Explore the Many Faces of Giftedness this October

a super learning opportunity for the GT community in Colorado

The Colorado Association for Gifted and Talented (CAGT) will hold its annual state conference on Monday, October 20 and Tuesday October 21, 2014 at the Marriott Denver Tech Center, 4900 S. Syracuse Street in Denver, Colorado. Also, CAGT’s Parent Institute will be held on the evening of Monday, October 20. On Tuesday morning, October 21, CAGT and the Colorado Department of Education will co-sponsor the annual Leadership Forum. The theme for this year’s conference and its related events is The Many Faces of Gifted, acknowledging that each gifted child is different and comes from a unique background.

 

Conference Meets an Important Need

There are about 67,000 gifted students in Colorado, children from every race, culture, gender and income level. In 2013-14 approximately 7.6% of Colorado’s K-12 public school population was identified as gifted and there are also gifted learners in other educational settings such as homeschool and private schools. These students have varying strengths, interests, and needs; some students have disabilities as well.

It is a challenge to support the differences and uniqueness of every gifted child, in the schools and at home. However, as CAGT President, Dr. Blanche Kapushion, noted, "Supporting the academic and social-emotional development of gifted learners is imperative to Colorado's economic development and educational sustainability. The Colorado Association for Gifted and Talented has been supporting educators, parents, and students for forty years to assure that the multiple dimensions and faces of gifted learners is addressed and elevated. As we move into the next forty years we must be able to address the complex macro problems and potential for macro opportunities that will provide gifted learners with opportunities to be problem finders and problem solvers for our future.”

Featuring local and international experts, the state conference introduces knowledge and strategies for the support of Gifted and Talented population. It is attended by teachers, administrators, parents and guardians, counselors, mental health practitioners, legislators, community leaders, and gifted students. Dr. Kapushion said that “through our state conference, we will bring together all the key players who are involved in assuring our gifted learners contribute to our future economic development and educational sustainability, locally and globally, and recognize the efforts of those who have worked toward this goal." 

 

CAGT Conference Details

The conference schedule offers two full days to gain knowledge and strategies to support the differences and uniqueness of every gifted child. The conference opens each day at 7:15 a.m. with registration, continental breakfast, and exhibitors; breakout sessions begin at 8:00. Check out the Monday and Tuesday descriptions of the breakout sessions. There are 80 sessions to choose from, addressing the needs of children from early elementary through high school. A broad variety of topics are offered, including classroom instruction, parenting, creativity, advocacy, underachievement, arts, technology, twice-exceptional students, and of course, many areas of diversity. These sessions offer attendees—whether educators, parents, students, or mental health practitioners—the opportunity to customize their conference experience according to their professional or individual interests.

In keeping with the theme, the conference will offer an intriguing and diverse array of keynotes. Mental health practitioners, educators, organizational leaders and parents will benefit from hearing from Dan Siegel, M.D., a world-reknown neurobiologist and author of Mindsight, The Whole-Brain Child, and Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain. Dr. Siegel offers a scientifically grounded, integrated view of human development to promote the growth of vibrant lives and healthy minds. Dr. Rosina Gallagher will be another keynote speaker. She is an educational consultant and lead author of Diversity and Equity in Illinois: Responding to Differences within the Gifted Population and of Educando Hijos Exitosos. Dr. Gallagher brings her experience as a psychologist, a past President of SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted), and a member of both NAGC’s Parent Education Committee and Advisory Board. Lisa Van Gemert, Mensa's Education Liaison, will share her expertise; in addition to her work with Mensa, she conducts professional development sessions for thousands of teachers each year on best practices in the education of the gifted CAGT has also acknowledged the important by inviting keynotes from two local students who are already making a difference in the world: Kai Kloepfer, an Intel Science and Engineering Fair winner, and Xiuhtezcati Roske-Martinez, a 13 year old indigenous environmental activist and performer.

Conference registration is available on the CAGT website. Conference registration is $290 per person for both days and $190 per person for a single day, either Monday or Tuesday. The cost of the conference includes lunch and continental breakfast. Conference attendees receive a 2014-15 annual membership to CAGT and to a local Affiliate of their choice. Professional development hours and graduate credit will both be available.

A number of attendees are staying at the conference hotel. There is a special CAGT conference rate at the Denver Tech Marriott. Staying at the conference hotel allows conference attendees to avoid a commute and get a refreshed start in the morning. It also gives time after the conference day to decompress and synthesize or to collaborate with fellow colleagues. Or this can be a chance to socialize; CAGT is having a free Trivia Night on Monday evening from 7:30-9:00 p.m. in the hotel restaurant to make it easier to connect with old and new GT-minded friends.   

Parent Institute

As in past years, CAGT will take advantage of having some much GT expertise gathered in Denver for the conference by offering a special event for parents and guardians. Monday night is CAGT’s Parent Institute, a great opportunity to hear from leading speakers in giftedness. This will be held 6:30 to 9:00 p.m. in the Evergreen Ballroom of the Denver Tech Marriott. The expert panel will feature Dr. Rosina Gallagher and Lisa Van Gemert, who are also conference keynote speakers (see above). Also on the panel will be Dr. George Betts, a perennial favorite at the Parent Institute. He is Professor Emeritus at University of Northern Colorado, President-elect of the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC), and author of several books, including The Journey of Lifelong Learning. Dr. Beverly Trail will also be on the panel. She is a professor at Regis University, past Chair of the NAGC Special Population Network and author of Twice-Exceptional Gifted Children. There will be time for audience questions to the panel. Parent Institute registration is available on the CAGT website. The fee is $20 per person or for two adults from the same household. Spanish interpretation will be available upon request. Light refreshments will be served.

 

Leadership Forum

CAGT’s annual Leadership Forum is held during the CAGT conference and co-sponsored with the Office of Gifted Education at the Colorado Department of Education. The 2014 Forum will be on Tuesday morning from 8:00-11:00 a.m. In keeping with this year’s conference theme, The Many Faces of Gifted, the forum will focus on diverse learning needs, culture and school climate for all gifted students. The special leadership session is an outreach to Colorado’s educational leaders who influence the learning of all students. Superintendents, central and building administrators, school leaders, university and community leaders, and legislators are encouraged to attend as a district or regional team organized with their local director of gifted education.

Dr. Rosina Gallagher will speak on Improving Student Outcomes for Underrepresented Populations. Table talks and a question and answer period will follow her presentation. Forum participants will have the opportunity to discuss this and other important issues concerning gifted education. Leadership Forum registration is available on the CAGT website. The cost of the Leadership Forum is $25 per person, which includes breakfast, materials and speaker.


Questions about the conference events or registration?  Email: CoGifted@gmail.com

First Grade Flow

May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children. ~Rainer Maria Rilke

I thought I saw a familiar face at the store today. Finally a name matched the countenance. "Are you Rhonda Cratty?" 

The woman smiled, a glimmer of recognition suspended above her groceries. "Yes."
I told her my daughter had been a student in her first grade class. That was over a decade ago but Mrs. Cratty remembered her enthusiastically and we caught up for a few minutes.

Leaving the store I felt a wash of gratitude for our experience with Mrs. Cratty. A lot of water has passed under the educational bridge for our family and sometimes the current only flowed due to frequent dredging. Second grade was a trial and we chose to homeschool for years after that. But first grade, with Mrs. Cratty, was a genuinely good school year. 

My daughter found school engaging in first grade. There was joy in the work and a lot of energy in classroom--neither random busy-ness nor outwardly driven production, rather a purposeful, natural energy. She especially remembers the science; they did lots of hands-on experiments. My recollection of the overall classroom was that it was organic: each part related to the whole.

Next May the little first grader who loved science will be graduating from college, majoring in physics; she hopes to continue her studies in complex systems and ecology. That year of discovery in the classroom, with a great teacher acting as an encouraging guide for a novice explorer, was a good foundation. Thank you, Mrs. Cratty!

And Rhonda Cratty now writes about ways to include educational lessons in daily life. Relevant and organic! You can see from her online posts how every day offers a opportunity to find a little more depth and flow as we connect with young people.

Giving with One Hand, Taking with the Other

The November/December 2012 issue of Scientific American Mind is a special issue focusing on the topic of Genius. In the article “Nurturing the Young Genius”, Subotnik, Olszewski-Kubilius and Worrell state that the chief goal of identification and programming for gifted youth is “preparing young people for outstanding achievement”(Mind, p.52) and that “the aim of our proposed framework is to increase the number of individuals who can develop the innovative products and services and to deliver the creative performances that can improve and enhance our lives (p.57).

There is something chilling about the stated motivation behind the delivery of these boons. Should not the students should be the primary beneficiaries? And should we not seek to educate and support children, without reservation, because it is the right thing to do? 

Gifted children must have opportunities and encouragement for learning, health and personal growth, not be penalized because of some false idea of equality. But if they are not motivated to perform eminently according to someone else’s standardized scale of ability, performance, conformity, and the future, is that their failing or ours? Children should be supported as individual learners simply because they are children and, as such, we have a responsibility to nurture them--not because they had better deliver the goods.

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. 

They come through you but not from you, 
and though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.  
You may give them your love, but not your thoughts. 

For they have their own thoughts. 

You may house their bodies but not their souls, 
for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, 
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.  

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. 
For life goes not backward, nor tarries with yesterday. 
-Kahlil Gibran

Going Up? A Gifted Education "Elevator Pitch"

 Do you have an elevator pitch for gifted education?

What if you suddenly have the (brief!) opportunity to speak with a key legislator, administrator, or perhaps skeptical educator or parent about gifted education (note: actual elevator not required).  What will you say?

A little preparation will help you think clearly, make the most of the moment, and forward the cause of gifted students.

GT education is important:

• For the future: Confining students to educational environments they don't find challenging or supportive doesn't give them the tools necessary to become the innovators, the creators, the leaders, nor the involved members of the 21st century global community who they have the potential to become.
• For educational best practices:  Teachers trained to work with gifted learners benefit all students. Many successful learning strategies now touted in regular classrooms due to their benefits in flexible grouping and academic rigor actually originated in gifted education. 
• For meeting children's needs:  Every child deserves to have his or her academic and socio-emotional needs met.  Gifted learners from disadvantaged backgrounds are particularly dependent on public schools to meet their educational needs, but these students are also especially likely to be unidentified and underserved.

Each of these points is a reason for advocacy and hours of discussion onto itself.  However, the idea is to summarize and present three key points as to the value of gifted education in the time span of an elevator ride (approximately thirty seconds to two minutes).

Be clear and brief. Speak with passion. Be prepared and flexible about answering questions--ask for the opportunity to have a more thorough discussion!

NAGC advocacy themes

Promoting a Book that Promotes Twice-Exceptional Understanding

I now interrupt the flurry of holiday advertisements with one of my own, but only because it feels too important to put off. This new twice-exceptional resource is one of the best I've EVER read. And the holiday break would be a great time for anyone to do a first pass of this book and be ready to use it in January.

drum roll please...

The book I think we've all (parents, educators, counselors, etc.) been waiting for: Twice-Exceptional Children: Understanding, Teaching and Counseling Gifted Students by Beverly A. Trail, Ed. D.

This book "gets it" and is the whole package: a discussion of the different twice-exceptionalities, the facets of their impact, what to about them. There is a solid RtI explanation at last! And a discussion of the continuum of needs and services (assessments, briefly what these might reveal about strengths and challenges, an overview of the different services and strategies the many specialists might collaborate to offer, and then real suggestions about what this might look like). Discussion of executive functioning, cognitive style, self-actualization. I love that socio-emotional is wrapped in as a significant component to academic success. References woven artfully into the easy-to-read text. Actual plans for accommodations!

As a parent and advocate for gifted students, I want this book--and the breadth and depth of information it offers in one place--to be something with which every one of my children's teachers is very familiar; I'm sure it is a reference that they would often reach for, that they would share with parents and even their students, and it would make everyone's lives easier! Some parents might initially shy away from the "educational" title and the charts and figures offered inside but many of these offer tools that are valid at home as well as in the classroom.

Sometimes the hardest part of determining how to help a twice-exceptional student is simply knowing what questions to ask along the way. The appendix here offers a Twice-Exceptional Planning Continuum to help teachers and administrators (and counselors and parents and students) consider the assessment data, plan interventions, and monitor progress (the chapters support the planning). Excellent points for discussion that could be used as an "outside" guide to take a meeting from a place of personal frustration to an active plan recognizing individual need and implementing change.

If all the stakeholders in gifted and twice-exceptional student education were to be familiar with the insights and suggestions in this book, so much practical progress could be made: everyone would be on the same page (so to speak) with a foundation and strategies for early intervention and twice-exceptional student success!

Read how to implement the change you want to see in the world!

Note: I encourage you to support the HoagiesGifted webpage at no additional cost to you: click one of the Hoagies affiliate links before you shop, such as if purchasing this wonderful book via Prufrock Press or one of the booksellers.

It's Not Rocket Science. Clearly.

In 2005 the National Academies created a bipartisan group which strongly recommended 10 actions the federal government could take to enhance science and technology so the US would be globally competitive in the 21st century. Reading the report, it is as much about supporting innovation as about science."Rising Above the Gathering Storm Revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category 5", an updated  2010  report notes, the progress that has been made (or the lack thereof):  "The committee concluded that the United States appears to be on a course that will lead to a declining, not growing, standard of living for our children and grandchildren (p. 19).

Where does gifted education fit in?

Recommendation C: Make the United States the most attractive setting in which to study and perform research so that we can develop, recruit, and retain the best and brightest students, scientists, and engineers from within the United States and throughout the world. (p.30)

Gifted education is, of course, more encompassing than math or science. As is education in general. But basic "literacy" in science and math is critical to modern individual success. And fostering innovation is clearly proving to be central to the current and future health of the U.S. as a nation, not just in "the sciences" but in all the technologies and economies that innovation trickles down to and later supplies.

As Dr. Ann Robinson, president of the National Association for Gifted Children, noted in NAGC's press release about the report, "If we fail to identify and cultivate our most promising minds beginning as early as possible, we will squander this talent and cripple our ability to compete and thrive in the years and decades to come"

This may well be a opportune time to promote gifted education. Apparently passé since the Cold War--"the best and brighest" are looking more relevant now. Dr. Sally Beisser's 2008 analysis of the Unintended Consequences of No Child Left Behind Mandates on Gifted Students corroborates sentiment found in the Fordham Report: “Teachers want these advanced students to move up the list of education priorities because educating them properly is the right thing to do and because it’s good for the nation, but mostly because they see in their own classrooms youngsters whose considerable talents are not adequately challenged or fully utilized.” Dr. Del Siegle noted in the State of the States in Gifted Education Report that, "In the age of Sputnik, we put money into math and science, and we ended up on the moon...We really need to consider that again. We cannot afford as a country to ignore talent." The knowledge of the "right thing" isn't new. It only takes a national crisis for the support of innovation and sound educational practice to swing back into practical consideration.

Innovation should be valued and fostered. It is showing itself to be a national resource. This would indicate the importance of:

• providing a solid background in math and the sciences
  
• recognizing and nurturing creativity and potential in individuals

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) should be finding considerable support among educators, legislators and the public. However, creativity and problem-solving skills must be actively nurtured alongside STEM disciplines. Although the rudiments might be imposed, originality itself cannot be decreed but must be cultivated.

The Gathering Storm recommendations clearly appreciate the importance of educators, K-20: "The two highest priority actions for the nation, in the view of the Gathering Storm committee, are to provide teachers in every classroom qualified to teach the subject they teach and to double the federal investment in research" (p.30) And gifted education has long been a front-runner promoting creativity, autonomous learners and high achievement in the classroom, a voice for the often unheard young innovators-to-be.

The mission is clear: support GT education so gifted students can become the inspirational innovators and creative problem-solvers that they deserve to be as individuals and so that they have been nurtured as future generations might hope and need. Further, value and make available strong GT education so it can provide models for general educational success. And let us do whatever we can to hasten this because the foundation required to become a rocket scientist (of whatever sort, as innovation indeed comes in many forms) is best started early.

Ask your legislators and community leaders if they've read the Gathering Storm report and what they are doing to ensure that the future of US innovation is supported now.

We had more sports-exercise majors graduate than electrical engineering graduates last year. If you want to become the massage capital of the world, you’re well on your way.”

Jeff Immelt, CEO, General Electric Co.

 If you don’t solve (the K-12 education problem), nothing else is going to matter all that much.”

-Alan Greenspan, former Chairman, Federal Reserve 

See also: the Davidson Institute for Talent Development 's National Statistics about "Why our Nation Needs to Educate our Gifted and Talented Youth".

Get Smart! Try Gifted Advocacy with the Feds

The old "Call Your Legislator" trick.

Last week I attended the SENG conference (in conjunction with the New England Conference for the Gifted) in Hartford, CT. There, among many thought-provoking sessions, I had the opportunity to hear Dr. Del Siegle (who wrote the Gifted Children's Bill of Rights) speak about NAGC's ABCs of advocacy.

I returned from the conference to my own state where, although there is a GT mandate it is only very partially funded (and some of that allocation is presently up in the air). As one can see from the Davidson Gifted Education State Policy page, GT ed can range from mandated and fully-funded to nothing at all. And such policy has an enormous impact on the families who depend on public education for their children. This certainly includes low-income students but also a broader spectrum; private education is not an alternative readily available to many families economically, geographically, or for a number of other dynamics.

But if students, parents and educators presently find a need to appeal for gifted "rights" in practice--for the appropriate public education of those students who have "the ability to grapple with complexity”--they may find they court only disappointment. There is no demand for consistency in how gifted students' needs are met within state educational systems nor across the US overall (see some of the boggling array graphed on HoagiesGifted). And there is no federal gifted policy to ensure that teacher training includes identifying and serving GT students (especially important when so many gifted students are in regular classrooms). Nor is there federal funding to support this.

What to do???  Legislators may not realize gifted education is important unless:

• they hear from parents and educators (students too!)
• they read about continuing GT needs in the papers (although a success story can make a good point as well)
• the issues are presented as significant to the nation and future, as well as to a few impassioned individuals (who may also happen to be constituents)

Volume. Persistence. Personal connection.

Get Smart! Sign up for NAGC's Legislative Action Network to find out about advocating for gifted children, locally but with national intent.