Post article about gifted/enrichment programs

[Anonymous]

I agree. This is not an "advanced program" for "gifted" kids. this is ad hoc enrichment that has no basis in curriculum. It was a poor headline and poorly written article.

What DCPS is doing in this article is called "school" everywhere else. Pretty disappointing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This was either a badly written article or DCPS does not have a clearly defined "gifted" program based on what I read, the section about the "interest survey" at Kelly Miller was the most confusing. I'm assuming that the interest survey helps the resource teacher design "gifted" activities to stimulate and interest the child rather than an actual program, but who knows.

The whole program in DCPS is based on the Schoolwide Enrichment Model by Dr. Joseph Renzulli from the University of Connecticut. It rests on the "Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness" which is that gifted behaviors are found (and can be encouraged) at the intersection of: creativity, ability, and task commitment (aka internal motivation.) So therefore the whole concept of what is gifted isn't the traditional IQ-based one. There is a very large research base on the Schoolwide Enrichment Model & Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness for you to check out at your leisure.

http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/sem/semexec.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree. This is not an "advanced program" for "gifted" kids. this is ad hoc enrichment that has no basis in curriculum. It was a poor headline and poorly written article.

What DCPS is doing in this article is called "school" everywhere else. Pretty disappointing.

I disagree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree. This is not an "advanced program" for "gifted" kids. this is ad hoc enrichment that has no basis in curriculum. It was a poor headline and poorly written article.

What DCPS is doing in this article is called "school" everywhere else. Pretty disappointing.

Not in Montgomery County. Bleak, bleak, bleak.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This was either a badly written article or DCPS does not have a clearly defined "gifted" program based on what I read, the section about the "interest survey" at Kelly Miller was the most confusing. I'm assuming that the interest survey helps the resource teacher design "gifted" activities to stimulate and interest the child rather than an actual program, but who knows.

The whole program in DCPS is based on the Schoolwide Enrichment Model by Dr. Joseph Renzulli from the University of Connecticut. It rests on the "Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness" which is that gifted behaviors are found (and can be encouraged) at the intersection of: creativity, ability, and task commitment (aka internal motivation.) So therefore the whole concept of what is gifted isn't the traditional IQ-based one. There is a very large research base on the Schoolwide Enrichment Model & Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness for you to check out at your leisure.

http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/sem/semexec.html

The whole school model is great, I still think the Post article was badly written and confusing, it doesn't do justice to the model as presented here. This quote was particularly strange to me, “All of us in here, we are all readers, and our vocabulary is high,” said ... , a seventh-grader. What are the other students non-readers in 7th grade? If it's broadening the model of what we consider "gifted" I'm all for it, but it sounds like "enrichment" would be a better term.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This was either a badly written article or DCPS does not have a clearly defined "gifted" program based on what I read, the section about the "interest survey" at Kelly Miller was the most confusing. I'm assuming that the interest survey helps the resource teacher design "gifted" activities to stimulate and interest the child rather than an actual program, but who knows.

The whole program in DCPS is based on the Schoolwide Enrichment Model by Dr. Joseph Renzulli from the University of Connecticut. It rests on the "Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness" which is that gifted behaviors are found (and can be encouraged) at the intersection of: creativity, ability, and task commitment (aka internal motivation.) So therefore the whole concept of what is gifted isn't the traditional IQ-based one. There is a very large research base on the Schoolwide Enrichment Model & Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness for you to check out at your leisure.

http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/sem/semexec.html

The whole school model is great, I still think the Post article was badly written and confusing, it doesn't do justice to the model as presented here. This quote was particularly strange to me, “All of us in here, we are all readers, and our vocabulary is high,” said ... , a seventh-grader. What are the other students non-readers in 7th grade? If it's broadening the model of what we consider "gifted" I'm all for it, but it sounds like "enrichment" would be a better term.

I took that student's quote to mean - we are 'readers' vs jocks or whatever other types middle school kids sort themselves into.

[Anonymous]

It will be interesting to see if this works in that it is deliberately challenging the model of giftedness that most of us were raised with ie a test indicates you are advanced and theirfore gifted. For way to long this essentially fixed who had opportunity based on where they lived and their parents income.

What I like about the DC method is that it does not presume intelligence is fixed but instead adopts the growth model that all kids that express curiousity and interest can benefit from a program that teaches them how to expolore an idea more deeply allowing them to apply that to other programs.

I do worry as other have noted though that this really takes more adults and money that DC is willing to give it.

[Anonymous]

I do think this article wasn't clear. For example, I am fairly certain that the majority of ward 3 elementaries offering enrichment are paid for by funds from parents, not dcps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree. This is not an "advanced program" for "gifted" kids. this is ad hoc enrichment that has no basis in curriculum. It was a poor headline and poorly written article.

What DCPS is doing in this article is called "school" everywhere else. Pretty disappointing.

I disagree.

Same here. It's not "school" everywhere else. I work in FCPS and this model is not happening. And my child attends a DCPS school where this model is happening. It's not perfect, but it's a start.

[Anonymous]

Great! A non-gifted, "gifted" program is not a gifted program but an enrichment program.

Guess this is the solution in politically correct DC....

[Anonymous]

PP, you fail to understand what "giftedness" is other than an outdated, overly-restrictive one. I understand you're just armchair-quarterbacking which is fine. However, I believe a link was provided to a peer-referenced research Article which lays out what this is and why it is this way. It may behoove you to read it.

[Anonymous]

What DCPS is doing is a great start. Let's give kudos where kudos are due, and stop the excessive carping and complaining. The posters talking about how this is not a true "gifted" program (both here and on several other threads in the past) are getting tiresome.

To the poster about Ward 3 enrichment, yes many if not most Ward 3 schools do have the resources to provide more because of PTA funds, and even more so because of parents' ability to pay for it. But DCPS programs are happening in lots of schools, including in Ward 3.

[Anonymous]

They have been pretty quiet about them so far because only a few kids are doing them. If they made a big splash, then lots of parents would be complaining that their kids wasn't chosen. So they might be happening at your school and your child just hasn't been chosen for them. I know they are happening at our Ward 3 school. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Genuine question. The push behind gifted programming is that folks what there, presumably, gifted kids in the program. Because- if the kids are NOT in a gifted program their brain will atrophy and they will stop being gifted?

[Anonymous]

So it is utterly subjective and the teacher just decides who is interested in a topic?