What does it tell you about eating “conventionally grown” foods if your own health insurance plan includes in its newsletter a short article about eating “organic”? Harvard Pilgrim’s Winter 2009 mini-magazine includes a brief feature titled “Eating Organic on a Budget.” (see page 11) Now, if you read the “fine” print (the paragraph titled “A [...]
Citizen's Briefing Book update
The Citizen’s Briefing Book, which I mentioned in the post “Citizen’s Briefing Book at change.gov“ was closed on Sunday, January 18, 2009 (see “Wrapping up the Citizen’s Briefing Book“ entry on the change.gov blog). My comment “Revamp the Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Program” got only 210 votes overall and two comments. My two other [...]
Labeling kids
Way back in December a Washington Post article “Montgomery Erasing Gifted Label†caught my eye and I’ve been planning to write about that. (“Montgomery Erasing Gifted Label: Implications Concern Some School Parents†by Daniel de Vise, December 16, 2008) Of course this is old news by now, and covered widely by various blogs, including, naturally, [...]
Gifted and Special Education in Texas
Going over the news I’ve bookmarked a while ago I found a brief story from FortBendNow.com “FBISD Gifted and Talented Academy Students Connect with Real World,†by John Pope that talked about gifted students “learning about the nutritional perspectives of various cultural food items, including those representative of the Latino, Indian and Asian cultures.†FBISC [...]
Bartlesville, OK – Gifted/Talented Committee members fail to show up for meeting
I found the following story quite amusing – A Bartlesville Public Schools Gifted and Talented Local Advisory Committee meeting […] didn’t take place because the only person who showed up was Vicki Walker, BPS director of special services. (see Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise “Gifted/Talented Committee members fail to show up for meeting,â€) Interestingly, according to the Bartlesville [...]
Gifted Education – Federal level
Even though the United States has a federal definition of gifted students, there is no federal-level mandate to identify gifted students and place them in gifted programs. As a result each state has its own rules about gifted education. Despite no mandate, in 2008 there are federal funds for gifted programs through the Javits Grant, [...]
Shopping for an ADHD diagnosis?
One of the members of the ADD Forums discussion board recently claimed she knows a family who got a diagnosis of ADHD for their child to be able to enroll that child in a gifted program (see posts #42 and #52 of the thread “Re: Unwrapping the Gift of ADD” Program). I find it hard [...]
IQ: A Smart History of A Failed Idea, by Stephen Murdoch
I have just finished reading IQ: A Smart History of a Failed Idea, by Stephen Murdoch, published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. in June 2007. I first heard of this book on July 3, 2007 when I was listening to the interview with the author (New Book Raises Questions About IQ Test) on the [...]
Gifted and Talented (GT or GAT) 101: A (Basic) Definition
When people say someone is “talented” or “gifted” they usually mean that person has exceptional and highly developed abilities in arts or sport, music, singing, dancing, drawing or painting, running, jumping, pitching, and so on. The word “talented” in everyday language is rarely connected with someone’s intellectual abilities. In the world of education, though, the [...]
Personal Introduction
My son is twice exceptional — he is both academically gifted and special needs, or the other way around, depending on how you look at it. There are times when I’m amazed at his intellectual abilities. Even since he was little, he could always figure out very fast how toys are operated and what he [...]