News about the Evaluation of K-12 Programs and Services for Exceptionally Able Students
West Windsor-Plainsboro Area
Welcome!
We are parents and educators in the West Windsor Plainsboro area working to promote advocacy for exceptionally able (“gifted and
talented”) children, and to provide an ongoing support and resource group for others like ourselves who are especially interested in the growth and development of highly able children.
Working together as a group in a positive, non-adversarial manner will accomplish far more than any of us have been able to do over the years
as separate individuals pleading each school year anew for our gifted children. R.E.A.CH. has been created --
To provide a mutually supportive environment for sharing the challenges, pitfalls and joys of raising these children,
and sharing resources for parenting information.
To provide a source of information in our
community for parents and educators of exceptionally able students about the nature of giftedness, the educational and psychological needs of the gifted, as well as supplemental enrichment programs for them.
To encourage staff development and training in gifted education for our teachers. To encourage the
development of gifted education professional resources within each school’s library to help our teachers.To aid good communication with teachers regarding gifted education issues, while acknowledging the hard
work, conscientiousness and dedication of the teachers in our schools.
To raise awareness in our
community with regard to the revised New Jersey Department of Education Curriculum Code. It now requires our school districts to identify exceptionally able students and to appropriately modify curriculum for
them; and the corresponding New Jersey “Curriculum Frameworks” documents provide recommended provisions for meeting their educational needs.
To support our school district’s efforts to provide quality education programs to all students in our schools.
Parents of exceptionally able children in this district have historically felt very isolated from each other. It can seem hard sometimes
to find others like ourselves. Yet with close to 8,000 students in our community, if you were to use the general parameter of “gifted” being 5-10% of the population, you are then talking about 400 to 800
children! This is a significant minority, big enough for us to be able to become an advocacy group which can accomplish something meaningful within our community for gifted education!
Now that there is a mandate from the state level, we have the opportunity to support the district’s current review of the programs for
exceptionally able students; and to encourage them in their efforts to expand from what has previously been primarily an accelerated math program into the other disciplines – language arts literacy, science,
social studies, et al. Obviously, giftedness occurs in all these areas, as well as the performing and visual arts. And in supporting gifted education in our district, we also have the opportunity to
encourage a greater awareness of the needs of high ability students who, while not testing into the accelerated math program, clearly need curriculum differentiation long before they get to 7th grade honors math.
But the tricky thing is this – acting in an adversarial, angry, frustrated way will never get us what we need for our kids. And there
is no "bad guy" to fight anyway, because most of the teachers and administrators in our district are conscientious, hardworking, and sincere in their commitment to do the best they know how to do, as they
understand it.
Sadly, very few teachers have any training in gifted education or in how to accommodate the gifted student’s frequently "divergent”
way of thinking. And these same teachers, conscientiously endeavoring to bring everyone to a baseline achievement level, may not realize the harmful consequences to children who are forced to spend countless
hours waiting for something to learn.
There is an ethical issue involved as well. So many of us have experienced the “cooperative group” pedagogical model in which high
achieving students are parceled out to different groups to enhance the learning experience of the other students. All well and good on the surface, until you stop to think and ask, when does the high achiever
get a chance to stretch and learn? And since when is it fair to make the high achiever responsible for other students rather being allowed to have her own learning take priority? And what happens to the
achiever when he gets fed up with being used in this way, and decides to quit, to figuratively go on strike? We have too many who are disaffected underachievers by the time they make it to high school.
It’s important to remember that this is not an either/or situation: either have enrichment for all OR have enrichment for gifted
students. Curricular enrichment should be an option available for any who are motivated and interested in it. But exceptionally able students need reforms in the daily classroom, where they live – cluster grouping, curriculum compacting, flexible pacing, greater depth in the material, pre-testing so they can show mastery of material and then go on to spend their time learning, rather than continuing to repeat what they already know.
Gifted children deserve to spend their time in school learning, just like the rest of the students get to do. We need to help teachers
and administrators see that this is an issue of equity; it is not "elitist" to insist that our children be given the opportunity to learn.
The first step to improving education for our children is to educate ourselves. To that end, we’re providing a starting
point.Click on the sidebar to find –
Who Are the Gifted? – introductory definitions
Major Myths About the Gifted Child
Identification: Some Comparisons and Characteristics
Food for Thought
Resources for Families – Enrichment Programs (e.g., the Johns Hopkins University Talent Search, Montclair State University programs, The Gifted Child Society year round programs)
Listing of Gifted Article Digests from ERIC – an educational information resource center on exceptionalities, including dual exceptionalities (e.g., children who are both gifted and ADHD)
What We have Learned About Gifted Children, by
Dr. Linda Kreger Silverman, of the Gifted Development Center
For much more complete information, there is a wonderful website called Hoagies’ Gifted Education Page at http://www.hoagiesgifted.org . It has many links to other gifted education sites well worth exploring. Also useful are the national and state organizations: the NAGC (National Association for Gifted Children at http://www.nagc.org ) and the NJAGC (New Jersey Association for Gifted Children at http://www.njagc.org ). Both of them hold very informative annual conferences; the NJAGC conference was held last March in nearby Princeton!
Please join us in our endeavor! We’d like you to sign our guest book and welcome your input and your experiences.Together
we will accomplish long lasting reform, not just for our kids in school now, but for their younger siblings and those who will follow.
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