Gifted Globe

Gifted education have long history of 50+ years of legislation across different states. For example, In 1961, the California Legislature established the Mentally Gifted Minor (MGM) program for students scoring in the 98th percentile or above on standardized intellectual ability tests. Newer legislation may allow School districts to set their own criteria for entrance. Many states have expanded definition of intellectually gifted to students who are gifted and talented in areas such as specific academic ability, leadership, visual and performing arts, and creativity. For some school districts, gifted programs have to be planned and organized as differentiated learning experiences within the regular school day. For some school districts, they provide options for gifted and talented pupils to attend classes at postsecondary institutions regardless of the pupil’s age or grade level.

Gifted education legislation is based on foundation that is in the public interest to support differentiated opportunities for learning commensurate with the students particular abilities and talents. Provide alternative learning environments to acquire skills and understanding at advanced ideological and creative levels commensurate with their potentials. Provide Gifted program that assist students to develop self-generating problem-solving abilities to expand awareness of choices for satisfying contributions in their environment. In general, provide help to develop realistic, healthy self- concepts.

What kind of legislation activities do you promote in your school district?

 

 

Transition from elementary to middle school is a big deal. Gifted kids are no exception. Based on personal experience, sixth grade is not like any previous elementary grades. Introduction to different placement tests, meeting with councillors, choice of electives, official twelve year old tag, the teenage growth spurt, attitude, constant quest to prove their point, it’s all coming at them faster than they can handle. You are the lucky ones to witness it all ! The year is demanding on all fronts and academics in particular. We will discuss testing during sixth grade first. Throughout the year, assessments and exams seem to be an endless cycle. Needless to say, it impacts their grades to some extent.

This could be hard on the talented kids who have not seen anything but all ‘A’s so far. Give them time and space to adjust to this change. I think parents need to prepare kids to handle the change as it’s going to continue here onwards. Preparation could be to manage time effectively. Increased workload can only be handled by spreading tasks thin. In California, all sixth grade students take a math placement test sometime before spring break. Idea of the placement test is to find out their depth of knowledge on concepts covered in first half of the grade curriculum. Students who pass the test, can choose to take Accelerated Pathway for Math in 7th and 8th grade. Gifted or not, each student should appreciate opportunity to show off math skills among all the talented kids around.  There is a lot of information worth sharing about this test. Some knowns and some unknowns that worry parents more than kids.

Nature of Exam – Exam is usually two sets of problems. Each set is twenty problems to solve in forty-five minutes. Some problems can have multiple possible answers. Problem usually hints if there are more than one possibility. You can expect challenging questions on chosen units from textbooks. Exam is usually objective in nature and its a paper-pencil test.

Evaluation – A passing score of 60% with 100% accuracy is required to pass the test. There are no sample questions available from the school districts.

How to prepare – Every text book unit typically highlights learning targets at the beginning of that units. This exam is to find out if that target has achieved.

Preparation for any exam would be on mark by mastering math strategies. Competitive math exam books often describe popular math strategies and how to use those. These techniques are the tools to get the job done.

Often I heard about gifted students don’t find company that easy. Well, it’s also true for their parents. Demands of a gifted child keeps them on their toes. They realize, they can not keep up with it. Even most dedicated parents struggle to give enough attention to their kids among their busy lives, other siblings, family, job, travels, etc. Teaming up with other parents solves this to some extent.

A gifted child working alone vs in a group of other gifted kids differs a lot in their growth. Healthy peer pressure encourages them to aim higher.

Sometime, they meet their match, sometime they see their competition. I always like to pair kids with complementary expertise together. I present same task or worksheet to them. I ask them each to start on a different sequence of problem. Let’s say one starts top to bottom and vice versa. This gets them by surprise and they willingly race to win. A child working alone on the same worksheet can not draw these emotions, you will see. Try it out!

In modern programming techniques Pair Programming is becoming increasingly popular. Two developers work at the same workstation taking turns to key in and review each other’s work. This is not everyone’s cup of tea, but if you are talking about a gifted kid, you will find him/her hungry for this kind of challenge. Like bird flock together, it’s true. As they grow, they start noticing their pattern on higher grades, faster grasp, excelling as their second nature.

As a parent teacher, I started helping academically gifted kids on campus, an hour each week. Objective was to promote their love of math, encourage and establish positive problem solving attitude! Easy to state but hard to implement. I started composing lecture and worksheets on creative topics like topology, Pascal’s triangle, ancient mathematics, etc. Initially, the breakdown of an hour was 30 minutes of theory followed by 20 minutes of problem solving. We left 10 minutes for housekeeping.

It took me only a couple of sessions to realize, kids were not looking for the lecture/theory. They would rather figure things out , more hands on. As soon as I would pass on a worksheet, I would see their faces glow. They were looking forward to a challenge, definitely something out of the ordinary, something they haven’t heard off. Now, considering their access to internet, books, mobile devices and gifted parents, you can relate to difficulty level of my task.

I decided to be innovative and bring match sticks to create riddles for equation balance similar to mathemagic. Working with match sticks was so much fun ! Another mom brought 2D printed layouts for regular polyhedrons. Kids then cut and formed 3D models of each. They absolutely went ga ga over this activity. We designed a Q/A session following the model building activity, such as, why cube is the most popular form of DICE?

As I got their attention, we opened new doors to creative hands on math. As kids expectations raised and so was our responsibilities. I gathered few more passionate parents. They poured countless hours in making this experience great for kids. We taught how to develop algorithm for something as simple as making a PBJ, write a function when input to an outcome is given, prove a theorem using basic math operations. We would prepare for 4-6 hours of material and they would drain us in just one. Soon, we found them craving for more.

We knew they are doing good, but we were also looking for a measure. I started looking at logical reasoning , critical thinking for curriculum and testing related to such. I built a short list of multiple websites, blogs, books and of course my most trusted co-parents to help choose competitive math exams. While there are plenty available resources, building a training program is a challenge. Good thing, I was not alone. Many parents thought bringing exams would help kids validate and we decided to offer assessment, tryouts and Olympiads, AMCs on campus.

 

First thing first. Admit that you can not do it alone. Their curious mind is always asking questions, little heads busy inventing stuff. Stuff that matters to them, stuff that bothers them. You alone can never find that much time to dedicate towards their growing demands. So what to do? Buddy up. Follow their lead. Ask questions like they do. Their teachers, other parents, neighbors, all within your social circle provide you information you are looking for. As a parent, not knowing about available resources around me always bothers me the most. I believe, you can never have too much information.

So, I started asking questions. I found bits and pieces of information like teacher references and enrichment programs around the area. Soon enough, I met other parents with similar questions. Much to my surprise, soon other parents started taking serious note of what I thought about a particular program, competition or test. Much like me, they needed the company too. Sounds like win win situation to me. My contribution to my kids education started with their interest in math. From picture books, interactive jump start series of computer games, electronic toys, wooden Jenga to books that describe how those are made, they were content when occupied. Honestly, I thought I was sailing pretty fine keeping up with their demands.

Then, school district informed me about benchmarking test results and official gifted identification. Not all schools can support additional programs for gifted kids. Allotted funds help schools carry out the grade level programs successfully but what about gifted kids? Me and many other parents had found their newly added challenge. We decided to gather our forces. I joined a volunteer organization that focuses on gifted kids and their well rounded development. That’s where I started my journey as a Mom of not one or two but more than hundred gifted kids.  

That’s very easy to find out. If your child can draw a curved line between a point on a … Really? Will we ever be able to find out? Could there be many talents? Which one would they choose? Is there a way to measure? In fact, most of the times, when we can not measure their talent or interest in specific topic or subject, would be our first clue. As a parent, we will never have enough questions in our head. Good strategy is to keep looking for these signs of talent or spikes. The spark could be recurring, many times short lived, but it’s a sure sign of concentrated beam of energy finding it’s way out.

Kids by nature and age of course, have a very short attention span. You could spend an hour talking and you have them for say two to three good minutes. Now, those two – three minutes, could be their talent or interest is in. Next time, try bringing whole five minutes of stuff around that topic. If they are all ears, Bingo ! I come across a lot of kids who struggle to gather this energy. Some of them are not aware of their capabilities, some do not want to shine among peers. Most visible behavior pattern is the later. They do want to fit in much like every other child in the classroom.

Now you may think, why go through this much trouble to find out?

Sure he/she is. I am yet to see one who is not ! Real question is, do we know how to identify their talent? While there are traditional or I should say, known methods of IQ tests, benchmarking of exceptional capabilities, all of those come in quite later with schooling. My observation is, gifted kids start showing their abilities quite early, well before the education system around them tries to influence what they should know at their age. The grade system typically comes with expectation of what a child at that age should know or understand. This scale is not of much help to those who are gifted and talented. Kids might be great at certain things and at the same time have very low interest in everything else. It also definitely does not relate to their potential or capabilities, it just means, they do not think of other things as important stuff, for lack of a better word.

Without making any claims of myself being a gifted child, I will share my personal story. I remember my mom telling me about my preschool experience. When teacher asked me to write any alphabet, I always wrote letter “b”, go figure. Teacher informed my parents, obviously, there was something “unlike” rest of the class that was going on. My mom took a very different approach to test me. She asked me to write letter A. Make no mistake, I wrote “b”. She then asked me to read the same letter, I read “b”. My mom told my teacher that, if she would read that letter as “b”, that means she knows it’s a “b”. She informed my teacher that, I show special interest in shapes and drawing. May be I just love that shape and want to repeat it each time. She bought some time for me and eventually I settled my case with rest of the shapes aka alphabets. Phew! Just imagine if she would not know me well. One day I was a child who can not write anything except “b” and next day I was an artist!  What parents can see through their child is not visible to anyone else.

My advice to all Moms is to spend quality time with your child. Find out what gets child’s attention instantly? What are they doing when no one is giving instructions? How do they interact in their age group versus among adults? How do they behave outside versus home? How do they … ? You are the key ingredient in their successful future, so help them find what they are looking for. Easy to say, but it’s not that simple. The quest does not always lead to a happy path.

There is another side to this story, now from a parent’s perspective. What we tend to overlook is a concerned parent. They want their child to be successful, self sufficient, independent, etc. Who would not? What is the popular list of Must Have talents? Is it STEM ( Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) or something else? What if your child’s talents are not amongst these? Sometimes I even see parents in denial when they clearly see talent but it’s not what they expect. They instantly react to anyone else praising their child for the less desirable choice of talent. I have seen it happen. As much as gifted kids, their parents need the support too. It takes a lot to go against or adjust with the traditional education path and nurture childs talents at the same time!

I am Mom with over 120 gifted and talented kids. Surprised? You shouldn’t be! When you volunteer at your kid’s school, arrange playdates, team events, sports, games, chaperone for field trips, you will easily find yourself among the crowd of gifted and talented kids. As you spend time with them, your number grows every day as mine is. Most of the times, these are also my trouble makers who can’t contain their excitement, curiosity or constant flood of ideas flowing right into their not so interesting daily routine. They are a challenge to their parents, teachers and caregivers at all times ! Yes, that’s who I am talking about, more like I can’t stop talking about!

By the fact that you are showing interest in this article, I must admire you for accepting the bigger role you have towards development of your gifted child. It truly is. As big as their talent is, they are still captive of their tiny growing selves. For parents who have more than one gifted child, may see the responsibilities not just added but multiplied. Be prepared to loose your calm at times, run around searching their queries on net and libraries, handle their mood swings, keep them well fed, keep up with their constant quests! So, load on that cup of coffee/tea moms and dads, I know, we all do!

Something funny I have to share ! On my first follow-up visit after having my first kid, I was talking to my doctor. “I don’t know how I am going to manage the baby”, I said. She turned to me with a smile and said, “Oh honey, you are in for a surprise. Parents do not manage the baby, baby manages them”. Over a decade in my parenthood, I still giggle remembering how true that is.