Madelaine's Ideas

The recent scoping report by consultants MartinJenkins, commissioned by Gifted Kids (now New Zealand Centre for Gifted Education) identified a series of ‘gaps’ in service delivery for gifted children in New Zealand’s schools (read more here: http://www.giftedkids.co.nz/Gaps+in+education+for+gifted+-+report+finds+-+Media+Release ). These thoughts are echoed by the shared Position Statement  from the New Zealand Centre for Gifted Education, giftEDNZ and the NZAGC.   When thinking about gaps in relation to the education of gifted, one springs to my mind immediately – the gap between potential and achievement in our gifted  children. This gap saddens and angers me. To see gifted children languishing in the 'above standard' zone, perhaps a year above their chronological age, is simply wrong.   While giftedness is not an automatic ticket to high achievement but our gifted children absolutely and ...

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.   S ee Mum, it’s all your fault...

The end of the school year brings with it tiredness, relief, amazement at how we all survived, and time to draw breath, perhaps some time for some unforced critical reflection. The recent PISA results and the ensuing and no doubt ongoing debate also forces some critical thinking. I'm interested at the moment in how we organise the children in our care to optimise our time & energy for their learning -aka grouping. Ability or interest? Fixed or changing? Self or teacher determined? Some, all or none of the time? I have been particularly interested in watching the social & emotional responses to grouping... Here's an example... Highly able, albeit somewhat reticent reader, in mixed ability reading group, feels like an outlier (uncomfortably so) but at the same time begins to express doubts about own reading ability, & therefore becomes reluctant to outwardly participate ie share ideas in discussion. Teacher assumes this lack of verbal participation is a significant ...

Thanks Mr Bowie for providing a sound track for my thoughts! I'm approaching the dawn of a new decade of my life, and it makes me think about this idea of change - how I've changed, how the world has changed, how I feel about change etc. That's all just middle of the night thinking, but clear-eyed daytime thinking has me looking at the idea of change in relation to our classrooms. Hearing things like 'this has worked before, it'll work again'.... 'we always do poetry reading in term 3'... 'but there are only five different writing genre.... 'but that's the way we've always done it'... and most worringly of all 'but our curriculum says we have to'... suggests to me that CHANGE is not something that is practiced in our classrooms. Are we as teachers afraid of change? Not the huge things, just little things. Are we now just so perfect that changing something would ruin the perfection? Are are too numbed or dumbed down from ...

I'm not a natural or prolific blogger but for Gifted Awareness Week this year the theme happens to be challenge, which was the theme of my first ever blog post, last year. What I wrote then may or may not 'hold up', and is something of a personal note about challenge, but for Gifted Awareness Week I thought I would re-visit my ideas and add those of the students I teach... at Gifted Kids, a one-day-a-week programme catering for the unique needs of gifted students, primarily those from low-decile communities (see www.giftedkids.co.nz ). It is part of our mandate to support students to experience and embrace new challenges. Thank goodness! With my young (years 3,4 and 5) and brand new class this year I was intrigued to watch their varying responses to challenging experiences. By 'challenging experiences' I mean new and unfamiliar things, difficult work, abstract work, a socially new and different environment, being pushed out of their comfort zone intellectually an...

This is my new adventure in blogging... it may work out... it may not.  Let's wait and see. An idea on my mind lately is challenge. Actually mostly what's been on my mind is the opposite of challenge... the lack of challenge, the dross of  'at-level', and how scared we teachers seem to be of giving our students things that genuinely challenge them. Take reading for example... why not give kids something to read that they can actually get their teeth into, why stick to the golden rule of 90-95% accuracy? Why not let kids struggle, just a bit, just for a while - would it hurt?  Why are we so scared of  giving kids hard stuff to read? What is the benefit of so-called lateral extension (in less PC terms, making kids read 'the whole level', or in even less PC terms, just not letting them go 'up')? Why just let them go for it? Imagine what that must feel like for a keen, capable reader... knowing there's a whole world of interesting books out there ...