Why?
Why Why Why is THIS week National Parenting Gifted Children Week? Does the gifted community really enjoy oblivion, irrelevancy and marginalization? Because seriously people, this has got to be one of the WORST times of the year to bring attention to gifted issues.
Newsflash: School is out of session. A key audience–educators–is spread to the four winds.
Newsflash: This is one of the few times of year many gifted kids are actually happy. They’re at camp (maybe even a CTY or Duke camp where they can finally be with “their people,” delving into topics that interest them.) Or they are holed up in their rooms with a foot-tall, ever-replenishing stack of books AND the time to read. Bliss.
Newsflash: When kids are happy, parental fire in the belly is harder to rouse. In fact, many families are on vacation in a concerted effort to put all memory of the school year behind them.
So, please, can we change the date of National Parenting Gifted Children Week? Because right now, to borrow the immortal phrasing of Sarah Palin, I refudiate.
(When would you schedule National Parenting Gifted Children Week? How could you raise awareness that you can’t now because it fall in the middle of the summer?)
If you move the National Parenting Gifted Children Week into the school year, you will find the response to be “All children are gifted”.
The position (on vacation) makes more sense if you think about very young gifted children. They often can’t or won’t bury themselves in books. They don’t compromise very well; they seem to be too demanding especially to grandparents; and many of them require a fixed schedule and do not adopt to the change of schedule with vacation.
The one that belongs in the school year would have a title more like “Gifted Children Awareness Week”. And I would raise awareness by having a mini-semester of interesting, non-traditional topics. The teachers could teach whatever they want, like “Italian Cooking”, “Knitting”, “Badminton” or “Croquet” or “Museums of Art”. The para-educators would also get a small class of their own. So the classes would be very small. (I am not sure if you can do this for very young students, due to the schedule inflexibility and teacher inflexibility that the youngest students often feel.) All the students would experience the enrichment of a pull-out, low teacher-pupil ratios, and an in-depth view of a subject. The teachers would get the experience of teaching without any reference to a test and teaching a subject that they really enjoy. The administrators would benefit by seeing that students can learn even when not moving in lock-step (devil’s smile here). In fact, the administrators can teach a class (and maybe an experienced teacher can take over the office for just a few days and just to deal with emergencies). The teachers could be encouraged to mix grade levels, to differentiate or to group by ability or preparedness.
With small groups, a subject that isn’t traditionally academic (or traditionally taught at that grade level) and mixing up the usual student groupings and teacher groupings, student’s talents might become more obvious.
You know, I glazed over the “Parenting” part of that title, in my mind translating the whole thing into “Gifted Education Week.” Shows where my head is. Way to water things down even more, NAGC! That takes all sorts of people off the hook (I’m looking at you educational establishment).
So Kristen, you’re right. How about Gifted Child Week? Or as you suggest, plain old “Gifted Children Awareness Week.
If I had to pick a week, I would make it the first week of January. That is when school is back in session, and most children have week or two of review to “look forward to”. Before DD got her accommodations and appropriate pace of learning, she would be the most frustrated and discouraged around that time. It’s also when test prep for state testing starts around here. There are so many misconceptions about gifted children, that having an awareness weak nationally would be a great thing. But not in July:)
The 2nd week in September, once the “honeymoon” has worn off of school for parents, teachers, and kids.