Testing for Giftedness: New York Leads the Way?

Ah, yes, New York, once again hits a home run, sending education over the back fence.  In an article titled, “Schools Ask: Gifted or Just Well-Prepared?”  we find the newest trend in education to be cranking out 4-year-olds who can pass admissions tests for entrance to gifted schools.  In fact, the kids have become so savvy as a result of excellent tutoring programs geared at the tests, that the bar keeps rising.  The tests just can’t keep up.

The creator of the test, Dr. Samuel Meisels from Chicago’s Erickson Institute, asserts that the test is used erroneously;  the test was designed to detect early delays to enable skilled early childhood educators and parents to provide intervention for children who might not otherwise be successful in school.

One wonders what the definition of giftedness is, and why we need to identify giftedness so early in a child’s life?  Is it just to skim the cream off the top so that schools can enroll homogenized kids?  Or is giftedness more difficult to discern, as Harvard’s Howard Gardner has postulated?  One who has worked with gifted students in middle school can see a profile of a student who hungers for more,  requires uniquely tailored learning experiences, and is likely to be a quirky kid who is anything but homogenized!  And as Gardner notes, giftedness shows up in many venues, among them: artistic, scientific, nature-oriented, social-emotional, few of which can be identified on a test given to children at the age of 4.

So let’s talk about 4-year-olds.  Is it possible to train a bright 4-year-old to pass items on a test?  Yes.  Is it also possible that a gifted child might lack the focus at 4 to sit still for a test, lack the dexterity to use a pencil effectively, or might be more interested in taking apart the phone of the person administering the test?  I’d think so.  4-7 year old children are what I describe as “popcorn.”  They inexplicably develop along their own timeline, irrespective of cognitive potential, for cognitive potential is what most of these tests attempt to measure.  Development is multi-faceted, and as children age and grow “into themselves” they reveal increasingly the kinds of bits of themselves of which Gardner speaks.  Do 4 year-olds benefit from the specter of adults hovering over them to ensure they can meet marks meant for older children, children whose bodies have fully developed? What are we doing to the children whose giftedness is being cultivated like a prized rose?  What will they learn about their value as human beings?  What will they feel as they step forward into their lives?

Truly “gifted” students require specialized schooling.  As a society we need to begin to address the education of children to discover the humane and nurturing response to the needs of truly gifted children.   And what about the assumption that cognitive potential is fixed by 4?  Why do we accept that assumption?  The current process of training and testing 4 and 5 year-olds is off the mark, particularly to those of us who care about the well-being of children.

“Deja vu” in Education?

“This is like déjà vu all over again,” said Assistant Attorney General (for the state of Texas) Shelley Dahlberg, quoted in yesterday’s New York Times.  Her concern was the dwindling funds for education, about which she blasted the requests of superintendents of school districts.  Dahlberg went on to say, ““Ask yourself or the witnesses whether a district can provide for the general diffusion of knowledge without iPads or teacher aides or brand-new facilities.”

She is right.  It is deja vu.  Back in 1974 I attended a city school board meeting in which a board member quoted a study, “An experienced teacher can disseminate information to 45 children.”  He was defending class sizes of up to 33 for k-6 schools.

Why is it that as a nation we allow the politics of school boards and state legislatures to determine what is best for children?  As educators we are not “disseminators of information,” but as Dr. JoAnn Deak, brain and learning expert says, we are “neurosculptors,” shaping the brains of children for effectiveness in their lives.  Our systems underlying education cannot support the needs of 21st century learning.

There is broad “buy-in” to the concept of achievement gaps throughout our nation, defined by socio-economic status.  Some brave souls refuse to accept such a link, and through their own perseverance and initiative have created schools like the Celerity Schools and Valor Academy, both charter schools in Los Angeles.  These schools demonstrate through that site-based, research-driven school leadership, all children can be successful.  School by school, these innovative institutions are closing the documented gap among students in public schools.

Once that gap is closed, we need to take a step out and notice that there is an even bigger gap, the gap between national school evaluations that define outstanding, blue-ribbon schools as schools in which all students read at grade level and schools that produce students ready for the 21st century.    A great number of our citizens are not even represented in the data, as they shuttle their children to independent schools that are current with 21st century trends, research, and knowledge of how the brain works.

What will happen when we as a nation take a look at the REAL academic gap in our country?

(photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/siacademy/4098291846/)

Some Poetry

Drip

Dormant feelings like

Ripe apples

Lying in the cellar

Ready to burst when pierced with the

Bright, white teeth of life

Let the sweet juice drip

As the red flesh is cut deeply

What remains is mostly water.

Daughter

Artist, young woman

Colors, shapes, textures, design

Light, love, humor

Bursting out loud

with cleverness far beyond her years

She marks time in loafers and pleated skirts

Soaking up the last drops of girlhood.

Skin

The jagged terrain

That is my face

Smiles back at me.

Joy-filled years,

Gazing at surf and soaking up sun

Left their grooves and their warmth

In my soul.

Would I trade smooth-youth

For those leaping life, mind bursting days?

Not for all the Botox in the world.

Let my skin be the record of the years I have earned

(At least for now!)

Ocean

Oh, Ocean,

You rescue me from everything

That pulls me down and thrashes me against the rocks

I’m swept up and carried to the time when

Up was down and down all there was.

My happiness, a poison for her and so

For me.

Light dances on your sparkling skin

The air is fresh and the day new.

Mother

Kind, compassionate, caring

Wise, flexible, funny, joyous

Our backbone.

She is there, if we work hard enough to see her

Dislodging guilt, pain, shame,

Anger, terror, and deep grief

Opening to accepting our personal responsibility,

She waits for us with open arms.