01.04.09
Posted in Random 'Munchings", Uncategorized at 6:06 pm by Angie
People are a distinct species known as the homo sapiens sapiens. Do you realize the full impact of the thought that you are ONE in 6,751,687,611 humans in the world according to the best estimates of the U.S. Census Bureau on 01/05/09 at 00:06 GMT (EST+5)? My mind has been churning lately on just how many homo sapiens sapiens there are and have been in the world. Each with their own thoughts, desires and needs. Each looking daily for their sustenance. Do you realize right now that a mother of two may be cooking a meal in her big kitchen fully stocked at the same time that a mother of ten is cooking over a fire in a worn pot using what she can find? Do you comprehend that around half of the 6,751,687,611 people in the world are preparing, storing or throwing away food at the same time? I have watched the driven suburban mother on her cell phone urgently telling someone to pick up their child from soccer while scanning the grocery shelf like her family is the only family in the world doing the same thing.
We can easily find opulent images of the wealthy and healthy on the billboards, in the newspapers and on the net. Then in one the matter of a second we can see images of the depravity and cruelty that exists around the world with humans in all types of situation. Consider people enjoying their yacht lacking nothing then swing your mind to the starving child that has nothing and you can understand why I feel the urge to explore this issue.
Now, take the vertical plunge and imagine the images you’ve seen from the past - the remains of a prehistoric homo sapien sapien, the artwork portraying a Pharaoh of ancient Egypt or learn how many people died from the Bubonic Plague in the Middle Ages or the black and white photographs men lying on Normandy Beach on D-Day. As archeologists explore more and more of the layers of history in areas such as South America, the ancient Puebloans living in the valleys of southwestern Colorado, and the Middle East, science is discovering that humans have lived, loved, and learned since forever.
You are reading this blog because someone in your life, be it the government or an individual made sure you had an education. According to UNESCO about 80% of the people in the world are literate. You are one of the lucky ones who can read AND have access to the internet, 1,350,337,522 people cannot.
Well, that’s just some food for thought.
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12.14.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 8:18 am by Angie
Take the time to listen to Mike Wesch, the US Professor of the Year. I want to thank my friend, Nancy, for her discussion on his video.
The “WE” in education is critically important in any classroom from 1st graders up to university classes of 400+. The teacher who can inspire the community to go beyond learning for the test is the teacher of the future. How does a teacher know when they have succeeded in teaching the individual to truly love learning? When the student no longer comes up to ask questions like “How long does this essay need to be?” or “What I need to study for the test tomorrow?” I can truly relate to the statement Mike makes about when the student knows the ‘why’ the ‘how’ does not matter. In terms of my own life: I understand why I need to work two hours to mow my two acres of grass so I don’t mind putting in the effort to do it. The reward for me is how beautiful and healthy my yard looks not how it measures up to someone else’s standards.
Gifted teachers MUST realize that it is no longer a time of ‘let me fill your head with wonderful knowledge.’ It’s time to teach critical thinking skills, problem-solving skills, researching and communication skills then to provide a multitude of opportunities for the students to collaborate and communicate what they have learned. It’s time to get away from the cutsy themes such as rainforests and cowboys and move into the ‘how and why’ it is important for us to learn about them. We need teach our students how to ask relevant questions and come to logical and substantial conclusions about what they have learned.
Share this video with all the teachers that you know! It’s not only good for gifted students but for the 1st grader who will be functioning in the world as an adult in 2024!
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12.13.08
Posted in Gifted Education at 2:09 pm by Angie
An option for gifted students just became available through Connections Academy. It looks interesting for those students that need to fill in the gaps, want to accelerate beyond their grade or are tired of the classroom and desire to go on their own.
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12.04.08
Posted in Gifted Education, Uncategorized at 3:19 pm by Angie
All you educators will enjoy this site and its sense of humor.
Weapons of Math Destruction Comics
This comic has particular links to the state of gifted education in the US.
Imagine, you as an adult, sitting in a workshop where the instructor is slowing down the delivery of information to a snail’s pace so everyone can keep up. What do you do? Start flipping around in the book, draw, write notes to your neighbor, pull out your cell phone, go to the bathroom, etc. You have been taught over time just how far to go with your off-task behavior in a public situation.
Now, imagine you are ten years old!
It’s critical that we meet the needs of the identified gifted in our midst before they develop coping behaviors that have to be untaught later in their academic life. In my last position in a private school just for gifted, I needed more than half the school year to correct my students off-task behaviors before I could truly teach them. Alternatively, these students needed to trust that I would provide them with active, engaging learning situations. Both are a gradual processes.
This comic highlights that when we try to “level” the learning in the classroom, we loose our brightest minds. Our goal is to meet the academic and social needs every student under our care or offer alternative situations where they can receive help or acceleration. Leveling needs to take on the new meaning of “every student is learning to the level of their needs”.
Recently, I listened to Hillary Clinton during her nomination to be our next Secretary of State talk about everyone reaching their potential in our nation. Does she truly know what that means?
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12.02.08
Posted in Gifted Education at 4:09 am by Angie
The Department of Education in the Philippines celebrates the 2008 National Observance of the week for the gifted and talented.
A clip from their website:
1. Every fourth week of November, the nation observes National Week for the Gifted and Talented, an event declared through Presidential Proclamation No. 199 signed on Oct 19, 1999. This year’s celebration will be observed on November 24-28 2008 with the theme “Building Gifts into Talents”.
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If the United States can’t make it official this year, we can still celebrate. There is always exciting things happening in our GT classrooms! What are you doing?
Happy National Observance week all gifted and talented!
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12.01.08
Posted in Random 'Munchings", Uncategorized at 8:13 am by Angie
I consider myself fairly tech-savvy but I learned something that probably most tech-savvy people already knew: the Monday after Black Friday is called Cyber Monday. This is when companies make a big push to get you to order online. I decided to check my Business filter in GMail, and found 86 emails from companies like Barnes & Noble, Solutions and ShopPBS.org, etc. I just cleaned out that box yesterday!
Most of my Christmas shopping was done in the stores in the past with a few things ordered online. I had already decided to do most of my shopping online this year, taking the cue from my friends who recently moved to Nigeria. About two months ago, I decided to take my name off at least 25 catalog mailing lists thinking I would make my mail person’s job much lighter and save a few trees. Unfortunately, the work load is about the same. The retailers had warned me that it could take up to three months to see any results.
Seems like the retailers could have come up with more interesting titles for this tech phenomena like Slamming Monday.
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11.27.08
Posted in Gifted Education, Random 'Munchings" at 9:08 am by Angie
Adam and I were fooling around with Wordle at the same time we were listening to the news about the Mumbia attacks in India. We’ve captured an article from each of the following news sites about the topic and ran them through Wordle to come up with the images below. You can see the relative size of words based on the number of times it is used in the article which could give you an idea of the ’slant’ of the article.
One could use this an analysis tool in the classroom. We’ve discussed the concept and determined that it would be better to use the same design/color theme to make it more ’scientific’ in approach. Let us know how you use the concept.
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11.16.08
Posted in Gifted Education, Random 'Munchings" at 11:07 pm by Angie
Adam (my 25 year old son) has soundly defeated all my attempts to teach him to put his socks in the laundry after taking them off at the end of the day. This has been an ongoing battle between him and I since he was in elementary school. Every day after school, he’d remove his socks in my living room. Now he has Pixel to help him! Apparently, Pixel loves having his socks strewn about. They are instant toys to her.
I stayed with Adam and Pixel for three nights while I attended the Texas Association for Gifted and Talented conference in Dallas. I arrived on Tuesday night to his apartment and was happily greeted by Pixel, she was a temporary distraction from the nearly 20 white athletic socks laying all over the front room floor.
Once I get over the shock, I’ll write some ruminations from the conference.
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11.09.08
Posted in Random 'Munchings" at 7:33 am by Angie
Today’s entries all have one thing in common. They were sparked by reading the front section of the Houston Chronicle (Nov. 9).
I noted that Obama runs in all the same social networks online as I do. The article relates his digital presence to President Kennedy and his televised conferences and Roosevelt’s radio presence. Another article uses texting terminology to connect Obama to his confidants (BFF) and creates a new one: FOB (Friends of Barak) It will be interesting to see what the history books will write about our time.
AC/DC is back! I have to check out their newest album. Yea, I know their lyrics in Back in Black could be offensive to some. To me it is the what I call “the musicality” of their work that I like. You’ll laugh because at this very moment, I’m listening to harp music. My selection of music has always been based on my mood and Sunday morning is a good time for harp music. Saturday night is a good time for AC/DC.
On the same page is the cutest picture titled, “Pesky Patriot.” The photographer, Dave Weaver was lucky enough to capture a squirrel grasping onto a small American flag, the kind that are placed at grave sites. Of course, the animal was more interested in eating the material, than respecting it. I wish I could find the picture on the Chronicle’s website.
Attention all teachers! Macys has a very interesting promotional ad going for Christmas. They have reprinted a letter from Virginia O’Hanlon from The New York Sun originally published on Thursday, Sept. 21, 1897. Macys is using the letter to jump start a campaign to encourage you to write a letter explaining why “you’re one in a million.” They’ll donate a $1 to Make-A-Wish Foundation for every letter they receive. Teachers can teach a lesson on the historical and social aspects, finalizing the lesson with writing a letter with a purpose.
Camp Pendleton in California had to stop their training because a herd of 147 bison wandered onto their training field. The bison are a protected species. Remember 20 to 60 million roamed the plains for hundreds of years. The top biologist was quoted as saying “they are a symbol of the American West.
I love when history becomes evident today!
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11.03.08
Posted in Random 'Munchings" at 8:11 am by Angie
Halloween was pretty much a disappointment in our neighborhood after living in Greenleaves in Mandeville. There I learned to buy 10-12 packages of candy to have enough. Our neighborhood was well-known throughout the area as the best place to go trick or treating. Families would park their car outside the neighborhood, load up their little red wagons with kids and drinks. It was so crowded several years in a row that the police had to come in to direct traffic! No kidding!
Now, we are in a neighborhood with families and little kids, mostly running around on their 3-wheelers, golf carts and skate boards, even horses. On Halloween night, though, we had exactly one group of trick or treaters. There were eight kids total and they rode in a trailer hooked to a tractor driven by our next door neighbor. There is still evidence in my circular driveway: hay and black tire tracks.
Since my kids and their friends are grown and most are still in college, I prepared several packages full of treats and small gifts and mailed them about two weeks before Halloween. I’m glad I did! I still have candy left over so stop by sometime. You don’t have to dress up.
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