I recently wore to school a shirt with one of my favorite quotations on it:

"You don't have the moral right to hold one child back to make another child feel better." (Stephanie Tolan)

It's a philosophy that I feel strongly about, but it is also one that is challenging to diplomatically and effectively express, let alone help others to understand. In addition to my bold, upfront advocacy strategies over the years, I have also deployed some subtle ones. The day I wore this shirt, I felt in the mood to quietly wear such a daring statement... and see what happened.

It didn't take long. In addition to my students, who gave me a thumbs up as we passed in the hallway, I was stopped by a parent at one school who was in the process of forging though the advocacy process to get subject acceleration in place for her child in Reading. Leaps ahead of all the other readers in his grade, she wanted him to be getting the same amount of time of reading instruction at his instructional level as the other kids were getting at theirs. (It's really a very reasonable request/expectation, isn't it?!) As I walked by, she grabbed me to read my shirt and all but cheered as its message hit home. Even though I had previously encouraged and reassured her that her advocacy efforts were reasonable and worthwhile (and that I was available to step in and assist if she needed/desired), seeing that statement on my shirt, and knowing that I was wearing it to each school in our District that day, really had an impact on her. Realizing, seeing, that someone in the school not only "got it" but was also willing to "wear it on her sleeve" all day long almost brought tears to her eyes.

That moment also reminded me of the power that my "voice" can have... for parents, for students, for teachers, for schools. So I decided to hunt for other items that I could wear to school to sport my philosophy. Here are some that I found (click links to see images):

"One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar!" (Helen Keller)

adorkable (I already have one of these, and my students love it! One of my colleagues also told me once when I wore it that I was, after all, her favorite dork ;o)

NErDy for LiFe (created using the Periodic Table)

FAIR is NOT everyone getting the SAME thing or what they WANT! FAIR is when EACH student gets what they NEED!!

GEEK (in Greek letters)

Sesquipedalian

THODEEPUGHT (*hint* Look for one word inside another word...)

There. Their. They're not the same.

Aspire

Long Live the Oxford Comma

I also love my Golden Mean earrings. (For more geek earrings, visit the Mensa store at the Fox Imaging site.)

What do you wear when you want to get your geek on? Do you know of other items with powerful gifted-ed-related messages on them similar to Tolan's quotation? I'd love to hear your ideas!

Posted by Tamara Fisher at 6:59 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Being a teacher of the gifted (plus I'm program coordinator... In a small town we wear all the hats...) comes with a host of scenarios where I find myself walking that fine line, or feeling like the rope in a tug-of-war. It's a massive balancing act of accommodating (competing?) interests, advocacy efforts vs. status quo, and being a teacher AND a program director (but sometimes being viewed by my colleagues as only a teacher - and therefore dealing with misunderstandings about the rest of what I do).

We all face challenges and walk a fine line in parts of our lives, so I'm not out of the ordinary in that respect. But I do often encounter situations and individuals who don't see what I deal with. This post today isn't a complaint about the tightrope I walk (I love my job, warts and all), but rather a glimpse for you into the aspects of this job that are rarely talked about, often overlooked, and frequently misunderstood. It's easy to think that teaching the gifted kids is all rosy and happiness. In a regular classroom, many (but by no means all) of these kiddos are (often, but by no means always) eager, engaging, and progressing (particularly if/when they are challenged). Teachers dream of having a classroom full of learners like that, and since I (theoretically) do, the assumption can be that I don't have to "deal with" any of that other "stuff." But it's what you may not see about my job that brings the stressors, the angst, the sleepless nights, the ulcers, the tears, the fears, and the frustrations. It is this balancing act that (sometimes delights and yet also) wears me out daily...

How do I advocate for my students without offending and alienating my colleagues?

How do I teach my students about what it means to be gifted without also unintentionally "giving them the big head"?

How do I stay ahead of dozens of kids who are ahead of me?

How do I think outside the box to get their needs met within the box that is our current reality of School?

How do I educate administrators about giftedness and a gifted program when they never step foot in my classroom? (despite being invited!)

How do I diplomatically let the parent of an above-average-but-not-gifted student know that his child doesn't need the services I offer?

How do I convince a teacher that the student driving her up a wall every day may just be the brightest kid in the class?

How do I become a fully-recognized and fully-participating member of the staff at four different schools when I'm only at each part-time?

How do I remain informed, engaged, and excited about what's happening nationally in Gifted Education while still working within my local realities?

How do I continue to dream big about education, even after I come crashing down to earth?

How do I communicate that what I do with these learners is not about them being "better," it's simply about them being far outside the norm - and having unique needs because of that?

How do I tell a respected, award-winning teacher that it's not okay to daily use the gifted student in his class as a teacher's assistant?

How do I counteract the misperceptions about what I do without coming across as a know-it-all?

How do I help my students to navigate the fine lines that they walk, too, because of being gifted?

How do I help the parents of my students find that balance between letting their children "run" and not pushing them?

How do I do best at finding students who need gifted services when there's no perfect way to find them?

How do I adequately give my time to my students (whose needs range from challenge to advocacy to acceleration to so much more), their parents (who - outside of each other - have no one else they can talk to about the struggles and challenges they face parenting gifted kids... because no one else "gets it"), and my teacher colleagues (who - like most teachers - were ill-prepared for stretching the most advanced learners in their classrooms, but know they want to do right by them and have only me as a local resource to help them fill the void...)?

How do I weigh tough decisions, such as whether or not to skip David two grades, when to speak up in meetings and when to keep my mouth shut, and whether to risk alienating my colleagues for the sake of my students (or does doing so in turn pose any future risk to current or future students), ...?

How do I develop and maintain positive working relationships with those who don't understand or agree with what I do, but who still play a role in the education of my students?

How do I help others come to understand (the apparent paradox) that a gifted program is about more than academics?

How do I, indeed! For sixteen years, I've navigated these and other rivers, (usually) managing to not bump too wildly into either shore. I've made mistakes and learned lessons the hard way, I've had moments of brilliant strategic maneuvering, I've muddled along and sailed along. And while I've gotten bolder - as well as more tactful - over the years, none of it has gotten any easier. And I no longer expect it to. :o)

Which fine lines do you walk for the gifted youth in your life?

Posted by Tamara Fisher at 6:22 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A new slate of webinars on Gifted Education and related topics is set for this spring. Various organizations offer these, and if you are interested and able to take advantage of these opportunities, there's something for everyone.

SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted) calls their webinars "SENGinars," and the next one is scheduled for Thursday, January 19th. Richard Cash will be talking about "Self-Regulation: Essential Skills for Adolescent Gifted Students." The description for this session reads:

As gifted children move into adolescence, motivating and engaging them in learning becomes more complex and complicated. In many cases this perceived lack of motivation and/or engagement may be due to the students' deficit in the academic strategies of self-regulation to learn independently. It is essential that parents and teacher assist students in developing the skills of self-regulation, including planning, organizing and meta-cognition. This session will offer suggestions as to how to develop self-regulated learners and ideas of how to encourage autonomous learning.

To sign up, visit this link. If you can't listen in live, you can access the recorded version after the fact. You can also access previous SENGinars and watch those recorded sessions. Topics that might be of interest are "Helping the Disorganized Gifted Family" with Kathleen Crombie, "Forging Partnerships with Teachers and Why They Often Don't Work" with Nancy Robinson, "Preparing Gifted Children for College... Or Preparing Them for Life?" with James Webb, "Helping Gifted Children to Cope with Trauma" with Marc Caplan and Lori Comallie-Caplan, "Existential Depression in Gifted Children and Adults" with James Webb, "You Can't Make Me Do It! How to Encourage Motivation from the Inside" with Cheryl Franklin-Rohr, and "Stress, Anxiety, and Gifted: Coping with Everyday Life" with Michele Kane.

A handful of webinars will be available in February through UC Irvine's Extension Office. Gifted Education related topics include "Cluster Grouping: A Paradigm Shift in Gifted Education," "Understanding and Supporting the Emotional Aspects of Giftedness," "Identifying, Serving, and Enfranchising Our Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Gifted Students," and "Technology Tools for GATE Teachers." All of UC Irvine's Gifted Education webinars are free. Their Recorded Events section also includes access to webinars from previous year. Just click the "Education" link for a list. (Youngsters in your life interested in Engineering, Information Technology, Life Sciences, Business Management, and other topics might be interested in some of their other webinars, too!

The National Association for Gifted Children's spring Webinars on Wednesdays series includes a host of timely topics:

* State of the Nation: Effective Advocacy Resources in a Challenging Climate
* The NAGC Pre-K - Grade 12 Gifted Programming Standards: Getting Started
* Assessments for Measuring Student Learning Outcomes
* Common Core State Standards: What Gifted Leaders Need to Know
* Instructional Strategies for Differentiated Assessments and Products Within the Classroom
* Action Plans: Bringing P-12 Gifted Programming Standards to Life
* P-12 Gifted Programming Standards: Models & Program Design
* Using the P-12 Gifted Programming Standards to Identify Gifted Low Income & Minority Students
* What Parents and Educators Should Know about RtI
* RtI & Twice-Exceptional Students: A Promising Fit
* The Intricacies of Twice-Exceptional Children: An Overview
* Double the Label, Double the Need: Strategies for Educators & Parents of Twice-Exceptional Children

Registration for NAGC's WoW series can be done online. Access to previously-aired webinars is available in their Live Learning Center. Additionally, currently available for free in their Live Learning Center are some of the most viewed sessions from last fall's NAGC convention in New Orleans, including "To Group or Not To Group," "Intelligences Outside the Normal Curve: Creating Social Capital and Leadership Potential in Young People," and "Differentiation and the Brain: Using 21st Century Knowledge to Support Student Growth."

Happy Learning! :o)

Posted by Tamara Fisher at 6:53 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

I have some more photos to share with you today... snapshots of various moments with my students which help to illustrate some of what we do, what some of their talents are, and some of what I teach them.

For my Advanced Studies (independent project) class, Binary is learning about electromagnetism. Here you can see he has rigged up a meter (consisting of a gauss meter, an AM radio, and an aluminum pole) to search for areas/items of high electromagnetic output:

The biggest surprise so far is that the item emitting the most electromagnetism in my classroom is not the laptops, not the cell phones, not the iPods, not the fluorescent lights, but rather the digital clock on my desk. Hmmm...

The ear buds that Binary was wearing (to hear the "feedback" from his meter) kept falling out of his ears. He became annoyed enough to find his own solution to the problem:

A couple months ago, a professor at the local tribal college invited me to give a presentation about gifted learners to the students in her Exceptional Needs class. These future teachers were learning about students whose needs within a classroom fall outside the norm, and I was granted two hours to give them all I could squeeze in as preparation for the gifted learners in their future classrooms. They invited me back a month later requesting that I bring a "student panel" - some of my students who could talk with them directly from the kids' point of view about what they love/need as learners. I brought about ten students, ranging from a sophomore (student on left below) to a 2nd grader (student on right below). I love how this photo gives a peek into the broad age range I work with every day!

Here Bradley is stumped by a Rush Hour puzzle.

As I've talked about before, a big focus of my work with my students is preparing them for how to deal with challenges in healthy ways. Gifted students so often breeze through school, especially the early years, that they don't always develop study skills, school work ethic, and academic persistence because they are never/rarely called upon to need those things. Part of my mission is to make sure they DO develop those skills, and this is accomplished by intentionally placing them in problem solving and learning scenarios where they can learn and develop those skills (with support as needed). Rather than giving up or goofing off like he used to when faced with a true challenge, you can see that Bradley is now learning to

As my students get older (about 4th or 5th grade), I dedicate a class discussion to the generation of multiple examples contrasting healthy/positive strategies for tolerating frustration with unhealthy/negative strategies. We talk about how the unhealthy and negative strategies are used by people because they offer some sort of immediate gratification, but they are unhealthy because they also have short- or long-term negative consequences. We talk about the importance of recognizing when they are facing a learning challenge and focusing on the use of healthy strategies for tolerating the frustration that can come with that. Again, we have this conversation because these students are the ones most likely to have had the fewest opportunities to develop their academic persistence. I also want them to be more aware of what types of strategies they use and to know that if they find themselves using unhealthy strategies, it's okay to ask someone (a parent, a counselor, myself) to help them transition to healthier ones. Here is the list generated a couple weeks ago by my 5th graders. (The section in the middle is for strategies that could be healthy in moderation or unhealthy in large doses. The blue, rectangular magnet is a little something I give them after the conversation. It includes ideas for "101 Ways to Cope with Stress.")

Analogies are an excellent (and the students think fun) way to develop comparative thinking.

This packet of analogies for my 3rd graders is challenging enough that they often have to look words up in the unabridged dictionary to figure out the solution:

Reagan is making a battlebot for Advanced Studies. Here he is working on one of the parts he might use, the motor from an old rotary fan. Because his Advanced English class conflicts with the class period when I teach Advanced Studies at our high school, we scheduled him into an earlier time slot that matches up with when I teach the class at our middle school. As the two buildings are next door to one another, this accommodates his schedule as well as his mentoring skills. The middle school students have great questions for him!

My friend's husband accidentally bought a couple dozen too many Eggies. I decided all the extras could be an interesting opportunity to toss a creative thinking challenge at some of my students. In about 20 minutes, my 2nd graders generated almost 40 ideas of "what these could be," including a spinning top, mouse barrel racing barrels, a monocle, cookie cutters, an hourglass, and (pictured) a rocket ship:

I do thinking-skills-based activities in Kindergarten and 1st grade classrooms. This is partly to develop higher-level and creative thinking skills in all students, as well as to give me an opportunity to see which students consistently exhibit gifted behaviors (and therefore which students might be most in need of the other services I offer). Here a 1st grader contemplates the solution to a cut-and-fold problem from a great little thinking book called Smart Snips:

Seventh grader Pickles is learning how to play the guitar and has expanded his musical interest to composing. Here, on the computer screen, you can see a work in progress using Noteflight:

Umbra, a senior, is learning six computer programming languages (Python, Perl, Java, html5, C++, and C#). Here he is working on creating a tkinter using Python:

I love the variety that comes with my job!

Posted by Tamara Fisher at 7:37 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A couple weeks ago when I was reporting from the national gifted education conference, I mentioned the release of NAGC's biannual "State of the Nation in Gifted Education" report. At the time, details from the report weren't yet available online, but they are now, so I wanted to direct you to some links as well as highlight for you some additional points from the report that I find most intriguing.

Every other year, the National Association for Gifted Children surveys U.S. states (and territories) seeking information and data regarding the identification of and provision of services for gifted children in that state. For the 2010-2011 report, 44 states and one territory responded to the questionnaire about gifted policies, programs, services, and other practices.

The following are data points from the report that caught my interest:

* Thirty-one of the responding states have a mandate related to gifted and talented education, some requiring identification, some requiring services, and some requiring both.

* Fourteen states have no mandate to identify or provide services for gifted learners, and five of the states that do have mandates do not provide funding for those services.

* Fourteen states reported that the number of students in the state who are identified as gifted and talented is information not collected or not available.

* Only twenty-nine of the responding states report advanced proficiency indicators on district report cards or state accountability reporting forms. But shouldn't that be relevant information for an innovative nation to want to know about its schools in all states?

* While seven states have policies permitting early entrance to Kindergarten, ten states specifically do not allow early entrance. Another twenty-four states leave the decision to local districts.

* Decisions and policies regarding whether a student may be dually enrolled in middle and high school are made at the local level in most states. While ten states directly allow this kind of dual enrollment, eight states specifically prohibit middle/high school dual enrollment. Seventeen states allow high school credit to be earned in these situations, and one state specifically prohibits a middle school student taking high school courses to earn high school credit for that work.

* Fourteen states fund a virtual high school. (I imagine this number will continue to grow as technology becomes a more and more viable delivery option for schools and students.)

* Only six states require pre-service training for regular classroom teachers on characteristics and needs of gifted students. Yet it is in the regular classroom where gifted learners are expected to have the bulk of their learning needs met.

* In thirty-six states, regular classroom teachers are never required to receive training about the gifted learners who are inevitably in their classrooms.

* Twenty-one states require teachers who work specifically with gifted learners to have a
certificate or endorsement in gifted education. That means that more than half of the states do not expect teachers whose sole focus is the gifted learner to even know something about those students.

* A sizable majority of responding states said pre-service training in gifted education for future teachers (34) and professional development for general education teachers in instructional strategies for gifted learners (40) were areas in need of attention, along with the need for funding for these ventures (34).

* Twelve states cited a national focus on bringing underperforming students to proficiency as resulting in limited challenge for students who had met or surpassed that target already.

* Thirteen states indicated that gifted and talented education programs, services, or staffing had been reduced and/or that less money was being spent on those educational features as a result of national education law focusing on a bar of proficiency.

* Among the states that do provide some funding for gifted education, reported state funding per identified gifted student ranged from less than $8 to more than $2,500. (And this amount, obviously, would be $0 in other states.)

You can access a summary of the report at this link on NAGC's website. This four-page summary in PDF format would be a concise version of the data to distribute to stakeholders in your district.

An extensive overview citing many additional data points is available at this link.

A summary of the findings featuring a multitude of graphs and other visuals is available at this link. Two in particular that I found interesting were this one showing what states found to be most in need of attention regarding gifted learners:

and this one showing the level of training teachers in each state receive (or are never provided!) about gifted learners:

A news release, titled "Nation's Infrastructure to Support Gifted Students is Crumbling, Survey Finds," can be accessed here. It's in a nice format for sharing with stakeholders in your school or district.

And a flash drive containing a complete picture of the survey and its entirety of results is available for sale in the NAGC bookstore.

Posted by Tamara Fisher at 11:12 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Well, I've now had beignet, jambalaya, and gumbo, in addition to the fried alligator. Quite a unique place, this New Orleans! :o)

I began Day 4 in a session by Miraca Gross about grouping practices and their impact on gifted learners. As she discussed in her presentation, since we know that gifted learners
* learn at a much faster pace
* retain more in a more efficient way
* have a higher mental age (think in ways more like children who are older)
* and have a greater ability to connect ideas and manipulate information,
then TRULY responding to their learning characteristics means providing them with curriculum that is
* paced faster
* pitched at a higher level
* and is more complex and abstract
than the curriculum provided for average learners. If it is too slow, too easy, and too simple, gifted learners (and I would add high potential learners who haven't been discovered yet) are robbed of the opportunity to show what they are truly capable of and to learn at the levels to which they can be stretched. I loved this quote from her: "A simplistic curriculum acts as an imposed camouflage on gifted learners." Followed by, "We have to start acknowledging the range of achievement in the mixed ability classroom and the amount of unnecessary revision [repetition] imposed on the bright and gifted students." And I practically cheered at this humdinger: "How do we justify an educational system that ignores competence and achievement, and utilizes chronological age as the primary, or only, factor in student placement?"

She went on to cover the advantages and disadvantages (all overcomeable, IMHO) [yes, I know that's not really a word ;o)] of various grouping practices where gifted learners have time together with intellectual peers (such as cluster grouping, subject acceleration, self-contained classrooms, pull-out, etc.). Among the advantages, she highlighted:
* higher levels of social and academic peer support
* increased opportunity for gifted learners to work within their zone of proximal development
* increased likelihood of encountering a curriculum that is differentiated to meet their learning needs

The mini keynote that I attended today was "Bullying of and by Gifted Children and Teens" with Jean Sunde Peterson, Tom Hebert, Dan Peters, and Michelle Haj-Broussard. Many children, unfortunately, experience bullying in its various forms, including gifted youth. The presenters pointed out some factors that impact the susceptibility of gifted children to bullying, such as the fact that many gifted children are so different and quirky, some of them aren't aware of (or don't care about) the social consequences of being outside the social norm, their keen sense of justice can prevent them from backing off of or ignoring what they perceive as injustices, and their heightened sensitivities can magnify the effect of bullying on them.

Among the "what to do" suggestions given for the helping adults in the lives of children experiencing bullying were the following (and these certainly are good advice for helping a child of any ability level who is being bullied):
* Make sure they have experiences where they feel liked and valued
* Provide a consistent presence in the child's life
* Offer them strategies and tools for dealing with bullying
* Assist them in their quest to find purpose and meaning in life
* Focus on their strengths
* Validate their input
* Consider a new environment
* "Help them focus on the marathon of life"

You might like to read this summary of some of the research on bullying and gifted children that was referenced in the presentation.

In the afternoon, I was part of a packed room that thoroughly enjoyed the humor and mathematical insights of the internationally well-loved Rachel McAnallen, a.k.a. Ms. Math (or now, Dr. Ms. Math, as she recently earned her PhD in Gifted Education at the age of 75! You can read her dissertation on math anxiety in elementary teachers here.) I've seen her present many times, but had never seen her do a session on fractions, so I was curious what her angle on that would be. She talked about teaching children "fractioneze," or the language of fractions. Here she demonstrates a way to teach accurate language for parts of a group, the beginnings of developing the concept of parts of a whole:

"One out of four is on wheels." "One out of four is black." "Two out of four have four legs." "Zero out of four are red." "Four out of four are not red." I encourage you to check out her thorough description of the whole lesson and process! She has it written so you can apply/adapt it to any grade level.

You can access other descriptions of her additional strategies for teaching fractions on her website. You can also access many of her other insightful, conceptual strategies for all grade levels there, too.

Well, I'm off to begin Day 5, followed by a long flight home. I hope to cover the rest of Days 3 and 4 later.

Posted by Tamara Fisher at 6:13 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend