Friday, May 31, 2013

Foto Friday--Breaking in the Pool for Summer

One of the best investments we ever made was a swimming pool.  I remember when we moved to AZ and I would find out people had a swimming pool.  The Idaho-bred girl inside me would come out and think, "Wow.  They must be RICH!"

In reality, people in AZ who have pools aren't rich. In fact, if you were to look at an aerial photo of the Valley of the Sun, I would estimate that over half of the yards have glittering blue kidney shapes surrounded by rock or grass in them. And those glittering blue kidneys are full of people seven or eight months of the year.

I love having a pool.  I love being the house where my kids can bring their friends for a pool party, to hang out and cool off.

Ben brought his friends over after the assembly on the last day school for pizza (they ate TWELVE!!!) and fun.

Ben is my third teenager out of three to associate himself with the VERY BEST group of friends he could find.  I love every single one of these kids, and I was so glad that they all got together one last time before some of them graduated later that night.

I literally had to kick these awesome folks out of the pool. That made me sad, but we had to move on to the next group of pool hoppers. 

Brad was called as the Bishop of our ward almost four years ago (to learn about a bishop, click here and to learn about a ward, click here), and every year since, we have hosted a "Swim with the Bishop" party.  For one hour, all the kids in our ward between the ages of three and eleven come over and swim with the Bishop and dunk the Bishop and splash the Bishop.  It is one of my favorite parties I host every year.  They have so much fun being together, and they learn that the Bishop is fun to hang out with and that he loves them.

Assembling them all to take a picture was a joke, or a miracle.  I haven't decided which.  This isn't all of the kids, but it was all I could get to face the camera at one time. And since I was precariously balanced on the diving board holding my camera, I knew I needed to make it quick before one of the kids decided the Bishop's wife needed to swim, too.
After the serious shot, I surprised Brad by shouting, "Now everyone splash the Bishop!"
The looks on their faces . . . priceless.
And Bishop was a good sport about it all.

Happy Friday, my friends.  Have a great weekend!

Thursday, May 30, 2013

For Every ACTion There Is an Equal and Opposite ReACTion

What would your reaction be if you found this scrawled on your family desk?

Admittedly, mine wasn't stellar.  (Stellar may be the wrong word choice. It was impressive both in decibel level and intensity, but that isn't what I've been working on for the past five months now, is it?) I won't incriminate the guilty party, but let it be known that Mom's displeasure rang from the rafters.

May has been a month of extremes--joy and sadness, achievement and disappointment. Tucker returning from his mission was one of the happiest days of my life.  Along with his return comes the challenge of learning to parent an adult living at home (temporarily--he's headed back to Provo in the fall).  School is out for the year, and some grades and experiences were better than expected, while some were much worse.

I wish I could say I weathered it all with dignity and skill, demonstrating to all around me the self-mastery skills I have been working on this year, but that would not be the truth.   My reactions have not always been tempered by reason, my tasks have not always been guided by purpose, my days have not always been filled with service. If I were completely honest, I would have to admit that my goal to act was far removed from my conscious mind most days during the month of May.  I felt like my head was barely above water most days, and then on a few other days, my head was buried so deep in the clouds of happiness that I lost focus on reality and my job as the mom around here.

I don't know about you, but the end of the school year is almost as big of "a leaf turning over" as New Year's Day for me.  I have high hopes for this summer.  Big dreams of what I hope to teach my kids.  Big.  BIG. 

Here's to a "new" summer resolution to act--with purpose, with control, with an eye for serving others. I'm not giving up.

And if any of you are interested in signing up for the Healthy Lifestyle Challenge I've issued, you can check out the rules/requirements here.  We'd love to have anyone and everyone join us!

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

It's Summer!

A long weekend requires a long Brad video. I was going to post my pictures, but he added them into the video, so my job is done!
I think my favorite part of the entire weekend was the drive home with my big kids. I listened as they watched "Les Miserables," and then we discussed each character's qualities and the underlying themes of justice, mercy and redemption.

I love parenting big kids.

Hope your Memorial Day weekend was just as memorable.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Foto Friday--You Asked for It!

I've had a few readers ask me if I had a video of Ben and his 1D friends.  Here it is, in its entirety.


 I love watching my kids have so much fun. It doesn't hurt to have great choreography and five cute guys on the stage either!

Happy Memorial Day weekend! Hope you have fun things planned!

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Has It Been a Whole Week Already?

One week ago today I was counting down the hours.


Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Scrambled

I keep telling everyone I come across that I never really thought past last Wednesday.  Never have I uttered a truer truth than that.  My brain feels scrambled and unfamiliar.


I had forty or so people over for dinner on Sunday afternoon.
I never thought about a menu or plan of attack until 7:30 pm on Saturday.

I was sick yesterday.  When Brad came in and tried to tease me that I was faking, he couldn't.  He said my pale face told the truth.

I also forgot Lily's orthodontist appointment yesterday. 

I can't keep my mind focused on anything longer than a few minutes.

I asked Brad to get the video from last Wednesday edited but forgot to ask him to leave the photos on the card. Since he put all the files onto his computer, I can't access my photos until he gets home because, in all honesty, I don't speak Mac.

School is out on Thursday and I haven't planned thank-yous or teachers' gifts or even plotted out summer.

I can show you my photos from Ben's talent show.  He and his friends reunited One Direction (from Halloween) and brought the house down.

They looked good.

Just like the real thing, right?  Screaming girls, cell phones shoved in their faces.  It was awesome.

I may have watched the show three times.

I'm not a stalker.  I'm the mom.

That's enough rambling for today.  Hopefully tomorrow my brain will reset and I can be coherent.

Friday, May 17, 2013

Foto Friday--The Best Day Ever

I apologize that I've been AWOL for the past two days.

I had 25 people for dinner Wednesday night.

I had a class, three concerts and a play to attend yesterday.

I had a child to pick up from the airport. (Yay!  Heidi is here with Baby Nathan!  Boo!  Sam had to stay home with Ellie.)

I was home for a total of 1.57 hours yesterday.

Today--today is Tucker's 21st birthday.  I just made bacon mac for his birthday lunch.  All his high school friends are getting together here to celebrate, just like they did every Monday of their senior year--read about that here.

We have another recital tonight, along with birthday cake and presents.

Next week, I promise to find time to edit the photos and video and write all about Tucker and his entrance back into our lives.

For now, just a few pictures.

First, what we all looked like when he left.


And what we all looked like at the airport on Wednesday.
Notice how much Lily grew over two years' time--and that she's holding Heidi on the iPad so that we could all be there (yes, Lily is on crutches--tumbling injury.  She's mending).  And notice Ben--we are going to officially measure Ben against Tucker and Lily against Heidi this weekend.  I think both younger siblings may have height bragging rights.

Although many of the photos from Wednesday are out of focus, here is the one I was waiting for.
He's home.

All seven of my chicks are back under my roof for the first time since December 2010. We all read scriptures in the family room this morning and then they all lined up at the kitchen island for french toast, and I couldn't help but count today as another' Mother's Day.

I haven't stopped smiling for two days.

I fully expect it to continue all weekend.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Today and Yesterday

I woke up with the sun this morning.

While I lingered in bed watching the sky turn from black to blue, I reflected on a morning almost twenty-one years ago, when the nurse handed me my second child and joyfully told me, "It's a boy." (You can read Tucker's birth story here.)

From the moment he was placed in my arms, I had hoped he would serve a mission.

Today--he will finally be back home, after honorably serving the people of New York City for the past two years.

And just like when we brought him home from the hospital, I have prepared for his arrival.

The sheets on his bed are clean.  His dresser is waiting, ready to be filled with clothes and memories from his adventures.  Ben kindly emptied a shelf in the bathroom and a rod in the closet they shared in what seems like a different life three years ago.

The sign is hung.
I stocked up on a few of his favorite foods.
I will spend the day cleaning the house and preparing the food for his return feast.

I have the feeling that I will also spend the day intermittently fighting back tears of joy at the reunion we will have.

How I have missed him.

Missed his loud, sincere laugh.

Missed his random singing at inopportune moments.

Missed his sense of humor. (If you didn't follow his blog before he left, here's the link.  I reread a few posts last night, and it brought him back to me--especially the posts on the testing center and Amish Friendship Bread.  They are worth your time.)

Mostly, I just missed him--his smell, his smile, and especially his hugs.

Today is finally here.

I wish I could go back to that young mom in that hospital room. I would tell her: As much as you look forward to this new son serving a mission, nothing will compare to what it feels like when he comes home.

It's today.

I'm crying again.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

A Short Story to Distract Me

Yes. Tomorrow's the big day.  I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve, and I'm having a hard time focusing on all the things I need to do before we leave for the airport tomorrow afternoon.

Instead of the post I had planned, I decided to share a story.  A true story.  A story that happened to me.  And it happened to me yesterday.

Yesterday afternoon I was enjoying the "golden hour"--the hour between when Evie falls asleep for her nap and before the boys get home from school--finishing up a project that I can't have half-finished when Tucker gets home. (There is a future post about the project, I promise.)
They look pretty innocuous, don't they?  Just a simple pair of magnetic hooks.  I've been working on a project in my kitchen where I've used 32 of these neodymium magnets to attach frames to a metal sheet. (I know, tantalizing lead-in to a project, but not enough information, right?  I promise to tell all about it soon, but the project isn't the story.)

I don't know if you've heard the stories surrounding these "rare earth" magnets, but they really are as strong as reported.  Wikipedia says, "The greater force exerted by rare earth magnets creates hazards that are not seen with other types of magnet. Magnets larger than a few centimeters are strong enough to cause injuries to body parts pinched between two magnets, or a magnet and a metal surface, even causing broken bones. Magnets allowed to get too near each other can strike each other with enough force to chip and shatter the brittle material, and the flying chips can cause injuries. There have even been cases where young children who have swallowed several magnets have had a fold of the digestive tract pinched between the magnets, causing injury and in one case intestine perforations, sepsis, and death."

The 1 5/8" size that I am using is so powerful that if they attach to each other, it is IMPOSSIBLE to pull them apart without pliers in each hand, and I'm not exaggerating.  I removed the hooks from the magnetic disks, and I was preparing to hot glue the disks to the last of the frames, when their attraction to each other became too much for them to handle, and they slammed together, happy at last.

The problem?  Wikipedia was prophetic.  A small sliver of my left middle finger was between the magnets when their magnetism overwhelmed them.  To say it was painful can't even describe it.  I instantly went a little lightheaded, squeezed my hand closed as hard as I could, then opened it up to evaluate the situation.  The magnets were almost perfectly aligned, and even though I tried (and by trying to do so, I successfully doubled my pain level), I couldn't slide them apart.

What was I going to do?  I ran to the garage, grabbed two pairs of pliers, but since one of my hands was completely incapacitated, I couldn't get any leverage on one of the magnets.  Now what?

I ran out back to our guest house, desperately clutching the pliers and my now-purple finger, hoping that my cousin or his wife were home.

Gone.

I ran across the street and rang my neighbor's bell.

Gone.

Just at that moment, through the open front door I heard Evie in the house screaming because she had woken up and couldn't find me.  I was helpless to tend to her until I found an adult who could separate those two magnets, so I continued down the street, ignoring my open front door and my increasingly more frantic daughter.

I ran to the next neighbor's house, rang the bell and waited.

Gone.

By this point, close to three minutes had passed since the magnets had sandwiched my innocent digit, and I was beginning to wonder if there would be permanent damage to the skin and underlying tissue.  And who was going to help me?

Just then I noticed my neighbor two doors down, pulling out of his garage.  Like a crazy woman, I waved my arms beside the moving car, begging him to roll down his window.  Luckily, John knows me, and he knows that I'm really only a crazy woman when I'm fighting all of my kids during Church, so he quickly rolled down the window and very calmly asked how he could help.

How could he be calm at a time like this?  I was in PAIN!  And I was almost beyond rational thought and speech by this time.

"I need you to get out of the car."  What?

"I need your help.  And I need you to use these pliers to help me."  See why it was a good thing he knew me to be cogent most days of my life? 

"I was using these super strong magnets, and my finger is between them, and I can't get them apart, and the only way to separate them is with two pairs of pliers, and no one else is home, and I can't find anyone to help, and can you help me?"  I don't think I'd reach the hysteria mark yet, but I may have been close.

I slowly unfurled my fingers, praying that I wouldn't tear the skin caught between the two metal disks. John, who is quite a smart man besides being exceptionally kind, evaluated the situation and I watched the light bulb go on in his head.  "Oh. I see what you need." 

Wincing just a bit, I steeled myself for the moment the magnets would release their death grip on me. THat moment wasn't too bad, actually, but the skin of my middle finger was completely white and stood up from the rest of my hand about 1/4".

I gushed my gratitude, and John responded with, "I'm just glad I was pulling out of my driveway right at the right minute."

You and me both.

I walked home a little sheepishly, waved as John drove away, then came back into the house to comfort my squalling daughter.

I would take a picture of my finger today if there were any injury to show you, but all that remains of my stupidity yesterday is a deep tissue bruise that I think will probably heal in a few days.

Can you think of a moral to this story?  Because I need one.

Monday, May 13, 2013

The Day After Tomorrow . . .

. . . and no, I'm not referencing the movie.

Have you noticed the countdown on my sidebar?  Sometime today it will turn over to one day and a few hours.  My boy will be home on Wednesday.

Remember when his countdown chart looked like this?
Well, this is what it looks like today.

Each dot lovingly applied by me every day for 728 days now.  Seven HUNDRED twenty-eight days.  Two years.  How could it have been that long?
Now there are only two spaces left.

We received a package on Saturday from NYC.  It is a battered box, inscribed by many different hands whose labels have all been scratched out so that the post office could get this special box to me. It barely survived its three-thousand-mile journey intact--splitting tape, torn cardboard, illegible address.

Inside it are books.  Books my missionary son has carted around with him for two years.  Reference books like Jesus the Christ and Preach My Gospel.  Spanish books like a conversion dictionary and word conjugation lists.  Notebooks (I had forgotten how much he loves spiral notebooks) filled with his words and his thoughts and his schedules.

These books have been part of my son every day for the last two years--when I couldn't be with him.  As I opened the box and carefully lifted out his precious books, I could almost feel him in the room next to me, part of his mission coming alive to me through his penned words on sheets of paper.

Evie and Hyrum removed the three small photo albums from the top of the opened box and they have carried them around for the past two days, laughing at the pictures and asking me what we were doing when each picture had been taken.

You see, every six months or so, I would go through my pictures and send fifty or so to Tucker, just so he could keep up a little on what we were doing at home.  Looking through the pictures, I see how much of our lives he's missed.

And that just reminds me how much of his life I've missed in return.

Wednesday May 15.  2:30 pm.

The end.  I can't believe it's over.

Friday, May 10, 2013

Learning vs. Education--Where Do We Go from Here?

Science fiction and fantasy love the gifted.  Heroes like Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, The Benedict Society, and especially Ender Wiggin1 are social outsiders who discover their gifts and use them to save the world.  That must be why my boys love these books.  They can see themselves in their pages.

Fairy tales love the underdog who in the end discovers special gifts that triumph over evil. As a child, Beauty and the Beast was my favorite story.  Belle was a bookworm who discovered that it didn’t matter if you were like everyone else.  I could be Belle as I read her story.

Movies love the gifted.  Good Will Hunting, Dead Poets’ Society, Shine, and A Beautiful Mind address the joys of being gifted while presenting many of the challenges in realistic ways, while Batman and Iron Man use genius thinking and applied technology in order to save the world.

The music world, the sports world, the technology world—they all champion genius, and through buying their music, attending their games, and buying their products, we all consciously or unconsciously show our support for creative thinking and superior achievement.

So why is it that our public school system can’t seem to find a place for gifted kids?  Your comments this week gave me much to think about.

Many of you saw yourselves in my posts, for the first time in your lives recognizing the responsibility the school system shoulders in teaching our kids to learn.  Myke said, “I’m nearly convinced that public school did fail me,” and Karen added, “This was such a validation for me.”  Others of you, who had participated in gifted education, shared your experiences. Dawn described her son’s public school experience like this: “David has the brain of a rocket scientist but no ambition to build one. . . . [School] failed us both dismally.  He didn’t need more homework, he needed better CLASS work to stimulate his young mind.” And Robin said, “I learned in high school that I didn’t have to study or work hard to get As and Bs . .  . so I wondered why should I?” Pondside confirmed that this isn’t just an American school issue, when she wrote about Canada: “ I’ll never, ever forget walking into his classroom one day to find a teacher dealing with two special needs students and an aid dealing with another, while the rest of the class chattered and moved about.  There, in the middle of the room, with his head on his desk, was my son.”

Lauren, a young woman I have known most of her life, added insight from the perspective of the academically and intellectually gifted.  She wrote, “I feel like I spent most of my effort working to figure out what a teacher wanted rather than actually learning. . . . I never developed the skill of figuring things out myself. . . . I have spent much of my life working for something I don’t really agree with: grades. . . . Public schooling . . . often forces the creativity out of students in the process [of fostering an academic skill set].”

These experiences saddened me and made me see that this problem is even bigger than I thought.  Why has no one stood up before now in defense of gifted kids whose needs are being ignored?  I don’t know the complete answer to that question, but I do have one guess. 

Living in a democratic society, we believe that we all are guaranteed the same rights—rights to religion, rights to representation, rights to pursue happiness.  Tied up in all that is the belief that an educated people is a better people.  So far I agree.  I understand that lurking in our country’s history are the ugly heads of racism, segregation, sexism, bigotry, and prejudice. I know that inequality in education has been legislated in other periods, and I can accept the fear that any attempt to educate children differently could turn into elite classes and remedial classes. 

No Child Left Behind” was implemented with good intentions for a few students that resulted in negative consequences for most of the rest. Testing has become rampant in our schools.  Tests are administered at the beginning of the year to compare with tests at the end.  Tests are given to monitor how a child ranks against his peers, how a child improved this year, how a child can write a story.  Classroom tests for students serve a dual purpose in that they also exist to monitor teachers.  Teachers’ salaries are often based on classroom results.  These tests measure how effectively that teacher taught her class that year.

In theory, anyway.

In reality, these tests have swayed the momentum of education from learning something because it’s interesting (history) or exciting (chemistry) or necessary (writing) to learning something “because it’s going to be on the test.”  Education has been narrowed to tests, and in the process, it has almost completely eliminated learning just for the pure joy of learning. This frustration is felt not only by students, but by their teachers as well. G left this comment: “This year I ventured to [teaching at] a charter school. . . . It’s refreshing to finally be able to have the freedom to extend and enrich, rather than be a walking DIBELS or AMS score.” Teachers are so linked to their test scores that they routinely ignore the gifted (and the high achieving) in their classrooms to focus on the low students.  While it is important to help those who struggle, test results shouldn’t be their motivation.  Kerri said her achieving but not gifted son “gets to sit back and (do busy work), wait while many students are trying to catch up with the help of Title 1 tutors, aides, etc.”  Karen added that making most students wait for the slowest kid in the class “demeans those who were chomping at the bit to go further.”  I couldn’t have said that better myself—chomping to go further, but instead bored and more bored.

Besides the plethora of standardized tests that must be prepared for and administered (sucking up most of the classroom instruction time available for the last 4-6 weeks of school, depending on the school district and the tests used), there is the issue of funding.  I hate that this issue has to involve money, but money is important for gifted programs.  Unfortunately, there isn’t any.  Here are some facts about funding gifted education: "Funding for gifted education programs today is inadequate and upsetting. The National Association for Gifted Children (2009) notes that the federal government provides only two cents of every hundred dollars spent on education to gifted children. . . . Not only do gifted education programs suffer from a severe lack of funds, they also experience frequent cuts from their tight budgets. Ward (2005) discusses how the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is negatively affecting gifted students around the United States by cutting elective programs for gifted children in order to raise money to boost the test scores of the lower-performing students (Ward, 2005, p. 46). 2   Parents of lower-performing students would never stand back and let their students’ budgets be cut this way. It would be national news.

More from your own personal experience: Cindy said, “They recently cut all enrichment funding at our schools [in Illinois], and it took a parent lead group raising money and writing grants to get some mediocre programs put back in place.  Very discouraging.”  I know that our school district also cut all funding for gifted education—no field trips, no teacher conferences, no nothing. Why is this not in the forefront of educational funding discussions? 

Why are we sitting back and allowing this to happen in our schools all across the country?  I have held the hope that somehow this issue would be addressed satisfactorily, but it just keeps getting worse. “It is a crime,” Sue stated, “that, more and more, our public education aims for the lowest common denominator.”  And Gabe wrote, “It’s all about ‘cookie cuttering’ our kids, trying to make them all the same.” What schools and society refuse to admit as fact is that we are not all the same, the gifted will “always be ‘different,’”3, and that the gifted “are special ed kids too.”4

Using the rungs of the ladder as an analogy, picture each child you’ve ever known (or the child you once were).  Each one is born with intellectual abilities or disabilities that place them on a rung of that ladder.

This is my question for public education: Is it better to assemble all the kids onto one middle rung of the ladder, or to assist each child in climbing just one rung higher?  Would those on the higher rungs be satisfied moving down a few rungs, just because public education thinks that is the best solution?  I hope the answer is no.  I have to believe the answer is no.

Think where our gifted kids could be if the funding were there to push them higher and further—places we haven’t yet dreamed, but places they are fully capable of reaching?

The underlying issues with education are this: Teaching to help the lowest child in the class is losing most of the rest, not just the gifted.  Teaching to tests is not improving our international academic standing.  Teaching to the lowest denominator is not fostering creativity or extraordinary achievement.

Matt commented that “dealing with the gifted is frustrating.”  I agree.  It is.  It’s hard and it’s exhausting and it seems like it’s easier to shove them in a corner with a book than try to find a solution.  I get that.  I also agree with Laraine’s comment that it probably isn’t realistic to assume that a public institution, dedicated to serving all, can possibly reach the one.  If it were just one kid, then I would agree, but this is an entire demographic of kids whose needs have been ignored for far too long. 

So—kids are gifted and school is failing them.

So—kids aren’t gifted and school is failing them.

Sounds to me like something is wrong with our schools, and I think I’ve identified the problem.

School districts today are so focused on test results and teaching kids to perform well on tests that they are missing the biggest assignment they have.

Schools are failing to teach kids to love learning.

Meg said, “The educational community abhors making distinctions when it comes to individual performance . . . but if and ever our government sets up a standardized test that rewards teachers and students who display ‘standout’ performance then the whole culture would change.”

I don’t know if the solution to help gifted kids (and all kids) in an academic setting lies is grouping by ability, tracking systems, classrooms of all high- medium- or low-achieving kids, or what.  What I do know is that the system is broken for all of them, and if we somehow can get public education focused back on learning for learning’s sake, then all of them will benefit.  Wouldn’t you much rather catch your own caterpillar and watch in change into a butterfly than read about and define the term metamorphosis?  Wouldn’t you rather dream up your own fairy tale than write for a prompt?  Wouldn’t you rather figure out how long it would take you to save $100 for a skateboard if you earn $5/week, than do sheets and sheets of math facts?  I think we all would, and so probably do our kids.

I have had an underlying reason for this recent obsession with gifted education.  I do not believe that every child is born intellectually gifted.  I have kids that fall on different rungs of the intelligence ladder. As a parent, I have always mothered from this perspective, “In order to treat you all fairly, I have to treat you differently.”  That doesn’t mean that I love my gifted kids more or treat my not gifted kids any differently.

I’ve written this week about growing up as a gifted kid.  I wrote about my two oldest sons, who are also gifted.  Of my two younger boys, Micah is in the gifted program at our school, and Hyrum, who is completing kindergarten, is too young to have been assessed yet.  Hyrum is still in that stage where everything he learns is exciting and wonderful and new and he has to share it with me whenever he can.  He has had a fantastic teacher this year5 who recognizes his abilities and passion for learning and pushes him to learn new things.  Kindergarten has taught him to obey rules, to wait his turn, and that there is something new to learn every day, whether it’s germination, addition, subtraction, or story writing.  It has been a fabulous year for him, and I could have asked for nothing better.

Micah started out the year excited to be attending the gifted program after a slight complication delayed his attendance for a few weeks.  He has one of the best teachers I have ever had the pleasure of working with, and she tries to challenge him as often as possible.  She took one whole afternoon of school to teach the kids about a cicada, just because they found one on the sidewalk.  She has implemented graphing systems for Micah to track his grades and has recommended books to challenge his reading ability.  She asked the class to write a poem for the district writing competition, and when Micah asked what the most difficult kind of poem was, she challenged him to write a doublet, which won the district writing contest. Of the over 500 third graders in MPS, two of Mrs. S’s students placed in that writing competition.  She is that good.

Even though she is doing her best with Micah, in a classroom full of kids on different rungs of the ladder, Micah’s interest in school is waning.  I see it in his grades—slipping from perfect to not so perfect, to why does it matter, I know the answer?  I see it in his effort—penmanship that is less than stellar, problems missed out of carelessness.  I see it in his excitement to attend school; even his ELP class hasn’t captured his attention.

I took the three little kids to the zoo and I was amazed as I watched their minds process details and information about the animals.  Micah’s mind leaped from the fact that stingrays and sharks are cousins to ask a question to which the guide didn’t even know the answer.5

I’m scared.  I see Micah walking that same road that his older brothers walked, and I am powerless to stop him.  I see the light of learning slowly being extinguished, and no matter how hard I fan the flame, it's going out. 

Resolve with me to fight for our kids and the light of learning that they carry. “If we wish our children to change the world in the ways in which they are capable, we need to open up opportunities for them.”7  Find ways to help in your schools and change your policies.  The solution for me isn’t home school, since my kids already get all I have to give (and listen so much better to someone else anyway), but if it is for you and your family, be strong in your decision.

I don’t know the answers.  In fact, I barely know where to begin.  What I do know is that it’s not too late for him.  And I refuse to go down without a fight.8
******
Notes
1Especially Ender.  Ender’s Game is one of the best books ever for young gifted kids.

2Somehow in my research I lost the reference for this quote.  So I'm not perfect. Neither is P!ink.

3Mommy to 4

4Karli

5 The boys' teachers are discussed in depth in this post.

6In case you wanted to know, stingrays don’t have eyelids either, as Micah has correctly surmised from what he already knew of sharks.  His mind works in such an exciting way, in a way that is seldom utilized during a school day.

7Quote from my gifted teacher friend Dawn

8If you had told me that one day I would write a blog post with notated references and scholarly links, I would have laughed.  Now I know that anything's possible if you are passionate enough about the subject.  Next week--back to the fluff and stuff that normally fills this space.  Oh--and Tucker comes home.  There is that small item of business.  Thanks for bearing with me on my week-long rant.  I'd love to hear your thoughts, so leave a comment!


Thursday, May 9, 2013

Society and the Gifted


Einstein.  Edison.  Pasteur.  Van Gogh.  Beethoven. Curie.

Names that stand alone. 

Their accomplishments were great, their places in history are guaranteed.

Their lives were far from "normal," because living life as a gifted person is difficult.

"Highly gifted people have a number of personality traits that set them apart, and that are not obviously connected to the traits of intelligence . . . that are most often used to define the category. Many of these traits have to do with their particularly intense feelings and emotions, others with their sometimes awkward social interactions. These traits make that these people are typically misunderstood and underestimated by peers, by society, and usually even by themselves. As such, most of their gifts are actually underutilized, and they rarely fulfill their full creative potential." source

Society has a complicated relationship with gifted people, especially gifted kids. How do I know?

Well--not only do I have experience parenting gifted kids, but I was a gifted kid, falling into the category of "moderately gifted," using the chart from Monday's post.

I'm going to be really honest.  Being a gifted kid usually sucks.  I wrote a little about my elementary school years  in this post and how I never really fit in with most kids.  The bullying and isolation got worse as I got older, as I wrote in this post. Whether the torment I suffered during school was attributable to my giftedness, I'll never know for sure, but I do think it contributed to me not being able to fit in with people the way I'd always hoped. Rarely did I find people who thought like me or who wanted to do the same things I liked.

I couldn't understand how I was perceived by my peers, and I know I'm not alone in my experiences.  The mere presence of gifted kids shifts the dynamics of every classroom.  Everyone knows who the smart kids are, and one of the unfortunate problems associated with uneven (asynchronous) development in gifted kids is their lack of a verbal filter.  Comments like, "You don't know all your spelling words?  I didn't even have to practice mine," or "I got 100 percent on every social studies test this year, and you didn't," often come uncensored from their lips. Their inherent characteristcis come across as bragging or threatening or annoying. 

Adults and peers alike share these common thoughts: "They're so smart, they should know not to comment on how smart they are" or "They're so smart, they should be able to figure anything out" or "They're so smart, they should be able to keep themselves occupied in the classroom while a child who really needs the teacher gets help" right?

Wrong.

Gifted kids deal with daily issues that others do not. Did you know Einstein couldn't even find the door to his house when he walked home from teaching every day because he was always so preoccupied with "important thought"?  Did you know that Edison was told he was too stupid to learn anything, even though he was levels and ages ahead of his time?  Did you know Lincoln was actually demoted from captain to private during his service in the Black Hawk War, even though he became one of the greatest leaders in the world's history? As these examples illustrate, being gifted in a regular world can be difficult to navigate, devastating on your self-esteem, and sometimes it's plain hard.

Just as the learning disabled need to be taught special skills to function in the real world, so also do these gifted individuals need special skills. The real world can be a frustrating place for the gifted. They need to be instructed on how to function in a world that operates daily at a pace much slower than their capacities.  They need to be reminded that not everyone thinks the way they do or sees what they see.  They need to be told, over and over and over again, that it is fantastic to be gifted, but it is not something they should use to make others feel badly about their own accomplishments.

Lack of specialized education for the gifted can result in them not knowing how to live in society, but this isn't the worst side effect.  In my opinion, the worst, but completely preventable, side effect is wasting these gifts by refusing to teach them how to use their abilities to benefit the world. "If we wish our children to change the world in the ways in which they are capable, we need to open up opportunities to them.  Gifted children, especially, need to be encouraged to be creative in every possible way--academically, musically, artistically . . .  They see far beyond the scope of their 'world' to grasp a larger picture.  They are able to comprehend much more complicated and diverse information than their peers."1
The Incredibles.

Remember how that movie began? The gifted--the superheroes--saved the world, then because of a misunderstanding, they were forced to hide their abilities and try to assimilate into regular life. Helen (Elasti-girl) and Bob (Mr. Incredible) were frustrated trying to teach their gifted kids that their gifts were something to hide and temper, and Mr. Incredible couldn't function under the pressure of trying to be someone he wasn't. He secretly began completing missions--incredibly difficult missions that used his gifts in ways that challenged him and brought him satisfaction because he needed his best efforts to succeed.

The scene from the movie that haunts me is the exchange between Syndrome and Mr. Incredible, when Mr. Incredible begins to understand Syndrome's plan for world domination.

Mr. Incredible: You mean you killed off real heroes so that you could pretend to be one?
Syndrome: Oh, I'm real. Real enough to defeat you! And I did it without your precious gifts, your oh-so-special powers. I'll give them heroics. I'll give them the most spectacular heroics the world has ever seen! And when I'm old and I've had my fun, I'll sell my inventions so that everyone can have powers. Everyone can be super! And when everyone's super...
[
chuckles evilly]--no one will be. 

I hate how the gifted in this movie are forced to hide who they really are because society can't accept or understand them.  I hate that, but it is the reality most gifted kids live with every day--lack of acceptance or understanding. This movie teaches a profound truth:  We are who we are, and that's fact.  As much as society or education would like you to believe, you can't make yourself gifted any more than you can make yourself grow three more inches or change your skin color. Your gifts come from God, are part of who He intends for you to be, and cannot be separated from you, repressed out of you, or legislated into equality.  It just isn't possible. That's the bottom line.

What I've always found perplexing about this issue is the difference between how gifted kids are sidelined in school by teachers, bullied and alienated and mistreated by their peers--and then how gifted adults are treated.
Angie Miller, a current contestant on American Idol, stated in an interview that she didn't really fit in anywhere in her high school--she was weird and kind of a freak (her words).  And now, with full media attention on her, she is shining behind the piano and on TVs across the nation.  Has anything really changed about who Angie Miller is?  Nope, just that people the world over now recognize her gifts--and appreciate her for who she is.
And of course, there is our generation's poster boy for the gifted--Steve Jobs.  I talked about his biography in this post, and it's one of the best books I've read in years.  I don't think anyone who knew him as a precocious, difficult, ornery, brilliant child expected him to launch himself to the heights he achieved.  In life he was virtually impossible to deal with--volatile on his best days and a perfectionist to a fault--but in death he still frequents our days with his legacy of achievement and discovery. I defy you to go through a single day of modern life where you don't reap the benefits from his discoveries and innovations.  I don't think you can.

What makes being gifted so threatening in public school children, and then overnight becomes so worthy of admiration in adults? Perception, nothing more.  The gifts are the same. Gifted kids deserve the respect and understanding and recognition their adult counterparts receive.

When I was in high school, I was asked the question: "If you could give up ten IQ points to be beautiful and popular, would you do it?"

At the time I remember thinking, "Shoot!  I have ten IQ points to spare.  I'd do it in a second."  Now, I know who I am and acknowledge that my intellectual gifts are part of what makes me me, and there is no way I would accept that proposition.

Tomorrow:  Where Do We Go From Here?
1thoughts from my friend, the teacher of the gifted

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Public Education and the Intellectually Gifted

Thanks for all of your comments left here or on my Facebook page.  I have read and reread them, and your ideas and experiences are shaping my opinions as the week progresses.  I will address a few of these comments in my post Friday.

This post has been the hardest yet to articulate.  I hope my thoughts come across the way in which they are intended.

Yesterday I established that there are differences in the ways gifted kids approach school.  I divided them into three groups--the academically gifted, the intellectually gifted, and a subset that actually includes both. My post today will be addressing the intellectually gifted group of students--a group that most people see as lazy or unmotivated.

"The advanced intellectual development of gifted children can lead parents, and other adults, to expect more advanced behavior from this group of children. A five-year-old who can discuss world hunger like a ten-year-old is often expected to behave like a ten-year-old. When he acts like a five-year-old instead, a parent (or teacher) comes to see that behavior as immature behavior. A gifted child who is years ahead of his or her age mates is not always years ahead emotionally or socially. Advanced intellectual ability simply does not enable a child to manage emotions any better than any other child." source 

Before proceeding, I need to present the term asynchronous development and its definition. “The asynchronous or uneven development of the gifted child is often most notable to those who work closely with a gifted children. The higher the level of giftedness, the more asynchronous the development can be. When six-year-old Bobby thinks like a nine-year-old, but throws tantrums like a four-year-old, some think that his parents 'just need to get better control' over these outbursts. When Mary, the nine-year-old who can intellectually understand the forces of nature, lacks the emotional capacity to deal with catastrophes such as tornadoes and hurricanes, some suggest she has 'serious psychological problems' that are likely best managed with medication. These are examples of uneven development. The impact this asynchrony has on one's life can be tremendous because a gifted child's intellectual, emotional, and social developments usually progress at different rates. While some are advanced, others are immature while still others are more age-appropriate. This uneven development may make a youngster feel out of step with his peers.”

What most educators and most people in general don’t realize is this: Being born with these abilities, in many ways, goes hand in hand with problems that can only be correctly labeled as disabilitiesUsing the scale provided on Monday as the standard, let’s assemble a mock classroom of 30 third-grade kids.  Two or three students have been formally labeled through testing as learning disabled and are pulled from the classroom for up to three hours a week for remedial education.  The rest of the week, these three students struggle to keep up, struggle to understand, struggle to learn.  Programs and funding are in place to assist them and help them learn.

Two or three students are gifted on some level, and they are pulled from the classroom once a week for gifted education.1  These three students can spell every spelling word correctly, already know all twenty vocab words for the week, already passed all of their standard math facts and their exceptional teacher has moved them up to long division. The gifted kids already know everything that has been presented in class all week. Let’s assume for a moment that of the three gifted kids, one is also academically gifted and presents no challenge in the classroom.

The bottom line in this situation is that gifted kids learn facts differently and see problems differently and experience life differently from their peers.  A dear friend, who also happens to be a gifted teacher of gifted kids, provided me with her perspective from having taught gifted kids for years.  She said: “There is no acknowledgement nor acceptance of the fact that gifted kids learn and think differently. . . . Regular classrooms are filled with unending repetitive tasks that are first, below the level of the gifted student, and secondly, mind numbingly boring.”

Taking into consideration the evaluation presented by a teacher of the gifted, how would you feel if you were stuck in this classroom?  How would you perform, day after day, week after week, being forced to “regurgitate simple facts [you’ve] known since toddlerhood?”  Nothing new every day.  You are required to sit still in a classroom with nothing interesting or new to do.  You are still a kid and struggle with kid problems like emotional immaturity and frustration.  What would you do? Most of these intellectually gifted kids shut down on some level.  My teacher friend explained it this way: “Every gifted child I’ve ever known has LOVED to learn before they got to school.  By second grade, they are bored, either withdrawn into their own world, or creating havoc to break the tedium of school days.”

Because the programs at school routinely do not meet the needs of gifted kids, problems develop.  These kids gradually lose their love of learning because every day they are presented with nothing new to learn.  They lose their motivation to do their best since their best is never pulled out of them in a classroom setting--their best isn’t even on the scale used by the teacher.

These intellectually gifted kids don’t learn in the early school years (like most students do) to study, because they don’t need to study to prove their mastery of a subject.  They are never taught how to work through a difficult assignment, because they have never or rarely been presented with a problem to which they didn’t already know the solution.  They miss that stage in their development where they learn to conquer something they don’t know and where they feel that surge of triumph when you do something hard.

By the time they are presented with situations in junior high or high school that would actually require these intellectually gifted kids to stretch their skills and learn something new, they simply don’t know how.  This strange development is not understood by teachers and parents, and even by the gifted kids themselves.  How can they not know how to study, if they’re so smart?  How can they not pay attention to the little details and write them down like the teachers ask? How?  Because they were never taught to challenge themselves, and their love for learning was sucked out of them from an early age--an age where their abilities allowed them to skate through school. That’s how.

As I said yesterday, I have firsthand experience with parenting an intellectually gifted child, but that statement wasn’t quite accurate.  I actually have firsthand experience parenting several intellectually gifted children.  When Ben got home from school yesterday, I had a discussion with him about his own experiences in school, and I asked him when he lost his love for learning.  Although he couldn’t pinpoint an exact day or even a year when it happened, he did explain to me how it happened to him.

Ben described how he loved animals and learning everything about them when he was very young.  We had subscriptions to ZooBooks and National Geographic, and he could tell you many intimate details about ant lions or other random creatures.  However, there was no outlet in elementary school for these interests. His early years were filled with “learning” sight words and “learning” to add.  His brain already had mastered these skills and it was yearning for something more to do, something that was rarely if ever provided.  That’s when he remembers reading any book he could find, whenever he could—under the desk, behind another book, walking to and from school. Nail number one into his love for learning coffin.

He then told about his experience as a junior high student while taking Algebra II at the high school.  He remembered the teacher saying, “This concept is very difficult and will take us three days to learn.”  He understood it in thirty minutes.  Now what was he supposed to do for two more days?  His quote exactly is this, “She taught me like I was a moron.” Nail number two.

After talking for about thirty minutes, I asked him why his grades don’t matter to him very much, if he knows the material and it’s easy. He explained how he easily understands the concepts and files them in his brain, but the little technicalities demanded by teachers are annoying.  “Some teachers are morons.”2 He said that so much of high school learning is pointless for the rest of life. “Why should I care if I don’t need it?  I shouldn’t have to learn something random just to prove I’m smart. I like learning, but high school isn’t learning stuff you want to learn.”  Nail number three.

I truly believe that the good teachers want to reach these gifted kids.  I do.  But how can they when they’re overwhelmed in one classroom with every learning ability and disability and test and program, and they are never just left alone to teach?  Unfortunately, add into this equation that many regular classroom teachers dislike or even fear gifted kids, often belittling them for small mistakes or alienating them with comments like, “You’re gifted?  You should KNOW that!” and forgetting that they are still kids--brilliant kids with brilliant adult minds on some levels--but still just kids.

So, what did I discover from my journey?  Although the academically gifted will find ways to still stay motivated through the early years of education, intellectually gifted kids get lost in the process.  They are taught, through the flaws inherent to the public school system, that their best is never required of them, that their creative approaches to solutions are not in the book (and are therefore the wrong answer), that their gifts don't really matter in the arena where they should matter most.  Think how discouraging this must be for them.

Schools today function on the philosophy that if you throw money and technology at a problem, the problem will disappear.  School districts also operate on the mistaken assumption that it is possible to bring all children up to an equal academic level if enough resources are targeted toward the lower spectrum kids, and public education operates under the false assumption that this is even possible.  Is it possible to teach every child how to dribble and shoot and defend well enough to survive a career in the NBA?  Is it possible to teach every child musical theory and note reading to the point that everyone can compose symphonies?  Is it possible to teach every child the difference between oils and pastels and mixed media so well that every painting will hang in a museum?  When phrased in this way, the fallacy of their academic approach is obvious.  Then why in the world are educators trying to achieve the same standards with academics?

Tomorrow:  How Society is Failing Our Gifted Kids

1This number was derived from statistics at our elementary school.

2His quote. I’m just telling it like he said it.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Academically Gifted vs. Intellectually Gifted

 
Before continuing this discussion, I need to establish definitions of academically gifted and intellectually gifted, because there is a difference. 

The state of North Carolina defines academically gifted thus: "Academically gifted students in North Carolina are defined as those who “perform or show the potential to perform at substantially high levels of accomplishment when compared with others of their age, experience, or environment."1  The key word in this sentence is accomplishment. The academically gifted see the rewards that come from working for grades and meeting teachers’ expectations.  They stay up late doing homework, get up early to complete assignments, come in during lunch hours for tutoring, even ask for extra assignments to raise their averages.  They monitor their own grades, stress about A-s, and occasionally successfully lobby teachers to raise poor grades.  They know their class rank--who is above them and who is slipping in the rankings. 

While many academically gifted students also qualify as intellectually gifted, many are not.  I knew two girls growing up who were academically very gifted, both of whom graduated at the top of our class of over 400.  Both performed well in school and had the grades to back up their achievements. Neither of them scored above a 20 on the ACT.2 One of these young women didn’t even break 15.  This was the first time in my life I remember being aware that all school-smart people weren’t SMART smart. Although they had proven their academic ability, neither of these young women would fit into the category of the intellectually gifted.

This is the definition used by the state of Tennessee for intellectually gifted: “Intellectually gifted means a child whose intellectual abilities and potential for achievement are so outstanding that the child’s educational performance is adversely affected. Adverse affect means the general curriculum alone is inadequate to appropriately meet the student’s educational needs." Key words used in this definition are potential, as I will address in a moment, and adverse affect—regular school can’t provide for their needs.

Intellectually gifted individuals see things others don’t see, understand equations others can’t comprehend, imagine solutions to problems the world deems unsolvable. Words flow from their minds and through their mouths that belie their age.  Puzzle pieces magically unite in their hands.  Stories leap from their minds and fill blank pages.  Miles of equations crumble into four simple, indecipherable symbols. Often, these individuals are categorized as quirky, their “outside-the-box” thinking refusing any other label.  And even more often, intellectually gifted children refuse to perform in school, classifying the rote learning taught in schools today as too repetitious and tedious to warrant their best efforts.  If the correct motivation is unavailable to them, they will find ways around assignments, even sometimes generating so little effort that they fail in academic situations. 

I have firsthand experience with parenting an intellectually gifted child.  Tucker showed aptitude for logic and puzzles at an early age. He could do fifty-piece puzzles before he was two, correctly identified every dinosaur before he was three, and taught himself math facts before kindergarten.  He fit many of the criteria of gifted kids--caught on quickly, loved by adults, emotionally and socially a little backward. I tried many different teachers and schools and educational approaches.  Nothing really clicked with him, and what I mean by that is that nothing really motivated him to do his best.  In sixth grade, he attended regular class at one school, an extended learning program (PC code for gifted program) at another, and math at the junior high, with me shuttling him between teachers and schools with the hope that something or someone would bring out the best in him.  Tucker completed high school geometry the summer before seventh grade and was attending math classes at the high school before he was thirteen.  If he were to complete the trajectory he was on, he would have completed the second year of calculus--highest level of math offered in our public schools--after his sophomore year, a class completed by less than one percent of all graduating seniors.

So where was the problem?  The problem was that he never received grades commensurate with his abilities because no math teacher could motivate him to care about his grade.  During his second semester of Calculus AB during his freshman year, Tucker was required to complete a three-dimensional shape project using some formula to calculate each two-dimensional sliver of the shape, then assembling all of the slivers into the 3D version.  This project was intended to take weeks and demanded exactness to reflect their work.  His project was slapstick and messy and inaccurate because he couldn't care about the project  itself, even though the calculations to render the shape were simple for him.  His final grade for that semester definitely did not reflect his aptitude, but it did reflect his meager efforts. I was frustrated, disappointed, and almost hopeless at this point.

The Calculus AP test is legendary for its difficulty, and here he was, taking it at the conclusion of his sophomore year.  Could I get him to go to any review sessions or study at all for it?  No.  Even without any of the standard preparation put in by most students, Tucker passed the AP test with a 3--a score equal to or better than many students' scores--and they had studied for weeks. 

He was enrolled in Calculus BC his sophomore year with the same teacher he'd had the year before.  This class was a small, elite group of mathematicians who lived and breathed math.  Four weeks into the school year my carefully constructed dam broke--this fragile structure that I had hoped would hold together long enough for him to recognize what he was capable of and to perform at that level.  How many of you have had conferences with high school teachers? I bet not very many of you. Let me tell you, high school teachers don't like conferences, especially AP-level teachers who only accept the best and brightest into their classrooms in the first place. I talked with his teacher many times, trying to figure out how we could pull this genius-level skill out of him and have it reflected in his grade.  I went into the classroom, only to hear these words that I will never forget: "Your son is one of the most brilliant math minds I've ever encountered.  And he is one of the laziest people I've ever met."  He then demanded requested that I pull Tucker from his class for the rest of the year.

What do you do with that as the parent?  No matter how hard we both pushed him, encouraged him, bribed him, grounded him, or shadowed him,3 we could not force him to perform.  I spent many hours worrying, talking with teachers of the gifted, crying, praying, yelling.  All it did was disintegrate my relationship with my son.  My gifted son.  My brilliant, wonderful, capable, stubborn son.  Somehow, I and public school had failed him.4

After having read these definitions and examples, if you can classify you or your child as both academically and intellectually gifted--one of that very small, select group that achieves marks reflecting their gifts--consider yourself blessed, because you are in the minority. I firmly believe that most intellectually gifted kids develop lazy habits in their school experience because the challenge to their abilities disappears in early elementary school. 

Tomorrow: How Public School Is Failing Our Gifted Kids

1 Use of North Carolina's and Tennessee's definitions of these terms reflects which definitions appeared in my research first, and I have no ulterior motivation or reason for their use other than their availability.

2Scores pre-1989 use a scale that is now outdated.  In 1990, ACT “recentered” their scores, and average scores jumped from 18.6 to 20.6 in a year.  For more information, click here. Most recent median ACT score statistic available for the state of Idaho is 21.6 in 2012.

3yes, I actually attended calculus with my sixteen-year-old son and yes, it humiliated us both but did nothing to change his grade.

4Tucker is currently completing an LDS mission in NYC, due home in eight days (in case you hadn't heard).  I asked him in a letter since he's been gone what I could have done differently during that period of his life, and his reply was comforting.  He wrote that he knew I had done the best I could and that he knows he could have done things differently.  We both regret how this time in his life brought so much strife into our relationship and drove us to warring corners of the ring.
 

Monday, May 6, 2013

A Few of My Thoughts on Education

I am dedicating this week to publishing my ideas on a specific area of public education.  I'd love to hear your opinions and debate the issue with you.
I never thought I would use my blog as a platform for a persuasive essay, but the time has come for me to address an issue that has bothered me for many years—for at least as long as I’ve had kids in school, and may even date back to when I was a student myself.

I can’t remember the last paper I wrote.  It must have been my senior thesis at BYU—a case study using my grandparents as an example of a typical family of the 1940s and 1950s.  Much has changed since I wrote that paper.  Statistics appear at your fingertips through Dr. Google.  Editing doesn’t require a retype on the typewriter (I’m really dating myself with that comment!), and if a computer were within reach, a printer most certainly would not be, let alone google docs to share your knowledge with the push of a button.

So much has changed.

Schools have also changed markedly since I was a student.  Back then, in the good old days, teachers managed classrooms of 20-35 students single-handedly, receiving no help from full-time aids or assistants. Students took one standardized test a year—maybe even every other year.  IEPs were some unknown person’s initials.  Today, education concentrates on money, testing, the Common Core, and oh yeah . . . money.  Sadly, adults are losing focus on what is important—the kids, especially neglecting a select group of kids.

One thing that hasn’t changed much in twenty-five years is the social acceptance allowing a complete discussion relating to the education of our gifted kids.

If a child is a gifted athlete, parents will cater to those abilities, finding the most competitive teams and leagues for their child.  The young athletes shine in that environment and continue to improve their skills (often with academics placed on a back burner), then scouts will see them during a stellar football game, court them with money and promises, and their professional trajectory is based on their gifts.

If a child is a gifted musician, parents pay for lessons and teachers and search for experts to hone their child’s skills.  Microphones and amps and become life, along with auditions, stages, and hours of lessons. 

I am grateful for school programs that help identify these gifts in our children—PE classes, music, art, and sports teams all play a role in developing well-rounded people.  I would hate to see public school funding for these programs cut, because not only do they bring beauty and joy to life, they also help schools pinpoint children whose gifts may fall through the cracks created by poverty or lack of parental support. I am forever grateful for the opportunities provided for my children through public schools.  These opportunities enrich and bless my children in ways that I cannot.

As much as I adore the elective activities included in our schools’ curricula, developing these extraneous skills shouldn’t be our schools’ primary focus. The main role of education should be academics—developing their minds and teaching our children to think. Lamentably, public education is failing the academically and intellectually gifted—those students school should be benefiting most.

Why is it that when we talk about a gifted child athlete, people fawn over them, or when admiring a gifted musician or artist, people stand in awe, but when we talk about academically and intellectually gifted children, jealousy rears its ugly head and the phrase “Every child is gifted,” enters the conversation? I am sick to death of hearing, “Every child is gifted.” I agree that every child is special and every child is individual and every child has attributes that are inherently theirs—abilities that separate and differentiate them from every other being that has ever lived on Earth.

But let’s be real.  Not every child is a gifted student.  There. I said it.  And I meant it.  Are the PC police going to find me now?

Let me establish some parameters for the discussion of “gifted” students.  A rough guideline used by educators is an IQ test:

High IQ:

    Mildly Gifted -- 115 to 129
    Moderately Gifted -- 130 to 144
    Highly Gifted -- 145 to 159
    Exceptionally Gifted -- 160 to 179
    Profoundly Gifted -- 180

While most schools don’t perform the traditional IQ test, other tests (such Otis-Lennon or Stanford-Binet) are used to establish and define a child’s level of giftedness.  Why is this important?  Carol Bainbridge writes:
"These ranges are based on a standard bell curve. Most people fall in the range between 85 and 115, with 100 the absolute norm. This range is considered normal. The farther away from the absolute norm of 100 a child is, the greater the need for special educational accommodations, regardless of whether the distance is on the left or right of 100."

This is the elephant in the room that I need to address—the need for special educational accommodations for our gifted kids.  It isn’t the topic of choice recently.  Those topics would include Common Core, standardized testing, technology in the classroom, improving America’s international standing in academics, and the ever-popular “What are we going to throw money at next?” or its flip side “What are we going to not fund in the future?”  Believe me, I have plenty opinions on each of these subjects, but first things first.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Tomorrow:
There is a difference between academically and intellectually gifted.

Friday, May 3, 2013

Foto Friday--Ben's Birthday

Ben woke up on his seventeenth birthday to a surprise on the porch.
 Nice bedhead, Dude!  He had to grow his hair out for Beauty and the Beast, but he is currently begging for a haircut.
 Two of his friends had left him treats and posters listing seventeen things they love about Ben:
 Taryn is quite an artist, and we all laughed as we read what they love about him--I questioned him on the "bites people randomly," and he responded with, "That only happened once!"  What??

Later that day, Hyrum and Evie headed outside with the sidewalk chalk.  Hyrum got really excited and told Evie his plan--leave a birthday message for Ben in his parking spot in the garage.
 He made sure Ben knew the message was from both of them, "Even though Evie can't write yet."  That's a picture of Ben with his rugby ball, in case you can't guess.
 And of course Evie had to draw Ben's eyes--she got distracted before she could finish the whole face.
I love the tender relationship Ben is building with his younger siblings.  They know him, know what he likes, and know that he loves them.  That's one of the best parts of having my kids spread out--watching the older ones love and teach the younger ones.

This weekend marks the beginning of the end-of-the-year performances--two recitals and one play and one awards ceremony.  All that craziness means one thing--school's almost out!

Oh, and that Tucker's almost home--in case I haven't mentioned it!