tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167365232012-01-27T19:06:48.959-08:00Welcome to Gifted Exchange, the blog about gifted children, schooling, parenting, education news and changing American education for the better. This blog is supported by the Davidson Institute for Talent Development.Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.comBlogger5421100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-15217037514126680302012-01-27T07:16:00.000-08:002012-01-27T08:09:10.730-08:00

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal had a story called "Friday Night Lights (Out)." A small school district in Texas, on the verge of bankruptcy and in trouble with the state for low academic performance, has decided to cut its high school sports program to free up cash. Among the things the cash has to go for? A better science lab, as required by state standards. High school sports are obviously a

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-78519354631227049552012-01-19T19:18:00.000-08:002012-01-19T19:24:16.479-08:00

Houston, we have a problem... too many gifted kids in the Houston Independent School District.At least that's the gist of an article from Watchdog.org, pointing out that the HISD gifted rate of about 15% is double that of the state at large (closer to 7%). This is, of course, one of the perils of giftedness being a concept without a clear definition. It is unlikely that there are twice as many

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-72328929132540644542012-01-18T14:10:00.000-08:002012-01-18T14:26:21.894-08:00

Over at my other blog (the newly tricked out lauravanderkam.com) I posted the other day about the "Merit Badge Mindset." As a junior Girl Scout years ago, I used to love looking through the badge book and choosing projects that I could do without a huge field trip. There was something so neatly satisfying about undertaking a challenge, checking off different components of it, and then having some

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-21359077429766654032012-01-13T10:37:00.000-08:002012-01-13T10:53:01.678-08:00

Districts and states take an incredible diversity of approaches to homeschooling - a practice that has grown considerably over the past 20 years. Some are actively antagonistic. Others figure that if you're opting out of the public school system, it's best if all parties don't have a lot to do with each other. But others have decided to offer support services to people who choose to homeschool,

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-64702671193709785632012-01-09T19:08:00.000-08:002012-01-09T19:20:15.277-08:00

A while ago, I started a new project: keeping a journal specific to my kids. I keep a journal about my life in general (something I started doing when I was 13) but I figure my kids won't want to wade through that to find the fun parts about them when they haul these books out of my attic after I'm gone. And there are parts I don't want my kids reading -- even if I won't be around to deal with

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-35057205348469925412012-01-06T06:39:00.000-08:002012-01-06T06:53:42.241-08:00

I was reading Scott Barry Kaufman's post on gifted education over at the Huffington Post, where he mentioned a report that will be soon published in the Journal of Applied School Psychology. The report surveys gifted policies in the various states, and makes recommendations.One? The very sensible idea that gifted identification should "be a recurring phenomena, not a one-shot event." The old idea

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-50030450683500185542011-12-22T10:25:00.000-08:002011-12-22T10:33:19.821-08:00

BusinessWeek ran a cover story this past week on whether Lego is for girls. A note of explanation, before anyone leaps to certain conclusions. The classic Lego blocks are, most emphatically, for either gender. However, in recent years, Lego has figured out that there is far more money to be made selling kits based on different themes. So which themes? While Harry Potter has been pretty gender

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-32440962668684392622011-12-12T06:02:00.000-08:002011-12-12T06:39:26.550-08:00

Paula Olszewski-Kubilius, director of Northwestern's Center for Talent Development, recently took over the reigns of the National Association for Gifted Children. In her first address, she called on the field to take a "bold step" toward focusing on talent development, rather than giftedness. Focusing on "giftednesss" has led to marginalization, she says (and given that the spell check on this

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-69756240372906087642011-12-05T17:49:00.000-08:002011-12-05T18:25:12.247-08:00

(cross-posted with My168hours.com)I've been pondering lately the question of "what have my children taught me?" (Asked by the facilitator of my parents' group). One lesson I'm working on learning is to be careful with my "nos."Here's the thinking: Whining is hell on earth. Listening to children whine makes one irritated, tense, embarrassed. Why do children whine? Well, we tend to encourage it.

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-82252551882347619312011-12-01T09:41:00.000-08:002011-12-01T10:02:27.656-08:00

That was a question posed recently in a parenting group I've joined. I imagine that broadly, people would say things like "patience" or possibly "humility" (something I was thinking, the other day, upon learning that a couple expecting their first child had chosen a parenting manual they intended to follow exactly...as if children follow operating instructions). But the first answer that popped

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-76172005413647698562011-11-29T10:45:00.000-08:002011-11-29T11:11:34.831-08:00

I keep reading articles about new research (published in Nature last month) finding that IQ is malleable. The sample size of the study (33 British students) was quite small, which means that outlier findings need to be taken with a grain of salt. One student's IQ rose from 107 to 128, and another's fell from 114 to 96. The trumpeted finding is that 9% of students showed a change of 15 points or

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-9161497522187771022011-11-15T08:48:00.000-08:002011-11-15T09:06:33.380-08:00

The holidays are approaching, and they are always a time for traditions. This will be our first Thanksgiving and Christmas in our new house, and our first with three kids, and our first with any sort of space. As we start to put down roots, we can start to choose which rituals and traditions we will do, and hence our kids will someday think of as "normal." If you think about it, this is a heady

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-60176119696920874852011-11-04T10:06:00.000-07:002011-11-04T10:17:09.725-07:00

A new study in Nature this past month indicated that the teenage brain is fairly plastic; that IQ can change a reasonable amount during those years of rapid physical change (You can read one write-up of the study here). As usually happens, some of the commentary on this study has raised the question of whether giftedness exists, or if it just captures a moment in time. But I think this misses the

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-3082432577523427782011-11-02T09:58:00.000-07:002011-11-02T10:05:00.526-07:00

One of the challenges with gifted children is asynchronous development. This means that physical, emotional and intellectual development are not proceeding at the same pace. Sometimes this can be downright jarring. You can be having a real, fluent conversation with a 5-year-old about something, but she then proceeds to scream or cry because she's tired or hungry. A 3-year-old might be reading

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-11669582924470340612011-10-23T18:23:00.000-07:002011-10-23T18:39:09.900-07:00

One of the goals of Gifted Exchange is to cover parenting topics, as well as educational policy. To that end, I'd like to start a regular series called "Life With Gifted Children" to provide an outlet for parents to share stories about the unique challenges of raising gifted young people. I'd like to focus on parenting advice that could possibly help other people, but I also want to provide a

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-69317735346772366932011-10-14T10:43:00.001-07:002011-10-14T10:57:52.106-07:00

I missed the Davidson Fellows award ceremony last week due to Ruth's arrival that afternoon. So, in lieu of writing about the winners of this award (scholarships of $10,000-$50,000 for important original works in fields from math to the humanities), I thought I'd share some of the news clips from other places about the fellows. Arjun Aggrawal, 17, of Lexington, SC, won a $25,000 scholarship for

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-62625501643655243392011-10-10T08:27:00.000-07:002011-10-10T08:30:33.134-07:00

I had to miss this year's Davidson Fellows awards in DC because I was otherwise occupied here in Philadelphia, giving birth. Please say hello to little Ruth, who arrived on October 5 at 3pm, weighing 7lbs 12 oz. She joins big brothers Jasper and Sam, and will no doubt provide lots of fodder for future Gifted Exchange posts.

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-58562026834459738132011-09-29T18:18:00.000-07:002011-09-29T18:32:47.515-07:00

In New York City, where I used to live, the cut-off to start kindergarten is to turn 5 in late December. I find it interesting to ponder whether my life would have been different if I grew up there; my birthday is December 5, and so I could have been a grade ahead of where I actually was in school. Here in Lower Merion, PA, where we recently moved, the cut-off is September 1. Thus my son, Sam (9/

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-47040057118145173202011-09-25T18:05:00.000-07:002011-09-25T18:51:21.962-07:00

I've been paging through Rebecca P. Cohen's new book, 15 Minutes Outside: 365 ways to get out of the house and connect with your kids. There is plenty of research finding that getting outdoors can boost one's mood, and kids who spend time outdoors are highly likely to get more physical activity than those who don't. So those are two big reasons to get out there. Of course, the question for modern

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-18423706181115733072011-09-19T10:26:00.000-07:002011-09-19T10:43:30.048-07:00

E. D. Hirsch Jr. waded into the story of declining SAT scores this week with an op-ed in the New York Times on "How to Stop the Drop in Verbal Scores." Hirsch claims that the drop stems from a move away from content-rich elementary school reading curricula and toward an emphasis on reading and writing skills, divorced from anything larger. This is the whole anti-worksheet sentiment that rears its

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-25247536820070055332011-09-15T06:48:00.000-07:002011-09-15T07:09:59.320-07:00

Every year, more than 1.5 million high school students take the SAT -- the test used by most selective colleges to assist in enrollment decisions. According to headlines this week, the scores for the class of 2011 were the lowest ever recorded.There are a few ways to spin this. A positive one is that the number of people taking the test has been increasing, and this larger pool of young people

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-58426812055906470652011-09-12T19:26:00.000-07:002011-09-12T19:42:20.125-07:00

For whatever reason, a number of people really do not like acceleration. The idea of a child who is, by age, supposed to be in one grade, going to a classroom associated with a different grade either on a permanent basis or just for a class or two, is just something to be avoided if at all possible.At least that's the message I'm taking from a fascinating story in Bethesda magazine called "No

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-52783441820080992702011-09-07T18:49:00.000-07:002011-09-07T19:04:27.066-07:00

Over at the Huffington Post, Kelsey Caetano-Anolles has a fascinating essay about being a young college student -- and would-be graduate student. She enrolled at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign at the age of 14 after working with a legislator to get the minimum college age repealed. Having graduated with a degree in psychology, she's now trying to apply to the graduate program. But

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-44335650908263544122011-08-25T13:42:00.000-07:002011-08-25T13:54:01.725-07:00

Plenty of folks are going back to school this week and next and the week after Labor Day. In my home, both my boys are starting new preschools this fall. My almost 2-year-old will be going two days a week. This will be quite an adventure for all of us. It's also, if you think about it, an amazing privilege. We have so much access to education and information here in the United States. Right

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-57459261613233329212011-08-18T06:22:00.000-07:002011-08-18T06:34:42.341-07:00

Close to 9 years ago, I wrote a column for USA Today called "Some Can Sail Over High School." The piece dealt with the phenomenon of early college enrollment, and suggested that it was a good idea for gifted kids. That was actually the column that led to my working with Jan and Bob Davidson on Genius Denied! So I was fascinated to learn recently that my grandfather didn't go to high school, but

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-86451541142384494492011-08-12T08:41:00.000-07:002011-08-12T08:56:03.078-07:00

Many districts, faced with budget shortfalls, are trimming their gifted programs. So I was encouraged to see an article from Wisconsin's State Journal highlighting a new program in the Madison School District. A group of parents had filed a complaint with the state that the district was not upholding various education laws requiring identification and services for gifted students. As the article

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-72894407933023931632011-08-07T19:32:00.001-07:002011-08-07T19:39:31.062-07:00

I'm in the early stages of trying to write something about the Khan Academy. This online library of video tutorials on different subjects exists to break down much math, science, economics and other knowledge into discrete units. You go through at your own pace, and when you master a particular topic, move on.So who is the target audience? This is where this all gets fascinating. It could be

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-18302134189831896952011-07-29T13:51:00.000-07:002011-07-29T14:14:35.137-07:00

A few years ago, I wrote here about efforts to keep New Jersey's Governor's School afloat. Many states created such programs over the years, which sent high-achieving high school students to camps for the summer to study different topics (science, math, art, music). While there is no shortage of private summer programs that do the same, the point of these programs was to give all students who

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-14791927330308402612011-07-22T08:58:00.000-07:002011-07-22T09:37:03.733-07:00

We all like great stories. The seeming turnaround of the Atlanta public schools was one of them. Kids appeared to be doing better on standardized tests. Now it's come to light that principals and teachers were changing answers, with analyses of incorrect-to-correct erasures indicating astronomical odds against anything other than cheating going on. Even some Teach for America teachers have been

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-8476912346736355082011-07-18T12:05:00.001-07:002011-07-18T12:35:10.568-07:00

I spent the last few days reading through economist Bryan Caplan's new book, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids. The title is a bit of a stretch but the argument is a fascinating one when viewed through the lens of the whole parenting advice industrial-complex. Caplan's main argument is that within the norms for First World, middle-class homes, nurture doesn't make a whole lot of difference to

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-41335923088356702712011-07-12T13:33:00.000-07:002011-07-12T13:35:58.085-07:00

I know that many readers of Gifted Exchange have been involved with the Davidson Institute's programs over the years. Every year, they award scholarships to young people who've done significant independent work as part of the Davidson Fellows program. They're now accepting applications for next year; read below for the announcement:2012 Davidson Fellows $50,000, $25,000 and $10,000 ScholarshipsIf

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-20533718176265482252011-07-07T18:51:00.000-07:002011-07-07T19:13:12.637-07:00

Apparently, not long ago, someone wrote a column or letter to the editor for The Citizen (in Georgia) suggesting that gifted children be allowed to skip grades as a way to save money and give the kids some challenge. A parent of two gifted kids responded with a letter to the editor suggesting that this was a horrible idea. (Click on that link to read the letter). Why? While it might be OK for

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-50774612732493659952011-07-01T05:23:00.000-07:002011-07-01T05:49:15.741-07:00

Whenever a school district decides to set up a gifted program, it faces a dilemma: what should the inclusion criteria be? In some districts it's very straightforward (NYC is based on test scores). If people simply viewed gifted education as an educational intervention for children who need it, that would be fine. The problem is that the idea persists, in many districts, that gifted education is a

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-54576245860801660352011-06-22T07:10:00.000-07:002011-06-22T07:21:16.626-07:00

Today is my last full day in New York City. I've lived here for close to nine years now, a period that has seen many life changes for me (you can read my love letter to NYC at my other blog, My168hours.com). One of the biggest life changes has been becoming the mother of two small children. I have my own complicated feelings about this move (out to the suburbs of Philadelphia) but one big

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-11376339413851581952011-06-16T13:55:00.000-07:002011-06-16T14:11:47.935-07:00

I've never liked "having" to report somewhere every day -- a key reason I like my work-from-home, self-employment situation now. Growing up, I was always happy to take a break from school for the summer. Of course, as a parent now, I can also see that summer can pose massive logistical challenges. Not only is school de facto childcare for many families -- a problem, since it suddenly ends for 2

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-1514957236651618402011-06-03T05:52:00.000-07:002011-06-03T06:03:04.987-07:00

Over at the Wall Street Journal, Christopher Shea asks "Do gifted programs work?" citing the study of students who either just made the cut for a gifted program, or didn't. Oddly enough, one of the study results being highlighted under this headline is that students who just got into the gifted program got lower grades than students who remained in their home schools. Why? Well, most likely, the

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-61181701213560784382011-06-02T06:34:00.000-07:002011-06-02T06:47:52.880-07:00

Talent development does not happen in a vacuum. One of the reasons US teams do so well in, say, basketball, is that the talent development system is quite mature and sophisticated. Coaches and programs scout for high potential middle schoolers, who are then funneled into certain high school programs known for training top talent. College coaches know about the best high schoolers by 9th grade,

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-35259011761938358642011-05-31T05:20:00.000-07:002011-05-31T05:40:16.412-07:00

Small talk with other parents is one of the great minefields of raising gifted children. Over time, gifted children may learn various social norms of blending in (we can argue whether that's a good thing or not, though they often do). But when they are little, there's no such self-consciousness. Which can make the parent feel self-conscious in her place.I have no idea about Jasper's IQ. We are

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-90084359239119463262011-05-26T05:16:00.000-07:002011-05-26T05:40:19.679-07:00

It's graduation season again. I'm heading back to Princeton tomorrow for my 10 year reunion. On some level, I think "oh, I can't believe it's been that long" and then I think back through various things that have happened during that time and realize, yep, it has been a while. Since this season always inspires nostalgia, those of us who make a living dishing out career advice tend to seize the

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-5776717288071455232011-05-19T06:21:00.000-07:002011-05-19T06:37:31.962-07:00

We've made the hard decision recently to leave New York City. We're actually moving out to the Philadelphia suburbs this summer, since my husband has been working in that general region and I can (in theory) work anywhere. The idea is to have more space for our growing family and hopefully let my husband have a bit of a calmer life. So I've been watching with a bit of detachment as many parents I

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-45913231706687401142011-05-14T12:31:00.000-07:002011-05-14T12:39:55.833-07:00

Intel just announced the winners of the annual International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). I attended this fair when it was held in Atlanta in 2008, and it's certainly a step up from the usual vinegar volcanoes and plants grown in different conditions. You can read about this year's winners here.Two interesting highlights? One, this is truly an international fair. Three Thai students won a

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-66537551411174089582011-05-13T09:49:00.000-07:002011-05-14T12:41:26.787-07:00

Over at the Globe and Mail, economist Frances Woolley wrote about some recent research into the performance of gifted students on No Child Left Behind tests. The conclusion of the research was that there were no outsized gains for these students who were just barely identified as gifted on NCLB tests... and therefore, according to the headline, gifted education may not be a smart idea.I think

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-89152936587921839132011-05-11T13:37:00.000-07:002011-05-13T13:24:21.390-07:00

Sue Shellenbarger's Work & Family column at the Wall Street Journal today covered a fascinating topic: is the "Most Likely To Succeed" label a burden? For decades, graduating senior classes have voted on which classmate would be running the world at some unspecified future point. The people who win this award tend to be popular, smart and ambitious, which generally does bode well for one's

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-14572863794531496232011-05-06T17:50:00.000-07:002011-05-06T17:55:47.815-07:00

The New York Times (hat tip to GE reader Twin Mom) had an interesting piece the other day about a program in Texas allowing kids who've demonstrated enough subject mastery to receive a certificate that can be traded in for a high school diploma. The standards for the certificate are set by the state's top two universities, Texas A&M and the University of Texas, and while it doesn't guarantee that

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-38372760515354157932011-04-25T09:59:00.000-07:002011-04-25T10:06:38.349-07:00

There's an interesting discussion going on in the Title Nine post that I thought deserved its own thread. Namely, what word or words should we use to describe giftedness? Many people (including people who advocate for gifted education) don't like the word "gifted" though it's short and, at this point, pretty universally recognized for what it is. The word does invite criticism -- aren't we all

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-83460921350455354412011-04-21T18:29:00.000-07:002011-04-21T18:43:15.222-07:00

I get lots of catalogs in the mail, one of which happens to be Title Nine, a maker of women's athletic clothing. I opened the current edition to see founder Missy Park listing "My definition of insanity." It was an 8 part list, with such things as "Any diet with one ingredient," and "our tax code" and... "'Gifted' children...How do they know??"It's a bit puzzling, really. I mean, there are

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-70143924368444324212011-04-21T06:30:00.001-07:002011-04-21T06:42:34.010-07:00

The Wall Street Journal has a fascinating article on the rise in online AP classes. The number of students taking Advanced Placement classes has soared -- with just shy of 2 million expected to sit for exams this spring, up more than 100% from 2000. However, not all schools can offer a full slate of such classes, and in an era of budget cuts, AP classes (which are often smaller than others even

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-70570285725742491092011-04-13T12:14:00.000-07:002011-04-13T12:23:54.442-07:00

I know that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is not particularly popular within the gifted education community. The law definitely provides a convenient excuse for districts to divert resources from programs for advanced students -- something many seem to want to do anyway. But given that it's unlikely to be gutted, here's a different question: should science be part of NCLB?Science teachers claim

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-31576689883696412062011-04-07T17:29:00.000-07:002011-04-07T18:09:16.699-07:00

Young scientists wishing to compete on a national (or international) stage have lots of options these days: The Davidson Fellows program, the Intel Science Talent Search, the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology, and ... Google.Yes, Google has created a Google Global Science Fair (accepting applications until midnight eastern tonight!) for young scientists to demonstrate their

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-14895540532470545852011-03-31T18:27:00.000-07:002011-03-31T18:39:24.037-07:00

A recent feature story in the Quad City Times discusses a new "integration" program at North Scott High School that did away with honors classes for freshmen. In their place, students at varying levels of preparation take classes together. Teachers are charged with differentiating within the class. As one teacher puts it, her kids can choose "straightforward" or "hilly" or "mountainous" work. You

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-22954483862940910902011-03-24T18:30:00.000-07:002011-03-24T19:00:23.132-07:00

It has become fashionable, of late, to claim that giftedness is purely a construct. Children learn at different paces, and some kids who enter school ahead of others will later regress toward the mean and others will catch up. IQ has nothing to do with success, etc. We have heard all these arguments.So I'm not surprised to see the spin on recent research out of Duke University, which finds that,

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-63557576872847166442011-03-18T05:19:00.001-07:002011-03-18T05:42:09.186-07:00

The Davidson Institute graciously sends me a round-up of headlines from gifted and education news every week or so. These stories are usually all over the map -- a profile of a contest winner here, a closure of a gifted program there, often a Jay Mathews column -- but this week there seemed to be a ton of pieces on early or dual enrollment. The basic idea is that sometimes course work is offered

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-23121006379912413532011-03-16T17:41:00.000-07:002011-03-16T17:56:38.005-07:00

I apologize for the lapse of time between my last post and now. I'm deep in the weeds on book writing at the moment, which is always fun. It is the experience that feels most like "flow" for me -- the word that references being completely engrossed in one's work and unaware of time. I start in the morning, look at the clock and it is 4pm. Good stuff. But anyway, I am emerging a bit tonight! I

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-42650799709854611462011-03-02T10:46:00.000-08:002011-03-02T11:12:33.906-08:00

Long time Gifted Exchange readers know that nurturing the talents of writers is one of my biggest interests within gifted education. Often, we focus on talented young mathematicians as the obvious geniuses among us, and schools in general are more prepared to do acceleration in math than in other subjects. But good writing also requires training, discipline and challenge.So I thought I'd share

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-13296757150390488982011-02-24T19:09:00.000-08:002011-02-24T19:14:46.913-08:00

I read a fascinating piece over at ZDNET asking this question: Does Asperger's make you a better software coder? Adults with Asperger's, like adults with many kinds of disabilities, face discrimination in the job market. An interviewer may be turned off by a lack of eye contact or an inability to read social cues. And in office situations that call for a lot of group interaction, these may be

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-43267880193891481062011-02-20T18:59:00.000-08:002011-02-20T19:24:33.325-08:00

Flexibility sounds like a good thing. In tight times, local school districts need to be able to use their stretched funds to cover their most pressing needs. But as anyone who's followed the issue of gifted education will suspect, educating highly intelligent children is rarely deemed a pressing need.According to a recent New York Times piece (done in conjunction with The Bay Citizen), in

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-12861007482623218432011-02-17T18:28:00.000-08:002011-02-17T18:36:19.180-08:00

I studied abroad for a semester in Australia back in college, so I can attest that it is a rather vast country. A bus trip from Alice Springs to Darwin took several days, much of it through a vast and strange landscape filled with rocks, some desert scrub, and not much else. Of course, as in America, people live in the craziest outposts, and they have kids. And the kids need to be educated. And

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-82848773283637818682011-02-10T16:59:00.000-08:002011-02-10T17:07:16.531-08:00

As part of writing about different families for Gifted Exchange, I got an interesting email from Suzanne a few weeks ago. She wrote that she had "the unique perspective of raising gifted children and being married to a gifted adult but not being gifted myself." As she said, "Don't get me wrong, I am perfectly intelligent. I am able to recognize that my mind does not absorb information or make the

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-67858116755464578612011-02-04T07:16:00.000-08:002011-02-04T07:29:56.674-08:00

Over in Batavia, Illinois, the school board is considering a curious gifted education proposal. The idea, according to this article, is to get rid of the pull-out program (basically, 50 minutes of advanced math per day) and instead, have one gifted class per grade level. So far, so good -- here at Gifted Exchange, we definitely prefer homogeneous grouping to enrichment pull-outs, and expanding

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-69912179936788143502011-01-27T18:18:00.001-08:002011-01-27T18:35:15.052-08:00

(Laura's note: I'm continuing with posts from parents of gifted children. Today's post comes from Monica, a mom of a 10-year-old boy who is in the local public school's GATE program, and a 4-year-old preschooler. She discusses the difficulty of advocating for early kindergarten, especially for an oldest child. You're new to schooling, and you know that the educators you are meeting have much more

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-16762832057447243782011-01-21T06:20:00.000-08:002011-01-21T06:28:59.143-08:00

(Laura's note: From time to time I'll be running posts telling stories from families of gifted kids. We can all learn from each other -- about parenting, schooling, and doing what's right for our children. Some of these will be told by the parents, and some will feature me interviewing the parents or children. Today's post is the former, and comes courtesy of "Ginger," mom of SJ. She talks about

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-57093736868625893822011-01-18T07:39:00.000-08:002011-01-18T08:28:14.797-08:00

It's no secret that state budgets are strapped these days. While Indiana is doing better than its neighbors (see Illinois's recent tax hike), the state is exploring areas to cut, and education budgets should probably be no more sacrosanct than anything else. So I was not surprised to see this recent article from the Star-Press that my high school, the Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics and

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-23148255875731791892011-01-12T08:49:00.000-08:002011-01-12T11:31:17.470-08:00

Probably many of you have by now read Amy Chua's essay in the Wall Street Journal, adapted from her book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, on "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior." She claims that western parents are squishy, and that one of the reason "Chinese" mothers (a certain archetype, and certainly not encompassing all or only Chinese parents) get high achievement from their children is that

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-77327328789297035552011-01-04T07:24:00.000-08:002011-01-04T07:37:10.679-08:00

Happy New Year to everyone! Gifted Exchange is now entering its 7th calendar year, having started in fall 2005. We've covered a lot of topics and grown steadily in readership. We had a rather exciting milestone of being mentioned in the Washington Post this past year, and hopefully that's the start of great things to come.When I started blogging here, I was a young newlywed who was interested in

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-72822595021931191322010-12-15T07:25:00.000-08:002010-12-15T07:43:03.439-08:00

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article this morning from Sue Shellenbarger about what makes kids creative. According to Kyung Hee Kim, an assistant professor of educational psychiatry at the College of William and Mary, American kids' scores on a commonly used creativity test fell steadily from 1990 to 2008. (An example of a question on such a test: A child sees 6 boxes arranged to

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-13626593473664382552010-12-13T13:34:00.000-08:002010-12-13T13:44:13.638-08:00

The Gates Foundation has been undertaking a multi-year study of teacher effectiveness, trying to learn why some teachers' students excel and others don't. How can you evaluate teachers? Should you just look at test scores?Preliminary findings from the Gates study suggest that there may be one underused approach: ask the students (as highlighted in this Minneapolis Star-Tribune article).The Gates

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-79518402446951533962010-12-10T09:10:00.000-08:002010-12-10T09:20:41.704-08:00

For the past few years, it's become quite popular to "red-shirt" kindergartners, especially boys. The idea is that if kids start school a little later, they'll be academically more advanced and do better (and kids who are bigger and more coordinated will do better athletically). In some cases, this may be true. School districts have been quite open to following parental directive on this

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-25644648663828716062010-12-07T05:36:00.000-08:002010-12-07T06:34:59.121-08:00

That's the verdict from the National Center for Education Statistics on the US results on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). Every three years, countries around the world have thousands of 15-year-olds participate in this internationally benchmarked exam. The idea is to see how students stack up on an international basis.As usual, the US is not exactly on top of the heap. 15

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-33007848010863611992010-12-02T08:40:00.000-08:002010-12-02T09:02:27.436-08:00

After many positive recommendations, I finally downloaded Doug Lemov's Teach Like a Champion to my Kindle, and I've been rather enjoying it. Lemov, the managing director of Uncommon Schools, has spent quite a bit of time video-taping excellent teachers. He defines excellent teachers as those whose at-risk students outperform more privileged ones. He studies the tapes like a football coach, and

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-85870189689885509272010-11-29T09:21:00.000-08:002010-11-29T09:58:12.441-08:00

In recent days, Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper has been doing a series called The Gifted Child. The paper capped the series off with perspectives from three teachers on what teaching gifted kids is like. I applaud The Globe and Mail for covering this issue. But reading these teachers' comments, there is certainly a negative undercurrent. Consider this from a Toronto high school teacher:"A

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-9999955774089399692010-11-23T06:37:00.000-08:002010-11-23T06:45:23.621-08:00

We're still highlighting some of the 2010 Davidson Fellows! Today's interview is with Laurie Rumker, a student at Oregon Episcopal School in Portland. Her science project dealt with the treatment of river contaminants. You can read more about it here. Gifted Exchange: How did you come up with your topic?Rumker: I grew up outside of Eugene, Oregon, an environmentally-savvy city, within a

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-53848235191190437282010-11-19T06:23:00.000-08:002010-11-19T06:50:32.797-08:00

Over at Education Next, Michael Petrilli has an interesting article called All Together Now, which looks at the practices of tracking, ability grouping, and in-class differentiation. He starts off with this controversial, but I think correct thesis: "The greatest challenge facing America’s schools today isn’t the budget crisis, or standardized testing, or “teacher quality.” It’s the enormous

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-5266312432405939892010-11-17T05:06:00.000-08:002010-11-17T05:25:53.022-08:00

I have a column in today's USA Today about microphilanthropy: basically, non-profits that encourage a direct connection between donor and recipient, with donors choosing where their money goes and receiving follow-up updates. One of the non-profits I highlight is Donors Choose. Founded by a Bronx teacher, Charles Best, in 2000, Donors Choose lets people select certain classroom projects to help

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-18687345118245220302010-11-15T07:39:00.000-08:002010-11-15T08:02:25.159-08:00

Amanda Ripley has an interesting new piece in The Atlantic on how America fares in international education comparisons. We all know this story: we stink. Of course, we have a tendency to believe it's other people's schools that stink, not our own children's. America is a diverse nation, the story goes. We all know that inner-city schools struggle with issues of entrenched poverty. Other schools

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-76946679196409441292010-11-10T10:12:00.000-08:002010-11-10T10:33:15.954-08:00

Intel recently conducted a survey of American teenagers, to determine their attitudes toward math and science. The results are fascinating. Not for asking if kids feel that being good at math and science is important (99 percent said yes -- perhaps the other 1 percent didn't understand the question). But for finding that 85 percent of American teens are confident in their own math and science

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-9228873259162042432010-11-05T12:32:00.000-07:002010-11-05T12:42:38.133-07:00

I recently came across a book called How to Walk to School, which tells the story of a turnaround project in a Chicago public school. What's different about this story is that the turnaround was the fruit of a collaboration between a new principal and the middle-class parents who lived nearby. Instead of moving to the suburbs or sending their kids to private schools, these parents worked with the

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-5942970334668232322010-10-25T14:25:00.000-07:002010-10-25T14:33:18.354-07:00

Aren't these profiles fun? Today we welcome Scott Boisvert to Gifted Exchange. Boisvert, 17, hails from Chandler, Arizona. His project connected amphibian aquatic environment conditions with a pathogen that has contributed to the loss of 32 percent of amphibian species worldwide. You can read more about him and his project here. Gifted Exchange: How did you come up with your topic?Boisvert: In

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-8020448543826920712010-10-21T08:49:00.000-07:002010-10-21T08:58:11.338-07:00

Today I'm happy to run the third installment in our series on the 2010 Davidson Fellows. Jonathan (Johnny) Li, 17, lives in California. His project involved developing a mathematical model and computer simulation to analyze tumor growth, and was specifically notable because it looked at motility and contact inhibition, which is a mechanism that limits cell growth through pressure from neighboring

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-84493699847520076622010-10-18T07:30:00.000-07:002010-10-18T15:27:53.479-07:00

This week we're continuing with profiles of some of the 2010 Davidson Fellows!Today we welcome Kyle Loh to Gifted Exchange. He is 17 years old, and is in graduate school at Stanford (he graduated from Rutgers University at age 16). His project involved looking at reprogramming human and mouse skin cells into stem cells -- a feat which would make them more useful while avoiding other ethical

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-8590510250916826462010-10-13T18:14:00.001-07:002010-10-13T18:25:29.308-07:00

I hope to run a few profiles of the 2010 Davidson Fellows over the next few weeks. These young people have won $10,000 - $50,000 scholarships for prodigious works, and are quite an inspiring crew.We're starting today with Kevin Hu, 16, of Naperville, IL. Hu won his fellowship for a violin portfolio called "Sociomusicology: Exploring and Sharing the Worlds of Music," which presents music from

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-40137850201073749292010-10-08T07:53:00.000-07:002010-10-08T08:57:43.341-07:00

(cross posted at My168Hours) My 3-year-old, Jasper, attends a full-day preschool program. From my observations, preschool seems to have experienced an academic upgrade since my days of hanging out in my church in Raleigh, NC eating graham crackers. When I started kindergarten, our first set of reading words included "cat," "dog," and "fish." I thought of "fish" as a rather difficult word to foist

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-18615185738884839632010-10-01T07:51:00.000-07:002010-10-01T08:18:50.323-07:00

I was in Washington DC on Wednesday night for the 10th annual Davidson Fellows award ceremony. Held this year at the National Museum of the American Indian, this event always brings together an incredible group of people interested in gifted education. As well as, of course, the Davidson Fellows themselves. You can read the bios of this year's winners here.One interesting trend this year was that

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-58979318201506726482010-09-28T08:29:00.000-07:002010-09-28T08:51:33.627-07:00

Education circles are buzzing this week with news of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's decision to donate $100 million to the Newark schools. Newark mayor Cory Booker is raising matching funds from other donors, including Bill Gates, with the goal of trying to turbo-charge education in this city.It's an interesting question: can a massive infusion of cash change a dysfunctional system? No one is

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-59375783580512808022010-09-23T05:31:00.001-07:002010-09-23T12:45:48.980-07:00

The Washington Post's Jay Mathews tackles the issue of acceleration in his Class Matters post today, called "Why Grade Skipping Should Be Back in Fashion."Noting research from Belin-Blank (and also citing Gifted Exchange!) Mathews argues what we long have: that acceleration is a budget-friendly and effective way to challenge gifted kids. It is often better than the short pull-out sessions that

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-36794720029676366322010-09-20T10:28:00.000-07:002010-09-20T10:44:41.510-07:00

I was amused to see re-surface, via Twitter, an article I wrote 6 years ago called Online learning: A smart way to nurture gifted kids. I was making the case that since every community doesn't have a great school for gifted kids, online learning can fill in the gaps. I suppose, writing that piece in 2004, I would have thought that this would be old news by 2010. But online learning is still in

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-62020734172916751432010-09-16T06:17:00.000-07:002010-09-16T06:39:43.333-07:00

I have lots of opinions. Too many, some might say! But sometimes, Gifted Exchange readers, I come across things that I really just have no idea what to think about.That's where I am right now with the IQ Fun Park, a board game for the CandyLand set (hat tip to Executive Moms, which covered the game in the group's newsletter). Billed as "Test prep that feels like a game!" the IQ Fun Park helps

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-57676689155378518342010-09-10T16:23:00.000-07:002010-09-10T16:30:04.238-07:00

(cross-posted at My168Hours.com)In a webinar I ran on Wednesday (co-sponsored with CurrentMom), one participant spoke of wanting to find solo time for each child, given that she had children. This is a good question, and one I've been pondering myself lately. On one hand, I know that one-on-one parenting (past the nursing baby stage) has not been the historical norm. As I write in Chapter 6 of

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-47356849347593836302010-09-09T06:17:00.000-07:002010-09-09T07:28:14.722-07:00

On Sept. 24, Davis Guggenheim's new film, Waiting for 'Superman,' will be released in theaters. Guggenheim (who directed An Inconvenient Truth) is turning his attention to the question of reforming American schools. I was recently sent the companion book to the film (which is published by PublicAffairs), and have been enjoying reading it. The film was inspired partly by guilt. Guggenheim, a good

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-91048204556241152472010-08-30T06:57:00.000-07:002010-08-30T07:32:21.863-07:00

(cross-posted at www.my168hours.com)A generation ago, a college degree was the ticket to a comfortable, upper-middle class existence. We believe, as a society, that more education means more income, and in general this is still true. The unemployment rate for college educated people is much lower than for people with less education.But the returns on a college education have been declining for

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-91442655737473598222010-08-26T09:41:00.000-07:002010-08-26T09:56:20.455-07:00

According to a recent article at NorthJersey.com, elementary schools in Wayne, NJ will soon be participating in a new kind of gifted education. "Students of varying abilities will be engaged via lessons while in the same classroom using their creativity, problem solving, critical thinking, and logical reasoning skills," the article notes. "Faster learners may be given the task of calculating off

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-9402711650238571992010-08-20T07:34:00.000-07:002010-08-20T07:38:30.133-07:00

(cross-posted at My168Hours.com)My kids are night owls. While I console myself that needing less sleep is often a sign of giftedness, it's hard on a parent to have a 3-year-old who really will not go to sleep until 10PM (the baby often doesn't go down until 9PM or later, either).The net result is that we have some long evenings in our house. While there are some perks to this as a working parent

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-25212500506226431272010-08-17T08:57:00.000-07:002010-08-17T09:19:52.633-07:00

I hope I haven't yet reached the limit of how many times I can link to Tamara Fisher's Unwrapping the Gifted blog over at EdWeek, but I really enjoyed her recent post on Multipotentiality. Blogger's software doesn't recognize that as a real word, but it's a real phenomenon. Just try asking many gifted kids what they want to be when they grow up and you'll get an earful. As Fisher quotes a list

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-77972376450981681002010-08-12T11:10:00.000-07:002010-08-12T11:17:50.798-07:00

I am on vacation this week at the beach, but wanted to make sure Gifted Exchange readers got to see the list of the 2010 Davidson Fellows. You can read the list here. What might be particularly interesting to people is that this is the 10-year anniversary of the fellowship program, and the Davidson Institute asked former fellows to report back about what they were up to. The answer? Most are

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-34792861756315410822010-08-03T11:10:00.000-07:002010-08-03T11:21:11.740-07:00

It seems like a fairly straightforward proposition: each grade represents a certain quantity of knowledge. If you already have mastered that knowledge, shouldn't you be able to show this on a test, and then move on to the next level? In other words, take a test, skip a grade?Yet very few school districts offer that option. As I learned in the exchange with the Montgomery, MD schools, even some

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-67117735063972067772010-07-25T18:10:00.000-07:002010-07-25T18:13:00.037-07:00

(cross-posted at My168hours.com)This week's Time magazine cover story deals with a thorny issue: summer vacation. Why is it thorny? Because most of us romanticize it, and yet it does serious academic damage to people who can least afford it.We all have grand summer memories. Certainly by middle school, this was my favorite time of year, a nearly 3-month break from a plodding school routine.

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-215031558620799832010-07-21T10:45:00.000-07:002010-07-21T10:57:52.042-07:00

Presumably some of you have already read this, but my mother and little brother forwarded me an interesting essay by Paul Lockhart, a math teacher, which was written in 2002. You can read a PDF of the essay here. (It's 25 pages long - so I'll forgive you for skimming it instead...). Called "A Mathematician's Lament," the essay makes the case that the way math is taught is usually boring and

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-60168932901981271172010-07-12T12:25:00.000-07:002010-07-12T12:39:42.117-07:00

Here's a silver lining if I ever saw one. Kansas City, MO, is having to make such deep cuts and changes as part of its reorganization that the school district is willing to try something a little radical: ending the widespread educational obsession with grades. According to an article called "Some schools grouping students by skill, not grade level" in USA Today, the plan calls for students to

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-76918522478428052952010-07-07T06:42:00.000-07:002010-07-07T06:53:27.671-07:00

We know that infectious disease inflicts many burdens on developing countries -- high infant mortality rates, for instance, and shortened lifespans. But new research highlighted in the Economist this past week indicates that perhaps too many pathogens can result in lower intelligence among the populace, too. You can read the article here.While controversial, here is the explanation. In young

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-33407840612245798232010-07-02T06:04:00.000-07:002010-07-02T06:09:08.855-07:00

If you're not already a fan of My Gifted Girl on Facebook, I suggest you become one! This community looks at nurturing the gifts of girls and women of all ages. And, as a side benefit, is currently running a Q&A with me about 168 Hours, and gifted girls/women generally. Here's a taste of the interview:Q:What advice do you have for gifted young women who are just beginning careers?A: Many gifted

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16736523.post-79530648595404882232010-06-24T07:18:00.000-07:002010-06-24T07:32:46.394-07:00

Parents like to talk about their kids. Sometimes (when we are around friends without kids, for instance) we realize that we barely talk about anything else! And part of being a parent is being proud of your kid and wanting to share good news, and share concerns as well.If you've got highly gifted offspring, though, this can be a problem. I was thinking of this while reading the "Unwrapping the

Laura Vanderkamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06385504652419979583noreply@blogger.com19