06.30.08
Posted in Gifted Education at 11:46 am by Angie
After teaching a week of Camp Invention, catching up on errands and chores, and hosting our friends who are now on their way to Nigeria for a three year assignment, I have given myself the day to poke around the internet for interesting blogs and links. One such link comes from the InSuggest site which uses your Del.ici.ous username to assemble a list of sites that might be of interest. It was very simple to specify the tag you wanted to use to create a list. Using my ‘gifted’ tag, I found several sites I had seen before and a few new ones. The most useful ones had already been linked to this site on my Gifted Minds pages. One that I hadn’t seen before is the APA Center for Gifted Policy.
If you know much about Gifted Education, you are familiar with the issues surrounding NCLB and educating the gifted in today’s world. This site’s mission is to build awareness for gifted policies. I took the time to watch the Gifted Youth of 1939 World’s Fair video. located on the homepage. It is interesting to see how one man’s dream and ‘out of the box’ thinking provided opportunity and valuable learning experiences to about 30 students. The video is a good motivator for providing our educators resources to create this type of environment for our brightest students. Notable words I heard throughout the video were: “do, think ask” and “were willing to do the work.” Are we getting that message across to our children? The end of the video reveals the contribution that most of these students have given to our society. Enjoy!
Permalink
06.15.08
Posted in Fun Stuff at 7:22 pm by Angie
I love it when I visit a friend’s blog and find something neat to try out. My friend, Nancy (who just got back from the New Orleans Writing Marathon and is on my teacher blog list in the side bar as “Nancy”) keeps a great web log. She seems to stumble upon some cool little gadgets and Wordle is one. This is right up my alley! I’ve fiddled around with words and art on a page since my oldest was three months old. My closet is full of the school newsletters that I’ve done both with and without the help of technology. Oh yea, I remember when I had to type or copy, cut and paste clip art and articles to create attractive newsletters! (This is the new version of ‘I had to walk ten miles to school in a foot of snow’ story to tell my grandkids.) In any case, I used my del.icio.us bookmarks to create my own Wordle art.
Another thing I did that comes under the Fun category is setting up a MySpace page. Actually, I set up one way back during Spring Break and actually forgot about it until this evening as I was chatting with my niece in Arkansas. So here is the site address: http://www.myspace.com/teachagiftedkid.
Permalink
06.11.08
Posted in Random 'Munchings", Writing Entries at 8:31 am by Angie
I helped E find his ring! It may seem like a little thing to you but to E it wasn’t. The ring his grandmother gave him had flown off his finger onto the SW Colorado forest floor late in a “capture the flag” style game during our week long archeology field trip. Two classmates and I looked for about 20 minutes at dusk with no luck. I promised E that we would try again the next morning. It would be our last chance before returning to school. During this trip, it seemed that each student had their own ‘need’. For D, it was a slow reveal of his true self to others who think like him. For M, it was to be accepted by the crowd. For A, to show she was all grown up. For E, it was just to find that ring.
Most all the bags were packed and sitting by the bus parked in front of the lodge early the next morning when E reminded me about the promise I made the night before. He and I made our way up the path into the underbrush and looked for the marker we had chosen the night before and we began our search. Amazingly, I found the ring within about a minute of arriving. How we missed it, I will never know. E was relieved and happy. I could also feel his trust in me as his teacher had risen 100% that morning. He could tell that I truly cared about him.
This year, out of all the lessons coming out of the classroom, building trust with the class was the one for me. (Each year seems to have its lesson for the teacher.) Trust is wrapped up in the little things we do from day to day in our classroom. It’s fetching that special type of card stock paper for a project, remembering to bring in an ingredient for a recipe, smiling, chatting, following through with promises, and a zillion other things.
During a conversation the first week in May, a co-worker mentioned that sometimes it takes him nearly half the school year to build trust with his new class of students. It became clear that this was the issue in my class. This group of children was taking longer than most to develop that certainty that I was going to lead them, teach them and expose them to learning situations without embarrassing them, without stretching them too far beyond their needs or belittling them when something goes wrong. A big chore for any professional!
After some fits and starts, I can say it took well into February when the students began to trust me. Situations, attitudes, perceptions, stresses along with school culture and teacher experience all played a role in our slow development. The last part of the school year was the most productive for my students in many ways other than just in their class projects and assignments. We had quality discussions, inside jokes, playful fun. All these things the students will remember more than any lesson on grammar or ancient history that I taught.
Permalink
