Schooling Gifted Children Blog. Education and your gifted child.

As usual life intervenes

by Christa Novelli on 05/15/12

I must apologize if a few of the pages have gotten a tad stagnant around here. I do promise to update soon. Life, as is typical, has intervened between me and my best intentions. We had an exchange student staying with us for a short while which was wonderful -- quite a lovely young girl. The school year is wrapping up and I am arranging summer camps and other plans for my children. I need to get back to grant applications for an organization in need of an Executive Director and who I am assisting in making that happen -- hopefully!

Most unfortunately, our family has also been coping with the potential imminent death of our elderly cat. Kitri was my first pet -- at least my first animal who was not one from my childhood. She's weathered a lot of changes: different states, homes, the addition to our home of dogs and her obnoxious "baby cat" who is nearly 15 himself now and certainly not technically her kitten although she raised him after his mother died. Fortunately they grew to greatly love one another as he outgrew her by the time he was five months old and was a steady 18 pounds in his youth as compared to her five or six pounds. We await the outcome of the IV fluids to see if she rallies. If not, the kids and I are preparing to head to the vet's office later this afternoon with the realization that she may need to be put down.

I always hope for things to slow down, always commit myself so thoroughly as to ensure that they don't, and continue to plod along. I hope that life is treating all of the rest of you well as you navigate it for yourselves and your families.

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The term makes a difference

by Christa Novelli on 05/01/12

I generally just love everything Stephanie Tolan writes and, as usual, I found myself in great agreement with much of what she wrote in a recent blog post entitled, What's in a Name? The large part of her post discussed the term "gifted" getting into the Shakespearean analogy that the name itself isn't what matters. "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet..." to borrow from the Bard of Avon himself.

Part of where she went later, though, truly grabbed me:

"If greater intelligence makes us "better" than other animals, then it would follow that greater intelligence would make one person better than another."

As Ms. Tolan so aptly points out, when we are dealing with something, whatever we choose to call it, that is generally viewed as making one "better" than others, it is desirable to be part of that "better" group. As she also notes, many in the field of GT education and advocacy have been suggesting as of late that the definition of gifted be expanded to a larger group of children or redefined to necessitate achievement or some product to prove the existence of said giftedness.

It levels the playing field to define gifted in such a manner that we can all aspire to be gifted if we work hard, achieve highly, or parent in such a manner as to produce children who meet the definition of gifted (which is becoming ever more synonymous with high achiever). However, it ignores the reality that some people will still be different in ways that have to do with things that society values, namely different brain wiring as I tend to call it, and there is likely nothing we can do to level that playing field.

We come the way we come and different parenting techniques probably don't change that. Gifted kids do not reflect on their parents positively by virtue of their brain wiring anymore than tall kids reflect positively on their parents by virtue of their inseams.

Nurture versus nature is an interesting discussion and I'm sure that most things involve some of each. However, I do feel that the pendulum has swung a bit far toward the belief that we can nurture giftedness into children or that gifted begins at a point where the needs aren't likely as extreme as I'd personally use to define "gifted" or whatever we choose to call it.

Ultimately, the term makes a difference only because it serves to enhance the awareness among the general public that we are defining something desirable. That enhances the greater problem with the jockeying to broaden the group, join the group, and level the field.

Granted, we don't want to swing back in the direction that Ms. Tolan mentions, and I recall myself, of not labeling it with a positive term and leaving those children who are receiving special services in school systems fearing that they are part of a substandard group. What fixes the problem here? Unfortunately, it probably isn't just finding a different term instead of "gifted."

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Academic "redshirting"

by Christa Novelli on 03/04/12

Academic redshirting, just the term itself is offensive to some. Taken from the world of sports, the term is used to describe holding a child out of formal schooling when he is age eligible to start. The offense likely arises from the origin of the term itself. In sports, athletes are redshirted to confer an advantage over their peers. Bigger, stronger players outperform younger, smaller ones, or at least that is the plan.

Parents of children who chose the route of waiting to start their children in school often bristle at the idea that they are doing so to gain an unfair academic advantage over their classmates. Whether that is the motive or not, and I'd choose to give people the benefit of the doubt that they are not attempting to cheat the system so much as looking at their individual child's needs, it does give rise to a significant question:

Do bigger, older students outperform their younger, smaller classmates academically?

If you believe many early childhood educators, the answer would be "yes." We were advised by both of our daughters' preschool teachers to hold them out of kindergarten a year due to birth dates that would make them among the youngest in grade, if not the youngest. I'll be upfront. We didn't wait. Both of my girls started kindergarten before their 5th birthdays. From that point, their academic journeys took many twists and turns.

We homeschooled, tried a charter school, and choiced to non-assigned neighborhood schools. When enrolled in public schools, the kids have subject accelerated, been involved in pull-out groupings for certain academic subjects, I've gone in and volunteered to teach both one of my children and other classmates in a pull out that otherwise wouldn't have happened, one skipped a grade...

Obviously the question of academic advantage is different when you are dealing with gifted children. Even when they are much younger than their peers, gifted children may wind up at or near the top of their classes academically. That is not to say that all gifted children need to be the youngest in grade. School and life are not all about academic performance.

None the less, what really tipped the scales in favor of not holding my children out of school an extra year to make them older was an article from the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Entitled Opportunity Deferred or Opportunity Taken, this article turns the idea that older children outperform younger children academically on its head.

The author cites studies that indicate that being young for grade makes no difference in terms of academic performance past the first few years of elementary unless the child is of unusually low ability. She further found that there are potential negative consequences socially much later for teens who are old for grade. Again, of course this is not the case for all older students. I personally know people for whom being among the oldest in grade was a very good thing and they were not necessarily poor students.

Yes, there are times when I do feel some irritation that my child is being compared to kids who are years older than she, such as when entering academic contests that look solely at grade. Is a 12 or 13 year old 9th grader the same as a 15 year old 9th grader? No, but then again I have to remind myself that she has had about the same amount of education and it would not benefit her socially or educationally to be in 7th or 8th grade.

If the choice is being compared to much older students and being placed appropriately educationally or appearing even more advanced because she is placed inappropriately, I'll take the former over the later.

60 Minutes will be discussing academic redshirting tonight. I'll be watching and curious to see how they address the issue.

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At what point does one call it wasting time?

by Christa Novelli on 01/31/12

Am I learning, which I can justify, or simply shirking my duties to my house and job search? That I do not know. The kids and I are currently excited about an exchange student we'll be hosting later this spring which has prompted me to attempt to brush up on my very rusty German from college. I'm having a great deal of fun reviewing the submissions of people who are learning English on livemocha which gives me tokens to do free German lessons.

None the less, my dog has decimated her stuffed toys in the living room, dishes need washing, and today is my one day off of my paid job this week so I probably ought to get off the computer and get to work around here. I can recommend livemocha as a fun, free way to work on your foreign language skills if you are willing to help others with your native language in order to get access for free. Otherwise you can pay for access.

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I'm back

by Christa Novelli on 12/30/11

The kids and I have been out of town for a few days visiting family for the holidays. We made it home today and are recovering from motion sickness from a bumpy flight and long drives to and from the airport. Spread out family doesn't make for easy and quick visits, unfortunately.

Sales of my e-book appear to be slow but steady, which is nice. Formatting is the one ongoing frustration I've had. All of the places where I've uploaded it - Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords - had me upload a Word file and then their programs converted it into an epublication. Bullets get moved, numbers and characters change, and all kinds of odd things occur. I know that it is legible as my kids got Nook Simple Touch readers for Christmas and I've downloaded the e-pub file from both Smashwords and B&N onto them to see how it looks and I've "previewed" the other files online, but it has required a number of tweaks to make it more in line with where it ought to be.

I'll be updating coupons shortly and freshening up content on this site over the next few days. I need to be back to my paid job soon, but the break has been nice.

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Growing Expansive Minds

As usual life intervenes

The term makes a difference

Academic "redshirting"

At what point does one call it wasting time?

I'm back