MY EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY

I am thrilled to be a lifelong learner and this enthusiasm spills over into my classroom. Teachers who work with gifted students have an exciting job! My job as an elementary educator is to learn all I can, make sense of, and organize the information for all types of learners who enter my classroom. This requires me to be an independent thinker which is exactly what I want my students to become.

At the same time, I work to challenge my students to stretch those areas where they are weak and to explore new areas. In my mind, the education of the gifted student would not be complete without respecting their differences and striving to answer their questions. My classroom is ridicule-free. Each individual student is respected for who they are and how they think. I was, and still am, a different kind of learner who would have benefitted from this understanding so extending this respect to my students is second nature to me.

I believe that standards and benchmarks are only the starting point to learning for the gifted child. I believe that a student who is getting all A’s is not being challenged enough. Failure and success are important to learning: some failure is essential to developing resilience, drive and motivation to be successful, some successes are essential in building confidence and self esteem. I understand that peer pressure has a strong influence on learning, too. Students have often heard me say that they should NEVER hide or ignore who they are and what they know to get someone like them.

I encourage the use of differentiation methods such as compacting, layering, menus, simulations and various assessments to move my students past the society-prescribed learning into critical thinking, questioning, community-service, and leadership opportunities where their gifts can benefit the world around them. I remind my students of the quote, “For of those to whom much is given, much is required.” Holy Bible (Luke 12:48) and spoken by JF Kennedy in 1967. I guide my students to know when to listen, when to accept and when to act.

I love to provide learning experiences that engage all the learner’s senses. I love to bring the outside world into my classroom with speakers, demonstrations and links to other cultures. I’ve hosted students from France and Germany and personally learned how important it is to share and value our differences and our similarities. Additionally, providing competitive outlets such as chess, academic, and problem-solving competitions are essential to learning.

As a lifelong learner, I encourage other adults to keep learning and questioning too. We need to continue learning in this ever-changing world. Recent discoveries, technology and the wide availability of information give us the tools we need to find our answers. In doing so, we are providing an excellent model for our children.

My desire is to value, encourage and advocate for those who have been given much academically. It is important for me to attend local seminars as well as webinars available online to expand my knowledge and skills in teaching the gifted child. I also utilize Twitter as a means to follow & share my experiences with other educators worldwide. Meetups such as the one I started in 2009 (which has met twice and I plan to extend over the summer and next school year) are ways that I’m working to bring parents & teachers together to build understanding for these unique learners. With our collective efforts, the gifted learner in every pocket of the world can be encouraged to reach their full potential. There is much work to do!

Just this morning, I followed a link provided by a fellow Twitterer to come up with a draft for a new parent observation survey borrowing from a checklist from a school in New South Wales. I’ve read articles posted in the Boston Globe, NYTimes and Gifted Examiner on topics that deal with educating the gifted child. I learned that the educational system Philippines actually celebrate their gifted during a week long event.

In what other readily available and free format would you be able to share with a gifted educator in Australia or New Zealand from a computer in Texas? Or with the major contributers to notable gifted sites such as Hoagies.net, TXGifted, NYGiftedEd, Giftedkidsie (out of Ireland), ByrdseedGifted (out of CA), or DavidsonGifted. The Davidson Academy publishes a complete list of gifted educators on Twitter and Facebook.

I really like how msgregson uses Twitter to direct educators to her spreadsheet on Google docs and allows all who fill it out also view it – seamlessly! I spent about 30 minutes today trying out several educational game sites that I have added to my del.ici.ous account (afrench2) so I can pull them up later in the classroom. I would have never tried the art masterpieces portion on www.freerice.com without a link provided by one tweet.

Unfortunately, this technology is like that creatively gifted, ADHD third grader who blurts out everything he or she knows which consists of a few wild and silly ideas along with some highly observant thoughts. This explains why school districts mostly filter it out on their campuses. Just how does a school district ‘keep the lid’ on this one?

If you are an educator, you may want to consider starting a Twitter account. As with all technologies, you’ll experience some frustrations along the way. Just be patient and start small. If you do start a Twitter account make sure to dm @teachagiftedkid. I’ll introduce you to some friends of mine.

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.

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!

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?

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.

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”.