30 hours later...

This past weekend, I completed my 30 hours of mandatory Gifted and Talented training that was held over 5 saturdays for 6 hours each day.



I am now certified to teach gifted and talented children.



I am also certified (from taking a test that I studied 0 hours for) to teach bilingual education.



I have not been required to do any training on bilingual education.



...For too long, the nation’s education system has neglected the needs of its high-potential students.

Education policy has been shaped for decades by the fallacy that gifted and talented students do not need specialized support, resulting in a severely underresourced and highly fragmented collection of policies and services.

Parents and teachers of gifted and talented children have long recognized this neglect, and now a nationwide survey released this month by the National Association for Gifted Children and the Council of State Directors of Programs for the Gifted makes clear the depth of the problem and the consequences it will have for the nation if unaddressed....


I also am a product of a "gifted and talented" program, having gone to a "gifted and talented" elementary and GT classrooms in a "Regular Ed" middle school till 8th grade. What is the deal with GT? My archtype elementary school is what I'm familiar with- my elemtary school, and I dont' think of it as a GT school. I think of it as what ALL children should be offered. Art, Music, Projects, Themes, Challenges, Research, Recess, Art, Drama, Art, Problemsovling etc... Why is this a GT thing? Why isn't this an ELEMENTARY thing?



Thoughts on GT programing?

1 hour 6 minutes!

I drop kicked my first 10K this weekend with my roommates! International Friendship Run: We started at the Rio Grande River and ran north 6 miles to the finish line where we ate breakfast tacos and watched some people in cowboy hats dancing all fancy on stage.

Next up: 1/2 marathon in Spring?

On extrinsic rewards: for students AND teachers

...In 1972, when I began teaching as a mathematics resource specialist in San Jose, Calif., I was required to coordinate an individualized math program, kindergarten through grade 6, that included an elaborate system of rewards. The program was divided into specific objectives, and as each child mastered four of these, he or she was rewarded with a certificate of achievement. After mastering 16 objectives, the student received a small trophy. At each successive set of four objectives, students were awarded increasingly fancy certificates and trophies until they completed all the program objectives and received a trophy three feet high.

This system caused students to rush through their math in order to earn the rewards. When asked what they had learned, they would respond with the number of objectives they had finished, not with the content of the math they had learned. And what happened when these students went to junior high? They refused to do math. Parents begged the school system to extend the award system to the junior high level. They said that their children had “loved” math in elementary school, but wouldn’t do it in junior high without the awards. What had been a well-meaning attempt to motivate students undermined, in the long run, students’ motivation to learn. ..." -Sternberg

How does this idea tie in with tying teacher pay with test scores? Is it all bad? Can tying pay to test scores be a postive thing?

The family is OFFICIALLY getting bigger :)

random buy... a little guitar in our citrus orchard

Inspiration for a day of planning and grading. cheers.

Life is good!

Obama in Wisconsin: 'Now the Race Starts'

Obama in Wisconsin: 'Now the Race Starts'

I agree with the motives- tactics? I'm not 100% there.

Happy Lefse Day!

It's that time of the year again! First weekend in November marks the day when the Hayes/Knudtson/Powell clan gets together and makes that oh so good Norwegian goodness known as Lefse.

The morning report: First batch, too salty, and the lefse is a little to0 'tortilla' like so far... Hopefully things make a turn for the better- I'm in need of some quality lefse in 3 weeks when I'm home!