grade level tests communicate misleading messages to parents and teachers about the academic capabilities of gifted kids. If a child scores at the 99th percentile of a grade level test, the message to many parents and teachers is: He/she is doing well and his/her academic placements are appropriate! If that same child takes an above level test and scores at a high percentile, the message is a very different: He/she needs a more advanced academic program.
Doing well on easy tests does not build confidence. Doing well on above-level tests does.
Gifted kids need to be intellectually stimulated in as many ways as possible. NUMATS testing is a powerful stimulus by itself. It also leads to taking advanced classes.
GE: What trends have been noticed over the past few decades … is there anything different about NUMATS? The kids? Their schools? Parents?
PETERNEL: When Northwestern University’s Center for Talent Development began in 1981, the talent search included SAT and ACT testing for 6th, 7th and 8th grade students. In response to the demand for above-level testing of younger gifted students, EXPLORE testing was added in 2001. The name has been changed from Midwest Talent Search (MTS) to Midwest Academic Talent Search (MATS) to Northwestern University’s Midwest Academic Talent Search (NUMATS), serving students in grades 3-9. Test dates in December, May and June have been added to the calendar to give students and parents more flexibility.
NUMATS serves students in the Midwest, including Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin. In recent years, the number of students participating in NUMATS has been fairly constant (approximately 30,000 annually). What has changed is the percentage of home-schooled students; the percentage is increasing as more gifted children are home-schooled.
The schools have changed in many ways. There are more acceleration opportunities for gifted students, primarily at the middle school level and usually limited to one subject area, mathematics. NUMATS has put pressure on schools to respond to the needs of students ready for advanced classes, and many schools have responded accordingly. Other changes, however, have not been positive. Gifted programs have been eliminated because of budget cuts. In turn, there are fewer teachers in the schools trained to teach gifted students who understand the value of above-level testing. NCLB has impacted the priorities of schools; instead of giving high priority to meeting the needs of all students, administrator and teacher time and attention increasingly focuses on meeting AYP requirements.
The level of educational attainment of parents has changed; an increasing proportion of parents have college degrees and have similar expectations for their children. More and more, parents look at NUMATS as practice testing for their children that will help optimize test scores when the students become high school juniors and seniors and take the ACT or SAT as a requirement of the college admissions process.
GE: What should happen once a child receives a high score on an out-of-level test? Does this usually happen?
PETERNEL: High scores are the norm. Our own research has verified that NUMATS students score almost as well, on the average, as the high school juniors and seniors across the country taking the SAT or ACT.
After students receive the test scores, the NUMATS staff sends them “Planning and Resource Guides.” These guides assist parents and students in developing an academic plan that includes the course sequences offered by the schools as well as supplementary courses that they choose to take.
The schools also receive the scores, and the realization of how advanced the NUMATS students are. In some cases, these scores are used as placement information. In other cases, the scores prompt the school to take a closer look at their academic options for gifted kids and incorporate this information as they plan advanced courses.
What usually happens is that high scores stimulate thought by the student, parent and school about the academic abilities of the NUMATS students and a variety of outcomes occur.
GE: What is the most rewarding part of the job?
PETERNEL: The positive feedback that we receive from parents is most rewarding, whether it be from telephone calls, emails or the online surveys that we administer to NUMATS clients.
Seeing the excitement and joy on the faces of the students whose high scores qualified them for either the state-level awards ceremonies or the NUMATS ceremony held at Northwestern is also very rewarding.
Finally, the knowledge that the academic careers of thousands of gifted kids each year has been stimulated by the NUMATS process is very satisfying.
GE: What would you like parents to know about NUMATS (that they may not)?
PETERNEL: One of the outcomes of being a NUMATS participant is that each participant will receive a stream of “smart student mail” and “smart student email” from a variety of sources until the student is out of high school. These mailings and emailings include information about academic programs as well as scholarship opportunities.
Taking tests like the ACT or SAT years in advance increases test-taking confidence and provides content familiarity, usually resulting in even higher scores when the tests are taken for college admissions.
NCLB has created negative attitudes about testing (in general) in the minds of many parents of gifted kids. Don’t view NUMATS tests as being just “more tests;” view them instead as “the right kind of tests.”
These days, the MTS is called NUMATS (Northwestern University Midwest Academic Talent Search), and today on Gifted Exchange, as part of our Facets of Gifted Education series, I'm happy to present a Q&A with George Peternel, associate director of Northwestern's Center for Talent Development.
GE: Why are out-of level tests important for gifted kids?
PETERNEL: There are a host of reasons why out-of-level (above-level) tests are important for gifted kids. Here are a few.
Most of the tests that gifted elementary and middle school students take are grade-level tests that are far too easy for them, especially the state-tests. There is little challenge and the high scores provide little satisfaction for the student.
Above grade-level testing is a more accurate measure of a gifted student’s academic abilities.
Grade level tests communicate misleading messages to parents and teachers about the academic capabilities of gifted kids. If a child scores at the 99th percentile of a grade level test, the message to many parents and teachers is: He/she is doing well and his/her academic placements are appropriate! If that same child takes an above level test and scores at a high percentile, the message is a very different: He/she needs a more advanced academic program.
Doing well on easy tests does not build confidence. Doing well on above-level tests does.
Gifted kids need to be intellectually stimulated in as many ways as possible. NUMATS testing is a powerful stimulus by itself. It also leads to taking advanced classes.
GE: What trends have been noticed over the past few decades … is there anything different about NUMATS? The kids? Their schools? Parents?
PETERNEL: When Northwestern University’s Center for Talent Development began in 1981, the talent search included SAT and ACT testing for 6th, 7th and 8th grade students. In response to the demand for above-level testing of younger gifted students, EXPLORE testing was added in 2001. The name has been changed from Midwest Talent Search (MTS) to Midwest Academic Talent Search (MATS) to Northwestern University’s Midwest Academic Talent Search (NUMATS), serving students in grades 3-9. Test dates in December, May and June have been added to the calendar to give students and parents more flexibility.
NUMATS serves students in the Midwest, including Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin. In recent years, the number of students participating in NUMATS has been fairly constant (approximately 30,000 annually). What has changed is the percentage of home-schooled students; the percentage is increasing as more gifted children are home-schooled.
The schools have changed in many ways. There are more acceleration opportunities for gifted students, primarily at the middle school level and usually limited to one subject area, mathematics. NUMATS has put pressure on schools to respond to the needs of students ready for advanced classes, and many schools have responded accordingly. Other changes, however, have not been positive. Gifted programs have been eliminated because of budget cuts. In turn, there are fewer teachers in the schools trained to teach gifted students who understand the value of above-level testing. NCLB has impacted the priorities of schools; instead of giving high priority to meeting the needs of all students, administrator and teacher time and attention increasingly focuses on meeting AYP requirements.
The level of educational attainment of parents has changed; an increasing proportion of parents have college degrees and have similar expectations for their children. More and more, parents look at NUMATS as practice testing for their children that will help optimize test scores when the students become high school juniors and seniors and take the ACT or SAT as a requirement of the college admissions process.
GE: What should happen once a child receives a high score on an out-of-level test? Does this usually happen?
PETERNEL: High scores are the norm. Our own research has verified that NUMATS students score almost as well, on the average, as the high school juniors and seniors across the country taking the SAT or ACT.
After students receive the test scores, the NUMATS staff sends them “Planning and Resource Guides.” These guides assist parents and students in developing an academic plan that includes the course sequences offered by the schools as well as supplementary courses that they choose to take.
The schools also receive the scores, and the realization of how advanced the NUMATS students are. In some cases, these scores are used as placement information. In other cases, the scores prompt the school to take a closer look at their academic options for gifted kids and incorporate this information as they plan advanced courses.
What usually happens is that high scores stimulate thought by the student, parent and school about the academic abilities of the NUMATS students and a variety of outcomes occur.
GE: What is the most rewarding part of the job?
PETERNEL: The positive feedback that we receive from parents is most rewarding, whether it be from telephone calls, emails or the online surveys that we administer to NUMATS clients.
Seeing the excitement and joy on the faces of the students whose high scores qualified them for either the state-level awards ceremonies or the NUMATS ceremony held at Northwestern is also very rewarding.
Finally, the knowledge that the academic careers of thousands of gifted kids each year has been stimulated by the NUMATS process is very satisfying.
GE: What would you like parents to know about NUMATS (that they may not)?
PETERNEL: One of the outcomes of being a NUMATS participant is that each participant will receive a stream of “smart student mail” and “smart student email” from a variety of sources until the student is out of high school. These mailings and emailings include information about academic programs as well as scholarship opportunities.
Taking tests like the ACT or SAT years in advance increases test-taking confidence and provides content familiarity, usually resulting in even higher scores when the tests are taken for college admissions.
NCLB has created negative attitudes about testing (in general) in the minds of many parents of gifted kids. Don’t view NUMATS tests as being just “more tests;” view them instead as “the right kind of tests.”
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Facets of Gifted Education: Jim Delisle
This week, we're starting a new series on various facets of gifted education on Gifted Exchange. This series will feature interviews with people involved in gifted education in all its forms.
I'm pleased to announce that we're starting with Jim Delisle, author of Parenting Gifted Kids: Tips for Raising Happy and Successful Children, and many other books. Delisle is now retired from being a professor of special education at Kent State University, and speaks and writes frequently on topics in gifted education.
GE: How does parenting gifted kids differ from parenting other kids (or does it?)
DELISLE: Parenting gifted kids is both the same AND different from parenting any child. The similarities are many: all kids need (and, even though they are loathe to admit it, appreciate) consistency, routine, specific guidance rather than general advice, and parents who present a united front to them, even if mom and dad disagree with each other.
Where the differentness comes in is related specifically to the gifted child's advanced development. Many parents of gifted kids find their child to have questions or concerns far earlier than other kids. For example, while your gifted child may seem oblivious to the TV news you are watching, you find as you tuck him in hours later that he wants to know why Israel and Palestine are always fighting. Or, if your child comes home from school with a sad expression, it might not be because someone was mean to her, but someone was mean to another child--and that hurt *your* child.
Annemarie Roeper, our field's most eminent and practical expert, from my perspective, defines giftedness thusly: "Giftedness is a greater awareness, a greater sensitivity, and a greater ability to understand and transform perceptions into intellectual and emotional experiences." When you read this conception of giftedness closely, you can understand why parenting gifted kids usually has its own set of unique aspects that Dr. Spock never envisioned.
GE: How can parents help children deal with perfectionism?
DELISLE: A treasured colleague of mine, Joanne Whitmore, worked with severely underachieving gifted children in grades 1-3 for several years. Her classic book on this subject, "Giftedness, Conflict and Underachievement", selects two qualities that were pervasive in these children: supersensitivity (see above response) and perfectionism. How ironic, huh? The severely underperforming kids were also the most perfectionistic.
When you think about it, though, this makes (excuse the pun . . .) "perfect" sense. From a very young age, gifted children typically do things very well; often, these are things that other, nongifted children cannot yet do--read, make connections between disparate ideas, understand number systems and symbols readily. Thus, gifted kids are often praised not for who they are as people, but for what they can DO that astounds adults around them. Human doings instead of human beings, so to speak. Over time, gifted children internalize this adult response to praise and, thus, will do anything at all to avoid what they perceive as failure, as that might mean that they are less valued, in the eyes of adults. When they perceive failure to be anything less than perfection, it's easy to understand how an "A-" can be considered a bad grade.
Some useful things that parents can do to avoid this perfectionism quagmire are these: first, analyze the accolades you give to your children--what is it exactly that you are praising, their attempts or their results? Especially with young gifted children, it is important to put them is situations where they don't always come out on top. Also, parents need to show their children that they, too, are not perfect, yet they still get along OK (e.g. Dad plays basketball with his kids even though he admits he's lousy at it. It's the time together that counts.)
Second, as your kids get older, you need to explain to them the dynamics of perfectionism that I mentioned in the previous paragraph. If not, it may affect their academic decisions, choosing to do projects and take classes that are relatively easy to get through without effort.
Third, when you child's work is assessed by others (i.e. a report card), instead of looking at the grades, do this before you even open the envelope: ask your child what s/he is most proud of and why on the enclosed report. It might be a lower grade in a tough subject, not the "Easy A" that you were about to applaud. If essence, you want to ask your child, "What did you LEARN?" instead of "What did you EARN?"
GE: What's the biggest potential pitfall in transitioning from "gifted kid" to productive, happy adult?
DELISLE: I doubt that there is one best route to get from gifted kid to happy, productive adult, given the individual idiosyncrasies that make each of us tick. One key, though, is a piece of advice I gave to our son after a goal he had held for several years--to attend the University of Colorado--got washed away. It wasn't that Matt didn't get into CU, he did. But after being there for less than one semester, he realized that the Brigadoon he imagined it to be actually turned out to be his own personal purgatory. My advice to him then, and still today as the adult he is, is this: "Write your dreams in pencil" (Actually, that's a chapter title in my book, "Parenting Gifted Kids"). If you write your dreams and goals in indelible ink, literally or metaphorically, then you will always see the remnants of this "failure", even as you set new ambitions. A pencil eraser, though, rubs away completely this residual dream, making clean room for others to take its
place.
In a related way, parents must be cautious to make sure that their child's hopes and dreams are not narrowed by their own adult perceptions of success. When our son informed us that his college major was going to be creative writing, our knee-jerk response might have been: "How are you ever going to earn a living at that! Pick something practical!" Instead, we swallowed hard and asked, "Matt, how can we help you do that?" He DID graduate with a creative writing degree (one of five majors he entertained in four years), and even though he is making his career in another creative field (special effects) he can still write a story or letter that'll make you weep. Matt succeeded on his terms, not ours. That's a key; a big one.
GE: You taught middle school for years -- what reform would you like to see implemented broadly for the middle grades?
DELISLE: Even though my primary job for 25 years was as a professor of education at Kent State University, I also taught middle school on a part-time basis for 17 of those years. Why? Credibility for one, as I wanted my college students to realize I was as close to a classroom as one week's distance--not 20 years. The second reason I taught gifted 7th-8th graders for so long is that they simply helped keep things in perspective for me, for they cared little about my credentials or my writing awards; instead, they judged me from two different criteria: was I boring, and did I assign a lot of homework. I'm now reaping the benefits of those years in middle school--attending weddings and writing letters for graduate school admission to kids I taught when they were young. So cool.
To me, the biggest reform we need for gifted students in the middle school is attitudinal. Teachers and administrators need to understand that these kids crave being around others like themselves--kids who think as broadly, feel as deeply, and smash the middle school stereotype as a bunch of hormones on parade into a million pieces. Thus, we have to give up on the wrong-headed notion that kids of all abilities should occupy the same classrooms all day. This inclusive idea has done so much harm, in my opinion, to kids at both the high and the low ends of the learning curve. Since all three of my academic degrees are in special education (mental retardation, emotional disturbances, and gifted education), I think I can speak with some authority on the absurdity of the "one classroom fits all" ideas proposed by many middle school educators.
Too, middle school kids--all of them--need to see the connections between and among content areas, something seldom done when kids spend 45 minutes in math and then move on to 45 more in social studies, where neither they nor their teachers try to form links between these seemingly disparate areas. Connections are vital to middle school kids, both socially and academically. A well-run middle school takes this into account and acts upon it with interdisciplinary instruction and homework.
I'm pleased to announce that we're starting with Jim Delisle, author of Parenting Gifted Kids: Tips for Raising Happy and Successful Children, and many other books. Delisle is now retired from being a professor of special education at Kent State University, and speaks and writes frequently on topics in gifted education.
GE: How does parenting gifted kids differ from parenting other kids (or does it?)
DELISLE: Parenting gifted kids is both the same AND different from parenting any child. The similarities are many: all kids need (and, even though they are loathe to admit it, appreciate) consistency, routine, specific guidance rather than general advice, and parents who present a united front to them, even if mom and dad disagree with each other.
Where the differentness comes in is related specifically to the gifted child's advanced development. Many parents of gifted kids find their child to have questions or concerns far earlier than other kids. For example, while your gifted child may seem oblivious to the TV news you are watching, you find as you tuck him in hours later that he wants to know why Israel and Palestine are always fighting. Or, if your child comes home from school with a sad expression, it might not be because someone was mean to her, but someone was mean to another child--and that hurt *your* child.
Annemarie Roeper, our field's most eminent and practical expert, from my perspective, defines giftedness thusly: "Giftedness is a greater awareness, a greater sensitivity, and a greater ability to understand and transform perceptions into intellectual and emotional experiences." When you read this conception of giftedness closely, you can understand why parenting gifted kids usually has its own set of unique aspects that Dr. Spock never envisioned.
GE: How can parents help children deal with perfectionism?
DELISLE: A treasured colleague of mine, Joanne Whitmore, worked with severely underachieving gifted children in grades 1-3 for several years. Her classic book on this subject, "Giftedness, Conflict and Underachievement", selects two qualities that were pervasive in these children: supersensitivity (see above response) and perfectionism. How ironic, huh? The severely underperforming kids were also the most perfectionistic.
When you think about it, though, this makes (excuse the pun . . .) "perfect" sense. From a very young age, gifted children typically do things very well; often, these are things that other, nongifted children cannot yet do--read, make connections between disparate ideas, understand number systems and symbols readily. Thus, gifted kids are often praised not for who they are as people, but for what they can DO that astounds adults around them. Human doings instead of human beings, so to speak. Over time, gifted children internalize this adult response to praise and, thus, will do anything at all to avoid what they perceive as failure, as that might mean that they are less valued, in the eyes of adults. When they perceive failure to be anything less than perfection, it's easy to understand how an "A-" can be considered a bad grade.
Some useful things that parents can do to avoid this perfectionism quagmire are these: first, analyze the accolades you give to your children--what is it exactly that you are praising, their attempts or their results? Especially with young gifted children, it is important to put them is situations where they don't always come out on top. Also, parents need to show their children that they, too, are not perfect, yet they still get along OK (e.g. Dad plays basketball with his kids even though he admits he's lousy at it. It's the time together that counts.)
Second, as your kids get older, you need to explain to them the dynamics of perfectionism that I mentioned in the previous paragraph. If not, it may affect their academic decisions, choosing to do projects and take classes that are relatively easy to get through without effort.
Third, when you child's work is assessed by others (i.e. a report card), instead of looking at the grades, do this before you even open the envelope: ask your child what s/he is most proud of and why on the enclosed report. It might be a lower grade in a tough subject, not the "Easy A" that you were about to applaud. If essence, you want to ask your child, "What did you LEARN?" instead of "What did you EARN?"
GE: What's the biggest potential pitfall in transitioning from "gifted kid" to productive, happy adult?
DELISLE: I doubt that there is one best route to get from gifted kid to happy, productive adult, given the individual idiosyncrasies that make each of us tick. One key, though, is a piece of advice I gave to our son after a goal he had held for several years--to attend the University of Colorado--got washed away. It wasn't that Matt didn't get into CU, he did. But after being there for less than one semester, he realized that the Brigadoon he imagined it to be actually turned out to be his own personal purgatory. My advice to him then, and still today as the adult he is, is this: "Write your dreams in pencil" (Actually, that's a chapter title in my book, "Parenting Gifted Kids"). If you write your dreams and goals in indelible ink, literally or metaphorically, then you will always see the remnants of this "failure", even as you set new ambitions. A pencil eraser, though, rubs away completely this residual dream, making clean room for others to take its
place.
In a related way, parents must be cautious to make sure that their child's hopes and dreams are not narrowed by their own adult perceptions of success. When our son informed us that his college major was going to be creative writing, our knee-jerk response might have been: "How are you ever going to earn a living at that! Pick something practical!" Instead, we swallowed hard and asked, "Matt, how can we help you do that?" He DID graduate with a creative writing degree (one of five majors he entertained in four years), and even though he is making his career in another creative field (special effects) he can still write a story or letter that'll make you weep. Matt succeeded on his terms, not ours. That's a key; a big one.
GE: You taught middle school for years -- what reform would you like to see implemented broadly for the middle grades?
DELISLE: Even though my primary job for 25 years was as a professor of education at Kent State University, I also taught middle school on a part-time basis for 17 of those years. Why? Credibility for one, as I wanted my college students to realize I was as close to a classroom as one week's distance--not 20 years. The second reason I taught gifted 7th-8th graders for so long is that they simply helped keep things in perspective for me, for they cared little about my credentials or my writing awards; instead, they judged me from two different criteria: was I boring, and did I assign a lot of homework. I'm now reaping the benefits of those years in middle school--attending weddings and writing letters for graduate school admission to kids I taught when they were young. So cool.
To me, the biggest reform we need for gifted students in the middle school is attitudinal. Teachers and administrators need to understand that these kids crave being around others like themselves--kids who think as broadly, feel as deeply, and smash the middle school stereotype as a bunch of hormones on parade into a million pieces. Thus, we have to give up on the wrong-headed notion that kids of all abilities should occupy the same classrooms all day. This inclusive idea has done so much harm, in my opinion, to kids at both the high and the low ends of the learning curve. Since all three of my academic degrees are in special education (mental retardation, emotional disturbances, and gifted education), I think I can speak with some authority on the absurdity of the "one classroom fits all" ideas proposed by many middle school educators.
Too, middle school kids--all of them--need to see the connections between and among content areas, something seldom done when kids spend 45 minutes in math and then move on to 45 more in social studies, where neither they nor their teachers try to form links between these seemingly disparate areas. Connections are vital to middle school kids, both socially and academically. A well-run middle school takes this into account and acts upon it with interdisciplinary instruction and homework.
Monday, January 12, 2009
"Teachers, teachers, teachers" (and national standards)
"Teachers, teachers, teachers" -- that's NYC schools chancellor Joel Klein and Rev. Al Sharpton's three word solution to closing the achievement gap between white and minority students.
These odd bedfellows have an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today that's given the misleading title of "Charter Schools Can Close the Education Gap." Charter schools are one solution they propose, but the more important ones are the creation of a set of national standards for schools to test against, and re-allocating current federal education spending toward recruiting and retaining the best teachers to troubled schools (and rewarding them on merit). As they point out "there is no reward for excellence in inner-city schools when an outstanding science teacher earns the same salary as a mediocre phys-ed instructor."
(Interestingly, in some schools in NYC, this is not the case. A private program called "Math for America" pays math majors a bonus above their scale salary for teaching in needy schools. But it is mostly true).
Klein and Sharpton point to the growing body of evidence that teacher quality is the most important factor in student achievement, and that the current things we reward -- tenure beyond a few years and advanced degrees -- have nothing to do with anything.
It's a fascinating piece. We've talked about teacher quality before on this blog, so I'd like to talk about their other federal idea: the national set of standards. In the era of No Child Left Behind, states are required to test children regularly, but they have been responsible for creating their own tests. Net result: most states create extremely easy tests, in order to show most of their kids passing. This solves the immediate problem of nixing embarrassing headlines but, of course, does nothing to create citizens prepared for productive employment.
I'm curious what Gifted Exchange readers think of the idea of national standards. I think there's a lot to like about it -- as long as the standards are rigorous -- for a couple reasons. A key one is that it could, in theory, make acceleration easier.
Here's why. National standards would require a national test. There's no reason -- in this green era -- that this would have to be a paper and pencil sort of thing. Economies of scale would almost demand that it not be. If the test was developed as a computer process, that would allow all the grade levels to be in there, and the test to move along with the child, moving forward until the kid is stumped. This would provide an accurate picture of where individual children stand. There would, of course, be a set level for what constitutes proficient in, say, a fourth grader. But if a nine-year-old scored far beyond that, up to what a 12-year-old should know, then this information could be put to productive use.
There is, of course, the question of who would set the standards, but there could certainly be a panel of educators, parents, scientists, mathematicians, literature experts and so forth who could come up with this, with input from colleges and employers. What do you think? This is a topic I'd like to write about more, so please let me know if you see problems with it.
On another note, we're going to be starting a Q&A series on Gifted Exchange with people representing all facets of gifted education. If you know a teacher, principal, school board member, etc. who would make a good subject and who'd be willing to talk with me, please email me at lvanderkam at yahoo dot com. We could also throw in a parent or two if you think you have an interesting angle. And let me know if there are any "big names" you'd like to hear from, and I'll try to track them down!
These odd bedfellows have an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today that's given the misleading title of "Charter Schools Can Close the Education Gap." Charter schools are one solution they propose, but the more important ones are the creation of a set of national standards for schools to test against, and re-allocating current federal education spending toward recruiting and retaining the best teachers to troubled schools (and rewarding them on merit). As they point out "there is no reward for excellence in inner-city schools when an outstanding science teacher earns the same salary as a mediocre phys-ed instructor."
(Interestingly, in some schools in NYC, this is not the case. A private program called "Math for America" pays math majors a bonus above their scale salary for teaching in needy schools. But it is mostly true).
Klein and Sharpton point to the growing body of evidence that teacher quality is the most important factor in student achievement, and that the current things we reward -- tenure beyond a few years and advanced degrees -- have nothing to do with anything.
It's a fascinating piece. We've talked about teacher quality before on this blog, so I'd like to talk about their other federal idea: the national set of standards. In the era of No Child Left Behind, states are required to test children regularly, but they have been responsible for creating their own tests. Net result: most states create extremely easy tests, in order to show most of their kids passing. This solves the immediate problem of nixing embarrassing headlines but, of course, does nothing to create citizens prepared for productive employment.
I'm curious what Gifted Exchange readers think of the idea of national standards. I think there's a lot to like about it -- as long as the standards are rigorous -- for a couple reasons. A key one is that it could, in theory, make acceleration easier.
Here's why. National standards would require a national test. There's no reason -- in this green era -- that this would have to be a paper and pencil sort of thing. Economies of scale would almost demand that it not be. If the test was developed as a computer process, that would allow all the grade levels to be in there, and the test to move along with the child, moving forward until the kid is stumped. This would provide an accurate picture of where individual children stand. There would, of course, be a set level for what constitutes proficient in, say, a fourth grader. But if a nine-year-old scored far beyond that, up to what a 12-year-old should know, then this information could be put to productive use.
There is, of course, the question of who would set the standards, but there could certainly be a panel of educators, parents, scientists, mathematicians, literature experts and so forth who could come up with this, with input from colleges and employers. What do you think? This is a topic I'd like to write about more, so please let me know if you see problems with it.
On another note, we're going to be starting a Q&A series on Gifted Exchange with people representing all facets of gifted education. If you know a teacher, principal, school board member, etc. who would make a good subject and who'd be willing to talk with me, please email me at lvanderkam at yahoo dot com. We could also throw in a parent or two if you think you have an interesting angle. And let me know if there are any "big names" you'd like to hear from, and I'll try to track them down!
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Students say "yay for science"
I am quoted extensively in a recent Scientific American website post about the annual Lemelson-MIT Invention Index, a survey which asks high school kids about their opinions on science.
The good news? Science is getting quite a re-branding these days. No longer about nerdy guys isolated in their towers, a high percentage of kids (30%) said they were interested in science because they were interested in helping the environment, and 26% said they wanted to improve society. If science is now seen as the eco-hero, do-gooder career, that's a pretty cool recruiting concept. In particular, it's a good recruiting concept for girls. One of the fascinating things about science fields is that if you put the prefix "bio" in front of any particular subject, you raise the proportion of degrees earned by women by a lot. So, for instance, bio-statistics attracts more women than statistics, even though both are very math intensive careers. The perception, though, is that biology-based work is more helpful to and grounded in people and improving the world in general. Hard, bio-less sciences don't have that perception (though, frankly, they should! The world needs a lot of mathematicians solving its problems).
So that's the good news. Unfortunately, as I told the Scientific American blogger, the idea that 80% of kids think their schools have prepared them for careers in science, technology, engineering and math fields is "downright delusional." Only a small percentage of high school kids leave school with the skills and preparation necessary to succeed in 4-year colleges, full-stop, let alone in the demanding STEM fields. I guess this result -- that kids are very excited about science, and feel prepared, even though they're not -- is pretty par for the course in American schools. We have high self-esteem, even if there's little to back it up!
The good news? Science is getting quite a re-branding these days. No longer about nerdy guys isolated in their towers, a high percentage of kids (30%) said they were interested in science because they were interested in helping the environment, and 26% said they wanted to improve society. If science is now seen as the eco-hero, do-gooder career, that's a pretty cool recruiting concept. In particular, it's a good recruiting concept for girls. One of the fascinating things about science fields is that if you put the prefix "bio" in front of any particular subject, you raise the proportion of degrees earned by women by a lot. So, for instance, bio-statistics attracts more women than statistics, even though both are very math intensive careers. The perception, though, is that biology-based work is more helpful to and grounded in people and improving the world in general. Hard, bio-less sciences don't have that perception (though, frankly, they should! The world needs a lot of mathematicians solving its problems).
So that's the good news. Unfortunately, as I told the Scientific American blogger, the idea that 80% of kids think their schools have prepared them for careers in science, technology, engineering and math fields is "downright delusional." Only a small percentage of high school kids leave school with the skills and preparation necessary to succeed in 4-year colleges, full-stop, let alone in the demanding STEM fields. I guess this result -- that kids are very excited about science, and feel prepared, even though they're not -- is pretty par for the course in American schools. We have high self-esteem, even if there's little to back it up!
Monday, January 05, 2009
Does the "Gifted" label matter?
I hope everyone had a great holiday break. Gifted Exchange is back and ready for another semester of gifted education news and discussion!
Today's topic: does the gifted label matter?
In Montgomery County, Maryland, parents and school officials are debating that question. According to a recent article in the Washington Post, the schools are "erasing" the gifted label that, "sorts second-grade students, like Dr. Seuss's Sneetches, into those who are gifted (the Star-Bellied sort) and those who are not." (You can already tell the reporter has a bit of a chip on his shoulder with that one). Two members of the school board wrote in shortly thereafter and said this was not exactly the case -- the whole matter was still up for discussion. But it's an interesting question either way. Do gifted kids gain anything by being labeled gifted?
On one side, there is the argument that the gifted label doesn't matter. What matters is that kids' needs are met. One of the most effective means of meeting students' needs -- acceleration -- doesn't require any sort of label. You just send a kid to a different grade if he seems to have mastered the material in his current one. Likewise, people become less excited about the gifted label in high school, because such schools are more likely tracked (with honors classes, AP classes and the like) than elementary school. No need to label, you just sign up for the more challenging classes. The Washington Post discusses some districts where there are accelerated programs, but kids are not necessarily labeled as such.
In Montgomery County, a full 40% of students qualify (under the district's definition) for the gifted label. On some level, this starts to seem a bit absurd. Avoiding labels gets rid of the awkwardness of exactly who is gifted or not (is a kid who just needs a little bit of enrichment gifted? Maybe. Is someone who needs 3 full years of acceleration? Probably).
On the other hand, as parents have pointed out, once you've stopped labeling something, it's easy to pretend it doesn't exist. We don't live in a world where kids of differing levels all wind up being challenged to the extent of their abilities. When districts do label kids, then that at least creates pressure to do something for those with the label.
What do you think? Is it important to have a label? Or do you know of districts that meet kids' needs well without it?
Today's topic: does the gifted label matter?
In Montgomery County, Maryland, parents and school officials are debating that question. According to a recent article in the Washington Post, the schools are "erasing" the gifted label that, "sorts second-grade students, like Dr. Seuss's Sneetches, into those who are gifted (the Star-Bellied sort) and those who are not." (You can already tell the reporter has a bit of a chip on his shoulder with that one). Two members of the school board wrote in shortly thereafter and said this was not exactly the case -- the whole matter was still up for discussion. But it's an interesting question either way. Do gifted kids gain anything by being labeled gifted?
On one side, there is the argument that the gifted label doesn't matter. What matters is that kids' needs are met. One of the most effective means of meeting students' needs -- acceleration -- doesn't require any sort of label. You just send a kid to a different grade if he seems to have mastered the material in his current one. Likewise, people become less excited about the gifted label in high school, because such schools are more likely tracked (with honors classes, AP classes and the like) than elementary school. No need to label, you just sign up for the more challenging classes. The Washington Post discusses some districts where there are accelerated programs, but kids are not necessarily labeled as such.
In Montgomery County, a full 40% of students qualify (under the district's definition) for the gifted label. On some level, this starts to seem a bit absurd. Avoiding labels gets rid of the awkwardness of exactly who is gifted or not (is a kid who just needs a little bit of enrichment gifted? Maybe. Is someone who needs 3 full years of acceleration? Probably).
On the other hand, as parents have pointed out, once you've stopped labeling something, it's easy to pretend it doesn't exist. We don't live in a world where kids of differing levels all wind up being challenged to the extent of their abilities. When districts do label kids, then that at least creates pressure to do something for those with the label.
What do you think? Is it important to have a label? Or do you know of districts that meet kids' needs well without it?
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Cautiously optimistic...
That's how I feel about Barack Obama's appointment of Arne Duncan to be Education Secretary.
Obviously, it would have been great to have someone who talks about the needs of high achievers and gifted students a lot, and who has a great track record in that area, but there are few big city school chiefs (who form the farm team for this cabinet post) whose focus tends that way. There's a simple reason for this. By definition, your top 1% of students are going to be rare. A big city school chief needs to focus on making sure most of his students perform at grade level, and that most graduate from high school with the skills necessary to become productive citizens. Chicago has definitely been making progress on this front.
That said, there are reasons to be optimistic, even beyond Duncan's reformer credentials. When he came to Chicago in 1992, he worked on the Ariel Education Initiative, a program of Ariel Investments. Ultimately, this led to the Ariel Community Academy, on whose board Duncan was still serving as of late. Ariel is one of those feel good inner-city success story schools that does a lot of things right -- extended school days for kids who need it, high standards, plus (near to my heart) a curriculum informed by the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship.
Most importantly for our purposes, though, is one of Ariel's philosophies: middle school kids should have the opportunity to do high school work if they're prepared for it. See this brochure on the school, page 5. To quote, Ariel "provides exceptional students the opportunity to begin high school level coursework while still at Ariel."
This openness to acceleration is a promising sign. Most education decisions are made locally, and this is certainly true with gifted education. But the Education Secretary could do a lot to use his bully pulpit to push the idea of acceleration as a cheap, easy solution to meeting the needs of kids who can handle a little more challenge. Given that Duncan worked with a school where it was par for the course, there's reason to hope he might encourage others to make it par for the course, too.
Obviously, it would have been great to have someone who talks about the needs of high achievers and gifted students a lot, and who has a great track record in that area, but there are few big city school chiefs (who form the farm team for this cabinet post) whose focus tends that way. There's a simple reason for this. By definition, your top 1% of students are going to be rare. A big city school chief needs to focus on making sure most of his students perform at grade level, and that most graduate from high school with the skills necessary to become productive citizens. Chicago has definitely been making progress on this front.
That said, there are reasons to be optimistic, even beyond Duncan's reformer credentials. When he came to Chicago in 1992, he worked on the Ariel Education Initiative, a program of Ariel Investments. Ultimately, this led to the Ariel Community Academy, on whose board Duncan was still serving as of late. Ariel is one of those feel good inner-city success story schools that does a lot of things right -- extended school days for kids who need it, high standards, plus (near to my heart) a curriculum informed by the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship.
Most importantly for our purposes, though, is one of Ariel's philosophies: middle school kids should have the opportunity to do high school work if they're prepared for it. See this brochure on the school, page 5. To quote, Ariel "provides exceptional students the opportunity to begin high school level coursework while still at Ariel."
This openness to acceleration is a promising sign. Most education decisions are made locally, and this is certainly true with gifted education. But the Education Secretary could do a lot to use his bully pulpit to push the idea of acceleration as a cheap, easy solution to meeting the needs of kids who can handle a little more challenge. Given that Duncan worked with a school where it was par for the course, there's reason to hope he might encourage others to make it par for the course, too.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Is Talent Overrated?
My review of Geoff Colvin's new book, Talent is Overrated, ran at The American's website (and in their daily email to subscribers) today. I'd mentioned on this blog a few weeks ago that I thought the book was quite interesting, and now that the review has run, I can talk about it some more.
Colvin's thesis is that the formula for achieving world-class performance in many fields is quite simple. You have to put in many thousands of hours of "deliberate practice." This deliberate practice involves analyzing your weak spots through constant feedback, working on the specific skills that will make you better, and learning as much as possible about your field. There is no way to rush this process -- it's a matter of getting in the hours. When people achieve world-class status at something at a young age -- like Mozart -- it's because they started very young and spent their youth putting in these effective hours of practice.
Colvin tells some stories that really seem to show that superstars are made, not born. From my review: "The story of the Polgar sisters, which Colvin tells at length, also seems to undermine the notion of God-given talent. In the 1960s, Hungarian educational psychologist Laszlo Polgar postulated that great performers are made, not born. To test this theory, he designed an experiment. Polgar and his wife, Klara, devoted their lives to turning their three daughters into brilliant chess players. Laszlo was only a mediocre player, and Klara hadn’t played much at all, but they filled their home with chess books and homeschooled their girls so they could spend several hours each day mastering the game. As a result, their oldest daughter, Susan, was eventually named a grand master. The other daughters also became top players."
Unfortunately, there wasn't space to get into this in the review, but what I find most fascinating about this story is the ultimate outcome. The Polgar sisters did all achieve world-class status, but they did not achieve the same, and none of them became the world's top player.
Colvin writes: "The middle sister, Sophia, did not reach the heights scaled by her two sisters (though she did become the sixth-ranked woman in the world), and everyone seems to agree that she was the least committed. A lengthy magazine profile of the sisters quoted chess champion Josh Waitzkin as saying Sophia 'was a brilliant speed player, sharp as a tack. But she didn't work as hard as the others.' Susan said that Sophia 'was lazy.' And even Sophia agreed: 'I could give up easier than Judit. I never worked as hard as she did.' Similarly, everyone seems to agree that Judit, who rose highest, worked hardest at practice. It would also stand to reason that by the time Judit, the youngest, came along, Laszlo had refined his methods of practice design.
"As for the fact that none of the sisters became a world champion, it may be hazardous to speculate on why things work out as they do in the rarefied air of the very highest levels. But it's certainly worth noting that when they were in their twenties, when future champions are typically still fighting for their shot at the top, all three sisters decided there was more to life than chess."
It may be hazardous to speculate, but I'm going to go ahead and do it anyway. Here's my thesis on what went on with the Polgar sisters: You can train someone right up to the precipice of the top. But ultimately, world-class achievement requires both practice, passion, and opportunity. You can force the practice. But you cannot force the passion. None of the Polgar sisters chose chess as kids (other than the fact that it was what their family did, which probably made it cool in its own right). Perhaps Sophia was lazy, or perhaps chess just wasn't where her real interests ever lay. When the sisters ultimately had the opportunity to choose what to do with their lives, they eased up on the chess.
Opportunity is the trickiest part of the equation. As I once put in an as-told-to essay I wrote on behalf of Lang Lang (the pianist), stardom is about working "to reach the lucky place where fortune spots you, and lets you shine." Chess is at least relatively straight forward, as there are lots of matches and it's pretty clear who is in the top tier of players. But if you have the misfortune to be born in an era where there are many great chess players, you will have a harder time becoming the world champion. Actually forging new ground in other, less regimented fields, is harder. To break new ground in math and physics you have to find the right problem, the problem that uniquely taps your abilities. There are many great physicists who never win the Nobel Prize. And even if you win the Nobel Prize, you probably won't be a household name like Einstein or Newton. The top physicists all have the practice and passion. They just didn't happen across the absolute right opportunity. Possibly that's even because they were born too late (as one former physicist told me, "all the fun simple stuff has already been done.")
So what does all this mean for gifted kids? Even with future professional musicians, mathematicians and the like, parents occasionally have to force a child to practice. But as Malcolm Gladwell pointed out in Outliers, this nagging takes a different form among kids with the potential for top achievement. It's not "practice the piano or you're grounded" -- it's "you'd better practice or we'll sell the piano." The child has an intrinsic passion and motivation toward the topic. Polgar sisters or not, I don't think you can force this.
You also can't force the opportunity -- but that's a topic for a different post.
Colvin's thesis is that the formula for achieving world-class performance in many fields is quite simple. You have to put in many thousands of hours of "deliberate practice." This deliberate practice involves analyzing your weak spots through constant feedback, working on the specific skills that will make you better, and learning as much as possible about your field. There is no way to rush this process -- it's a matter of getting in the hours. When people achieve world-class status at something at a young age -- like Mozart -- it's because they started very young and spent their youth putting in these effective hours of practice.
Colvin tells some stories that really seem to show that superstars are made, not born. From my review: "The story of the Polgar sisters, which Colvin tells at length, also seems to undermine the notion of God-given talent. In the 1960s, Hungarian educational psychologist Laszlo Polgar postulated that great performers are made, not born. To test this theory, he designed an experiment. Polgar and his wife, Klara, devoted their lives to turning their three daughters into brilliant chess players. Laszlo was only a mediocre player, and Klara hadn’t played much at all, but they filled their home with chess books and homeschooled their girls so they could spend several hours each day mastering the game. As a result, their oldest daughter, Susan, was eventually named a grand master. The other daughters also became top players."
Unfortunately, there wasn't space to get into this in the review, but what I find most fascinating about this story is the ultimate outcome. The Polgar sisters did all achieve world-class status, but they did not achieve the same, and none of them became the world's top player.
Colvin writes: "The middle sister, Sophia, did not reach the heights scaled by her two sisters (though she did become the sixth-ranked woman in the world), and everyone seems to agree that she was the least committed. A lengthy magazine profile of the sisters quoted chess champion Josh Waitzkin as saying Sophia 'was a brilliant speed player, sharp as a tack. But she didn't work as hard as the others.' Susan said that Sophia 'was lazy.' And even Sophia agreed: 'I could give up easier than Judit. I never worked as hard as she did.' Similarly, everyone seems to agree that Judit, who rose highest, worked hardest at practice. It would also stand to reason that by the time Judit, the youngest, came along, Laszlo had refined his methods of practice design.
"As for the fact that none of the sisters became a world champion, it may be hazardous to speculate on why things work out as they do in the rarefied air of the very highest levels. But it's certainly worth noting that when they were in their twenties, when future champions are typically still fighting for their shot at the top, all three sisters decided there was more to life than chess."
It may be hazardous to speculate, but I'm going to go ahead and do it anyway. Here's my thesis on what went on with the Polgar sisters: You can train someone right up to the precipice of the top. But ultimately, world-class achievement requires both practice, passion, and opportunity. You can force the practice. But you cannot force the passion. None of the Polgar sisters chose chess as kids (other than the fact that it was what their family did, which probably made it cool in its own right). Perhaps Sophia was lazy, or perhaps chess just wasn't where her real interests ever lay. When the sisters ultimately had the opportunity to choose what to do with their lives, they eased up on the chess.
Opportunity is the trickiest part of the equation. As I once put in an as-told-to essay I wrote on behalf of Lang Lang (the pianist), stardom is about working "to reach the lucky place where fortune spots you, and lets you shine." Chess is at least relatively straight forward, as there are lots of matches and it's pretty clear who is in the top tier of players. But if you have the misfortune to be born in an era where there are many great chess players, you will have a harder time becoming the world champion. Actually forging new ground in other, less regimented fields, is harder. To break new ground in math and physics you have to find the right problem, the problem that uniquely taps your abilities. There are many great physicists who never win the Nobel Prize. And even if you win the Nobel Prize, you probably won't be a household name like Einstein or Newton. The top physicists all have the practice and passion. They just didn't happen across the absolute right opportunity. Possibly that's even because they were born too late (as one former physicist told me, "all the fun simple stuff has already been done.")
So what does all this mean for gifted kids? Even with future professional musicians, mathematicians and the like, parents occasionally have to force a child to practice. But as Malcolm Gladwell pointed out in Outliers, this nagging takes a different form among kids with the potential for top achievement. It's not "practice the piano or you're grounded" -- it's "you'd better practice or we'll sell the piano." The child has an intrinsic passion and motivation toward the topic. Polgar sisters or not, I don't think you can force this.
You also can't force the opportunity -- but that's a topic for a different post.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Teaching's "Quarterback Problem"
Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers, has an article in this past week's New Yorker called "Most Likely to Succeed." He weaves together two narratives -- the problem a NFL scout named Dan Shonka faces in trying to advise teams on which quarterbacks to draft -- and the problem of figuring out how to hire effective teachers.
The link? Top-drafted quarterbacks have an incredibly mixed record in the NFL, in part because the game is just so much more advanced than what they play in college. Rather than throw a perfectly straight pass to an open receiver you can see, you have to throw a perfectly straight pass to a well-guarded receiver you can't see. And you'll be doing this while 4 300-lb guys are trying to dive on top of you. You can't judge a college quarterback on how well he executes the same play over and over; in the NFL he'll have to improvise more because the defense is far less predictable. "There are certain jobs where almost nothing you can learn about candidates before they start predicts how they'll do once they're hired," Gladwell writes. "So how do we know whom to choose in cases like that?" The "case like that" with the most profound social consequence, of course, is teaching.
Readers of this blog know that teacher quality really matters. We've discussed Eric Hanushek's work at Gifted Exchange before, which shows that kids assigned to a good teacher and bad teacher can diverge wildly in achievement in as little as a year. In three years, it's an almost insurmountable difference. As Gladwell points out, "teacher effects dwarf school effects: your child is actually better off in a 'bad' school with an excellent teacher than in an excellent school with a bad teacher. Teacher effects are also much stronger than class-size effects. You'd have to cut the average class almost in half to get the same boost that you'd get if you switched from an average teacher to a teacher in the eighty-fifth percentile."
If you talk to any principal she can tell you -- quite easily -- who's an effective teacher at her school and who isn't. You can also see it in student test scores. A few districts test students at the start of the year and the end of the year. Barring massive differences between classes, this gives you an idea of which teachers give the most "value-added" bang for your buck. If you tested effectively, you could even judge teachers of gifted kids this way -- the kids might score at the 99th percentile on grade level tests, but give them an out-of-grade level test. I recall something like this happening in 3rd grade for me. I took the 3rd grade standardized math test, got a 99, so I took the 4th grade. I got a 99th percentile on that too, so I took the 5th grade test. My score there? 79th percentile -- which meant this was probably the level where I belonged. By the end of the year I was at the 99th percentile on the 5th grade test. That 20 percentage point jump is a pretty good indication I was learning something.
But how do we define effectiveness? Or is it just like the famous quote about pornography, that we just know it when we see it? Gladwell discusses watching tapes with folks from Virginia's Curry School of Education to show how effective teachers behave in the classroom -- they tend to engage students, evaluate where everyone is, problem solve to figure out new ways of explaining things, and keep order by redirecting kids who are misbehaving. There really are big differences -- he describes one trig teacher who, in the time it takes a less effective teacher to boot her computer because she forgot to turn it on, has managed to interact with every child in his math class.
But while it's obvious to everyone which practicing teachers are good and which aren't, Gladwell says, it's not obvious to anyone when you're hiring a new teacher who will be good and who won't. The things we typically look for -- masters degrees, teaching certificates -- tell you absolutely nothing. Only being in front of a class can tell you that. But by the time a teacher has her grounding in front of a class -- 2 years in -- she's protected from firing by a rigid tenure system if she's bad, and rewarded less than a 30-year piece of deadwood if she's good.
So Gladwell suggests changing up the process. "We shouldn't be raising standards" for hiring teachers, he says. "We should be lowering them, because there is no point in raising standards if standards don't track with what we care about. Teaching should be open to anyone with a pulse and a college degree-- and teachers should be judged after they have started their jobs, not before. That means that the profession needs to start the equivalent of...training camp. It needs an apprenticeship system that allows candidates to be rigorously evaluated... you'd probably have to try out four candidates to find one good teacher. That means tenure can't be routinely awarded...An apprentice should get apprentice wages. But if we find eighty-fifth percentile teachers who can teach a year and a half's material in one year, we're going to have to pay them a lot -- both because we want them to stay and because the only way to get people to try out for what will suddenly be a high-risk profession is to offer those who survive the winnowing a healthy reward."
(As a side note, this tracks my point about treating the teaching corps like McKinsey in my Michelle Rhee post: McKinsey is more selective than most big school districts, but it still hires a lot of associates and tries them out. Most leave of their own accord or are "counseled to leave" in three years. It's hard to stick around to make partner. But once you do, the rewards get much better).
It's an interesting piece and, in Malcolm Gladwell fashion, very engaging. Of course, he paints with a broad brush to make his point (also vintage Gladwell). Though Gladwell doesn't mention this, Hanushek studies have found that one or two variables we can figure out beforehand do matter some. A key one? Teachers' scores on standardized tests. That means that, other things being equal, a teacher who scores a 700 on the SAT math section is going to be a more effective teacher than one who scores a 500. The higher score tends to indicate that the teacher is better able to figure things out quickly. This ability to solve problems quickly is a key component of the "withitness" that Gladwell notes is a common attribute with good teachers. (Perhaps it's another way of saying "intelligence" but since Gladwell just wrote 2 chapters in his last book about how IQ doesn't matter, he doesn't mention this).
Furthermore, Gladwell gets so excited about proving a point that he often fails to be consistent across all his writings, arguing different points with equal vigor. For instance, in Outliers, he reprints charts showing that poor students in Baltimore learn as much as better-off students during the school years, it's just that they learn nothing (or forget things) over summer break. All the talk of reforming schools "assumes that there is something fundamentally wrong with the job schools are doing," he writes. "But look back at the second table, which shows what happens between September and June. Schools work. The only problem with school, for the kids who aren't achieving, is that there isn't enough of it."
Or is the problem that they have lousy teachers? Many more hours over the summer with a lousy teacher is not going to help matters.
The point is that there are many things that need addressing with education. For instance, even bad teachers can do better in classes that are tracked by ability than in heterogeneous classes. We need a lot more acceleration, teachers with better test scores, a more rigorous curriculum, reforms to tenure, etc.
But Gladwell does raise interesting points to a broad audience, and so I'm glad to see this piece in the New Yorker. A mediocre education system isn't good for anyone. Teacher quality matters a lot, and with Bill Gates and others now focusing on it, we may actually get somewhere.
The link? Top-drafted quarterbacks have an incredibly mixed record in the NFL, in part because the game is just so much more advanced than what they play in college. Rather than throw a perfectly straight pass to an open receiver you can see, you have to throw a perfectly straight pass to a well-guarded receiver you can't see. And you'll be doing this while 4 300-lb guys are trying to dive on top of you. You can't judge a college quarterback on how well he executes the same play over and over; in the NFL he'll have to improvise more because the defense is far less predictable. "There are certain jobs where almost nothing you can learn about candidates before they start predicts how they'll do once they're hired," Gladwell writes. "So how do we know whom to choose in cases like that?" The "case like that" with the most profound social consequence, of course, is teaching.
Readers of this blog know that teacher quality really matters. We've discussed Eric Hanushek's work at Gifted Exchange before, which shows that kids assigned to a good teacher and bad teacher can diverge wildly in achievement in as little as a year. In three years, it's an almost insurmountable difference. As Gladwell points out, "teacher effects dwarf school effects: your child is actually better off in a 'bad' school with an excellent teacher than in an excellent school with a bad teacher. Teacher effects are also much stronger than class-size effects. You'd have to cut the average class almost in half to get the same boost that you'd get if you switched from an average teacher to a teacher in the eighty-fifth percentile."
If you talk to any principal she can tell you -- quite easily -- who's an effective teacher at her school and who isn't. You can also see it in student test scores. A few districts test students at the start of the year and the end of the year. Barring massive differences between classes, this gives you an idea of which teachers give the most "value-added" bang for your buck. If you tested effectively, you could even judge teachers of gifted kids this way -- the kids might score at the 99th percentile on grade level tests, but give them an out-of-grade level test. I recall something like this happening in 3rd grade for me. I took the 3rd grade standardized math test, got a 99, so I took the 4th grade. I got a 99th percentile on that too, so I took the 5th grade test. My score there? 79th percentile -- which meant this was probably the level where I belonged. By the end of the year I was at the 99th percentile on the 5th grade test. That 20 percentage point jump is a pretty good indication I was learning something.
But how do we define effectiveness? Or is it just like the famous quote about pornography, that we just know it when we see it? Gladwell discusses watching tapes with folks from Virginia's Curry School of Education to show how effective teachers behave in the classroom -- they tend to engage students, evaluate where everyone is, problem solve to figure out new ways of explaining things, and keep order by redirecting kids who are misbehaving. There really are big differences -- he describes one trig teacher who, in the time it takes a less effective teacher to boot her computer because she forgot to turn it on, has managed to interact with every child in his math class.
But while it's obvious to everyone which practicing teachers are good and which aren't, Gladwell says, it's not obvious to anyone when you're hiring a new teacher who will be good and who won't. The things we typically look for -- masters degrees, teaching certificates -- tell you absolutely nothing. Only being in front of a class can tell you that. But by the time a teacher has her grounding in front of a class -- 2 years in -- she's protected from firing by a rigid tenure system if she's bad, and rewarded less than a 30-year piece of deadwood if she's good.
So Gladwell suggests changing up the process. "We shouldn't be raising standards" for hiring teachers, he says. "We should be lowering them, because there is no point in raising standards if standards don't track with what we care about. Teaching should be open to anyone with a pulse and a college degree-- and teachers should be judged after they have started their jobs, not before. That means that the profession needs to start the equivalent of...training camp. It needs an apprenticeship system that allows candidates to be rigorously evaluated... you'd probably have to try out four candidates to find one good teacher. That means tenure can't be routinely awarded...An apprentice should get apprentice wages. But if we find eighty-fifth percentile teachers who can teach a year and a half's material in one year, we're going to have to pay them a lot -- both because we want them to stay and because the only way to get people to try out for what will suddenly be a high-risk profession is to offer those who survive the winnowing a healthy reward."
(As a side note, this tracks my point about treating the teaching corps like McKinsey in my Michelle Rhee post: McKinsey is more selective than most big school districts, but it still hires a lot of associates and tries them out. Most leave of their own accord or are "counseled to leave" in three years. It's hard to stick around to make partner. But once you do, the rewards get much better).
It's an interesting piece and, in Malcolm Gladwell fashion, very engaging. Of course, he paints with a broad brush to make his point (also vintage Gladwell). Though Gladwell doesn't mention this, Hanushek studies have found that one or two variables we can figure out beforehand do matter some. A key one? Teachers' scores on standardized tests. That means that, other things being equal, a teacher who scores a 700 on the SAT math section is going to be a more effective teacher than one who scores a 500. The higher score tends to indicate that the teacher is better able to figure things out quickly. This ability to solve problems quickly is a key component of the "withitness" that Gladwell notes is a common attribute with good teachers. (Perhaps it's another way of saying "intelligence" but since Gladwell just wrote 2 chapters in his last book about how IQ doesn't matter, he doesn't mention this).
Furthermore, Gladwell gets so excited about proving a point that he often fails to be consistent across all his writings, arguing different points with equal vigor. For instance, in Outliers, he reprints charts showing that poor students in Baltimore learn as much as better-off students during the school years, it's just that they learn nothing (or forget things) over summer break. All the talk of reforming schools "assumes that there is something fundamentally wrong with the job schools are doing," he writes. "But look back at the second table, which shows what happens between September and June. Schools work. The only problem with school, for the kids who aren't achieving, is that there isn't enough of it."
Or is the problem that they have lousy teachers? Many more hours over the summer with a lousy teacher is not going to help matters.
The point is that there are many things that need addressing with education. For instance, even bad teachers can do better in classes that are tracked by ability than in heterogeneous classes. We need a lot more acceleration, teachers with better test scores, a more rigorous curriculum, reforms to tenure, etc.
But Gladwell does raise interesting points to a broad audience, and so I'm glad to see this piece in the New Yorker. A mediocre education system isn't good for anyone. Teacher quality matters a lot, and with Bill Gates and others now focusing on it, we may actually get somewhere.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Real Kids Real Research
I have a column in today's USA Today on high school research programs. The piece is called "Real Kids Real Research" and you can read it here.
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Siemens Competition swept by public residential high school kids
I spent yesterday covering the announcement of the winners of the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology for Scientific American. You can read my story here. The Siemens Competition awards up to $100,000 scholarships to top high school researchers. Unique among the major high school science competitions, students are also allowed to compete in teams.
So there were three top winners -- one individual (Wen Chyan) and one team (Andrew Guo and Sajith Wickramasekara). Chyan hails from the Texas Academy of Math and Science, a residential public school for gifted juniors and seniors in Denton (by University of North Texas). Guo and Wickramasekara hail from the North Carolina School of Science and Math, a residential public school for gifted juniors and seniors in Durham, NC (near Duke University). There was also a student from my alma mater, the Indiana Academy among the smaller scholarship winners.
Given that public residential high schools enroll an extremely small percentage of the overall high school population, I think this is certainly worth noting. Creating such schools requires a state to consider gifted kids a priority. Frankly, I wish they were from K-12, but I'll take 11-12 (or 10-11-12 in some cases). Public residential high schools can concentrate gifted kids and give them accelerated classes in an environment with their intellectual peers - 24 hours a day! The results? Well, I think the Siemens Competition made that pretty clear.
So there were three top winners -- one individual (Wen Chyan) and one team (Andrew Guo and Sajith Wickramasekara). Chyan hails from the Texas Academy of Math and Science, a residential public school for gifted juniors and seniors in Denton (by University of North Texas). Guo and Wickramasekara hail from the North Carolina School of Science and Math, a residential public school for gifted juniors and seniors in Durham, NC (near Duke University). There was also a student from my alma mater, the Indiana Academy among the smaller scholarship winners.
Given that public residential high schools enroll an extremely small percentage of the overall high school population, I think this is certainly worth noting. Creating such schools requires a state to consider gifted kids a priority. Frankly, I wish they were from K-12, but I'll take 11-12 (or 10-11-12 in some cases). Public residential high schools can concentrate gifted kids and give them accelerated classes in an environment with their intellectual peers - 24 hours a day! The results? Well, I think the Siemens Competition made that pretty clear.
Friday, December 05, 2008
Parenthood
Today is my 30th birthday, and it started off with a bang -- Jasper (my toddler) woke up vomiting at 1AM. Norovirus is circulating in New York City and we were not spared. At least so far it has been better than last year's stomach bug (which also struck right after my birthday -- I'm beginning to think of norovirus as the universe's little "present" to me).
Anyway, Gifted Exchange was born long before Jasper, but the experience of parenthood has, of course, informed my thoughts on kids and learning. Among the realizations as I'm spending today (mostly) with him:
1. Children learn at their own pace. The idea that parents can "make" their children advanced is just laughable. I'm a writer. I'm into, you know, words. I read multiple books daily to Jasper. I talk to him. I identify things by name and ask him to repeat the names to me. But did Jasper talk early? Hardly. We talked about delaying our 18 month pediatrician appointment so they wouldn't push speech therapy due to his lack of verbalization. He is, finally, expressing himself with a few words. His current favorite? "No." I'm not sure why I was so eager for him to talk just so he'd say that.
2. But boy, are they wired to learn. Kids are natural hard workers if they're given tasks that seem challenging and interesting. Jasper has this little toy which consists of four three-dimensional shapes, and a cube with holes in it in 2-dimensional versions of each of those shapes. He kind of banged it around right until 16 months (it makes annoying noises). Then one day, he looked at the cylinder, looked at the circle hole, and then tried sliding the cylinder through the hole. Bingo! The square and triangle came next, about a week later. He had to practice the star for a while, but now he gets all of them, and can also put his much smaller blocks through the holes in their container top, too. He has figured out creative ways to stick them through -- like that the small triangles will go through both the triangle and the square holes (since the triangles are one-half of the square). We got him a book of magnets in various shapes earlier this week, and yesterday he actually put the little triangle on the various triangle shapes in the book. None of this came easy for him, but he was so interested in figuring things out that he stayed with it.
3. Schools really have to assume a central role in serving kids. Yes, parents can always find other schools, move, hire tutors, bring kids to the library, etc. But the daily experience of being a working parent of a small kid -- and most parents do work outside the home these days -- is so exhausting that it's often hard to assess if your child is getting the best opportunities.
For instance, I think that Jasper has some musical inclination. He likes playing my keyboard -- not just banging it, but listening to the sounds the keys make. He also has some serious rhythm to him. I know these things. I also know about exposing kids to some feedback and instruction on their inclinations is a step in talent development (Tiger Woods was trying to hit golf balls by age 2!). But the only reason Jasper is now taking baby creative movement and music classes is that this year his daycare chose to offer them during center hours (I do have time to write a check). If I didn't do anything about developing these little inclinations of his, why would I assume that other parents would on their own, either?
Nurturing talent has to be a social goal. Schools have to give kids the chance to test out various inclinations, choose the ones they like and then work hard at getting better at them. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of curriculum compacting for gifted kids, to free up time to pursue their passions.
Anyway, Gifted Exchange was born long before Jasper, but the experience of parenthood has, of course, informed my thoughts on kids and learning. Among the realizations as I'm spending today (mostly) with him:
1. Children learn at their own pace. The idea that parents can "make" their children advanced is just laughable. I'm a writer. I'm into, you know, words. I read multiple books daily to Jasper. I talk to him. I identify things by name and ask him to repeat the names to me. But did Jasper talk early? Hardly. We talked about delaying our 18 month pediatrician appointment so they wouldn't push speech therapy due to his lack of verbalization. He is, finally, expressing himself with a few words. His current favorite? "No." I'm not sure why I was so eager for him to talk just so he'd say that.
2. But boy, are they wired to learn. Kids are natural hard workers if they're given tasks that seem challenging and interesting. Jasper has this little toy which consists of four three-dimensional shapes, and a cube with holes in it in 2-dimensional versions of each of those shapes. He kind of banged it around right until 16 months (it makes annoying noises). Then one day, he looked at the cylinder, looked at the circle hole, and then tried sliding the cylinder through the hole. Bingo! The square and triangle came next, about a week later. He had to practice the star for a while, but now he gets all of them, and can also put his much smaller blocks through the holes in their container top, too. He has figured out creative ways to stick them through -- like that the small triangles will go through both the triangle and the square holes (since the triangles are one-half of the square). We got him a book of magnets in various shapes earlier this week, and yesterday he actually put the little triangle on the various triangle shapes in the book. None of this came easy for him, but he was so interested in figuring things out that he stayed with it.
3. Schools really have to assume a central role in serving kids. Yes, parents can always find other schools, move, hire tutors, bring kids to the library, etc. But the daily experience of being a working parent of a small kid -- and most parents do work outside the home these days -- is so exhausting that it's often hard to assess if your child is getting the best opportunities.
For instance, I think that Jasper has some musical inclination. He likes playing my keyboard -- not just banging it, but listening to the sounds the keys make. He also has some serious rhythm to him. I know these things. I also know about exposing kids to some feedback and instruction on their inclinations is a step in talent development (Tiger Woods was trying to hit golf balls by age 2!). But the only reason Jasper is now taking baby creative movement and music classes is that this year his daycare chose to offer them during center hours (I do have time to write a check). If I didn't do anything about developing these little inclinations of his, why would I assume that other parents would on their own, either?
Nurturing talent has to be a social goal. Schools have to give kids the chance to test out various inclinations, choose the ones they like and then work hard at getting better at them. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of curriculum compacting for gifted kids, to free up time to pursue their passions.
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Bill Gates: Small Schools "Disappointing"
Last month, Bill Gates made one of the most remarkable education speeches ever. You can read the remarks, delivered at the Forum on Education here.
Here's the gist. Over the past decade, the Gates Foundation has spent about $2 billion on its goal of having 80% of minority and low-income students graduate from high school college-ready. The Foundation has mainly supported this through a "small schools" initiative that breaks existing low-performing schools into 400-student blocks. The theory is that these small schools will reduce drop-out rates -- even in the absence of other major improvements -- by making students feel part of a community. When all the teachers and principals know your name, you have to keep showing up, right?
As we've discussed in the past on Gifted Exchange, though, these small schools come at a cost, particularly for advanced or gifted students. Advanced students are already more rare than they should be in predominantly low-income schools (for a variety of unfortunate reasons that readers here are familiar with). The benefit of a large school is that you can concentrate top students and give them classes with their intellectual peers. A school with 2000 kids might have 20 such students -- in theory, enough for a class and some social interaction. Break that into 5 smaller schools, though -- with no concentration by ability/readiness (which the Gates Foundation has not supported) -- and you suddenly have 4 advanced kids per school. That's only one per grade. So the gifted/advanced program goes out the window.
This is a problem, because a lack of advanced classes does not hurt all bright children equally. Kids from higher-income families often have the social supports in place to get tutoring after school, take distance learning classes, or even go to the library and such if schools don't meet their needs. As Malcolm Gladwell describes in his recent book, Outliers, at least one in-depth study of poor and better-off children found that lower-income children receive far less parental "cultivation" than their peers. There are positive aspects to this: They often devise their own games and (as he quotes one researcher) can be less "whiny." But the lack of cultivation puts them at a disadvantage in terms of using their smarts to make their way successfully in the world. If their schools don't cultivate them, no one will. A lack of advanced classes for bright low-income children is a decision to waste their talents. There is really no other way to describe it.
So anyway, we've been against the "small schools" initiative for years. Now, Bill Gates has acknowledged that the results have been "disappointing" too. This is one of the things I love about the Gates Foundation -- they studied their efforts, and found that the evidence did not support their theory. Rather than bury the evidence, or insist that the study didn't capture the right things, or that the small schools initiative hadn't really been tried, Gates shared the findings. Here's what he said in his speech:
"In the first four years of our work with new, small schools, most of the schools had achievement scores below district averages on reading and math assessments. In one set of schools we supported, graduation rates were no better than the statewide average, and reading and math scores were consistently below the average. The percentage of students attending college the year after graduating high school was up only 2.5 percentage points after five years. Simply breaking up existing schools into smaller units often did not generate the gains we were hoping for."
He went on to make several important points. First, this is what he said about the schools that did work:
"In general, the places that demonstrated the strongest results tended to do many proven reforms well, all at once: they would create smaller schools, a longer day, better relationships—-but they would also establish college-ready standards aligned with a rigorous curriculum, with the instructional tools to support it, effective teachers to teach it, and data systems to track the progress.
"These factors distinguished the schools with the biggest gains in student achievement. Interestingly, these are also limiting factors in taking these gains to scale. A model that depends on great teaching can’t be replicated by schools that can’t attract and develop great teachers. A school that has great instructional tools cannot share them with schools that don’t use the rigorous curriculum those tools are based on."
This is a problem, because the Gates Foundation's entire philanthropic mission is to find ideas that work and then scale them up.
So what to do? The Foundation's philosophy may be shifting to focusing on teachers, not school structure. "The defining feature of a great education is what happens in the classroom," Gates said. "Everything starts from that and must be built around it. So we’re going to sharpen our focus on effective teaching—in particular supporting new standards, curriculum, instructional tools, and data that help teachers—because these changes trigger the biggest gains, they are hardest to scale, and that is what’s holding us back."
He had a few other intriguing ideas. One -- which we will talk about more on this blog later -- is the idea of doing vastly more research on exactly how students learn and what curricula work. "The education sector desperately needs an infrastructure for creating better instructional tools—always with measurement systems in place so we have evidence that the new way works better than the old way. Without evidence, innovation is just another word for 'fad,'" Gates said. "Doctors aren’t left alone in their offices to try to design and test new medicines. They’re supported by a huge medical research industry. Teachers need the same kind of support."
I like this idea. Why not treat teaching as a tough profession which -- like medicine -- requires smart people with effective diagnostic and treatment tools? It is not (as Michelle Rhee has said) simply a profession for people who like cutting out bulletin board displays for the various seasons.
Of course, even with all Bill Gates's money, resources aren't infinite. So -- given that great teachers are so important -- we have to figure out if we're paying for the right things.
Right now, it really doesn't look like we are. As he said, "Money is tight. We need to spend it wisely. We’re now spending $8 billion a year for teachers with master’s degrees, even though the evidence suggests that master’s degrees do not improve student achievement. We’re spending billions on a seniority system, even though the evidence says that seniority, after the first five years, may not improve student achievement. We’ve spent billions to reduce class size, even though there is no strong evidence that spending money to reduce class size in high school is the most impactful way to improve student performance. And the last thing we can afford—-whether the economy is good or bad—-is to pay teachers who can’t do the job. As President-elect Obama and others have pointed out: We need to give all teachers the benefit of clear standards, sound curriculum, good training, and top instructional tools. But if their students still keep falling behind, they’re in the wrong line of work, and they need to find another job."
It is "disappointing" that the first few billions of Gates Foundation education money have not helped advance his mission of giving every person the opportunity to live a healthy and productive life. But if Bill Gates is willing to spend another $2 billion in figuring out exactly how to create good teachers and better feedback systems, I think he'll find this to be a far better investment.
Here's the gist. Over the past decade, the Gates Foundation has spent about $2 billion on its goal of having 80% of minority and low-income students graduate from high school college-ready. The Foundation has mainly supported this through a "small schools" initiative that breaks existing low-performing schools into 400-student blocks. The theory is that these small schools will reduce drop-out rates -- even in the absence of other major improvements -- by making students feel part of a community. When all the teachers and principals know your name, you have to keep showing up, right?
As we've discussed in the past on Gifted Exchange, though, these small schools come at a cost, particularly for advanced or gifted students. Advanced students are already more rare than they should be in predominantly low-income schools (for a variety of unfortunate reasons that readers here are familiar with). The benefit of a large school is that you can concentrate top students and give them classes with their intellectual peers. A school with 2000 kids might have 20 such students -- in theory, enough for a class and some social interaction. Break that into 5 smaller schools, though -- with no concentration by ability/readiness (which the Gates Foundation has not supported) -- and you suddenly have 4 advanced kids per school. That's only one per grade. So the gifted/advanced program goes out the window.
This is a problem, because a lack of advanced classes does not hurt all bright children equally. Kids from higher-income families often have the social supports in place to get tutoring after school, take distance learning classes, or even go to the library and such if schools don't meet their needs. As Malcolm Gladwell describes in his recent book, Outliers, at least one in-depth study of poor and better-off children found that lower-income children receive far less parental "cultivation" than their peers. There are positive aspects to this: They often devise their own games and (as he quotes one researcher) can be less "whiny." But the lack of cultivation puts them at a disadvantage in terms of using their smarts to make their way successfully in the world. If their schools don't cultivate them, no one will. A lack of advanced classes for bright low-income children is a decision to waste their talents. There is really no other way to describe it.
So anyway, we've been against the "small schools" initiative for years. Now, Bill Gates has acknowledged that the results have been "disappointing" too. This is one of the things I love about the Gates Foundation -- they studied their efforts, and found that the evidence did not support their theory. Rather than bury the evidence, or insist that the study didn't capture the right things, or that the small schools initiative hadn't really been tried, Gates shared the findings. Here's what he said in his speech:
"In the first four years of our work with new, small schools, most of the schools had achievement scores below district averages on reading and math assessments. In one set of schools we supported, graduation rates were no better than the statewide average, and reading and math scores were consistently below the average. The percentage of students attending college the year after graduating high school was up only 2.5 percentage points after five years. Simply breaking up existing schools into smaller units often did not generate the gains we were hoping for."
He went on to make several important points. First, this is what he said about the schools that did work:
"In general, the places that demonstrated the strongest results tended to do many proven reforms well, all at once: they would create smaller schools, a longer day, better relationships—-but they would also establish college-ready standards aligned with a rigorous curriculum, with the instructional tools to support it, effective teachers to teach it, and data systems to track the progress.
"These factors distinguished the schools with the biggest gains in student achievement. Interestingly, these are also limiting factors in taking these gains to scale. A model that depends on great teaching can’t be replicated by schools that can’t attract and develop great teachers. A school that has great instructional tools cannot share them with schools that don’t use the rigorous curriculum those tools are based on."
This is a problem, because the Gates Foundation's entire philanthropic mission is to find ideas that work and then scale them up.
So what to do? The Foundation's philosophy may be shifting to focusing on teachers, not school structure. "The defining feature of a great education is what happens in the classroom," Gates said. "Everything starts from that and must be built around it. So we’re going to sharpen our focus on effective teaching—in particular supporting new standards, curriculum, instructional tools, and data that help teachers—because these changes trigger the biggest gains, they are hardest to scale, and that is what’s holding us back."
He had a few other intriguing ideas. One -- which we will talk about more on this blog later -- is the idea of doing vastly more research on exactly how students learn and what curricula work. "The education sector desperately needs an infrastructure for creating better instructional tools—always with measurement systems in place so we have evidence that the new way works better than the old way. Without evidence, innovation is just another word for 'fad,'" Gates said. "Doctors aren’t left alone in their offices to try to design and test new medicines. They’re supported by a huge medical research industry. Teachers need the same kind of support."
I like this idea. Why not treat teaching as a tough profession which -- like medicine -- requires smart people with effective diagnostic and treatment tools? It is not (as Michelle Rhee has said) simply a profession for people who like cutting out bulletin board displays for the various seasons.
Of course, even with all Bill Gates's money, resources aren't infinite. So -- given that great teachers are so important -- we have to figure out if we're paying for the right things.
Right now, it really doesn't look like we are. As he said, "Money is tight. We need to spend it wisely. We’re now spending $8 billion a year for teachers with master’s degrees, even though the evidence suggests that master’s degrees do not improve student achievement. We’re spending billions on a seniority system, even though the evidence says that seniority, after the first five years, may not improve student achievement. We’ve spent billions to reduce class size, even though there is no strong evidence that spending money to reduce class size in high school is the most impactful way to improve student performance. And the last thing we can afford—-whether the economy is good or bad—-is to pay teachers who can’t do the job. As President-elect Obama and others have pointed out: We need to give all teachers the benefit of clear standards, sound curriculum, good training, and top instructional tools. But if their students still keep falling behind, they’re in the wrong line of work, and they need to find another job."
It is "disappointing" that the first few billions of Gates Foundation education money have not helped advance his mission of giving every person the opportunity to live a healthy and productive life. But if Bill Gates is willing to spend another $2 billion in figuring out exactly how to create good teachers and better feedback systems, I think he'll find this to be a far better investment.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Michelle Rhee and the concept of teaching
The cover story in Time magazine this week is a profile of Michelle Rhee, the hard-charging new head of the Washington, DC public schools. You can read Amanda Ripley's article here.
There are many bits of food for thought in the piece. But the fundamental question (which Rhee is tackling) is what the 21st century teaching corps should look like. We know that the quality of a teacher is massively correlated with student outcomes; one study by Eric Hanushek of Stanford found that when you put an 8-year-old child with a top 15% teacher for 3 years, he or she will be scoring well above grade level on standardized tests at age 11. If you put the kid with a bad teacher, the kid can be a year and a half below grade level. In other words, that's a divergence of about two years over three years. This is not a small difference.
But what makes a "good" teacher? Years of experience (after the first year or two) aren't highly correlated with student outcomes. Neither are advanced degrees. Yet these are the two factors that most influence teacher pay within a system.
Rhee's assertion is that you should test kids at the beginning of the school year, and test them at the end, and use the difference to evaluate teachers. The best ones should get bonuses. The worst ones should be fired. Rhee has actually succeeded in dismissing 270 teachers and replacing 36 principals.
Needless to say, this is not winning her big friends in the Washington DC teachers union. The national unions have also stepped into the fight because of the attention Rhee is getting. If she succeeds in some of her reforms (such as abolishing tenure and paying on merit) then perhaps other school systems will follow suit. It doesn't help that Rhee is incredibly brusque, and steps on some niceties of teaching. For instance, she's complained about teachers who spend too much time cutting out elaborate bulletin-board decorations.
But, as Rhee says, "Just because you're a nice person and you mean well does not mean you have a right to a job in this district." She wants teachers who mean business. And she's willing to pay them a lot if she gets them.
Frankly, I think there's a lot to like about her philosophy. A love of children is not a sufficient credential to teach. Nor is a teaching certificate, and with mandates for small class sizes, right now urban districts have to hire just about everyone who walks in the door. This is not anything close to best practices.
So what is? My husband works at McKinsey, the management consulting firm, and I get to watch the hiring process and evaluation process. It's very different from education. People take tests before they're hired; they compete against massive pools of qualified people for jobs. They answer multiple questions in multiple rounds of interviews, and extremely nice people who can't think on their feet don't get hired. Then the new hires get evaluated constantly -- 360 degree feedback every 6 months. A senior person interviews everyone you've worked with -- associates, partners, clients, etc. -- and makes the case for whether you stay or go, and if you stay, how much you should be paid. Again, very nice people have been "counseled to leave." It doesn't matter. What matters is what kind of work you bring in and how you do on the projects you land.
Wouldn't that be great to see in education, too? It's a bit early to see how Rhee will succeed (and, of course, we have to see how gifted kids do under the regime) but one story in Time was promising. Ripley started with an anecdote of a young man in a computer class playing "Russian roulette" to find a working computer each day. Only 6 of 14 worked; if he got one that didn't work, he'd just do worksheets rather than word processing. School finances are no excuse for this sorry situation -- Washington DC spends more per pupil than almost every district in the country. The computer situation was symptomatic of other problems at the school; Rhee wound up firing the very popular principal. The young man who alerted her to the computer problem was incensed.
But -- and here's the big "but" -- the new principal got the computers working. I'll take results over popularity every time.
There are many bits of food for thought in the piece. But the fundamental question (which Rhee is tackling) is what the 21st century teaching corps should look like. We know that the quality of a teacher is massively correlated with student outcomes; one study by Eric Hanushek of Stanford found that when you put an 8-year-old child with a top 15% teacher for 3 years, he or she will be scoring well above grade level on standardized tests at age 11. If you put the kid with a bad teacher, the kid can be a year and a half below grade level. In other words, that's a divergence of about two years over three years. This is not a small difference.
But what makes a "good" teacher? Years of experience (after the first year or two) aren't highly correlated with student outcomes. Neither are advanced degrees. Yet these are the two factors that most influence teacher pay within a system.
Rhee's assertion is that you should test kids at the beginning of the school year, and test them at the end, and use the difference to evaluate teachers. The best ones should get bonuses. The worst ones should be fired. Rhee has actually succeeded in dismissing 270 teachers and replacing 36 principals.
Needless to say, this is not winning her big friends in the Washington DC teachers union. The national unions have also stepped into the fight because of the attention Rhee is getting. If she succeeds in some of her reforms (such as abolishing tenure and paying on merit) then perhaps other school systems will follow suit. It doesn't help that Rhee is incredibly brusque, and steps on some niceties of teaching. For instance, she's complained about teachers who spend too much time cutting out elaborate bulletin-board decorations.
But, as Rhee says, "Just because you're a nice person and you mean well does not mean you have a right to a job in this district." She wants teachers who mean business. And she's willing to pay them a lot if she gets them.
Frankly, I think there's a lot to like about her philosophy. A love of children is not a sufficient credential to teach. Nor is a teaching certificate, and with mandates for small class sizes, right now urban districts have to hire just about everyone who walks in the door. This is not anything close to best practices.
So what is? My husband works at McKinsey, the management consulting firm, and I get to watch the hiring process and evaluation process. It's very different from education. People take tests before they're hired; they compete against massive pools of qualified people for jobs. They answer multiple questions in multiple rounds of interviews, and extremely nice people who can't think on their feet don't get hired. Then the new hires get evaluated constantly -- 360 degree feedback every 6 months. A senior person interviews everyone you've worked with -- associates, partners, clients, etc. -- and makes the case for whether you stay or go, and if you stay, how much you should be paid. Again, very nice people have been "counseled to leave." It doesn't matter. What matters is what kind of work you bring in and how you do on the projects you land.
Wouldn't that be great to see in education, too? It's a bit early to see how Rhee will succeed (and, of course, we have to see how gifted kids do under the regime) but one story in Time was promising. Ripley started with an anecdote of a young man in a computer class playing "Russian roulette" to find a working computer each day. Only 6 of 14 worked; if he got one that didn't work, he'd just do worksheets rather than word processing. School finances are no excuse for this sorry situation -- Washington DC spends more per pupil than almost every district in the country. The computer situation was symptomatic of other problems at the school; Rhee wound up firing the very popular principal. The young man who alerted her to the computer problem was incensed.
But -- and here's the big "but" -- the new principal got the computers working. I'll take results over popularity every time.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Gladwell's Outliers
My review of Malcolm Gladwell's new book, Outliers, which deals with giftedness in parts, is posted online here.
Monday, November 24, 2008
10,000 hours
I've been assigned to review Malcolm Gladwell's new book, Outliers, for City Journal. I'll post a link to the review as soon as it goes up on the City Journal website. Gladwell talks quite a bit about IQ, the Terman study, the case of Chris Langan, and so forth -- all topics which will no doubt be of interest to the Gifted Exchange audience, and which I can talk about more once the review has been published.
But one thing I do want to bring up, because it's so similar to Geoff Colvin's Talent is Overrated (which I'm also reviewing, this time for The American), and because it has such implications for gifted children, is the idea of long hours spent at deliberate practice. Both writers cite a figure: 10,000 hours. This is the minimum number of hours of practice needed for true expertise.
Both writers base this figure, in part, on a study of Berlin music students at the elite Academy of Music. Many years ago, researchers divided the students into three groups: the stars (those who might become world-class soloists), the good (perhaps playing in an orchestra) and those destined to become music teachers (sigh... the adage about teaching...). The researchers ran all sorts of data points and figured that the key distinguishing feature between the three groups was the number of hours they devoted each week to sustained practicing with the purpose of getting better. By age 20, the elite group had totaled 10,000 hours. The good group had totaled 8000, and the OK group 4000. The OK and the good groups really couldn't catch up at this point, because the elite group were practicing about as much as it is physically possible to practice (roughly 30 hours a week; they spent other hours taking classes and playing in groups and performing in addition to, you know, sleeping and eating).
The two writers throw in different examples of this in other fields. Gladwell postulates that Bill Gates got in about 10,000 hours of programming before starting Microsoft; Colvin figures that Mozart got in roughly that amount of music training, and Tiger Woods got in that amount of golf.
I have been thinking about this 10,000 hours figure a lot over the past few days for a few reasons. First, I think it's likely true -- the older I get, the more heartened I am by the fact that when I deliberately do something for many hours I do get better at it. I picked up running in 2004 and have run about 15-25 miles weekly since then, many times deliberately working on speed and strength; I am definitely faster and stronger than I was 4 years ago. I began singing with actual real choral instructors and constructive feedback in college and have put at least 2-3 hours into it weekly since then. I am definitely a better singer and better musician than I was in 1999. Of course, 2-3 hours a week (for singing) or 4 hours a week (for running) only gets you to 100-200 hours a year, or 1000-2000 hours over a decade. At that pace, I should reach operatic heights and a competitive running level when I am...75.
But I did the calculation on the treadmill yesterday and I am probably coming close to 10,000 solid hours of writing over the past decade. How could I not? I have, oh, about four novels I haven't done anything with, clocking in at 250,000 words. I have written roughly 4 non-fiction books (give me another 200,000 words). Throw in roughly 60 USA Today columns at 1000 words apiece, 30 months of writing the Only in America section of Reader's Digest (1000 words each time), six months of weekly 500 word Scientific American columns, 50,000 words in random other features, more blog posts than I care to count, and you can see where this is going. I have probably written close to 1,000,000 words since I went "pro" as it were. If my rate of publishable production is 100 words per hour, then I've put in the time. If my rate is better, than I haven't. It may be better, because even though I've definitely worked more than 20 hours per week for the past 10 years, I haven't necessarily been writing for all of them. I call people up and interview them, do research, etc. Those are different skills. Regardless, it's heartening to know that I'm in for a breakthrough one of these days.
Of course, if you count from much earlier in life, I may have already hit my "expert" level. I learned to read through a computer program my kindergarten used called "Writing to Read." I used to type little stories up and illustrate them. My entire sophomore year of high school, I wrote 2 4,000-word stories (roughly) each month in my bedroom at night. I wrote columns for my high school paper, then the Ball State Daily News, then the Daily Princetonian. When you love something, hours of work don't seem like a prison sentence. It feels more like being absolutely free.
Which brings us (finally!) back to the question of 10,000 hours and gifted education. The problem we currently have is that it is very, very difficult for gifted young people to build up those 10,000 hours before age 20, which is about when you need to seriously think about your professional career. If you start playing the piano at age 5, that gives you 15 years of practicing -- hard -- for more than 13 hours each week. That's about 2 hours every single day. Even if you figure a more intense schedule in the later years, that's still a lot to ask of a 6-year-old when you add it on top of regular school. This is, of course, the reason many elite musicians (and athletes and actors) are homeschooled or have some sort of alternative school. You have to get your hours in.
You also have to get your hours in with academics. Kids who like math do problems at night, and on weekends in addition to their school hours. But should a kid who really, really loves math have to spend hours doing English literature homework, making history timelines and so forth?
I don't know. In American education, we don't like the idea of cutting off options. You might change your mind about what you want to be when you grow up. So we don't like to have kids specialize. The problem with that philosophy is that world class performance requires a high level of focus. By leaving all options open, you in fact leave no options open.
And that's too bad, because there's a lot of undeveloped talent floating around. It is the rare school that lets a young writer do her academic work in the morning and spend the afternoon writing and checking in with a writing teacher or coach regularly to gauge her progress. We could produce more outliers. It's just that we choose not to. I personally think that's too bad. Gifted education should focus far more on talent development than on 90 minutes of pull-out per week. At 90 minutes per week, it will take you 133 years (and that's counting summers) to be an expert at anything.
But one thing I do want to bring up, because it's so similar to Geoff Colvin's Talent is Overrated (which I'm also reviewing, this time for The American), and because it has such implications for gifted children, is the idea of long hours spent at deliberate practice. Both writers cite a figure: 10,000 hours. This is the minimum number of hours of practice needed for true expertise.
Both writers base this figure, in part, on a study of Berlin music students at the elite Academy of Music. Many years ago, researchers divided the students into three groups: the stars (those who might become world-class soloists), the good (perhaps playing in an orchestra) and those destined to become music teachers (sigh... the adage about teaching...). The researchers ran all sorts of data points and figured that the key distinguishing feature between the three groups was the number of hours they devoted each week to sustained practicing with the purpose of getting better. By age 20, the elite group had totaled 10,000 hours. The good group had totaled 8000, and the OK group 4000. The OK and the good groups really couldn't catch up at this point, because the elite group were practicing about as much as it is physically possible to practice (roughly 30 hours a week; they spent other hours taking classes and playing in groups and performing in addition to, you know, sleeping and eating).
The two writers throw in different examples of this in other fields. Gladwell postulates that Bill Gates got in about 10,000 hours of programming before starting Microsoft; Colvin figures that Mozart got in roughly that amount of music training, and Tiger Woods got in that amount of golf.
I have been thinking about this 10,000 hours figure a lot over the past few days for a few reasons. First, I think it's likely true -- the older I get, the more heartened I am by the fact that when I deliberately do something for many hours I do get better at it. I picked up running in 2004 and have run about 15-25 miles weekly since then, many times deliberately working on speed and strength; I am definitely faster and stronger than I was 4 years ago. I began singing with actual real choral instructors and constructive feedback in college and have put at least 2-3 hours into it weekly since then. I am definitely a better singer and better musician than I was in 1999. Of course, 2-3 hours a week (for singing) or 4 hours a week (for running) only gets you to 100-200 hours a year, or 1000-2000 hours over a decade. At that pace, I should reach operatic heights and a competitive running level when I am...75.
But I did the calculation on the treadmill yesterday and I am probably coming close to 10,000 solid hours of writing over the past decade. How could I not? I have, oh, about four novels I haven't done anything with, clocking in at 250,000 words. I have written roughly 4 non-fiction books (give me another 200,000 words). Throw in roughly 60 USA Today columns at 1000 words apiece, 30 months of writing the Only in America section of Reader's Digest (1000 words each time), six months of weekly 500 word Scientific American columns, 50,000 words in random other features, more blog posts than I care to count, and you can see where this is going. I have probably written close to 1,000,000 words since I went "pro" as it were. If my rate of publishable production is 100 words per hour, then I've put in the time. If my rate is better, than I haven't. It may be better, because even though I've definitely worked more than 20 hours per week for the past 10 years, I haven't necessarily been writing for all of them. I call people up and interview them, do research, etc. Those are different skills. Regardless, it's heartening to know that I'm in for a breakthrough one of these days.
Of course, if you count from much earlier in life, I may have already hit my "expert" level. I learned to read through a computer program my kindergarten used called "Writing to Read." I used to type little stories up and illustrate them. My entire sophomore year of high school, I wrote 2 4,000-word stories (roughly) each month in my bedroom at night. I wrote columns for my high school paper, then the Ball State Daily News, then the Daily Princetonian. When you love something, hours of work don't seem like a prison sentence. It feels more like being absolutely free.
Which brings us (finally!) back to the question of 10,000 hours and gifted education. The problem we currently have is that it is very, very difficult for gifted young people to build up those 10,000 hours before age 20, which is about when you need to seriously think about your professional career. If you start playing the piano at age 5, that gives you 15 years of practicing -- hard -- for more than 13 hours each week. That's about 2 hours every single day. Even if you figure a more intense schedule in the later years, that's still a lot to ask of a 6-year-old when you add it on top of regular school. This is, of course, the reason many elite musicians (and athletes and actors) are homeschooled or have some sort of alternative school. You have to get your hours in.
You also have to get your hours in with academics. Kids who like math do problems at night, and on weekends in addition to their school hours. But should a kid who really, really loves math have to spend hours doing English literature homework, making history timelines and so forth?
I don't know. In American education, we don't like the idea of cutting off options. You might change your mind about what you want to be when you grow up. So we don't like to have kids specialize. The problem with that philosophy is that world class performance requires a high level of focus. By leaving all options open, you in fact leave no options open.
And that's too bad, because there's a lot of undeveloped talent floating around. It is the rare school that lets a young writer do her academic work in the morning and spend the afternoon writing and checking in with a writing teacher or coach regularly to gauge her progress. We could produce more outliers. It's just that we choose not to. I personally think that's too bad. Gifted education should focus far more on talent development than on 90 minutes of pull-out per week. At 90 minutes per week, it will take you 133 years (and that's counting summers) to be an expert at anything.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
USA Today: Tailoring school to the child (Homeschooling)
After much delay due to big political and economic news, my column on outsourcing homeschooling, "Tailoring school to the child," finally appeared in USA Today today. The timing actually wound up being good, because I led with the question of where Malia and Sasha Obama should go to school. Reformers suggest the DC public schools; realists talk about Sidwell Friends. But homeschooling is actually a viable third option -- even for busy families like the Obamas! -- and would have some real educational benefits (not to mention allowing the girls to travel more with their parents and reduce some of the security risk).
Thank you very much to all the Gifted Exchange readers who helped out with this column. You are a great source for stories and information. So here's the discussion point for today: I'd love to hear even more stories from families who are "non-traditional homeschoolers." That is, both parents work, you're a single parent, etc. How do you make it work? Is it worth it? Would you recommend it to someone else?
Thank you very much to all the Gifted Exchange readers who helped out with this column. You are a great source for stories and information. So here's the discussion point for today: I'd love to hear even more stories from families who are "non-traditional homeschoolers." That is, both parents work, you're a single parent, etc. How do you make it work? Is it worth it? Would you recommend it to someone else?
Monday, November 17, 2008
Re-telling the Mozart story
I spent this Friday night reading a book called Talent is Overrated, which I'm reviewing for The American (the fact that I spend Friday nights working should give you a sense of just how fun I am...) The book, by Fortune editor-at-large Geoff Colvin, bills itself as a look at "what really separates world-class performers from everybody else."
I won't give my overall impressions of the book since the review hasn't been published yet. But one thing I don't discuss much in the review is how Colvin retells the story of that quintessential child prodigy, Mozart. That's a part of the book that matters more to readers of Gifted Exchange than readers of The American, so I thought we should discuss it here.
As he writes, "Mozart is the ultimate example of the divine-spark theory of greatness. Composing music at age five, giving public performances as a pianist and violinist at age eight, going on to produce hundreds of works, some of which are widely regarded as ethereally great and treasures of Western culture, all in the brief time before his death at age thirty-five -- if that isn't talent, and on a mammoth scale, then nothing is."
But, as he writes, "the facts are worth examining a little more closely." The reality? "Any divine spark that Mozart may have possessed did not enable him to produce world-class work quickly or easily, which is something we often suppose a divine spark will do." Mozart began studying the piano and composition at age 3. He put in hours of practice daily, coached by his father Leopold, a composer in his own right and by all accounts a rather intense man. Leopold gave Mozart constant feedback, showing him exactly where he was going wrong, and having him study the intricacies of other composers' works. He studied these other composers so intensely that some of his early works hew very closely to previous works of the era.
We don't perform these works now except as curiosities because, frankly, they aren't that good. Mozart's first "major" work (defined by the number of recordings that exist now) is his Piano Concerto No. 9. He composed this work when he was 21. As Colvin notes, "that's certainly an early age, but we must remember that by then Wolfgang had been through eighteen years of extremely hard, expert training." A golfer who'd been training that hard, daily, since toddler-hood, would, at age 21 be... Tiger Woods.
In other words, as Colvin admiringly quotes critic Alex Ross, "Mozart became Mozart by working furiously hard."
It's an appealing way of retelling the story, in that it redefines the divine spark. It is not so much a gift, fully-formed -- it's a slight inclination and the divine gift of persistence (whether jump started externally through a coach like Leopold, or internally). Personally, I don't think this in any way changes the idea of how, ideally, we should educate talented children, even if "talent is overrated." When someone shows a slight gift at a topic, and an extreme interest in it, and the willingness to work furiously hard, we should do our best to nurture that. We should nurture those inclinations by accelerating the child until she has to stretch herself, and giving her the best coaching possible.
Unfortunately, we don't do that now, which may be why world-class performances are as rare as they are. We settle for gifted education which gives students 90 minutes of pull-out per week to study enrichment topics like origami or the culture of Japan. If the key to world-class achievement is "deliberate practice" -- hours of work shoring up your weaknesses and honing specific skills -- then we're about as far from efficacy these days as one could possibly be.
I won't give my overall impressions of the book since the review hasn't been published yet. But one thing I don't discuss much in the review is how Colvin retells the story of that quintessential child prodigy, Mozart. That's a part of the book that matters more to readers of Gifted Exchange than readers of The American, so I thought we should discuss it here.
As he writes, "Mozart is the ultimate example of the divine-spark theory of greatness. Composing music at age five, giving public performances as a pianist and violinist at age eight, going on to produce hundreds of works, some of which are widely regarded as ethereally great and treasures of Western culture, all in the brief time before his death at age thirty-five -- if that isn't talent, and on a mammoth scale, then nothing is."
But, as he writes, "the facts are worth examining a little more closely." The reality? "Any divine spark that Mozart may have possessed did not enable him to produce world-class work quickly or easily, which is something we often suppose a divine spark will do." Mozart began studying the piano and composition at age 3. He put in hours of practice daily, coached by his father Leopold, a composer in his own right and by all accounts a rather intense man. Leopold gave Mozart constant feedback, showing him exactly where he was going wrong, and having him study the intricacies of other composers' works. He studied these other composers so intensely that some of his early works hew very closely to previous works of the era.
We don't perform these works now except as curiosities because, frankly, they aren't that good. Mozart's first "major" work (defined by the number of recordings that exist now) is his Piano Concerto No. 9. He composed this work when he was 21. As Colvin notes, "that's certainly an early age, but we must remember that by then Wolfgang had been through eighteen years of extremely hard, expert training." A golfer who'd been training that hard, daily, since toddler-hood, would, at age 21 be... Tiger Woods.
In other words, as Colvin admiringly quotes critic Alex Ross, "Mozart became Mozart by working furiously hard."
It's an appealing way of retelling the story, in that it redefines the divine spark. It is not so much a gift, fully-formed -- it's a slight inclination and the divine gift of persistence (whether jump started externally through a coach like Leopold, or internally). Personally, I don't think this in any way changes the idea of how, ideally, we should educate talented children, even if "talent is overrated." When someone shows a slight gift at a topic, and an extreme interest in it, and the willingness to work furiously hard, we should do our best to nurture that. We should nurture those inclinations by accelerating the child until she has to stretch herself, and giving her the best coaching possible.
Unfortunately, we don't do that now, which may be why world-class performances are as rare as they are. We settle for gifted education which gives students 90 minutes of pull-out per week to study enrichment topics like origami or the culture of Japan. If the key to world-class achievement is "deliberate practice" -- hours of work shoring up your weaknesses and honing specific skills -- then we're about as far from efficacy these days as one could possibly be.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Smart Kids, Bad Schools
One of the things I’m trying to do here on Gifted Exchange is review more education books. With that in mind, I’ve been reading Brian Crosby’s new book, Smart Kids, Bad Schools. Crosby, a veteran English teacher, launched himself onto the education reform scene with his book The $100,000 Teacher, and now he’s back with 38 essays on ways American education can be improved.
Some are very good. For instance, Crosby founded the American Education Association, which seeks to be more like the American Medical Association than a union. The idea is to make teaching a true professional career with very high standards, get rid of tenure, demand results and then pay teachers accordingly. Indeed, Crosby would prefer to see larger class sizes for a simple reason: there aren’t enough excellent teachers to go around. Better have 40 kids with a stellar $120,000/year teacher than 2 20-kid classes with $60,000 mediocre teachers. He likes the idea of more field trips, of getting rid of middle school, of hiring MBA principals rather than simply promoting teachers looking to get out of the classroom. He notes that special education funding is grossly disproportionate to the funding other children receive, and that gifted education is massively undervalued. “Why doesn’t the issue of equity apply to bright kids?” he asks. He also points out that “People might be surprised to learn how often teachers of advanced classes give their students more work at a faster rate than their nonadvanced counterparts and call it a day. As if the amount of work and how fast you do it determines how smart you are.” When he was first assigned to teach advanced students, he notes that he was not given any special training on enriching or deepening the curriculum.
He understands that this is problem so... I wish I liked this book more, but I just didn't. Many of the 38 essays contain long anecdotes about particular injustices Crosby has suffered over the years, which may or may not be relevant to larger educational woes (memo to Crosby: everyone hates meetings – people in corporate America too! Plenty of people have bad bosses, not just teachers working under incompetent bureaucrats). The essays often suffer from a lack of focus; the one on improving gifted education manages to hook in GPA inflation, how much money the AP organization is making, awards for perfect attendance, goody bags at children’s parties and so forth.
Also, Crosby cites plenty of statistics, but has no end notes or foot notes explaining where he got them. That’s a problem because some of them are highly suspect. He claims that “one study on giftedness discovered that 15 to 20 percent of gifted kids drop out of school, mainly due to boredom.” We examined that statistic at length a few weeks ago. Also, there’s this paragraph: “Smart kids are the country’s most valuable resource. And how does the U.S. government reward such talent? By continuing to underfund and cut gifted programs, rewarding these bright young people with two cents out of every dollar spent on education.” The thought is right, but the only U.S. (federal) government funding for gifted education is the Jacob K. Javits program. It usually gets about $10 million in funding, out of the roughly $50 billion federal education budget (actually, the budget is bigger now, but that’s the number I’m guessing he’s using). This comes out to two cents of every $100, not every dollar. These silly errors undermine the book's authority.
Furthermore, for all his good ideas, he’s got some really bad ones too, like that because most homeschoolers are white, “race may play a large unspoken role in [these] parents opting out of public schools.” He also claims that “except for religious reasons and spiffy uniforms, there is no sound argument for educating children in private schools. Which environment mirrors the real world, public or private school? Do parents choose where their children will work and who they will work with?” This just totally misses the point. Public schools bear no resemblance to the real world either. In what company do employees only work with folks who have a birthday within 12 months of each other? He says that “no private school has ever won the U.S. Academic Decathlon since its inception in 1980” as evidence that private schools are no better than public schools. I have never heard of the U.S. Academic Decathlon, and I’ve been writing about education for awhile. This proves nothing.
So, the verdict? Check it out of the library or skim the table of contents in the bookstore - I'm not sure I'd buy it for your personal library.
Some are very good. For instance, Crosby founded the American Education Association, which seeks to be more like the American Medical Association than a union. The idea is to make teaching a true professional career with very high standards, get rid of tenure, demand results and then pay teachers accordingly. Indeed, Crosby would prefer to see larger class sizes for a simple reason: there aren’t enough excellent teachers to go around. Better have 40 kids with a stellar $120,000/year teacher than 2 20-kid classes with $60,000 mediocre teachers. He likes the idea of more field trips, of getting rid of middle school, of hiring MBA principals rather than simply promoting teachers looking to get out of the classroom. He notes that special education funding is grossly disproportionate to the funding other children receive, and that gifted education is massively undervalued. “Why doesn’t the issue of equity apply to bright kids?” he asks. He also points out that “People might be surprised to learn how often teachers of advanced classes give their students more work at a faster rate than their nonadvanced counterparts and call it a day. As if the amount of work and how fast you do it determines how smart you are.” When he was first assigned to teach advanced students, he notes that he was not given any special training on enriching or deepening the curriculum.
He understands that this is problem so... I wish I liked this book more, but I just didn't. Many of the 38 essays contain long anecdotes about particular injustices Crosby has suffered over the years, which may or may not be relevant to larger educational woes (memo to Crosby: everyone hates meetings – people in corporate America too! Plenty of people have bad bosses, not just teachers working under incompetent bureaucrats). The essays often suffer from a lack of focus; the one on improving gifted education manages to hook in GPA inflation, how much money the AP organization is making, awards for perfect attendance, goody bags at children’s parties and so forth.
Also, Crosby cites plenty of statistics, but has no end notes or foot notes explaining where he got them. That’s a problem because some of them are highly suspect. He claims that “one study on giftedness discovered that 15 to 20 percent of gifted kids drop out of school, mainly due to boredom.” We examined that statistic at length a few weeks ago. Also, there’s this paragraph: “Smart kids are the country’s most valuable resource. And how does the U.S. government reward such talent? By continuing to underfund and cut gifted programs, rewarding these bright young people with two cents out of every dollar spent on education.” The thought is right, but the only U.S. (federal) government funding for gifted education is the Jacob K. Javits program. It usually gets about $10 million in funding, out of the roughly $50 billion federal education budget (actually, the budget is bigger now, but that’s the number I’m guessing he’s using). This comes out to two cents of every $100, not every dollar. These silly errors undermine the book's authority.
Furthermore, for all his good ideas, he’s got some really bad ones too, like that because most homeschoolers are white, “race may play a large unspoken role in [these] parents opting out of public schools.” He also claims that “except for religious reasons and spiffy uniforms, there is no sound argument for educating children in private schools. Which environment mirrors the real world, public or private school? Do parents choose where their children will work and who they will work with?” This just totally misses the point. Public schools bear no resemblance to the real world either. In what company do employees only work with folks who have a birthday within 12 months of each other? He says that “no private school has ever won the U.S. Academic Decathlon since its inception in 1980” as evidence that private schools are no better than public schools. I have never heard of the U.S. Academic Decathlon, and I’ve been writing about education for awhile. This proves nothing.
So, the verdict? Check it out of the library or skim the table of contents in the bookstore - I'm not sure I'd buy it for your personal library.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Too Many Asian Kids
That seems like a stark headline, doesn't it? But it would have been a better title to a recent New York Times story called "Racial Imbalance Persists at Elite Public High Schools" than the one the headline writers dreamed up.
As we've been talking about in recent weeks on this blog, New York City has long had a commitment to serving gifted kids from all backgrounds. This is a city of immigrants, and tales are legion of children from all kinds of deprived backgrounds getting into the city's elite schools for the gifted and succeeding wildly. Stuyvesant and the Bronx High School of Science, for instance, have produced many Nobel Prize winners.
Unlike many of the city's private schools, it's no mystery how one gains admission to the elite public high schools. You have to sit for the annual exam. Anyone can take the test; indeed, the city offers a program to prepare you called the Specialized High Schools Institute. If you score high enough, you are offered admission. Connections don't help you.
Net result? Stuyvesant High School does not "look like America." In fact, it looks a little bit more like Beijing, or Delhi than like any city in the US. Though the city's four major racial groups represent roughly equal proportions of those who sit for the test (28 percent of last year’s were black, 23 percent Hispanic, 30 percent Asian and 19 percent white), a full two-thirds of Stuyvesant students are of Asian descent. In other words, Stuyvesant is majority minority. But apparently its students are not the correct minority, because all sorts of city critics are up in arms these days about the failure to "diversify" Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and the city's other gifted programs.
As Daniel Golden pointed out in his thought-provoking book, The Price of Admission a few years ago, when it comes to education, Asian children are "the new Jews." Once, elite colleges conspired to reduce the proportion of Jewish young people granted admission, even though these young people often had stellar credentials and had overcome amazing odds (poverty, immigration, discrimination, etc.). A similar mindset seems to have gripped the diversity proponents criticizing New York's gifted programs. As it is now, your father can be a cook working in Chinatown after leaving mainland China penniless, and your admission to Stuyvesant will not be looked upon as a cause for celebration. Something strikes me as very wrong about that picture. Indeed, any efforts to further "diversify" the city's elite schools will result in fewer Asian children being granted admission.
As we've been talking about in recent weeks on this blog, New York City has long had a commitment to serving gifted kids from all backgrounds. This is a city of immigrants, and tales are legion of children from all kinds of deprived backgrounds getting into the city's elite schools for the gifted and succeeding wildly. Stuyvesant and the Bronx High School of Science, for instance, have produced many Nobel Prize winners.
Unlike many of the city's private schools, it's no mystery how one gains admission to the elite public high schools. You have to sit for the annual exam. Anyone can take the test; indeed, the city offers a program to prepare you called the Specialized High Schools Institute. If you score high enough, you are offered admission. Connections don't help you.
Net result? Stuyvesant High School does not "look like America." In fact, it looks a little bit more like Beijing, or Delhi than like any city in the US. Though the city's four major racial groups represent roughly equal proportions of those who sit for the test (28 percent of last year’s were black, 23 percent Hispanic, 30 percent Asian and 19 percent white), a full two-thirds of Stuyvesant students are of Asian descent. In other words, Stuyvesant is majority minority. But apparently its students are not the correct minority, because all sorts of city critics are up in arms these days about the failure to "diversify" Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and the city's other gifted programs.
As Daniel Golden pointed out in his thought-provoking book, The Price of Admission a few years ago, when it comes to education, Asian children are "the new Jews." Once, elite colleges conspired to reduce the proportion of Jewish young people granted admission, even though these young people often had stellar credentials and had overcome amazing odds (poverty, immigration, discrimination, etc.). A similar mindset seems to have gripped the diversity proponents criticizing New York's gifted programs. As it is now, your father can be a cook working in Chinatown after leaving mainland China penniless, and your admission to Stuyvesant will not be looked upon as a cause for celebration. Something strikes me as very wrong about that picture. Indeed, any efforts to further "diversify" the city's elite schools will result in fewer Asian children being granted admission.
Friday, November 07, 2008
New York City gets it right
I live in New York City with my family. Most likely we will move out of the city before my son, Jasper, goes to school, but this is not necessarily because of the schooling situation. If you live in Washington DC and desire a good education for your bright children, you pretty much have to enroll in a private school (as Pres. elect Obama, incidentally a school voucher opponent, will choose for his children). But New York City has long had good gifted programs, including Stuyvesant High School and the Bronx High School of Science, which have produced numerous finalists in the former Westinghouse Science Talent Search.
About two years ago, though, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and schools chancellor Joe Klein surveyed the gifted programs, and noted that they were not exactly fair. Not so much "not fair" in the way people normally claim they are not fair (i.e., separating out kids for special treatment, or even the racial balance, though they did note that). The programs had a patchwork of entrance requirements, were located at certain schools due to better parental lobbying, started in different years, etc.
So last year, the schools decided to standardize admissions requirements. First, the NYC schools declared that as many students as possible should be tested. They did tons of outreach to historically underserved areas. They used two tests -- a reasoning test and a school readiness test. Then they declared that only children who scored in the top 5th percentile (on a national comparison basis) would be admitted to NYC gifted programs; the flip side of this is that every child who did score about this level would be guaranteed a spot.
Well, all did not go entirely as planned. It turns out there were fewer gifted children under this definition than the schools liked, so they lowered the cut-off to the top 10% -- already pushing it, in my opinion. Even so, some schools have far smaller gifted programs than in the past -- for instance, 10 students in a class in a school in which there average class size is 20 or more. You can read about the controversy in this New York Times story on "Fewer Children Entering Gifted Programs."
As you can imagine, some people are upset about this. From the article:
"At P.S. 110 on the Lower East Side, the gifted kindergarten class has 16 children, while another kindergarten class has 28, a situation Lisa B. Donlan, president of the local Community Education Council, called 'unfair to the entire school community.'
"At P.S. 52 in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, one of four schools with gifted classes of eight — the minimum the city requires — the other five kindergartens have 22 or 23 children each.
“'Their intentions are all good, and I understand making it more uniform across the city,' the school’s principal, Ilene Altschul, said of the changes in gifted admissions. “I just don’t understand how a class of eight children is beneficial.'”
Indeed, some parents are pressuring schools to open up these smaller gifted classes to other kids; as one parent noted, “To get your kid into a good kindergarten in New York City is such a yearlong battle, and I know that it’s a very desirable program...It’s a shame that other kids are being denied the opportunity.”
So maybe I can explain why it's beneficial. New York City gets it. Gifted education is supposed to be an intervention for children who need it. Personally, I think they should have stuck to the original 95th percentile, or even higher. But, leaving that aside, gifted education is not supposed to be the "desirable" class, an entitlement (every school gets 20 spots) or a way to keep middle class families in the city so they don't move to New Jersey. If kids need the interventions of gifted education, they should get it. If they don't, they shouldn't, even if there are empty seats. It's not about seats.
It's also not about "rewarding" kids. The New York Times falls into this trap, as usual obsessing about the racial composition of these classes, pointing out in the article that only 22% of the students identified as gifted now are black or Hispanic. Most districts would find this pretty good; if you add in Asian children, the city's gifted program is 50% minority, but given that the New York City schools have a higher proportion of minority students than this, the New York Times claims the reforms have "failed to diversify the historically coveted classes" (even though the percentage of Asian students in these classes has actually gone up).
But Bloomberg and Klein are sticking to their guns. As Klein says, "we won’t compromise standards and thereby dilute our programs." It's about time a school official understood why a school district should have a gifted program, even if not everything the NYC schools have done to reform their program has been entirely smart.
About two years ago, though, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and schools chancellor Joe Klein surveyed the gifted programs, and noted that they were not exactly fair. Not so much "not fair" in the way people normally claim they are not fair (i.e., separating out kids for special treatment, or even the racial balance, though they did note that). The programs had a patchwork of entrance requirements, were located at certain schools due to better parental lobbying, started in different years, etc.
So last year, the schools decided to standardize admissions requirements. First, the NYC schools declared that as many students as possible should be tested. They did tons of outreach to historically underserved areas. They used two tests -- a reasoning test and a school readiness test. Then they declared that only children who scored in the top 5th percentile (on a national comparison basis) would be admitted to NYC gifted programs; the flip side of this is that every child who did score about this level would be guaranteed a spot.
Well, all did not go entirely as planned. It turns out there were fewer gifted children under this definition than the schools liked, so they lowered the cut-off to the top 10% -- already pushing it, in my opinion. Even so, some schools have far smaller gifted programs than in the past -- for instance, 10 students in a class in a school in which there average class size is 20 or more. You can read about the controversy in this New York Times story on "Fewer Children Entering Gifted Programs."
As you can imagine, some people are upset about this. From the article:
"At P.S. 110 on the Lower East Side, the gifted kindergarten class has 16 children, while another kindergarten class has 28, a situation Lisa B. Donlan, president of the local Community Education Council, called 'unfair to the entire school community.'
"At P.S. 52 in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, one of four schools with gifted classes of eight — the minimum the city requires — the other five kindergartens have 22 or 23 children each.
“'Their intentions are all good, and I understand making it more uniform across the city,' the school’s principal, Ilene Altschul, said of the changes in gifted admissions. “I just don’t understand how a class of eight children is beneficial.'”
Indeed, some parents are pressuring schools to open up these smaller gifted classes to other kids; as one parent noted, “To get your kid into a good kindergarten in New York City is such a yearlong battle, and I know that it’s a very desirable program...It’s a shame that other kids are being denied the opportunity.”
So maybe I can explain why it's beneficial. New York City gets it. Gifted education is supposed to be an intervention for children who need it. Personally, I think they should have stuck to the original 95th percentile, or even higher. But, leaving that aside, gifted education is not supposed to be the "desirable" class, an entitlement (every school gets 20 spots) or a way to keep middle class families in the city so they don't move to New Jersey. If kids need the interventions of gifted education, they should get it. If they don't, they shouldn't, even if there are empty seats. It's not about seats.
It's also not about "rewarding" kids. The New York Times falls into this trap, as usual obsessing about the racial composition of these classes, pointing out in the article that only 22% of the students identified as gifted now are black or Hispanic. Most districts would find this pretty good; if you add in Asian children, the city's gifted program is 50% minority, but given that the New York City schools have a higher proportion of minority students than this, the New York Times claims the reforms have "failed to diversify the historically coveted classes" (even though the percentage of Asian students in these classes has actually gone up).
But Bloomberg and Klein are sticking to their guns. As Klein says, "we won’t compromise standards and thereby dilute our programs." It's about time a school official understood why a school district should have a gifted program, even if not everything the NYC schools have done to reform their program has been entirely smart.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Nature: Some people are naturally good at math
The October 2 issue of Nature, the weekly journal of science, contains an interesting study about something called the "approximate number system." (The headline, in catchy Nature form, is "Individual differences in non-verbal number acuity correlate with maths achievement.") ANS is an innate counting sense, present in animals, infants, and others who've had no formal training in math. Some people have a much better ANS acuity than others. Those that have this acuity wind up doing better on standardized math tests, even controlling for IQ.
To prove this idea, scientists at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere gave 64 14-year-old children a test to gauge the innate numerical sense ANS measures. They showed them a scatter plot containing dots in 2 colors. They asked which color was more prevalent. They changed up the ratio, and found that when there were twice as many purple as yellow dots, almost everyone could tell, but when there were only 25% more purple dots than yellow, only about 60% of the children got this right -- not too much better than guessing. But, of course, some children were far more accurate on these close ratios than others. The researchers then looked at the children's scores on standard math tests going back through kindergarten, and found that those who could gauge the ratios easily had higher scores.
This wasn't just because the kids were "smarter." They had previously given all the children an IQ test, and found that, controlling for IQ, kids with higher ANS acuity still did better on math tests. They also gave the kids a rapid color reaction test to make sure they weren't just testing reaction times. Again, the kids with the best ANS scores did best on math tests.
The result? "Individual differences in achievement in school mathematics are related to individual differences in the acuity of an evolutionarily ancient, unlearned approximate number sense," the authors wrote. They said that much more research would be needed to know if ANS could be taught and, if it could, how this would affect student achievement.
I always like studies that use the scientific method to get at the obvious. We all know that some kids are just naturally more number-oriented than others. Some highly intelligent adults panic when asked to make change; others can look at a room and see instantly that there aren't enough chairs.
That said, this is all fine for student achievement tests. But if there's anything I've learned over the years through trying to write about math and mathematicians, it's that at some point, numbers have little to do with it. Indeed, I remember one day in my freshman math class in college looking at the chalkboard and realizing there wasn't a single number up there! This was somewhat disappointing to me, as I really liked numbers. But as my older brother once wrote as a math graduate student at Princeton, "Despite what the general public thinks, math isn't just about being able to multiply numbers in your head quickly, or memorizing thirty digits of pi (I know good mathematicians who struggle to calculate 15% tips in restaurants). We've got computers and calculators for that. Mathematics is about finding structures and truths in the world of patterns, and explaining why they're there."
I suspect that what happens is that kids who have both a good ANS acuity and a high IQ wind up finding early math easy and fun. So they become more interested in it, and are encouraged along. The ranks of top mathematicians are then pulled from this group of folks who have spent more time studying math and playing with it than other people. Ultimately, though, it's not the quick counting that will help them -- it's the ability to see patterns and draw inferences.
To prove this idea, scientists at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere gave 64 14-year-old children a test to gauge the innate numerical sense ANS measures. They showed them a scatter plot containing dots in 2 colors. They asked which color was more prevalent. They changed up the ratio, and found that when there were twice as many purple as yellow dots, almost everyone could tell, but when there were only 25% more purple dots than yellow, only about 60% of the children got this right -- not too much better than guessing. But, of course, some children were far more accurate on these close ratios than others. The researchers then looked at the children's scores on standard math tests going back through kindergarten, and found that those who could gauge the ratios easily had higher scores.
This wasn't just because the kids were "smarter." They had previously given all the children an IQ test, and found that, controlling for IQ, kids with higher ANS acuity still did better on math tests. They also gave the kids a rapid color reaction test to make sure they weren't just testing reaction times. Again, the kids with the best ANS scores did best on math tests.
The result? "Individual differences in achievement in school mathematics are related to individual differences in the acuity of an evolutionarily ancient, unlearned approximate number sense," the authors wrote. They said that much more research would be needed to know if ANS could be taught and, if it could, how this would affect student achievement.
I always like studies that use the scientific method to get at the obvious. We all know that some kids are just naturally more number-oriented than others. Some highly intelligent adults panic when asked to make change; others can look at a room and see instantly that there aren't enough chairs.
That said, this is all fine for student achievement tests. But if there's anything I've learned over the years through trying to write about math and mathematicians, it's that at some point, numbers have little to do with it. Indeed, I remember one day in my freshman math class in college looking at the chalkboard and realizing there wasn't a single number up there! This was somewhat disappointing to me, as I really liked numbers. But as my older brother once wrote as a math graduate student at Princeton, "Despite what the general public thinks, math isn't just about being able to multiply numbers in your head quickly, or memorizing thirty digits of pi (I know good mathematicians who struggle to calculate 15% tips in restaurants). We've got computers and calculators for that. Mathematics is about finding structures and truths in the world of patterns, and explaining why they're there."
I suspect that what happens is that kids who have both a good ANS acuity and a high IQ wind up finding early math easy and fun. So they become more interested in it, and are encouraged along. The ranks of top mathematicians are then pulled from this group of folks who have spent more time studying math and playing with it than other people. Ultimately, though, it's not the quick counting that will help them -- it's the ability to see patterns and draw inferences.
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