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Welcome to the Institute for Education and the Arts" newsletter for Wednesday, May 21, 2008. The newsletter is published each Wednesday to the IEA listserv and archived here on the IEA blog.

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REDEFINING GIFTED & TALENTED
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IDEAS ON CREATIVE AND PRACTICAL IQ UNDERLIE NEW TESTS OF GIFTEDNESS
Debra Viadero, Education Week, 5/21/08
�Yale University researchers are pilot-testing an assessment for identifying gifted and talented children that taps intellectual skills other than those captured by traditional intelligence tests. The new tests include questions � designed to measure students� creativity. The new battery is based on [Robert J.] Sternberg�s definition of �successful intelligence,� which holds that people who succeed in the real world possess a combination of practical, creative, and analytical skills.�
Read more>>


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BEHAVIORS OF SUCCESSFUL STUDENTS
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STUDENT TURNAROUND BUILT ON TEACHING STUDENTS TO BE STUDENTS
Emily Alpert, Voice of San Diego, 4/25/08
�Five years ago, suspensions abounded at Webster Elementary. Fights regularly erupted during recess and teachers feared violent outbursts from gang-involved 6th graders. Fast forward to 2008. Students cheerfully greet their teachers by name, line up quickly, and listen respectfully to each other in class. The endless procession of kids to the principal"s office has stopped. [Principal] White now spends her mornings ranging freely between classrooms to observe teachers and videotaping their best lessons to share. Teachers chalk up the turnaround to a homegrown program that explicitly teaches students how to behave in class . . . White and her teachers crafted the Webster Way, which teaches �scholarly behavior� such as eye contact, cleaning up your trash, and greeting teachers by name.�
Read more>>


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ART? SCIENCE?
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GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS
Lawrence Van Gelder, New York Times, 5/15/08
May 15, 2008
�Possibly the leader of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra on Tuesday could be considered a conductor. Definitely the leader was a semiconductor � a whole lot of them, The Associated Press reported. Asimo, a 4-foot-3-inch Honda robot, led the orchestra in a performance of �The Impossible Dream� from Man of La Mancha. . . . Asimo mimicked the actions of a conductor, nodding at sections of the ensemble during the performance and gesturing with one or both hands. At the end Asimo � an aconym for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility � was greeted by the cellist Yo-Yo Ma . . .and enthusiastic shouts from the audience. Engineers based the robot�s motions on those of Charles Burke, the orchestra�s education director, as he conducted the piece about six months ago.�
Read more>>


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PARTNERING PROFESSIONAL ACTORS AND STUDENTS
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WHERE THE KIDS, NOT THE STARS, ARE THE STARS
Kathryn Shattuck, New York Times, 5/18/08
�As members of the 52nd Street Project, the theater program for Hell�s Kitchen children, the young performers long ago learned to treat the celebrities in their midst like regular folks. For 27 years the project has provided 9- to 18-year-olds with guidance in playwriting and acting by an enviable roster of volunteers, including � Frances McDormand, . . . Jon Stewart � and Sam Waterston . . . [T]he project annually stages some 80 plays created by its 110 students, with a little adult collaboration. On Tuesday the project broke ground for its first permanent theater, part of the Archstone Clinton development on 10th Avenue at 52nd Street. Designed by BKSK Architects, the 17,000-square-foot space will be home to a two-story black-box theater as well as rehearsal rooms, a lounge and kitchen, offices, a computer bar and an area for academic tutoring.�
Read more>>


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GENDER IN EDUCATION
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AAUW SEES NO EDUCATIONAL CRISIS FOR BOYS
Debra Viadero, Education Week, 5/20/08
�Even though more women and girls are getting college degrees and scoring in the top ranks on national math tests than was the case in the 1970s, their academic gains have not come at the expense of boys, says a report released today by the American Association of University Women. Some researchers and advocates have made the case in recent years for a �boys" crisis� in education, pointing out, for instance, that boys have begun to trail girls on key academic indicators, such as in rates of enrollment in and graduation from college. But the AAUW, the Washington-based group that sparked a national debate about gender disparities in education with a report issued 16 years ago, contends bluntly in its new report that the fears about boys are overstated.�
Read the article>>
Read the AAUW report>>


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GRANTS AND AWARDS
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RACHEL CARSON SENSE OF WONDER CONTEST
Maximum Award: Publication on sponsors� Web site
Deadline: 6/16/08
�The EPA, Generations United, and the Rachel Carson Council, Inc., announce a poetry, essay, and photography contest �that best expresses the Sense of Wonder that you feel for the sea, the night sky, forests, birds, wildlife, and all that is beautiful to your eyes.� We want you to share this love of nature with a child and others around you. When we teach our eyes and ears and senses to focus on the wonders of nature, we open ourselves to the wonders around us.� Entries should be created by an intergenerational team featuring a youth under 18 and an adult aged 50 or older.
Learn more>>

EZRA JACK KEATS MINI-GRANT PROGRAM
FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND PUBLIC LIBRARIES
Maximum Award: $500
Deadline: 9/15/08
Provides funding for creative literacy initiatives in schools and public libraries.
Learn more>>


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Summerville Journal Scene ®

Dear Editor,

A recent Associated Press story, “Report: Gifted students take backseat,” centered on a report, “State of the States in Gifted Education,” by the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) which presented and compared data from the various states’ policies and practices on gifted education. The report concluded that academically advanced children are languishing, as the focus of the federal government’s education initiatives and funding are geared toward helping low performing students achieve basic proficiency in the wake of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The NAGC report stated that federal and state efforts mostly ignore the needs of gifted kids, with federal spending for research and grants held at $7.5 million for the estimated 3 million gifted children in the United States, only 2 cents for every $100 of federal education funding spent.

Dr. Ann Robinson, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and President of the National Association for Gifted Children states, “Forty years ago, we realized the impact of a sustained commitment to academic excellence when we celebrated the landing of a man on the moon. Future breakthroughs and discovery in science, medicine, and technology will be impossible if we fail to identify and serve today’s brightest young minds. The time to act is now.”

A new opportunity for South Carolina’s 70,000 gifted children is the establishment of the state’s first Gifted and Talented Charter School, Palmetto Scholars Academy (PSA). Opening in August 2010, PSA will be one of only seven gifted and talented charter schools in the nation. PSA will be located in the Tricounty area and, as the first regional public school, will enroll students from any county. Grades six through eight will be offered the first year and a higher grade will be added each year until it encompasses a middle school and a high school with 504 students total.

Dr. Shelagh Gallagher, a nationally-recognized leader in gifted and talented curriculum, has been retained as PSA’s curriculum consultant. The curriculum at PSA, Dr. Gallagher states, “will move faster through standard content and will also emphasize exploring information in greater depth and complexity, with an emphasis on conceptual reasoning and connecting intellectual knowledge with experiences that bring abstract ideas to life.”

Dr. Gallagher explains: “Like all other kids, gifted kids tend to develop their skills in reasoning when they are challenged. The difference between gifted kids and others is that it takes advanced content to really challenge them. If all they ever get is the regular curriculum, they may end up good at memorizing but relatively poor at reasoning, and that’s quite a waste, not only for the students but for the rest of us as well. Gifted students I’ve known who attended specialized schools like this have had a central role in the development of the World Wide Web, have been influential in the field of sustainable development and have discovered planets—not because we told them they had to change the world, but because we helped them to fully become who they wanted to be.”

Per its mission, PSA students will engage with leading innovative organizations in higher education, business, the arts and science. This early hands-on learning will give PSA students a head start on their career development PSA’s future plans include serving the needs of gifted and talented students across the state through Summer Institutes at the school, through opportunities for undergraduate and graduate university students to learn how to teach gifted and talented students, and through research on gifted and talented education.

PSA is now accepting applications for students and faculty. Applications can be downloaded directly from www.palmettoscholarsacademy.org. In addition to information about the school, visitors to the Web site can also link to gifted education resources and view a video of Dr. Shelagh Gallagher explaining the curriculum and focus of the school.

Dr. James Gallagher, father to Shelagh Gallagher and himself a pioneer in gifted education, stated, “…Failure to help gifted children reach their potential is a societal tragedy, the extent of which is difficult to measure but is surely great. How can we measure the loss of the sonata unwritten, the curative drug undiscovered, the absence of political insight? They are the difference between what we are and what we could be as a society.”

Palmetto Scholars Academy is being founded by South Carolinians committed to providing gifted children in our community the opportunity to reach their potential and, in the process, help to realize a better future for our state and nation.

Stacey Lindbergh

Chairman, Charter Committee

Palmetto Scholars Academy