Following are my notes about the National Assn. for the Gifted Conference in Denver from this weekend. Click here for Day 1.
My first workshop of the day was about asynchronous development and featured Linda Silverman (her list of accomplishments is long; the latest is a book called Giftedness 101 that is no doubt worth buying if you are just starting to explore giftedness), Jim Delisle (master teacher whom I later heard give a fabulous talk about teaching middle schoolers to write), and Stephanie Tolan (writer about giftedness and also novelist whose books feature gifted children and sometimes homeschoolers). Because of my schedule I couldn’t stay the whole time, but I got to hear Silverman discuss various views of what asynchronous development is and how various thinkers about giftedness have characterized it over the years. The most moving image she gave was from Australia, where they talk about the “tall poppy syndrome.” Silverman pointed out that the imagery is rather disturbing: in a field full of beautiful flowers, some are taller in their thirst for sun. But in order to maintain a field full of sameness and fairness, the tall poppies are literally beheaded. Think about how schools often treat kids who are ahead in light of that image.
The next talk I went to was about twice-exceptional learners. I will have to look up who gave the talk because I forgot to write it down and I am presently typing this on an airplane. [Ed: Beverly Trail and Claire Hughes] For those of you who don’t know this terminology, 2e learners are gifted learners with disabilities [read my blog post about this]. They present an even more difficult case for integration into a general classroom than “regular” gifted kids because it’s so hard to address both their deficits and strengths at one time. The speakers emphasized, as I’ve heard a lot lately, the research shows that kids with disabilities do better if you teach to their strengths and don’t focus too much on their deficits. It’s really easy for these kids to become fixated on their shortcomings because in school that’s all that gets talked about. Because the kids’ deficits often make producing work harder, they shine in situations where they develop their critical thinking and conceptual skills while not having to depend on skills that they struggle with, such as writing or calculation.
Sylvia Rimm gave a talk called “My top 10 for preventing and reversing underachievement.” Just glance at sylviarimm.com to see the breadth of her important career. This talk was a fast-paced trip through what she has learned about kids and parents in her many years in the field. I especially appreciated her comments about united parenting, which is something we always struggle with. In a family full of intense people, it’s really hard for the parents to step aside and support each other. Yet Rimm highlighted this as one of the keys she has seen to producing functional adults on the other side of the journey. Just so she didn’t leave any parent in the room not feeling uncomfortable, she also talked about other common parental foibles, such as overpraising young children so they come crashing down when a sibling appears or when they go to school and don’t get praised constantly. She also talked about how parents can set up and nurture competitive, difficult relationships between siblings by comparing their kids and unwittingly pitting them against each other. She also acknowledged something I have always suspected to be true: two children families are the worst for sibling rivalry and difficult sibling relationships. Those of us with two have to work even harder than the rest in this regard.
There was so much meat in her talk, I’m just going to have to go buy her books! Also, she promised lots of articles available for download at her website.
An absolute standout session I went to was about Young Adult books by Bob Seney. [I couldn’t find any primary website about him but lots of hits on his name and “book list” – he releases a yearly book list that I highly recommend.] Seney is a retired professor who adores YA literature. For years he has given the same presentation at NAGC: knowing that the rest of us parents and teachers don’t have time to read all the new novels that come out in order to guide our kids to the best ones and the ones most suited to gifted readers, he does it for us. To think that I almost walked out of his talk because there was another one I was torn about missing! For your information, his standout YA novel of the year was by Kenneth Oppel, writer of the truly excellent Airborn series. The latest is a retelling of the Frankenstein story, and you can be sure that it will be on our household’s reading list this year. Given how busy I am, I felt so deeply grateful for what he’s doing. By reading and vetting for a specific type of reader, he offers parents and teachers a way through the jungle of new books published each year. (If you are interested in the topic of gifted readers and what they “need,” check out Halsted’s “Some of my Best Friends are Books.”)
The day was finished with a keynote by Robert Sternberg, whose interest is creativity. Now, I’ve been to a few conferences, and I can say that keynote speakers are not always the highlights. Often they are chosen more for their star power than for how well their message works for the conference audience. But NAGC outdid themselves this year with speakers who don’t necessarily have much to do with gifted ed per se, but have great messages for this audience. Sternberg talked about how creativity is a choice, and then he went on to detail the results of having made the choice to lead a creative life. He did this both through examples from his own life and also with famous examples of companies and people who came up against obstacles in the path of creativity and either overcame them or fell flat. Sternberg is a very funny speaker but also offers a lot of food for thought about what a life well lived is. I’m not familiar with his work, but if he has a book for young adults, every teen should read it. “Choosing creativity,” he said, “creates its own obstacles” but is also its own reward. A very fulfilling way to end the day.
Perpetually a day behind, I spent the evening in my hotel room catching up on Friday, watched the end of A Color Purple and had a good cry with Whoopie, then collapsed in bed to prepare for another day of cognitive overstimulation.
