Advocating for gifted and talented children can be a daunting task. It requires speaking up for these students' needs, educating your colleagues about gifted students characteristics, and establishing positive home-to-school collaborative partnerships. After watching this video, describe three needs that the gifted students in your school have and explain how you will advocate for each of those needs.
Monday, August 10, 2015
Gifted Education Advocacy
Advocating for gifted and talented children can be a daunting task. It requires speaking up for these students' needs, educating your colleagues about gifted students characteristics, and establishing positive home-to-school collaborative partnerships. After watching this video, describe three needs that the gifted students in your school have and explain how you will advocate for each of those needs.
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While not in a classroom yet, based on my experience in my clinical placements as well as my children’s school, I would identify three specific needs of gifted children as the following: 1 – more opportunity to experience differentiation in their general education classroom environment; 2 – more advocates at every level to advance the cause of gifted education at the local, state, regional, and national level; 3 – more opportunity to experience the realization of their gifts in their community and their world. To advocate for each of these needs, I propose the following:
ReplyDelete1 – More opportunity to experience differentiation in the general education classroom environment requires knowledge. As a teacher of the gifted, my relationship with the general education teacher will be the hinge for which success is determined in the gifted program. As I develop the relationships with the general education teachers, I hope to be able to establish myself as an ally that helps not only the gifted students, but also other students in need of greater challenge in the classroom. As that relationship grows, I anticipate the opportunity for everything from professional development to collaboration in the classroom to grow and help the gifted student be appropriately challenged and understood in the classroom. I believe knowledge brings opportunity; opportunity brings access. Specifically for differentiation, professional development to educate the general education teacher on the needs of the gifted, followed by suggestions for methods to differentiate for the student will help advocate for this need.
2 – More advocates at every level to advance the cause of gifted education also requires knowledge. I have to be the first advocate for my students, no matter where I have the good fortune to teach. I think that developing relationships with parents so that they understand their children’s giftedness as well as how to provide opportunities to meet the needs and experience the gifts and talents of their children is crucial. Knowledge is power. For teachers, my relationship with them will paramount as well. I must be willing to lead when necessary and follow where appropriate. I must be willing to lend a hand and help determine why a gifted student isn’t motivated or how to further challenge his or her gifts. I have to realize my role is simply that of a compass, for both teacher and student. Once a child’s gifts are realized in the eyes of those around them, advocacy can’t be stopped. Gifted educators cannot simply settle for meeting the needs of these students; they are not a population that meets anything – they are a population of students that thrives on performing the impossible; programming should keep pace with that.
3 – More opportunity to experience the realization of their gifts in the community takes education from the classroom to the real world. As gifted educators, we need to make sure we are providing Type III projects for children to pursue. Born out of their passions and as a result of their gifts and talents, these are crucial so that gifted students see their gifts and talents as more than an opportunity to do more and harder work. Type III’s also lead to the community realizing the extraordinary nature of the gifts and talents of these students, and it becomes a wonderful way for gifted children to be their own advocates.
A few broad needs, of the gifted children whom I’ve worked with and read about, are the need to feel accepted; the need to be effective; and the need to be understood. This entry addresses the issues of bullying; self-efficacy; and ignorance about exceptionalities such as giftedness and twice-exceptionality; through solutions such as organized community action, student-to-student teaching, and parental involvement.
ReplyDeleteDuring a clinical experience working with elementary students in a gifted program, the subject of bullying was broached. Nearly every child in the class of 13 raised his or her hand to relate a story about bullying they endured or witnessed recently. One boy told us how the student with Asperger’s in our class, B., was regularly shunned during lunch and confronted with the daily message (in varying degrees of explicitness) “You can’t sit with me”. Upon hearing this and other disturbing accounts from B. himself, and after an involved discussion about potential solutions, the other students rallied around him and committed to being his allies (his “army” said one boy), promising to intervene if they witness bullying of B. or anyone else.
Considering gifted students’ combined capacity for empathy; need for efficacy and social justice; and leadership potential, I think it will be wise to seriously address bullying in my future classroom by embedding the topic into curriculum. Examples of materials from the No Place For Hate initiative’s websites are, “10 Ways to Respond to Bullying” and “Be an Ally: Six Simple Ways”.
Because I thought this would be a helpful place to share this information, here is an excerpt from my 2016 service learning proposal which describes a project that addresses the needs I’ve discussed so far in this blog:
ReplyDelete“Although the Anti-Defamation League offers schools and communities at least three anti-bias activities a year, I thought of a way in which the gifted students may use service learning to combat bullying and utilize some of the design skills I taught them. Sophie Whitehouse Educational Consultancy (SWEC) has an anti-bullying campaign in which 5 bright yellow wristbands per class are kept by a student in a leadership position to be handed out at the beginning of the week to volunteer ambassadors. The bands read, “You can sit with me.” Proceeds from sold bands go to Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation. Students are to understand that they don’t have to wear it every day, but when they do wear it, they are making a commitment for the entire school day to allow any other student to sit with them, no questions asked. Students are encouraged to consider the following questions before deciding to wear the band, “Am I having a good day today, do I feel strong enough to help others? Am I happy for anyone of any race, gender, age or culture to sit with me today? Am I too busy today to help other people because I have activities on at recess and lunchtime?” (SWEC, 2016)."
"I would like to challenge the gifted students to use this idea as a template for creating their own anti-bullying initiative in which they design their own wristbands/t-shirts/stickers with the phrase, “You can sit with me” or another message of comparable simplicity and poignancy; decide how or where to manufacture them; create an advertising campaign to jumpstart this initiative in their school with which they raise capital and awareness; execute the concept; and the gather, record and analyze data to determine the initiative’s efficacy. The proceeds would go to a cause of their choice."
"The whole project may take a year or longer and involves a design competition in which the students choose the winner. Students must organize themselves into an effective grassroots-style campaign. I believe that this experience would guide gifted students toward their facet of leadership, strengthen self-efficacy, use design principles to convey a meaningful community message, and help change the culture of the school to endorse diplomacy and acceptance.” (Dunham, 2016)
Looking back at this idea, I regret that the only need this leaves out is the need to be understood, which I actually think is the most critical factor for change to occur in a meaningful, lasting way. I would like to rework this concept to include an aspect of student-to student education in which gifted students can teach regular classes and disseminate information (to teachers, parents, and students) about diverse populations, including students with exceptionalities, like B. and themselves. For example, perhaps more understanding that B. isn’t just “weird”, but was born with a disorder and is displaying specific symptoms, would help curtail bullying.
Lastly, on the topic of being understood, I think many of these students are not understood by their own parents or even by themselves. I plan to make it a priority in my gifted classroom to help students gain self-knowledge and to keep parents informed through meetings/sharing materials about giftedness, regularly.