In a retrospective post written in October on the World of Learning blog (Three Decades of Indifference) I laid out a dismaying set of missed opportunities and our resultant failure to serve academically gifted students in spite of the alarming call to action published in A Nation at Risk 30 years ago.
The very next day I received a copy of Closing America’s High-Achievement Gap, written by noted education expert Andy Smarick. Chock full of resources and ideas for donors to spur high-achieving students into appropriate learning environments, this publication from The Philanthropy Roundtable is available as a free download and should be required reading for any gifted advocate, education policy influencer, parent or teacher of academically gifted students.
From the Preface:
“Of the 60 million or so American school children, how many are learners who are never challenged to their full potential? How many students of every economic, ethnic, and geographic group will languish in school not because it is too difficult or they lack drive, but becasue paltry academic options they are afforded fail to stretch or challenge them?
The donors profiled in this guidebook show that philanthropy can dramatically enhance the learning level of high-potential students, including those from low-income families. This work can be taken up on its own, or woven seamlessly into broader education support. But if ambitious and passionate donors fail to make this issue a priority, it is likely to remain one of the great failings of the U.S. education system for decades to come, penalizing many children and the nation as a whole.”
How appropriate to receive this clarion call just as I was bemoaning the lack of progress for gifted children over the last 30 years. With gifted education under attack in Ohio (see this Advocacy Alert from OAGC) the timing could not have been better. With a neat and tidy guidebook showing multiple paths for donors to have maximum impact, who will lead the charge on behalf of these students?
The Maker Mom (also known as Kim Moldofsky whom I am calling the “M” in STEM) is partnering with Texas Instruments Education Technology to host a Twitter #STEMChat on Tuesday, September 17th from 9-10 Eastern. I am thrilled to be included in the list of panelists again this year (I had so much fun doing it last year!)
Not only can you look forward to a lively and informative chat about getting back into the STEM of things this back-to-school season, but you’ll also have a chance to win a TI-Nspire™ CX graphing handheld. See The Maker Mom: Back to School STEM and a Giveaway for more details on how to win this great device during #STEMChat (and another chance on her blog.)
And if you can’t make the Twitter chat but still want some inspiration for getting back into STEM, check out the new STEM Behind Hollywood resource from TI. Did you say “Zombie Apocalypse Webinar?” I thought so.
“Constant vigilance!”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Last week I happened upon a link to an “anti-Common Core” post on someone’s Facebook wall. Embedded in the post was a video of a young girl executing a math problem using a TERC/Investigations method for solving a simple addition problem. Videos like these have been around for some time – but recently they (and other absurdities) are beginning to surface in response to the upcoming Common Core implementation. I’ve been meaning to blog on this topic for some time, from a parental point-of-view, but like many topics in education it is a multilayered and complex topic not easily distilled into a 500 word post. So I was particularly pleased to find someone had the good sense to write a (much longer) post on this very topic (“5 Things Every Parent Needs to Know About The Common Core“) which I hope will dispel some of the myths and misconceptions flying around about it.
The Common Core is not a construct of the Obama administration.
The Common Core is not an effort to overtake a state’s authority to educate its citizens.
The Common Core is not a national curriculum.
The Common Core is an effort to instill reading and math standards across our education system. If your school administration tells you that gifted education has been discontinued “because of Common Core,” or that the number of tests each year has risen “because of Common Core,” or your child must learn the lattice method for multiple digit multiplication “because of Common Core,” they are being less than honest. To the last point the issue is the difference between standards and curriculum. An example of a standard:
- CCSS.Math.Content.2.MD.A.1 Measure the length of an object by selecting and using appropriate tools such as rulers, yardsticks, meter sticks, and measuring tapes.
Now if your school district elects to use a curriculum that teaches this standard in some ridiculous way, that is not the fault of the standard. That is the fault of the curriculum. On an increase in the number of tests? Ideally the Common Core will replace state level tests by 2014-15 school year.
If our nation is to become competitive in the world economy we will have to focus our resources on improving achievement in reading and math. You can call it anything you’d like – but without a common set of standards, and some way to assess the effectiveness of the curriculum teaching those standards, how can we possibly begin to compete (or even align) with the rest of the world for college and career readiness?
We can’t. Some schools strive to prepare their students in the best possible way to be successful in college and careers – hopefully yours is one of them. Some schools will do just what they need to do to get to the next school year and maintain a meaningless state level rating, all the time decrying the imposition of any national standards in reading and math. Whichever school it may be, maintaining “constant vigilance” is key to understanding valid arguments for and against the Common Core – and any other education reform measures.
Graduation (and party), end of school year, a harrowing reorg at work and the season finale of Game of Thrones left me asking myself if it was bedtime yet just about every day until we left for our annual trek to the beach.
I managed to get through it all and also accept an opportunity to contribute to a soon-to-launch parent blog sponsored by Bedtime Math. I love the concept of bedtime math. Last year I wrote about how parents with few math skills can still provide a strong foundation for their children in the subject. Bedtime Math was not around when my children were at that read-to-me age. If it had been our evening routine would have incorporated it (I have since run into several people with young children who subscribe to the daily math email) and, although the book won’t be out until next week, you can check them out now on Facebook.
The concept behind bedtime math is simple. If you ever read a bedtime story to your children you already know the joy of connecting over a book – and the confidence regular reading can instill in a child. In a delightful change on the bedtime reading routine, Bedtime Math founder Laura Overdeck and her husband decided to enhance their children’s bedtime routine with a daily math problem. Intended for young kids through elementary schoolers (three different levels of problems are offered each night) the bedtime math problem is also available through email subscription via their website.
On June 25th, Overdeck is releasing her book: Bedtime Math: A Fun Excuse to Stay up Late. If you want to learn more about Bedtime Math – and how to begin to incorporate fun math (yes, I wrote fun + math) into your evening routine, please join the sponsored #STEMchat and #BTMath hashtag on Twitter on Tuesday, June 25 from 9 – 10 PM Eastern. Panelists will include yours truly and:
Candace Lindemann, @CandaceApril, is mom, military wife, nationally recognized educator and prolific writer whose work can be seen at her site, Naturally Educational as well as at Lifetime Moms and around the web. She’s also a new Bedtime Math blogger.
Melanie Edwards, @ModernMami, is an engineer with a background in information technology who blogs at Modern Mami and around the web. She’s also a new Bedtime Math blogger.
Fred Goodall, @MochaDad is a writer, speaker, education advocate who writes at MochaDad.com.
And @KimMoldofsky (AKA @STEMchat), The Maker Mom and founder of monthly #STEMchats on Twitter designed to bring parents, educators and STEM professionals together to share resources and ideas to raise STEM-loving kids.
This post and the upcoming Twitter chat is sponsored in whole or in part by Bedtime Math.
Earlier this month I had the privilege of visiting the George W. Bush Institute on the campus of Southern Methodist University. In the midst of construction leading up to the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library, the Philanthropy Roundtable held its opening session in the newly finished theater of the Institue. I do not often have the opportunity to attend such events, but I had a two-fold reason for wanting to attend this conference in particular: 1) I had hoped to connect with Andy Smarick over an interesting post he authored over on the Flypaper blog that hit home:
Many of us are focused on providing better educational opportunities to low-income kids, especially those in cities. This is certainly where I’ve spent most of my time.
And for this reason, we’ve built organizations and pursued activities with this in mind. But as a result, our community has all but ignored the needs of suburban and more affluent families.
Our community’s reflexive response to this charge to date has been, “So what? We can only do so much, and urban ed reform is where we’re directing our scarce resources.”
But this fails to recognize that everything we do takes place in a political-policy context, and state legislatures and Congress include lots of people who represent suburban, middle-class, and affluent areas. (from General Failure on the Flypaper blog)
and, 2) A trip to Dallas would give me an opportunity to reconnect with a student I had interviewed from one of our subsidiary high schools who is currently studying civil engineering at SMU.
I never did connect with Andy Smarick – (but I am fascinated by the topic of spreading education reform to our leafy suburbs. My work at KnowledgeWorks often leaves me struggling to understand why so much innovation in the education sector seems to be passing the middle class by. Competency based education, online learning and credit flexibility have much to offer the high ability student.)
George W. Bush Presidential Library on SMU’s campus
In Cincinnati we are quite fortunate to have many local employers interested in creating opportunities for high school students to become familiar with careers in technology – so much so that they sponsor an annual “TECHOlympics.”
This year I attended (again) as a volunteer and wrote about hacking a Kinect motion sensor on the The Maker Mom. If you haven’t yet checked it out, The Maker Mom is curated by Kim Moldofsky, #STEMchat founder, who is dedicated to helping parents raise STEM-loving, Maker-friendly kids. The blog highlights Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, gifted education, and STEM for girls and I am thrilled to have a post published there.
A poorly reasoned article published earlier this month in the New York Times implied racial segregation in the gifted classroom in city public schools, suggesting that all children deserved enrichment – not just the ones who have an ability test showing that they are gifted.
A big shame-on-them was promptly and correctly issued by Chester Finn on the Flypaper blog along with an OpEd rejoinder in the offending publication drawing largely on the data supported in Exam Schools: Inside America’s Most Selective Public High Schools. And although I was pleased to see someone stand up for the voice of gifted I was also left with a nagging feeling that as a nation we we are missing the point. Yes, “Exam Schools” are critically important and there should be more of them. But what do we do for these kids earlier, in grade school or middle school? Then I ran across a wonderful Blog Talk Radio interview with Dr. Linda Silverman (thank you Maker Mom for posting the original link.) The following quote was transcribed by me from the Blog Talk interview:
“What is gained in the name of democracy by allowing a child who has already learned a concept to sit in class bored while the teacher goes over and over and over material they’ve already mastered. Who gains from this? How does this serve anybody?”
I believe one of the essential challenges facing gifted education is understanding and articulating the difference between what Silverman calls “the psychology of eminence” and the psychology of giftedness.
1- Giftedness is seen by many to be an artificial designation of the education system rather than a psychological designation. This does a huge disservice to the intellectually gifted student and any advocacy efforts undertaken on their behalf. There are scientific implications of giftedness we haven’t begun to comprehend along with patterns and combinations that could emerge when studied alongside other exceptionalities (e.g. dyslexia, Aspergers, vision and auditory issues, etc.)
2- There is general confusion between giftedness and what is perceived to be a natural outcome of giftedness – eminence. Silverman introduced the notion of eminence as a white male construct. To obtain eminence in your field requires resources, assets and a single dedicated focus that is simply rarely available to the general population. It’s not fair but that’s how it is and it is wholly unrelated to giftedness.
3- Research from Karen Rogers demonstrates that the learning rate of children above 130 IQ is approximately 8 times faster than for children below 70 IQ. How does a teacher in a public school classroom of 30 meet the need for a faster paced curriculum for the handful of students that require it? Proven accommodations for gifted children in the classroom include ability grouping for faster paced learners, telescoping curriculum, acceleration (subject and whole grade when appropriate – see The Davidson Institute for more ideas) – but all of those accommodations are rarely employed for a variety of reasons wholly unrelated to the well being and education of the gifted student. What is left? Enrichment.
And here we are back at square one with the clarion cry for equal access to museum field trips for all students – the ones in remediation along with the ones who ready for Shakespeare in 3rd grade. It is well intentioned but poorly thought out.
What does “equal access to enrichment” look like in the classroom? While the student who needs remediation visits the museum he is missing the hour block time normally dedicated to bringing him up to grade level in reading. The gifted kid who is already reading at grade level – or two, three or four years above grade-level – also enjoys the museum. The next day everyone goes back to the assembly line of school routine in which the teacher has to now spend two hours of block time to make up what the students not reading at grade level missed while they were at the museum. The gifted student? Well they can sit for two hours and watch and wait. Perhaps by 9th grade they will be lucky enough to get into an Exam School and actually learn something.
Enrichment is what we do when we have nothing else in our toolkit to offer the gifted kid. It is the very least we can do for these children.
I had good intentions – I just ran out of steam last month when the rubber hit the road on the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) offered by Stanford (see “Reframing Gifted Education Delivery“). With everything being written about online learning I was very excited about the potential to reimagine an online community for high ability students. This seemed like an ideal opportunity to gather some of my colleagues in gifted education and brainstorm ways to improve learning options, particularly for urban and rural kids without ready access to enrichment.
November has been (and continues to be) a particularly busy time both professionally and personally – honestly I just never had the time to sit down and “work” the system. The colleagues I had identified to join in the fun were already too busy to engage and I lacked the skills and/or time to assemble a like-minded team by promoting myself in the online forum process (designed for that purpose.) By the second week of November I realized I couldn’t pull it together and I dropped the course. No harm, no foul? Or does it speak to the intrinsic motivation required for successful free education systems. If there is nothing at stake, no tuition or course credit, then what is to keep us from abandoning the chosen path at the slightest obstacle? For decades education professionals have relied on online learning classes to challenge high ability students in the regular classroom. Yet the success of those programs is often dependent upon the guidance of a teacher, mentor or parent engaged in helping that student stay on track. It is fascinating to follow the evolutionary journey of online learning when educators, mentors and parents realize that even the best and most engaging curriculum requires student supports in order to achieve good outcomes. I am thankful that online learning options have existed for high ability students for the past few decades (Stanford was a leader in that field, too). But I also need to express concern for that quiet, introverted student (or adult) not comfortable with our education systems current reliance on leadership skills to rally troops around a collaborative effort. Not all careers are dependent upon group-speak or collaborative action – so when outcomes are based on the performance of the group as a whole aren’t we selling the quiet singular mind short?
Sunday morning before the election in Southwest Ohio is bright and cold – one of those crisp fall days that cries out for a football party with chili dip and an evening bonfire with neighbors. How curious that a state so absorbed in just living, working, playing, growing, harvesting and planting is thrown into the national spotlight every four years. Perhaps it is that quirky mix of farmland, industry and technology that gives us that privilege. I estimate that I responded to half a dozen polling calls (and one “push poll” for Josh Mandel) before we stopped answering our land line several weeks ago. Both eligible voters in our home have already voted absentee – I expect the calls would have been more numerous if we hadn’t. No one has come to our door, at least when I’ve been home. But we have had neighbors tag our mailboxes with campaign literature. And a quick perusal of the morning news could be summed up in the following tweet from @MHarlow23:
Republicans happy that Michael Barone predicts Romney win. Democrats happy that Dick Morris predicts Romney win.
As of this morning the election outcome prediction is still too close to call.
Next week Stanford University will be offering an online course “Designing a New Learning Environment,” with instructor Paul Kim, Chief Technology Officer and Assistant Dean, School of Education, Stanford University. Running from October 15 through December 20th, the course is project based and will require attendees to create virtual teams in order to complete.
According to the course description: “we invite educators, school leaders, researchers, students, parents, entrepreneurs, computer programmers, illustrators, interface designers, and all those who are interested in working together, to create a new learning environment.” My proposal? That we assemble a virtual team of parents of gifted students and gifted students themselves and focus on creating a new learning environment for gifted learners.
If you are interested please sign up for the course on the Venture Lab website and then come and find me on the course Discussion Forum during the first two weeks of the program (I have no idea what that interface looks like yet but I am sure we can figure it out.) Because I want to create an innovative model I want to keep the team confined to parents of academically gifted students and academically gifted students. Why? Because many of us have already been creating innovative blended learning models out of necessity (the mother of invention, remember?)
Giftedness is asynchronous development in which advanced cognitive abilities and heightened intensity combine to create inner experiences and awareness that are qualitatively different from the norm. This asynchrony increases with higher intellectual capacity. The uniqueness of the gifted renders them particularly vulnerable and requires modifications in parenting, teaching and counselling in order for them to develop optimally. (The Columbus Group, 1991)
Won’t you join me?
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