Been busy with some In Real Life GT issues lately and yesterday evening I found myself once more combing through down county school websites. Out of close to 40 schools, I think maybe four had GT liaisons listed on their PTA websites. Even more discouraging was to find that some schools don’t even have a PTA website…or even a page on the school’s website that lists some officers and committees or basic parent information.
But in my Web-surfing I did have the chance to stop at the site of Silver Chips, the award-winning online newspaper of Richard Mongomery Blair High School. There, I read a great feature story about Maneesh Agrawala, a recent MacArthur Fellow “genius award” recipient–and Blair Math Science Magnet alum.
Although Agrawala was shocked to be receiving the MacArthur grant, his entire life has been committed to the creativity and knowledge the MacArthur Fellows Program looks for. Ever since he was young, Agrawala was interested in math and computer science. Agrawala recalls that seeing his father teach computer science at the University of Maryland influenced his interest in the field.
Agrawala took his love of these subjects to Takoma Park Middle School’s Math and Science Magnet Program, where he excelled in math….
From 1986 – 1990, Agrawala continued these pursuits, enrolling in Blair’s Magnet Program and furthering his interests in computer science and math. “The Magnet was really great,” Agrawala says. “The Magnet was able to put me on my set path and helped me understand concepts.”
Agrawala’s residency in the Magnet was quite notable. He was a finalist in the Intel Science Talent Search competition and had an interest in writing.
However, his biggest impact on Blair came in 1988. Along with Sven Khatri, Dan Mall and Howard Gobioff, all in Blair’s class of 1990, he took part in the first national “SuperQuest – The High School Supercomputing Challenge,” according to notes from the Board of Education. The team won second place out of 1,480 high schools nationwide, winning Blair a Cyber 910 workstation. What’s more, Blair received its first-ever direct connection to the Internet, making it the first school in Montgomery County to have Internet access, according to the Magnet Foundation. The connection even initiated the mbhs.edu domain that Blair still uses.
Ah, those magnets. You know, those “boutique programs” that MCPS Superintendent Jerry Weast was talking about back in April. Wisely, believing that the strong defense is an offense, some magnet parents offered passionate testimony in support of the math science magnets at recent Board of Education-sponsored Community Forums [sic]. You can read their testimony here, on pages 5, 11, 12, 14 and 17.
Maybe their cause will be bolstered with a local screening of the documentary Whiz Kids at the National Academy of Sciences in December.
WHIZ KIDS is a coming-of-age documentary that marks the distinct paths of three remarkably passionate 16-year-old scientists who vie to compete—win or lose—in the Intel Science Talent Search, a program of Society for Science & the Public (and formerly known as the Westinghouse Science Talent Search)…. For a year and a half, they visited high schools around the country searching for teenagers who were engaged in sophisticated research. The team found students, who at 16 and 17, were already working in university and government labs, sometimes alongside Nobel Prize-winning scientists. They also found students with fewer resources who were making discoveries in the apocryphal basement or garage lab. Several traits were consistent among these “whiz kids” — an insatiable curiosity, a deeply felt determination to communicate their work to the public, and a passion to make a difference in the world.
You can see a trailer of the film on the film’s website, www.whizkidsmovie.com, as well as get information on the issue of fostering excellence in science. Which can start right here in Montgomery County.
I also find it difficult to locate gifted services info. on school district websites. Guess they don’t really want a mob of parents contacting them to see if their child is gifted? Wouldn’t this be too much work for them?
Most schools don’t even update their websites very often.
Thanks for the info. on the Whiz Kids screening in DC. I’m hoping to take my 8 year old son who is very into science.
Must not be jealous. I think jealousy is a big part of the problem here. If my child won’t be part of the select 100, why should I support Blair’s Science Magnet? But if it didn’t exist, there would be few in-county competitors for the Intel Science Fair. Does it sharpen the game for the scientists-in-training at Poolesville or Richard Montgomery or any of the other high schools here? Or do the students “give up”, saying the prizes are only going to go to the Blair competitors, why bother with a research project?
Blair is wonderful. Did you see The Washingtonian’s write-up on Thomas Jefferson in VA? It’s October’s cover article and the title is “Why You Should Hate This School”
I wonder if there is more jealousy here, since so many of the parents are “Type A”, driven people.
I am trying to put my jealousy to the side, and cheer for successful children; but how many of the parents can’t do the same (or can only cheer for their own child(ren))?
There are indeed many who can only ‘cheer for their own’. If you figure out what to do with them, I’d love to hear it. They are the arrogant jerks at the office who do always seem to get ahead, mostly because they whine and throw fits and have endurance; they are the parents who corners the teacher at BTS night and any possible opportunity to grill them about the (wait for it…) math their kid should be getting.
The best I have come up with–as one of the lucky ones whose kid is in a center program, who is very happy with it, indeed–is to go on the positive offensive. I talk about how I deeply wish EVERY kid had more tailored curriculum available, that I worry about the endless sequencing “color-cut-and-glues” my kindergartener is getting every day. And how I would love to see as much support for those on the taller end of the bell curve as the lower end. “Fairness” doesn’t mean the same thing for all, but it does mean everyone gets what they need.
And I will continue to wish I didn’t have to work, so I could insert myself into the school and push push push from the inside.
Since we don’t have integrated gifted curricula, we need magnets for the kids who really are outliers. Helping someone else thrive does not mean you can’t, too (even if you or your kid is an underserved outlier). It’s not a zero-sum life.
Newbie writes: “And I will continue to wish I didn’t have to work, so I could insert myself into the school and push push push from the inside.”
Learn from my mistake. Newbie, if you didn’t have to work, you would be considering homeschooling. Or should. Just kidding, I don’t tell people what to do!
I didn’t work then, laid off and I still didn’t homeschool. Inserting yourself and pushing pushing pushing is a full time job. Why not take that same energy and drive and make miracles happen on your own watch? Wouldn’t you rather call the shots than be the cheerleader?
Few would accuse me of cheerleading!
By pushing from the inside I did not mean pushing my kids–I meant pushing the school and fellow parents.
Actually I don’t want to call the shots 24/7. I need a break from being a parent in order to be a good one. For me, work supports mental health as well as a financial health. If I won Lotto, I still am not constitutionally suited for being in charge at home 24/7.
Many reasons homeschooling isn’t a good fit for our clan now, maybe ever. I will say that even with colorcutandglue, our K kid has taken off with reading since school started. She is clearly loving it. Can’t be all bad.
We must push because I believe no one should have to homeschool in order to get an environment that supports their kids’ needs. It wasn’t okay when kids on the left of the curve had to stay home (before mainstreaming) and people worked very hard to get that fixed (or at least improved). Likewise, it isn’t right that kids on the right side of the curve should have to stay home to have a supportive educational experience.
“Few would accuse me of cheerleading! By pushing from the inside I did not mean pushing my kids–I meant pushing the school and fellow parents.”
I knew exactly what you meant.
. My point was, for those interested, I learned that it’s easier to homeschool than to push the school and fellow parents. For those interested but who think they can’t do it. There is a better way.
“Actually I don’t want to call the shots 24/7. I need a break from being a parent in order to be a good one.”
I hear you. My decision to homeschool resulted from all the homework sent home. I theorized she’s spending all that time on it at home anyway, may as well call it homeschooling and make it official! The extra time allowed me to do what I yearned for, time to be that parent.
“We must push because I believe no one should have to homeschool in order to get an environment that supports their kids’ needs.”
There you make a good point. I have friends who left school because the situation was untenable and homeschooling proved that blessing in disguise. It enriched their lives immensely yet they were still left angry that their tax dollars were going to educate other people’s kids while they felt they had to leave because their children’s needs were not met.
“Likewise, it isn’t right that kids on the right side of the curve should have to stay home to have a supportive educational experience.”
That’s a very seminal topic to discuss here. It is not right. And I wrestle with that. Homeschooling is a marvelous lifestyle and I wouldn’t have reached it if I’d been happy with the school system. And that’s the conundrum. It took unhappiness with school to find that much better path. Had school worked, we would never never have found it. And I’m glad we found it!
I say, if you make a good case that school is either making your child miserable or she’s not living up to her potential, then refund your tax dollars and buy a better education with it.
Let me reword my last sentence, changing you to we/our. Reads better.
I say, if we make a good case that school is either making our child miserable or she’s not living up to her potential, then refund our tax dollars so that we may buy a better education with it.
But the cost to my family would be loss my professional salary on top of the taxes. I don’t mind the taxes, actually. Not having my salary would definitely affect the entire family, and not in a good way.
It’s a question of fairness. If a kid who needs extra support to get up to the standard levels of achievement enjoys that extra support as a “right”, then my kid who is well beyond them deserves extra support to go beyond them and achieve their potential, as well.
We tried private school initially, knowing our kid needed extra challenge, and thinking private school would have flexibility and be a better fit. It was worse than what we found in public school. The school’s ‘extra’ efforts were all focused on the kids with behavioral issues.
So here we are. We are okay for now; next two years should be okay. It’s middle school I worry about. And making sure that my little one gets into the gifted program, and trying to advocate for her needs in those early years. I’m actually glad she’s on the young side of her cohort, b/c that will provide inherent challenge.
I’m very curious to see kids who are truly excited about their research, and not just going through the motions to pad curriculum vitaes. Since there’s little hope of catching a screening of Whiz Kids in our area in the foreseeable future, I ordered the DVD. Thanks for suggesting it!