it shouldn’t bother me

something came up at a marathon meeting this morning and my reaction is only partly due to the fact that i was hungry.  here is the note i scribbled down after someone made a comment regarding their performance on something or other…

“why is getting an answer correct and/or quickly make people say we’re gifted?  i think it shows a very narrow view, at best, or a complete lack of understanding, at worst, of the nature of gifted individuals”

not terribly nice, i realize, but i’m tired of hearing the phrase thrown out there as if it were some cute remark.  a friend of mine mentioned something along this same line at lunch today and shared with me that someone had told her that using the term gifted in that way only adds fuel to the fire in making the term seem elitist.  wise words.  would someone EVER say something incorrect and then  call themselves the IEP group?  or worse?  we spend lots of time talking about the idea of respect in this profession but sometimes find ourselves perpetuating stereotypes.

 

Efficacy

Del shared the results of an interesting study regarding how students felt about themselves and their group mates when the groups are mixed with gifted students to varying degree. This lots of application when we talk about ALID. At the end of the day the study showed that mixed ability groups can be concerning for a variety of reasons that are necessarily linked to the achievement of the group. I prefer to hear about the results of studies rather than personal stories.

 

before my first strand session

sally reis gave an fascinating talk about kids who were part of the SEM and what they grew up to become – the point, without what they were able to pursue at a young age, they would not have grown up to become what they did.  i was inspired the way sally talked about talent development.  so frequently we shorten the label gifted and talented to “gifted” and leave out a valuable part.  i believe it is guilford’s model that shows the necessity for a treatment of some sort to nurture the gifts students have into the talent that they produce.  good stuff to kick around in my mind.  it also got me thinking about our efforts to impact students and how great it would be to spend time in hisd schools working with identified students and going through type III projects to allow them to explore their passion areas.  not sure how that would work logistically whether it be after school, or as a colleague suggested due to buses, during the school day.   looking forward to a social emotional strand that i will be attending regarding guiding teens to self understanding using film, literature and web 2.0 technology.