Gifted Myth #4 Debunked

Myth No. 4: Gifted students read all the time, wear glasses and/or are physically and socially inept.

We all probably have examples of the student who fits the stereo-typical gifted student. But the fact is the majority of gifted students or the 'norm' do not fit this stereotype.  With any group of gifted children, there are outliers who fit this stereo type.  In my career working with gifted students I have absolutely had students that fit this stereotype, but then I have had plenty more that are active in sports, very popular and seem to be going through life just fine.

My question to you is this:  Is it okay to have this stereotype?  Do we need to change it, or like so many of us is it fun to laugh it off and say:  "that's atypical, they're just gifted."

Gifted Myth No. 3 Debunked

Myth No. 3: There is no need to identify gifted students in the early grades.

Many school districts do not begin identifying gifted and talented students until third grade. There is a belief among some educators that giftedness cannot be properly identified in the early grades. However, the National Association for Gifted Children programming standards start with pre-kindergarten. The group’s early childhood network position paper says that “providing engaging, responsive learning environments … benefit all children, including young gifted children.”

Well, we all know that I am not opinionated about this at all! (Note Sarcasm) As an educator, that is like telling me that we cannot be properly identifying special education until 3^rd grade.  A gifted child can and oftentimes does perform better when they are younger prior to us “schooling it out of them”.  For more information about that watch this FANTASTIC video by Sir Ken Robinson:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U . 

As a parent, I was truly fortunate to have someone realize that our son was profoundly gifted and he was tested and started receiving services at 2 ½ years old.  Until then, I just assumed all children sorted animals by kingdom, phylum and class.  However, we had a rude awakening when joining the public school system to find out that not only did they not test children that age, they did not provide services.  In fact we were told that all children typically even out around 3^rd grade and if we had just not worked so much with him he would be fitting in better at school.  My beautiful, bright, inquisitive boy who couldn’t wait to go to ‘real’ school (he had been going to an ASU profoundly gifted program for 2 years twice a week) hated going to school and cried nearly every day.  It was absolutely a horrible experience for him and us.  Why would we want to put any child through that? 

Each and every child that we come in contact with should be given the opportunity to be excited about learning something new each day.  Anything else is criminal in my book.  (Again, not showing any opinions here!)

And as a side note, I tested three students today, two were 5 and one was 6.  The test was a piece of cake for them and of course they all qualified.  The nice thing is that the Cognitive Abilities Test, is just that:  a test for cognitive abilities.  I learn so much more than just whether a child is gifted or not.  I can typically tell a lot about a child, their strengths, weaknesses and possibly if they are disabled and it has not been caught because their giftedness masks their disability.  I personally believe that every student should be tested using the CogAt or something similar so that we have one more data point to use to determine appropriate educational paths.

Gifted Myth #2 Debunked

Myth No. 2: Giftedness can easily be measured by intelligence tests and tests of achievement. Giftedness is difficult to measure. This is why schools and school districts try so many different ways to identify gifted students. Tests are often culturally biased and may reflect ethnicity, socioeconomic status, exposure and experiences rather than true giftedness. Other children may be gifted but are not good at taking tests. They may not score well on standardized tests but may be gifted, especially in creative and productive thinking.

While I believe that some children are easy to identify as gifted because they test well, there are those that do not and there are those who are twice exceptional and cannot do well on the most commonly used test, the CogAt. Some of the most difficult areas for me to ascertain if a child is gifted is in the arts, technology and/or leadership. I had a student who missed qualifying for gifted by one point in one area and three points in two areas, yet he was brilliant. This young man had an entrepreneurial spirit and had started his own business making over $30,000 a year profit in 7th grade. He could lead any group of students and had the uncanny ability to organize greatness. He was crushed when he did not qualify for gifted, because all of his peers were identified. As a gifted team, we made the decision to have him submit a portfolio of his leadership and business interests and we created a rubric to determine whether he should be placed in gifted classes. Luckily, all but one of our team mates thought this was a splendid answer for including these oftentimes overlooked areas of giftedness.

However, this one teammate ridiculed the process and believed that we were watering down our program by allowing students alternative pathways to gifted identification. Luckily the student was accepted into the gifted program and shined like we knew he would. He continued his business, and even expanded it during high school. By the time he graduated from high school, he had saved enough money to buy a home for cash and of course had a full ride scholarship to the University of his choice and has soared both academically and socially. For me this is the reason for gifted education: To support students in their academic and professional endeavors based on their ability. This was a win-win for the school and for the student. We did not lower our requirements for admittance, we expanded them with fidelity. Having multiple pathways to identification allows for non-traditional groups to be represented in our gifted education model.

Gifted Myth #1 Debunked

For the next 10 weeks I would like us to focus on this gifted article, going through each myth one week at a time. The link to the full article is: http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/14/ten-myths-about-gifted-students-and-programs-for-gifted/ However, this week we will concentrate only on Myth 1: Myth No. 1: Intelligence is inherited and does not change. Gifted students, therefore, do not need any special services. All of us do inherit certain traits, intelligences and talents. But these need to be developed and nurtured throughout life for them to grow and reach their full potential. A beautiful flower inherits certain traits. But if it is not watered and fed and if it does not get the right amount of sunlight, it does not develop as it could. The same is true for gifted children. My response: I have heard this statement so many times, and in reflection, if I am 100% honest, I have left these children out during my teaching as well. It simply is easy to do. I can remember one student in particular who I knew already had a deep understanding of my curriculum and I encouraged her to be my TA instead of taking my class, because I knew I wouldn’t be able to challenge her the way that she deserved. (She was the best TA that I have ever had by the way.) But was I helping her by not giving her special services? Was I allowing her to grow and blossom in technology like she could have? No. In fact, I would say that she was left behind, because the students in my class received instruction while she was filing, running errands, making copies, etc. Had I taken the time (of which I didn’t think I had) to allow her to reach her full potential, she could have excelled in this area, rather than be just like one of the rest of the kids at the end of the year. Through careful reflection of my failure of this student, two years later I had another student that passed my pre-test with no sweat. I actually called a meeting with his parents and him to go over what I could do to help him soar. We built a plan together that he was in charge of using the models in the book “ Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom” and he did amazing things. He used his time each day to expand on his current knowledge and to add more to his learning than I could ever think of doing. He set his curriculum, outcomes, and goals, he and I just met once a week to discuss his progress. There were times that he asked to join the other students in class because he liked what we were working on and wanted to see how he would do. He always surpassed my expectations. Simply put, I focused more on the learning that was going on rather than the curriculum that I had to cover and he exceeded what I would have done if I had hunkered down and created curriculum for him that I MUST cover.

Beyond Gifted Education Book Study

This school year, we have decided to begin a book study on the book Beyond Gifted Education by Scott Peters, Michael Matthews, Matthew McBee and Betsy McCoach, ISBN: 978-1-61821-121-7. To start our first chapter, Defining Giftedness, Talent, and Advanced Academics one has to ask how do we define ? Are all schools equal when determining who is gifted and when? Your thoughts?

Twice Exceptional

Our daughter was just diagnosed as twice exceptional. Bittersweet -- we were testing her for dyslexia and the tests confirmed that she does indeed have dyslexia and we also found out what we already knew but had no cognitive documentation -- she is VERY gifted. So I have two thoughts:

1. How do parents help their children when it can be so frustrating to be so smart, but unable to express themselves in a manner that showcases their gifts?

2. As a teacher, how do we provide services that enrich/enhance their learning while still helping the students with their disability?

Disrupting Class

Thinking about doing our next book study on Disrupting Class, by Clayton Christiansen. What do you think of when you think of disrupting class? Before reading this book, I would say that I pictured this:



Now I realize that it means that students are learning at their own pace, in the best modality for them. Theoretically a tailor made education.

Are we afraid to disrupt the norm in education? Or can we put our thinking hats on and disrupt the status quo of learning? Join me in the interesting conversations that will be sure to follow. We will be starting in two weeks, plenty of time for you to order your copy for your ebook or a hard copy online! Looking forward to GREAT discussions!