Skip to main content

Gifted Awareness Week 2014 - 6 word stories

The cells in a beehive has six sides.
A guitar has six strings.
The atomic number for carbon is six.
There are six geese a-laying.
And any good story has just six words.

My Tuesday class of year 4-6 students at Gifted Kids (New Zealand Centre of Gifted Education) have expressed their ideas about what being gifted is all about, briefly, through 6 word stories. What better way to communicate complex ideas.

You might take a minute to think about the deeper meanings here, about where these ideas come from, and about what we can learn from understanding what our gifted children think.

Here's a selection that really captures the spirit of their thoughts.

Getting straight to the point...
An individual with advanced intellectual ability.
Gifted? Me? High intellectual ability? Yes!
Intellectual ability, born with the person.

And with deference to Lady Gaga...
Baby, I was born this way. 
Being gifted doesn’t come by mail.  
See Mum, it’s all your fault.
Don’t blame me, blame my parents.

Giftedness is not something you are given, or taught to be...
Can't teach it. Can't take away. 
Can’t be taught, It just is.
You can’t buy or sell giftedness.  
Gifted: Something not taught in school.

The idea of difference came through loud and clear:
If you are different never change.  
Do not look different than friends. 
Unique and different in every way.
You’re different, please don’t ever change. 
Think different, feel different, be different!
The idea of the kaleidoscope of giftedness, with thanks to NZAGC, also came up: 
Many different parts make up giftedness. 
Gifted. A gift in many realms.
And just some fun...
Bucket loads of ability, personality, emotion.
Ah! The taste of sweet giftedness. 
Past fine, Present good, Future amazing!  
Out of comfort,  into challenge zone.
Proud to be part of Gifted Awareness Week 2014 Blog Tour
Blog Tour icon and link.
Find other #NZGAW Blog Tour posts at ultranet.giftededucation.org.nz/WebSpace/1104/.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Like-mindedness...inclusion...and us.

Associate Professor Tracy Riley’s recent research, shared in a SENG article, Thinking Along the Same Lines , and to be further explored at the upcoming NZAGC conference , puts like-mindedness in the spotlight. Like-mindedness is an important part of gifted education. The benefits of grouping gifted children together, creating like-minded environments, are both intellectual and social. Intellectually, like-minded students can work together at a faster pace, in greater depth, can challenge and question each other in order to bolster their individual and collective learning. Research by Adams-Byers, Whitsell and Moon (2004) found that gifted students saw the academic advantages in learning with like-minded peers as being challenge, fast pace, quality and depth of discussion, and lack of repetition of content.  Sandra Kaplan highlights that in like-minded groups, students can share perspectives and ideas that can be more readily understood, without the need for protracted expla...

Colourful and complex... students' thoughts about like-mindedness

Working (effectively) with like-minded peers is an essential element of the MindPlus programme. But what do children actually think and say about working with their like-minded peers?... I asked two classes of gifted children and here are their responses: Learning with like-minded peers… -           It’s easier because we don’t have to explain ourselves or our ideas -           It’s not as hard as working with non-like-minded peers -           We can work together on the same things, or on different things in the same ways -           We can help each other learn -           You can understand each other -           We can learn from each other -         ...