10.31.08
Posted in Fun Stuff, Random 'Munchings" at 9:11 pm by Angie
Twelve days ago I started wearing a pedometer because I wanted to see just how many steps I take in a day. Turns out that I average about 4,200 steps during a week. I plugged in a screen shot of my chart below so you could see my inconsistent performance. This is my honest numbers without changing any patterns or habits. You can easily tell which days I was writing a web log entry, updating my Facebook page or some other task that was ‘necessary’ at the time and which days I took a walk.
The site that I used to input the data has a goal for each participant of an average of 10,000 steps during a week. Using my superior mathematical skills, I determined that doing a simple chore like doing the laundry be made into a couple hour ordeal if I just picked up one piece of clothing at a time and walked it from the bedroom to the laundry room. Of course, my dog, Nemo, would be entirely confused by this. He carries ’socks’ to the laundry room for me while my other dog, Tillie, cheers for us waiting by the washer. They get a treat for their valuable contribution. I just get to enter my steps on to a web page.
On a totally different front, I came across a website a few days ago that encourages people to write 20,000 words a day. Their basic premise is if we can get you to write everyday starting Nov 1, you could turn out a novel just after Christmas. During the interview, the creator of the program said they have “flying monkeys” to monitor that its participants are actually writing their quota of words a day. I think he is jesting but the image of flying monkeys straight out of “The Wizard of Oz” is enough to keep me honest! In fact, I was scared enough to pull out a story I had started several years ago and see just how many words I had already written so I could get a sense of what 20,000 words looked like on the screen. I was hoping for something like 50,000 words in the statistics on the document as I had spent a number of days writing on it, instead it was closer to 20,000 words. It took me a few minutes to wrap my mind around how much time it would take to write 20,000 words that made any logical sense.
So to wrap this entry up, I’ll need to drink my quota of water, eat my quota of calories, get my quota of sleep so I can step my quota of steps and write my quota of words. If not, I can only wish that flying monkeys will swoop down and take this pedometer that started the whole thing!
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10.20.08
Posted in Writing Entries at 6:20 pm by Angie
So the other local paper Tomball Magnolia Tribune (not to be outdone by last week’s excellent article) ran an interesting Sheriff’s Office report for the week of Oct. 20, 2008.
“When Patrol Sgt. Dwayne Finley of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s office went to investigate a reported explosion at a business, what he saw when he went inside was believed to be bloody hoof prints on the carpet.
As he continued to check the interior of the business, he entered the last office and a large eight point buck jumped up from behind a desk. The deer attached the sergeant, trying to gore him with his atlers. Sgt. Finley was able to shoot the deer before being injured.”
The best reason for placing this on my weblog is because this is so ripe for puns! If you have one, add it to the comment section. I know my husband and son will have a few. You don’t want to be outdone by them!
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10.15.08
Posted in Random 'Munchings", Writing Entries at 7:05 pm by Angie
I just finished reading an article in my local paper, The Magnolia Potpourri on Oct. 15, 2008 and had to write about it. I don’t usually write two entries on one day but I just couldn’t pass up on this one.
The title of the article is “Blogger takes virtual bike ride through Tomball” by Dustin Bass (dbass@hcnonline.com) The article is about Clifford Walk who is using Google Maps new walking directions feature to chart his course from baseball stadium to another baseball stadium. He climbs on his exercise bike and pedals away until he reaches the appropriate mileage, then makes a blog entry about the special baseball events that occurred at that stadium. He’s combined his love of baseball with exercise and brought it into the virtual world! (Unfortunately, the link given in the article didn’t work and I couldn’t locate the article link online so you will have to email Dustin Bass above for more details.)
I can see grandmothers bicycling to their grandchildren’s homes, boyfriends making their way to their girlfriend’s house or even just virtually pedaling my way to the local coffee shop! First, I will need a bike, tho! Perhaps this will start a few more rider/bloggers out there!
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Posted in Gifted Education at 1:14 pm by Angie
Number Four on the list of Top Ten Things is the topic of my next entry. It reads:
Asking regular education teachers to differentiate for the gifted sounds great, but if teachers do not know just how high those “high” kids can get, then the gifted never get needs met. In-service does not always show teachers just how much these children can really do.
Regular education teachers are very aware of the gifted child in their classroom and that’s about it. Every teacher struggles with meeting the wide range of social, emotional and academic needs of every child in their classroom. They can scale back the lesson for the lower learner and pile on more work to the high achiever but with the gifted learner, teachers can be clueless. For instance, what may look like a unproductive child on the outside may be a highly intelligent child on the inside. High achieving children may be just that - high achieving but are they gifted thinkers? I’ve learned that some behaviors in a gifted child is simply a coping mechanism or their way of handling boredom. Giving away the right to be in a gifted classroom to the best behaved child is just plain misguided. That little boy who can’t sit still but can make thoughtful connections and announces them impulsively is the same young man who drops out of school around his sophomore year.
How can a teacher better met the needs of their gifted learner without taking away from the others? When you assign a writing, allow the gifted learner to take it as far as they wish. I have approached more than one writing assignment this way. After buffeting several, “so how many pages does this need to be” type questions, students exploded. Some turned in one or two pages, others took the opportunity to write stories of great lengths! I encouraged students to come to me with a proposal for a project or topic for further study, then I made sure there was somewhere that they could present or publish their work.
Find out all you can about how different and unique gifted children are. Ask them what they would like to do. Play with their sophisticated sense of humor, appreciate their gifts then let them soar!
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10.07.08
Posted in Gifted Education, Uncategorized at 12:45 am by Angie
Now that I’ve posted the top ten things administration should know about gifted teachers, I thought I would write about my personal experience with a few of them. I went to bed thinking about #1 and when I got up this morning my good friend, Nancy (an ESL teacher), had written a paragraph that nails the concept totally. She writes:
But when someone tells us that we have to make them succeed, it changes the whole feel in the classroom. As a teacher I am no longer responsible for my students but rather for their success. And not the student’s idea of success or even mine but someone else’s. And we are accountable not to the student or to ourselves for that student’s success but to that “someone else”.
My experience as a gifted teacher in the public school setting and then in the private school setting were vastly different. In the public school setting, I was not expected to get my students out to every type of competition but I did encourage them as much as possible. I would have even joined them on a Saturday to be their cheering section. Because of the personalities of my own two gifted children, I understood that some gifted students thrived on competition, others do not.
My position at the private school was another matter entirely. I was expected to attend training (on a Saturday), redesign my instructional time to prepare the students, and give up my weekends for competition. All students were expected to compete, even to the point of being lectured if they did not make it to the competition. I was expected to get my students to enter any and all writing competitions that passed over my desk (whether they were ready or not) and the writing skills of this particular crowd was very stilted, uncreative, and underdeveloped for most of the school year.
I understand that private schools need to get their name ‘out there’ to obtain more students, it is how the administration goes about setting expectations that ruins the experience for all concerned. This is where Nancy nails it! Once I am held accountable to that ’someone else’, I’ve lost all buy in, I’ve lost the true purpose of being a teacher and encourager.
A truly good administrator knows which teachers on his/her staff is out there doing their job because they love it. They will somehow compensate those teachers who work above and beyond their usual eight hours. These administrators focus on how the student has benefited from participating in these competitions - not on how their participation has benefited the the organization!
I have high respect for my predecessors in my field. They were teaching during a time when accountability and testing was not reigning king over the profession. My children benefited from their passion and experience. They are my role models and I tried to emulate them as I taught. I was discouraged to discover that my last position did not value my passion but took my passion for granted.
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10.05.08
Posted in Gifted Education at 7:00 pm by Angie
The following comments are from teachers and advocates of gifted education from the University of Iowa Gifted Listserv on or around Oct. 5, 2008. I thought they were well said and could be useful for those readers in the administrative capacity.
One Teacher’s Top ten list:
1. I am a teacher, not a coach! While competitions can meet some needs of some of the children, I am not contracted to teach at 6 in the morning until 5. If Mock Trial or Math Counts is to be made a part of the curriculum for gifted students, then time to work with children on these competitions needs to be provided during the scheduled daytime, not as an after or before school activity. If you want me to provide activities for students, then I need coaching pay on top of my regular salary.
2. If you want me to collaborate or co-teach, then I need time to meet with teachers. And they need to have the same time available to meet with me.
3. Gifted students need curriculum, coursework and classes commensurate with their abilities not their age.
4. Asking regular education teachers to differentiate for the gifted sounds great, but if teachers do not know just how high those “high” kids can get, then the gifted never get needs met. In-service does not always show teachers just how much these children can really do.
5. Gifted children NEED to know they are not the only gifted children in the world. In other words, they need to know that there are others out there that not only “get them,” but who are just like them.
6. If gifted students are not challenged early, then it can become increasingly more difficult to teach them the skills they need to work at challenging levels. Apathy and fear of failure replace the skills needed to work at challenging levels.
7. School should be where children learn; not show-off what they all ready know.
8. Gifted children are busy people too. Extra work, even if appropriate, keeps them from taking responsibility for their own lives.
9. The title “teacher of gifted” is often a misnomer. I actually not only teach, I administer tests, read and interpret test data, collaborate with and provide resources for core teachers, in other words, I specialize in all things gifted for the building/district. Perhaps my title should be “Gifted Specialist,” so more people in the district will know what my actual job entails.
10. Gifted students need a G/T person accessible in all grades; not just elementary school. In fact, teens often have more social-emotional needs than elementary aged students.
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10.03.08
Posted in Writing Entries at 3:03 pm by Angie
Don’t you hate it when you have an excellent idea to write about but you are laying in bed around 2 am. In the morning when when you wake up the idea and the great way you thought to word it is totally gone. That’s what happened to me last night. I think it was about growing up in a small town in SE Colorado but since I didn’t capture the thoughts using a pen and notebook because turning on the light would wake up my husband I have now way of being sure. Maybe it will come back to me sometime……
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