Last night's meeting focused discussion on the topic of Gifted Education: How Best to Address the Needs of Students with Special Abilities. While we didn't have a formal guest speaker, our discussion was enriched by the perspective brought by parent and gifted education educator, Eileen Sahagian. Thank you Eileen!

Before we met in small groups to address the following questions, Eileen pointed out that if twenty-five experts were gathered to discuss these questions there would be little consensus. With that in mind, we set off to explore them for ourselves.

What does the term "gifted" mean to you?

• How do we want our school district to define "giftedness?"

What process might be put in place to identify students who have special abilities and need accommodations in the classroom?

• What role should parents play in this process?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of the various options for providing for students with special abilities?

• Inclusion in regular classroom

• Cluster grouping

• Grade-skipping

• Pull-out Programs or Resource Rooms

• All-School Enrichment Model

• Self-contained or Specialized classrooms

The discussion was rich and it's impossible to come close to covering all that was tossed around the table. A summary of key points follows. If I've left something out, please let me know so I can add it to the notes.

The State Education Commission has just formed a committee to write a statement addressing gifted education which, if approved, would serve as an addendum to go with the state frameworks. Does this mean there will be state money to support gifted education? Probably not immediately.

You'll note I use the term "giftedness" throughout, however many of us found this term problematic. (i.e. - if you're "gifted" what does that make me? Not gifted?)

A couple succinct definitions of giftedness:

Students who learn "a little bit faster, a little bit better, a little bit differently." Students who show above average ability, task commitment, and accelerated skills.

We talked about how gifted cannot simply be defined as the top 5% of any given population. It is something more.

The term is not synonymous with high achievement. Some students might be hard working, high achievers in school. This does not necessarily equate with giftedness. Likewise, many "gifted" students do not perform well as measured by school standards (grades, performance.)

Finally we discussed whether it was necessary to actually label students as gifted. Might it not be best to attend individually to students, identifying when a child has particular needs and then accommodating for them?

Students may be gifted in many different areas. A student gifted in languages could struggle with math. Programs need to be individually shaped to meet the particular needs of the child.

It's important to be aware of the distinction between enrichment vs. acceleration. Enrichment involves expanding on the curriculum in place. Acceleration means moving ahead to the next grade level -- if not literally then in those curriculum areas deemed necessary.

It's important to also attend to the affective-emotional needs of gifted students.

Good approaches or potential practices for districts who care about attending to these needs--

1. Articulate what is already being done to address this issue. This involves looking within classrooms at methods teachers employ and resources they have available to them. It's also important to look school wide. Programs like Chess Club, Art Club, Kid's Care offer opportunity for individuals who excel in specific areas to receive further engagement and challenge.

2. Find ways to cluster groups of students by interest. For example, the school-wide enrichment program might use resources to offer extra attention to a cluster of students who express keen interest in the topic. Such cluster grouping would be offered on a variety of topics and occasions, are short term and flexible in grouping. (i.e. a four week mini course on living in space.)

3. Conduct a community resource survey to find individuals who would be willing to serve as mentors to students who are keen in a particular area. Many business offer community service hours for employees making it easier to find willing volunteers.

4. Be on the look out for those "highly gifted" students who clearly require acceleration of some sort and devise a system for tracking their educational program year to year. Students on the extreme high end of the learning scale need IEPs (individualized educational plans) in the same way that students with learning disabilities need them.

Many (or all) of the above suggestions would require someone to coordinate programs. This could be a gifted education specialist, but it doesn't necessarily have to be. Items 1, 2, and 3 particularly, could be organized by a subcommittee of this committee.

There was discussion about the impact of class size on a teacher's ability to accommodate instruction for students with special abilities. While it would be nice to have a gifted education specialist at the school, would limited dollars be better spent hiring an additional classroom teacher in order to reduce class size? Tough question.

At the close of the meeting we shifted our discussion from the topic at hand to the future work of the committee. Three points were raised.

1. The sentiment was expressed that there isn't enough being done to help parents understand the nature of instruction that goes on daily at Moharimet. A yearly forum can help. Monthly committee meetings can too. But there may be other avenues we can explore. While teachers and administrators share the responsibility of helping parents understand what happens in the school, the task is a large one. The Education Committee is uniquely situated to work in collaboration with school educators toward this end.

2. Dennis raised the question, what can we do to demonstrate our support for teachers while at the same time continuing to engage and question all that there is to be questioned about schooling?

3. Finally, in thinking about a future forum it was noted that a common theme runs through the issues we've discussed to date. What is individualized instruction? What does it look like? How does it happen? And how does it deal with the "outlayers," those students who function on both the high and low ends of the learning curve?

The next meeting date is scheduled for Monday March 6th from 7:00 - 9:00. The focus of the meeting will be to address the three areas identified above and will include follow-up on suggestions generated in our discussion of tonight's topic.

JoAnn Portalupi

Last update on 10-Feb-00 at 10:48 PM.

http://www.orol.org/schools/moharimet/orgs/pto/ed_cmte/minutes20000207.html

This page is edited by David K. Taylor. Please send questions or comments to editor@orol.org.