Tonight our guest speaker is Sally Krisel. She's an important name in gifted education around the general Northeast Georgia area. Her focus is to be on what qualifies individuals as gifted in the state of Georgia.
Below is the link to the Georgia DOE website gifted section. Information about the GaDOE Resource Manual for Gifted Education can be found in one of the links to the right of the page.
http://www.doe.k12.ga.us/ci_iap_gifted.aspx
Brief history of Gifted Education.
Apparently, Georgia was the first state to mandate gifted services in its schools. We beat Pennsylvania by just a short amount of time when it came to signing the bill into law. This was around 1958, around the time of Sputnik. Nothing like a few crafty Russians and a Cold War to make Americans stand up and shout "Hey, we're smart too."
My questions is why is Georgia (and most other southern states) uneducated [state] in the world of education. We are so rarely heralded as the-state-that-has-great-students-and-challenging-curriculum (curriculi?). We're just Georgia. A state full of . . .
Flash forward to 1988. Jacob Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act created the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented (NRGC/T) at three different sites: UConn, UVA, and UGA. Woo-hoo. Georgia leading the way (triumvirate) again!
Sally is a happy person. I think as a student, I'd be inclined to listen to her. Good crowd interaction. She's taught a lot. As a teacher (acting like a student for this gifted certification), I am more likely to listen to her. She may currently be one of them (administrators, etc), but she was once one of us. She knows what I've been through and does not live in some idealized world where all people are geniuses and want to learn happy-pretty stories about happy-pretty people.
Back to the history. Almost like a preacher, but one who is happy about the gospel, not shoving it down your throat.
Back to the history. People rejected changing the criterion for gifted eligibility from a single indicator to multiple indicators. Why would people reject that? We hate change. We hate anything that points out the flaws of our previous ways of thinking. We were wrong before . . .
Oo oo. I just made a comment. I called gifted kids a little bit outside of the regular classroom students. I like my comment. They exist in a parallel world. I figure I have to participate from time to time because I'm writing this as she speaks. Might think I'm not paying attention.
Back to the history. In 1994, GACG leaders suckered some legislator into introducing a bill that required multiple criteria. I just looked up criterium. Turns out it's not a word. Criteria is plural and criterion is singular. Who knew?
Sally involves the crowd. Good for her. Gives real examples. Talking about the local basketball coach. Like a good comedian who asks for information from the crowd and immediately turns that info into jokes.
1994-5. DOE Task Force. Old guard was not invited. Maxine Easom was, though. Good for her.
July-November 1995. Although Sally just told us we don't need to take notes on this, I am anyway. This is my blog. I'm so excited. More about multiple criteria. Why can't something like this be simple?
We live in Georgia. Football is king. While the discussion was going in in legal venues, Sally says that the idea of "no pass, no play" brought more speakers to the podium than any other issue. What would Georgia be without football? What would the educational system be without organized sports like football? This is the reason that some people stay in school, for the chance to excel physically.
I'm missing something here. In 1958, we seemed like initiators, leaders, instigators in gifted education. Now in 1997, we look like fools arguing over piddly details and who qualifies and who doesn't.
Important words: wrestle, compel, procedures,
From our reading to prepare for this guest lecture: mental ability, achievement, creativity, and motivation. The four criteria by which (upon which?) (she called them data categories) gifted students may qualify. Reject composite IQ scores.
Important words: authentic assessment. Sounds commonplace today, but in 1995, that was novel. Change. Dangerous.
Important words: contaminated. Do regular ed students contaminate gifted students? What about gifted kids contaminating the regular kids?
Sally works the stage-left side of the room. Making us look right. Is this in purpose? What's wrong with the other side of the room? Maybe she's right-handed. She manipulates the powerpoint presentation (buttons on the computer) with her right hand.
Why do kids have to be in the 99th percentile for grades K-2 and only the 96th percentile for grades 3-12? How many 12th graders qualify for gifted services for the first time?
Composite scores are bad. Why don't you just trust me?
Important words: Dichotomy. I have become further and further enamored with with word. It pops up in both the ninth and tenth grade vocabulary root word lists with the stem di meaning two and tomy meaning cut. An division into two mutually exclusive groups. I guide my kids into discussion of unfair divisions of gender, race, and age. But we, we teachers, are finding ourselves forced into educational dichotomies. Here, in this gifted class, we are asked to speak out, to argue, to demand services for our gifted students. But in our school system (and I do not necessarily mean my own school system, but in a more national sense) we are driven like lathered horses in a quarter-mile race to improve graduation rates, improve scores on course and graduation tests. I do not feel comfortable raising my head up high enough to have it cut down by the powers that be. I like my job too much.
But I'm probably a little paranoid. Without tenure, we teachers have to be more cautious than ever before. We are no longer encouraged to take chances. Those gifted teachers, of which I sometimes consider myself, are no longer free.
Back to the class. Three categories of administrative delivery models. Damnit. She moved the slide. It was something like direct services, indirect services, and something else. Seemed important.
Important words: acceleration. Let the little genius shine.
Important words: shake things up.
Important concept: no longer identify gifted students, rather identify advanced learning needs.
"Go into a classroom and provide a lesson that is very engaging and high-interest. See who responds as a gifted student should."
But wouldn't most kids respond at a higher level with a high-energy/interest engaging activity? What about the kids who think that one is boring but would have done well if the assignment had been about turtles instead of cheetahs?
What I don't like about all of this, but recognize the necessity of, is the idea that there are myriad methods to identify giftedness. If we come up with enough tests, then everyone will be gifted, but in their own special way. I excelled at sleeping late when I was younger. Where is my award? My recognition? I now excel at waking up ten minutes before my alarm goes off. My certificate? In the mail? But I recognize that we must have a variety of ways to assess giftedness. But when does it stop?
Future of education. Create niches.
Okay. Listen. Competition amongst teachers to entice students into your classroom. Think spiders with educational webs. Fun. But we can't do that. In my department, there are two elective courses. Journalism (school magazine) and journalism (yearbook). Where are the creative writing courses? Where are the specific genre literature courses? We can't have them because we are too busy just trying to get students to pass the four core classes, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade English. There's no time to relax and enjoy yourself. Even in the courses we teach there is so little room for creativity. Benchmark tests, end-of-course tests, aligned assessments for RTI instruction. When can my students be creative? When can I be creative? We find a way.
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