What does "gifted" mean anyway? Part 2

Giftedness doesn't always come in the same package.

Sometimes people have "Upside-Down Brilliance"

"Upside-down Brilliance" is the name given by Linda Silverman to Visual-Spatial Learners. This is another kind of intelligence or giftedness, and one that is often unrecognized. If the description below fits you or your children, check out the Visual Spatial link on the left side of the page to find out more.

How to Spot a Spatial

Betty Maxwell, M.A.

Just for fun, here are some clues to help you recognize those picture thinkers lurking in your environment. Certainly not all traits listed will fit any one visual-spatial learner. Some clues may surprise you!

Picture thinkers may: be lost in space...seethe with impatience (a picture is worth a thousand words and is grasped instantly; everything else is slow motion) ...have terrible handwriting...have a wild imagination...hate timed tests, especially Mad Math Minutes...do math in the head and hate to write any of it out...have the right answers but not be able to show any steps (what steps?)...get math concepts but be poor with math facts and calculation...be good with maps, directions...draw or doodle while you talk... talk engagingly but write meagerly...know what’s on the floors above and below them... know how to get anywhere they’ve been once...ask many questions...be absent-minded, lose everything...be The Mess!...take forever to finish what they’re supposed to do...know material but do poorly on detail-oriented tests...agonize over multiple choice questions; they’re all right in a way...have strong emotions...be able to recite whole movie plots but not summarize...the main idea is a foreign concept...have original ideas, be inventive... may work backwards or start in the middle of a task... have poor phonemic awareness... guess at many words...be better with sight words...be forever late with projects...astound you with flashes of brilliance...think uniquely...search for words and gesture a lot...be rotten spellers...daydream...be computer wizards...be oh! so sensitive...have sudden enthusiasms...be artists, musicians, actors, inventors, , engineers, surgeons, architects, stage directors, physicists, computer programmers, pilots, wealthy entrepreneurs ---or their children!

This information is from the Visual Spatial website.

What does "gifted" mean anyway? Part 1

I’ve had several questions around “how can I know if I am/my student/my child are gifted”. As it is not a simple question, though it seems so, I want to spend a few blog sessions addressing it. By the end, hopefully the subject will have more clarity.

Our Understanding of Giftedness is Changing

I thought I would start by reviewing what BC has to say. This blog is an abbreviation of the information on their website: http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/specialed/gifted/whoare.htm.

The BC Ministry of Education speaks about giftedness in the following ways:

“Perceptions of giftedness vary even among gifted education specialists. At one time "gifted" was the term used to describe those students who learned quickly and obtained high scores on IQ tests. … Today "giftedness" is generally accepted to include a wide range of attributes, from the traditional intellectual measures to interpersonal abilities.”

There Are Different Types of Intelligence

Gardner's (1983) model of intelligence describes capabilities in seven areas.

• Linguistic: The ability to use words effectively both orally and in writing (e.g., writer, orator).

• Logical-Mathematical: The ability to use numbers effectively and to see logical relationships and patterns (e.g., mathematician, scientist, computer programmer).

• Spatial: The ability to visualize and to orient oneself in the world (e.g., guide, hunter, architect, artist).

• Bodily, Kinesthetic: The ability to use one's body to express ideas; to make things with hands; and to develop physical skills (e.g., actor, craftsperson, athlete)

• Musical: The capacity to perceive, discriminate, transform and express musical forms (e.g., composer, musician).

• Interpersonal Intelligence: The ability to perceive and make distinctions in the moods, intentions, motivations and feelings of other people (e.g., counsellor, political leader).

• Intrapersonal Intelligence: Self-knowledge and the ability to act adaptively on the basis of that knowledge (e.g., psychotherapist, religious leader).

**Gifted students will show patterns of development that exceed their peers in one or several of the intelligences.**

Gifted Characteristics = Above Average Intelligence, Creativity and Task Commitment

After an extensive analysis of research studies of gifted individuals, Renzulli (1986) concluded that giftedness involves the interaction of three sets of characteristics: above average intellectual ability, creativity and task commitment. This interaction may result in giftedness in general performance areas such as mathematics, philosophy, religion or visual arts, or in the performance areas as specific as cartooning, map-making, play-writing, advertising or agricultural research.

Treffinger (1986, p.40) defined the characteristics as follows:

Above Average Intelligence

• Advanced vocabulary

• Good memory

• Learns very quickly and easily

• Large fund of information

• Generalizes skillfully

• Comprehends new ideas easily

• Makes abstractions easily

• Perceives similarities, differences, relationships

• Makes judgments and decisions

Creativity

• Questioning; very curious about many topics

• Has many ideas (fluent)

• Sees things in varied ways (flexible)

• Offers unique or unusual ideas (original)

• Adds details; makes ideas more interesting (elaborates)

• Transforms or combines ideas

• Sees implications or consequences easily

• Risk-taker; speculates

• Feels free to disagree

• Finds subtle humour, paradox or discrepancies

Task Commitment*

• Sets own goals, standards

• Intense involvement in preferred problems and tasks

• Enthusiastic about interests and activities

• Needs little external motivation when pursuing tasks

• Prefers to concentrate on own interest and projects

• High level of energy

• Perseveres; does not give up easily when working

• Completes, shares products

• Eager for new projects and challenges

• Assumes responsibility

*Task commitment refers to the passion and the perseverance that follows when students are involved in problems, topics and projects of their own interest or choosing, in our outside of the classroom. Gifted students are typically committed to tasks that are personally meaningful. A lack of commitment to a task assigned by someone else does not necessarily mean the student lacks task commitment.

Regional Science Fairs

I encourage all you science-minded scholars out there to check out the Science Fair link under "Cool Opportunities". There is a regional science fair near you and the Foundation will walk you through the process and find you a mentor to help you along. Travel! Meet Interesting people! Build a rocket! Learn something new! Enjoy!

The gift doesn't fall far from the giving tree

This week I had a chance to meet the parent of one of the gifted students with whom I am working. What a treat! As we were chatting over lunch, we discussed how similar kids were to their parents - specifically gifted kids.

The conversation reminded me of a quote by Linda Silverman. She states:

"Where one child in the family is found to be gifted, the chances are great that all members of the family are gifted. Brothers and sisters are usually within five to ten points in ability. We studied 48 sets of siblings and found that over one-third were within five points of each other, over three-fifths were within ten points and almost three-quarters were within thirteen points...Parents IQ scores, when known, are usually within ten points of their children's; grandparents' IQ scores are often within ten points of their grandchildren's."

(Silverman, Linda in a paper What have We Learned About Gifted Children, published in 1997)

It seems to me that God knew what he was doing in making families; often gifted people can feel very alone, but right from the start God has put us in relational groups of people that are remarkably similar to us - we have a built-in support group, a group that can spur us on, challenge, debate with and encourage us, sympathize with us, people who have gone down the path we are going, at least to some degree.

I know it doesn't always feel like that - I know I felt so totally different from my family that at times I wondered if I was adopted. True story. I was also the only blond. Very suspicious. Sometimes, when we are in a family and looking at each other from an individualistic point of view we see only the differences - he is musical, I'm into art, she's the brain, I'm more social - but viewed from the outside and as a group, you see how very similar we all are to our family. And it's a good thing. A finger-of-God good thing.

And so, I invite you to join me this week in being thankful for family.

Excuse me, what was that question again?

The formulation of a problem is often more important that its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires imagination and marks real advance in science.

Einstein and Infeld (1938)

Young Author Spotlight

Hello all,

I wanted to join in celebrating the success of one of our HCOS LifeLearner students, Celeste Catena, who is having her first novel, Undefeated, published this week. Below is the Press Release from the Penticton Writers and Publishers regarding Celeste and an invite to attend her book signing this

weekend.

Well done Celeste!

P.S. To all of our young authors, please remember that HCOS accepts student work for their newsletter and would love to publish something of yours!

Penticton Writers and Publishers

4011 Finnerty Road, Penticton, British Columbia

V2A 8W2

www.penwriters.com

For Immediate Release

Celeste Catena is an author at nine years old. The young Kelowna student was the youngest contestant (8 years old) at the most recent Can West Global Spelling Bee contest held in Kelowna. She placed fifth in the field of 34 young spellers.

Yasmin John-Thorpe, a cofounder of Penticton Writers and Publishers, was the head judge at the Spelling Bee. She was impressed with Celeste’s performance during the rounds of the Bee.

“I kept saying ‘you are correct’, amazed that this young girl was still standing after so many rounds,” says John-Thorpe. “When I finally had to ‘ding’ the bell to indicate she had spelled the word incorrectly, my heart broke”.

The encounter continued when John-Thorpe approached Angela Catena, Celeste’s Mom, after the contest to ask if Celeste also liked to write.

“When I found out Celeste was not only a keen speller but an avid reader and loved to write, I invited her to enter the Young British Columbia Youth Write Contest, sponsored by our group, for a chance to attend the BC Youth Write Camp,” recalls John-Thorpe.

After the one week camp, Celeste’s mom asked the Penticton Writers and Publishers to help with publishing Celeste’s first novel, Undefeated. The group edited and published the novel, and John-Thorpe, who is the organizer of Raise a Reader has booked multiple author appearances for Celeste at schools in the South Okanagan. Celeste will make a presentation to grade 4s and 5s and the Raise a Reader program will purchase a copy of her book for each student attending the presentation.

Residents can ‘meet the newest valley author’ Celeste Catena while she autographs copies of her first novel at Mosaic Books in Kelowna on October 31, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Opportunity

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

- Thomas A. Edison

Creating your Own Blog

Part of my hope with starting this blog is to encourage each of you to start your own blog as well. If you become a follower of this LifeLearners: Gifted and Creative Site, and have your own blog as well, we can link to each other's sites and get to know each other a bit that way. I would also encourage you to comment on this site; share an opinion or ask a question. There may be others who are thinking the same thing and are just a bit reluctant to "speak up".

If you would like me to post something for you - a poem, a picture, a short, polite rant of sorts - you can send it to me and I'm happy to add it to this site for you. If you want to see something on this site that I haven't included, or have an opportunity or resource to share, please, email me! Any benefit, any strength we have is as a community of learners.

My intention is that this be kind of our collective "living room" - a place to relax and share. So...pull up a chair and put your feet on the coffee table; if you were at my house, we'd share a pot of tea and pull out the pencil crayons and doodle while we chat.

Carmen

Welcome!

Hello everyone!

If you are receiving this email, you have been a part of the gifted program last year or have applied and have been accepted to take part in it this year. I am so excited to be working with each of you and I am looking forward to emailing and chatting with - perhaps even meeting - each of you during the course of the year.

The Gifted program is continually growing and being shaped to meet the needs of the families and students of HCOS. After a year of being taken care of by a very capable but busy volunteer gifted committee, this year the Gifted Program was put under the Special Education departments' governance and budget and I have been hired (part-time) as an advocate & consultant for the Gifted, as part a of a larger Learning Services team.

The "Gifted Program" has developed into LifeLearners: Gifted and Creative Enrichment Services. I will be working with your individual teachers, and sometimes with you as families directly, to help support your gifted students. Some of this will be by being an advocate for you with your on-line or individual teachers, to encourage them to reduce or alter your workload in order to allow you pursue your gifting without hindrance or perhaps to challenge you to test and use and explore your gifting. Sometimes teachers will approach me to see if I can suggest a mentor for your child in a certain subject area or interest, or to recommend curriculum that will meet your needs. In this way I will be a consultant and advocate for your child.

I will also be the person to talk to if you are requesting additional funding for your child for an item/service that is related to their gifting. I'll send along more info about that as we go along.

One of the ways in which we are hoping to provide support is by creating an online blog called LifeLearners: Gifted & Creative, where students, parents and teachers can all access information about resources for the gifted, good books to read about giftedness, good books your kids might enjoy, website or challenges, contests and opportunities that would be of interest, along with a space for discussion about common questions or concerns around giftedness. This website would be open to any student, because one of the things we are finding is that, working with home learners, the school likely has more than our fair share of gifting. Many parents, who may not have signed up for the gifted program, would benefit from access to these additional ideas and resources. We want to make this support available to all who need and would benefit from it.

Before I go further, (I could go on and on with ideas and plans) I would ask two things:

1) Please talk to your individual teacher about creating an updated IEP (individualized education plan) for your gifted child and have them email this to me, along with any testing your child may have had done. This may not happen right away, I understand we are all very busy, but this is a place for us to start formally helping your child. If your student is in grades 10 - 12, I will be the one creating the IEP and working with you to select courses.

2) If you have ideas or suggestions you would like to see happen as part of the LifeLearners Services this year, please email me, we want this to be as useful as possible in meeting your needs and supporting your roles as teachers and parents.

My prayer for all of us is that God will make our paths straight as we seek seek his face and entrust our selves to him. This is perhaps the most important and joy-filled part of my role; to pray for you and your children as we journey together.

With Thanks,

Carmen

Advocate & Consultant for the Gifted

HCOS SE Learning Services Team

Oh Begin!