Stigmatization & Holding Back High Potential Children

I drafted this in March 2011, and meeting someone today who was struggling to get adequate educational support for her high-potential child made me realize I am not alone in wanting to get better support for high-ability children. This is why I'm a member of the National Association for Gifted Children. I believe gifted children (NAGC definition: "Gifted" individuals are those who demonstrate outstanding levels of aptitude or competence in one or more domains.) need special provisions just like those with dis-abilities.

I have heard too often these labels being used by teachers when discussing students: X is "bright", Y is "capable", Z is "strong", "average", "below-par", "good enough -- can fend for herself"... etc. I'll start with the gifted label. I don't understand why there is this great misunderstanding of high-ability and high-potential kids and the marginalization of this group in a majority of American schools, and it seems, also in Canadian education. Read this article.

I like this comment by Sandy, Nov 27, 2010:

"Something I have always had a problem with. Gifted children still need to be taught. There is, unfortunately the view that because they are smart, they can teach themselves. Wrong."

When I first proposed my idea to study gifted girls in schools in a beginning PhD class, I experienced culture shock. It was politically incorrect. Apparently, everyone is intellectually gifted, everyone is high-ability or high-achieving. My peer, a mother of two, who reviewed my paper said, "No one wants their kid to be "gifted"; they just want "normal" kids." Oops. [Quote: J. Paynter of the Maryland State Dept of Education, “all students have gifts, but there are some students who are ready, right now, to play varsity.”]

Who are the "gifted"? http://lifewithintensity.blogspot.com/2011/06/top-ten-things-i-wish-teachers.html

I am not told if I have been identified gifted back in my time. But I am not ashamed to say I came from a school with a gifted education program. Instead of being held to a minimal standard, I had the chance to stretch, to be with girls who challenged me to be fearless and to soar with that potential. It was empowering education I received.

Some people think that is "shameless" of me, how could I want to be "segregated" (be in ability grouping) and be part of this elitist education? Tsk, tsk. Everyone should go to schools that level out differences; there should be equity, etc, etc.

Being an advocate of special provision for high-potential children does not mean I don't believe in equity. In fact, it is exactly for that reason that we should provide for these children. Everyone is different and in Singapore, for instance, ability grouping is practiced in the formal educational system for those who need special education at both ends of the spectrum -- the ones at the high-ability end and the ones with "learning disabilities". These are BOTH special learning populations. Those who disdain this practice usually have limited understanding of the needs of high-ability and high-potential students. (Until they have a gifted child like my friend. Her child is now in grade 1 but has been tested as having grade 6 intellectual ability. This child was extremely bored and frustrated; the psychologist said he's being held back in his former school. So she moved him to another school in the hope that he would be challenged. NYS schools have no provision for this special population. The school he was in cannot handle him. What do we do for children like these? Differentiated instruction? Is that working? How many teachers are trained to handle students of a wide spectrum of ability and especially, of this special learning population?) 

Many educators assume that high-achieving and high-ability students have trouble getting along with people, so they must be given cooperative learning experiences. That is flawed thinking. It is not the students who have trouble getting along with people, it is the learning environment that is often not supportive of their accelerated learning capacity.  So they get really frustrated, dumbed-down and act out.

A majority of educators have no experience and training in dealing with intellectually gifted students -- a special learning population. Emotional support is of utmost importance for this population to help them cope with their advanced intellectual development which is way ahead of other areas of development in their life.

Many are unfortunately uninformed as to what cookie-cutter education in mainstream schools are doing to intellectually gifted students; they underachieve when not adequately supported. They get demotivated; they waste their talent. Why would anyone want that for their children? I have taught in schools where I've seen high-ability students bored and ready to tear their hair out. Yes, in a high-ability class, you can get bored too, because there is heterogeneity in the gifted population too. But there is less wide an intellectual spectrum.

Beyond this topic of giftedness and people getting hung up over labels, there are several others I don't understand too, but I will leave them to another day. :)

Different strokes for different folks

Some advice to heed in this PHD journey:

Don't fall into the trap of comparing your situation with others. No two PhD's are the same. A little competition can be a motivator, but in general try to mix with people who have a positive or helpful attitude. If this is not possible, then find a PhD blog or try to meet with other PhD students at University events. Read more.

For myself, I find it particularly helpful to look outward. Being in AERA Div C has been a blessing. It's good to have their support and get inspired. PhD work is intense. It drives some people insane sometimes: some students may feel insecure or miserable about themselves because they start comparing themselves with others who clear milestones faster than them. Personally, staying out of social networks (like FaceBook) regularly keeps me ignorant of too much unwanted information. :) Just focus on your journey, be open to helping others when you can and move on to complete your own journey.

BTW, did you know that PHD Comics is being turned into a movie? Yeah!

Let the freedom bells ring!

A friend's posting in FaceBook (thank you to Ardyth!) reminded me of this powerful ballad. I'd used this song before to teach my classes about respect for diversity and cross-cultural differences. May the wind of change sweep through us and overcome the limited and limiting thinking we have!

HLM 7

HLM 7* - Hierarchical Linear Modeling statistics software is a little clunky but not too complicated. My chair had said before, qualitative researchers understand statistics too, you know? I am doing a qualitative research study for my dissertation, but I work with quantitative data everyday at work -- lots of Excel spreadsheets, Access data queries, and presenting the data using mainly descriptive statistics. Dr. Bellini had said that some journal editors think descriptive statistics are "inferior"/second-class and this sort of data presentation is not as publishable. However, every data analytic method has a place in research, depending on what we are investigating. Learning both paradigms of research methodologies rounds me out as a researcher.

I am going to try to use a type of multilevel modeling approach to explore some program evaluation questions using my work data. This should be fun.

*Available at SSI Scientific Software: http://www.ssicentral.com/hlm/index.html
Downloads available here: http://www.ssicentral.com/hlm/downloads.html

ID and Educator's Role in Online Learning Part 2

Instructional designers contribute to helping educators operate successfully; they create blueprints for them. Educators, however, must recognize that they create the environment collectively with their students in real life too, and the blueprint is just a blueprint.

Ideally, engaged pedagogy, as bell hooks (1994) wrote, is about changing, reinventing and reconceptualizing to adapt to every new teaching experience. Tough act in a classroom filled with different individuals with different abilities and needs.

Freire and hooks both inspire and remind me about education as the practice of freedom. They draw me back to a time in my life when education was empowering and not about reinforcing conformity and standardization -- resulting in questioning students who are fearless about crossing boundaries and thinking out of the box. The creativity slump at or around 4th grade is a fact recognized by creativity scholars. Sadly, this continues to deteriorate as we move through the assembly line of formal education.

F2F or OL, we must do something about our educational systems where limited resources and the lack of priority given to education in federal and state budgets is making teaching and hence learning an endangered pursuit in formal institutions. Education has become more a business and less about empowerment. Adequate provisions for faculty development means systemic changes; policy changes; leadership development; teaching training/hiring; back to the fundamentals of education. OR forget institutional learning; homeschooling may be one way to go to regain control on what really matters in education.

To educate is to empower individuals to lead the lives they were uniquely born to live. My take.

ID and Educator's Role in Online Learning Part 1

As a certified Quality Matters peer reviewer, I was following the QM thread on online facilitation and teacher engagement in a community board. It brought me back to those days when online learning was just a buzzword. I'd taken ID courses and read quite a bit initially due to my professional interest. I'd even advocated for workshops on facilitating online learning (inspired by a terrific book by Collison et. al) to my boss. Little wonder that I was fascinated by the discussion  in the QM community. The debate on TD (transactional distance) is intriguing. Kay Shattuck, the director of QM, shared some research from various perspectives - Vandergrift, Anderson, Garrison etc. Research, of course, thus far, is inconclusive.

Take these as my evolving thoughts. I've been ruminating about the significance of instructional design vs. the teacher's/educator's role for a while since my Research Apprenticeship study. I've also watched people who weren't trained in ID succeed in instruction way better than those who were. They have a compelling way of teaching. It seems to boil down to delivery which is influenced by teacher characteristics like teacher experience (leading to effective improvisational teaching) and positive affective learning climate supported by the teacher. I've also read bell hooks' amazing book on Teaching to Transgress and couldn't agree more that it takes collective effort to make learning exciting. I don't question which is significant, rather which appears to be more influential most of the time. To me, the teacher holds the key to success in learning: he/she is the instructional designer and delivers the instruction. I definitely think that faculty development or teacher ed is extremely important. I must state outright that the processes of teaching and learning are very complex. I am not demeaning any particular field or discipline by stating that any factor is more important.

With regards to F2F vs Online Learning (OL), I can't say it better than Mike Scheuermann, Associate VP of Instructional Technology Support at Drexel U on LinkedIn when he wrote that "F2F vs. OL is NOT the issue - it is simply not the venue that determines the meaningful learning experience. Instead, it is and always will be - the instructor/facilitator. -- A great teacher can make a bad (or mediocre) course great!" On the other hand, "a mediocre educator cannot make a great course - a great course."

What is critical is channeling resources and efforts to support and enhance how educators function in all learning spaces. [Think Richard Clark, it is not so much the media that makes the difference!]

Roadblocks to PhD attainment

I wrote something nice and it disappeared after I fiddled with it. :( Oh well, here's what I meant to say, in a less lyrical style.

Phillips and Pugh (2002) wrote a book on how to get a PhD and an extract was published online (Guardian News and Media Ltd, 2011). Although written from a British vantage point, several of the barriers to PhD attainment are not foreign. I was informed by the examples they gave on how and why some students withdrew from doctoral programs. Of note is one point of caution for the final stage of writing up:

Doing a PhD is an intellectually demanding enterprise, and this is true at all stages of the work. It is especially true of the final stage of writing up. Most students radically underestimate the amount of time and effort that this stage will require. They somehow think that having surveyed the field, designed the study, collected and analysed the data, it is downhill from then on to the presentation of the thesis. It is not so. Writing up demands the most concentrated effort of the whole process --

The only job it is possible to do, perhaps one which you are doing already or have done before, is one which allows you to operate in 'intellectual overdrive'.

They go on to elaborate on the point. I appreciate the advice. To me, doing a dissertation is both emotional and intellectual labor, but definitely more the former than the latter. :)

I'm on the Imagining America website!

OK, tooting my own horn, :). Our Access project was highlighted on the Imagining America site because I had the honor to attend the Arts Think Tank on behalf of our project directors! I was at the Next Step in Arts Think Tank:  Using the Arts and Humanities in Community Health, March 17-19, 2011, a regional Imagining America conference, organized with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Center on Age & Community, directed by Dr. Anne Basting.

The theme was on the intersection of culture and health. Read more. On that page, scroll down to find my name to read about our project and our interest in using creative arts to help achieve our goals. R says she's so psyched that our project is associated with this community. Yes! I'm really grateful to have the opportunity to be in the presence of such an awesome group of people. Thank you for sending me there, Mj, R and Mi!