The following summary was produced by Catherine Riordan

The Gifted Phoenix Manifesto for Gifted Education was the topic for discussion at #gtie on Sunday 24th March. To use his own words “Gifted Phoenix is the social media pseudonym of Tim Dracup a UK-based consultant in – and commentator on – gifted and talented education”. Tim was previously the Head of England’s National Gifted and Talented Education Unit and has extensive experience and expertise in the development of gifted education policy at national level.

Since establishing the Gifted Phoenix Blog three years ago, he has researched and written about gifted education in many countries around the world. His research is meticulous and his blogposts are very detailed and factual. While most people write about their own personal experience or the state of gifted education in their own area, the Gifted Phoenix blog has a more generic approach and focuses on policy and research. It has become an invaluable archive of material about gifted education of the type not collected elsewhere. His experience as a government policy-maker and his extensive research combined with his ability to be open, analytical and objective makes Tim’s a voice very much worth listening to.

• Here is the full text of the Gifted Phoenix Manifesto for Gifted Education
• Also relevant is The Economics of Gifted Education Revisited

Tim explained that the Gifted Phoenix Manifesto for Gifted Education was written to “encapsulate what I’d learned over 3 years of writing the blog…as a potential programme for change. A text that might attract broad consensus which advocates could use to convince skeptical policy makers (like  used to be) of the case for investment in gifted education”.

The general consensus was that the Manifesto is a very worthwhile document.

The main thrust is to advance an economic argument for gifted education, which Tim feels is usually neglected but now particularly important in the current recession. Most economies are struggling for an answer to sluggish economic growth. Even “austerity merchants” recognise that we must pursue growth actively and he feels that gifted education is part of the answer.

There are those within the gifted community who don’t much like the economic argument. They feel that it is wrong to view gifted learners purely as an economic resource; that they have special educational needs which deserve to be met regardless of any economic argument. Tim feels that the economic case is central to achieving our aim and that, while there are indeed other very valid arguments for gifted education, they have been spelled out before. The economic argument does not preclude the other arguments; it is in addition to them.

Support for gifted learners should not be at the expense of others. Provision for gifted students is both an argument for excellence and equity. It was accepted that providing for gifted learners benefits all students. Having done extensive research on excellence internationally, Tim says that while the eastern countries that lead the PISA tables are generally more equitable (with the exception of Singapore) than western countries, he’s not sure we know too much about the excellence gap in many countries beyond what PISA data tells us. It seems that they do better overall and they do better for gifted children. It also matters less whether they are rich or poor, their students achieve highly regardless. His research shows that in countries where there’s a big performance gap between rich and poor (eg US and NZ), the rich and gifted kids do better than the poor and gifted ones. In raising excellence, the Manifesto talks not just about raising general standards, but the need for a gifted and and talented programme. Tim believes that targeted interventions have more of an impact than generic policies.

The question arose of whether anyone has linked gifted with mental health issues such as teen suicide, existential crises, depression and anxiety. Should there be a proven link, this would surely add to the economic argument. Tim admitted that he is wary of much of that field as he doesn’t want to give the impression that all gifted learners have such problems. However, he can see the economic and educational sense in helping these learners improve their outcomes also, however they are defined.

It was suggested that we should be careful not to propagate a stereotype of all gifted students as high performers; that we should attempt to capture the range of traits that tend to cluster with gifted and not just intelligence or performance. Someone else pointed out that decision makers care not a tot about “traits”; it’s the bottom line that counts to ‘outsiders’. However, to use the economic argument, it costs money to manage behaviour problems and mental health issues. So, removing those issues at source makes sound economic sense – it’s another ‘gap’ that needs addressing, agrees Tim.  Perhaps, if we had the right infrastructure in place, these students would be identified and supported by default. As things stand at present, few gifted children are having their needs met. In the interest of getting things done, should we maybe keep the message simple and pragmatic in the first instance?

Another bone of contention is the fact that so much research lies hidden behind paywalls, which is fine for academics with libraries who have subscriptions, but no good for a non-affiliated independent bloggers like Gifted Phoenix. Researchers truly concerned with the plight of gifted students should make their work available publicly, especially when that work is often already funding through their respective institution.

Although based in the UK, Tim has tried to ensure that the Manifesto has a global fit. There has been loads of interest from outside the UK but next to nothing there. He has not been invited to attend the World Council Conference. Tim believes that part of the problem is that the Manifesto is critical of the cliques and empire-builders that are so dominant in the field. He says that “I’ve become convinced that a networked approach rather precludes silos and fiefdoms – they’re holding us back.”

For those who like a quick fix, here is the Storify summary of the chat

Here is the full transcript

I have been calling for some time for an global, organised approach to advocating to meet the education needs of gifted children. It’s a big dream in part because it is global and  in part because there are many different views within the ‘global gifted community’ about how we should approach the task of meeting the needs of gifted children. That’s before we get over the personalities and the self-promotion!

Most of the arguments for providing for the needs of gifted children centre on the fact that gifted children have different educational needs (with the attendant socio-emotional issues) – therefore they should be addressed. Most of these arguments begin with efforts to demolish the myths of giftedness.

All well and good. However, I would have thought by now the global gifted community would have figured out that not everyone is buying our arguments – although it is more likely they aren’t even hearing them. It is perhaps a little understandable as it seems the global gifted community spends quite a bit of its time preaching to the converted. Sadly, few of the converted are the education decision makers.

While we can all get a bit high horsey about how various arguments exclude certain of the realities of gifted children and giftedness, none of this matters a tot to those who don’t know giftedness. Consequently, we need a more tailored argument to help them realise the value of meeting the needs of gifted children. We can always fill them in on the details later.

Yes, I used the ‘value’ word. There is nothing absolute in this. A particular policy may have an economic value to one individual while another may see it as having a social or educational value.

Consequently I asked Gifted Phoenix if I could have his permission to repost here his Manifesto for Gifted Education. He kindly agreed and I have reposted the Manifesto post here in full with the original emphases.

Gifted Phoenix’ Manifesto is a new departure in the argument for meeting the needs of gifted children. Equally important to the argument itself is the fact that it can travel beyond the choir to phrase the requirement for gifted education in the pragmatic language of the decision makers. Whether we like it or not, education is managed politically and economically. Educational ideas and principles come a distant third in this reality. We can not ignore some arguments simply because we may feel they compromise our lofty principles. If an argument is valid, true and just, and if it helps us achieve our goal of ensuring inclusive education for gifted children, then we must use that argument.

On Sunday 24th March at 9pm GMT I am moderating a special Twitter #gtie chat on the Manifesto. Once you’ve read the Manifesto below, have a read of Gifted Phoenix’ post on The Economics of Gifted Education. Both the Manifesto and the ‘Economics of Gifted Education’ should stand out as two of the most important statements on gifted education this year, if not for some time.

The Gifted Phoenix Manifesto for Gifted Education

Gifted Phoenix

I woke last night with the conviction that I should draw up a basic credo, setting out some core principles derived from the experience of writing this blog.

I have set aside all questions of terminology, definition and identification because they are inherently divisive and attract disproportionate attention. Let us suspend disbelief for a moment and assume that we can work together through broad consensus on such matters.

There is a strong economic focus because that is a current predilection – and because the economic arguments are too rarely advanced and often underplayed. They deserve to be paramount in our current financial predicament. I plan to revisit soon the economic case for gifted education.

So…What do you support? Where do you disagree? What have I missed?

Why Invest in Gifted Education?

Gifted education is about balancing excellence and equity. That means raising standards for all while also raising standards faster for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Through combined support for excellence and equity we can significantly increase our national stock of high level human capital and so improve economic growth.

High achievers are needed to feed the STEM pipeline and contribute to other areas of the ‘knowledge economy’ which is becoming increasingly important as a consequence of globalisation.

While STEM and IT have an obvious value, it is a mistake to assume that some fields do not contribute to human capital. There are important spillover benefits to society from many fields where the contribution to economic growth is less pronounced. We should avoid the temptation to prioritise STEM above all else.

Excellence in gifted education is about maximising the proportion of high achievers reaching advanced international benchmarks (eg PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS) so increasing the ‘smart fraction’ which contributes to economic growth

Equity in gifted education is about narrowing (and ideally eliminating) the excellence gap between high achievers from advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds (which may be attributable in part to causes other than poverty). This also increases the proportion of high achievers, so building the ‘smart fraction’ and contributing to economic growth.

Countries that invest systematically in developing high level human capital recognise that this process begins in compulsory education or even in pre-school education. It cannot be delayed until higher education and employment. They have well-developed national gifted education programmes to secure system-wide engagement in maximising high achievement.

We can estimate:

• The financial benefits of narrowing the excellence gap and

• The impact on economic growth (GDP) of increasing the smart fraction

The cost of gifted education can be offset against these significant benefit streams to justify the investment and quantify the net value.

There are also microeconomic benefits to gifted education – the personal rate of return on high achievement – as well as a potentially significant contribution to social mobility on the equity side. There are many other strong arguments in favour of investment in (potential) high achievers built on educational, ethical and personal development grounds.

What Needs Doing? How?

What form should a national investment in gifted education take?

There should be integrated support for learners, educators and parents/carers, to maximise the benefits from synergy between these streams.

Five areas of engagement should also be synergised: learning, professional development, advocacy, research and policy-making.

System-wide solutions should not be exclusively ‘top down’ because they tend to be overly prescriptive, demotivating and inhibit innovation.

But neither should solutions be exclusively ‘bottom up’ because they tend towards competition (rather than collaboration), fragmentation, patchiness of provision and the recycling of mediocrity.

Solutions must draw on the best of both top-down and bottom-up strategies through a middle way that:

• Provides a universal, unifying ‘flexible framework’ that sets common standards and applies to every setting;

• Nevertheless gives settings sufficient autonomy within a common framework to innovate, develop and implement diverse approaches;

• Effectively promotes and supports system-wide collaboration, within and across the three populations and five areas of engagement mentioned above.

A Twenty-First Century learning environment is multi-faceted and multimedia. Whether we are learning in school or as adult lifelong learners, we no longer rely exclusively on didactic teaching in a classroom environment.

School teachers are facilitators, helping gifted learners to synthesise different strands into a coherent learning package. Out-of-school learning must be fully integrated with the school experience; bolt-on enrichment has limited value.

Enrichment, extension and acceleration are overlapping concepts. All three can be combined effectively in different proportions according to learners’ needs. Gifted learners have relatively little in common and widely different needs. It follows that personalised provision is essential.

Social networking and social media can play a very important part in efficiently supporting system-wide collaboration by linking together the wider gifted education community – not just educators but parents/carers, learners, governors, researchers and so on.

Open access to research helps ensure that our collective stock of knowledge about effective gifted education can be shared freely, rather than being rationed or confined to subsets of the community. The existing stock of research must be made more accessible.

Freely available learning opportunities and professional development resources should also be systematically curated and disseminated. Different parts of the gifted education community can develop new learning, knowledge and understanding through their interaction with these resources. Service providers can advertise their wares to potential customers and identify opportunities for partnership and collaboration.

It is not always necessary to develop solutions specific to gifted education if effective generic solutions are already in place. There are strong arguments in favour of integration rather than silo-based provision.

But generic improvements to the education system – eg raising the quality of teaching, investing in school improvement – will not inevitably bring about improvements in gifted education, or such improvements may be less significant or take longer to accrue than those achieved through targeted intervention.

Success depends on active engagement across the system. It involves confronting ideological resistance and striving to find mutually acceptable ways forward. Support for gifted learners must never be at the expense of other learners within the system but, equally, gifted learners have an equal right to such support.

Success also depends on inclusive collaboration amongst the gifted education community. We must set aside fundamental disagreements over the nature and direction of gifted education to achieve the common purpose outlined above.

We must move away determinedly from the disagreements, factions, cliques, petty rivalries, self-promotion and empire-building that characterise the community and work co-operatively together for the benefit of all gifted learners. Everyone’s contribution must be welcomed and valued.

Despite the benefits for national economic growth, this is a global endeavour. We must work across national boundaries, avoiding the temptation to focus exclusively in our own jurisdictions. No country has a monopoly on good practice; every country can learn learn from the experience of others.

The gifted education community is a very broad church, but there is greater strength in unity than in a fragmented approach.

__________

Gifted Phoenix has posted a ‘postscript‘ to his post and you can visit that directly on his blog. Don’t forget The Economics of Gifted Education.

See you Sunday 24th on Twitter #gtie at 9pm GMT.

Gifted Students-Maynooth 2013

Reading

Linda Silverman Giftedness 101 (The Psych 101 Series)

Susan Wibebrenner & Dina Brulles   The Cluster Grouping Handbook: A Schoolwide Model: How to Challenge Gifted Students and Improve Achievement for All [With CDROM]

Susan Winebrenner Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom

Joan Freeman GIFTED CHILDREN GROWN UP (NACE/Fulton Publication)

Neville, Piechowski & Tolan Off the Charts – Asynochony and the gifted child

Daniel Willingham Why Don’t Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom

Paul Ginnis,‘The Teacher’s Toolkit: Raise Classroom Achievement with Strategies for Every  Learner’,  Crown House, 2007

Martin Fautley & Jonathan Savage ‘Assessment for Learning and Teaching in Secondary Schools’, Achieving QTS, , Leraning Matters, 2008

Belle Wallace, ‘Teaching the Very Able Child: Developing a Policy and Adopting Strategies for Provision’,  NACE/Fulton, 2000

The title is a quote is from Erich Fromm. It says a lot about why I do what I do.

It’s now just over two years since I established Gifted and Talented Ireland as a blog to front my advocacy efforts on the needs of gifted children. There have been many developments in those two years – not to mention a fair degree of politics and drama – but I think we are close to a tipping point in gifted advocacy in Ireland so I wanted to review how I got here and where I think things will go.

When I was asked to speak to parents about teaching gifted children, and later, help advocate on behalf of gifted children, I had no idea of the difficulties many parents had experienced in trying to have their children at least recognised by their teachers and schools. As a teacher myself it was difficult to hear because I could appreciate there was very real need to provide for gifted children in classroom yet I knew of many teachers who dismissed the notion (and sadly, continue to).

I also had no idea of the dynamics of gifted advocacy in Ireland. The biggest challenge was that once a parent’s children have left school, they no longer have any incentive to continue to advocate. So continuity was lost. Add in the politics and dissolution of the Irish Association for Gifted Children and a fair dollop of territoriality and self-promotion (often at the expense of the cause) and it was easy to see why so little progress had been made.

Certainly there was CTYI, the greatest success for gifted children in Ireland, but it’s brief was limited to its enrichment programmes and given its staffing level and funding position it was hard to expect they could do more than they were already doing.

Sometimes, though, you just have to shake the tree to get the fruit to fall.

Shaking the tree

I set up Gifted and Talented Ireland primarily in response to a chat on Twitter #gtchat from which I came away frustrated at a lot of talk but very little drive for action on promoting awareness of the needs of gifted children beyond the confines of the proverbial choir.

I thought it would be useful to have a Twitter chat that would reflect the Irish experience and use it do develop a broader social media presence for Gifted and Talented Ireland. So #gtie was born.

There are many views about what needs to be done to help gifted children in schools. For me, the most basic need is in schools accepting and recognising that giftedness is a characteristic that requires specific intervention in schools and classrooms and in ensuring teachers can recognise and begin to find ways to meet the educational needs of these children. It seemed obvious that we needed gifted awareness in Ireland. It was from this I developed the idea for Gifted Education Awareness Day 2011. It was fortuitous that mid-way through planning for this, I and Dazzled and Frazzled got word of EU Talent Day and we decided  to tie it on to our Awareness Day.

In 2012, the Awareness Day was extended to make Gifted Education Awareness Week.

Both of these Awareness events involved direct mailing to every school in Ireland. The events were unique in that they had the support of both the Department of Education, schools principals’ organisations, teachers and parents groups.

The Future is Collaborative

While planning the awareness day I lamented the fact that the IAGC had broken up. There were scattered support groups in various places and these were important. However, while having “cups of tea and a having a shoulder to cry on” (as I was told) is all well and good, the real need was to see change in schools so that the despair with which these groups met could be replaced by something more positive. This is where I felt the need to establish a new network hence, Gifted and Talented Network Ireland. It began with a website and a register. Catherine Riordan has done fantastic work bringing together parents who register on the site and we are now a truly national network of support.

The aims of GTNetwork are

• to help parents network with other parents to share experience and expertise
• to be proactive in our advocacy on behalf of gifted children so that their educational needs, and by extension, their social and emotional needs are met in schools
• to advocate for specific Initial Teacher Education in the needs of gifted children
• to advocate for the inclusion of the needs of gifted children in school policies
• to seek the support of and to liaise with education partners in achieving these objectives

The idea of the network is to link autonomous Gifted Advocacy Support groups which can act locally to meet their needs yet collaborate nationally on change to see the educational needs of gifted children addressed in schools.

The Story so far…

Catherine has also done great work summarizing #gtie chats and we agreed that these would be posted on GTNetwork as one element of the support we offer parents.

In the two years since I registered Gifted and Talented Ireland and GTNetwork the profile of gifted children has been raised considerably. In the last year alone Gifted and Talented Ireland has had 13,850 unique visitors visiting 44, 750 times and accessing 183,100 pages.

GTNetwork has had in the last year 5300 unique visitors visiting 13470 times and accessing 87780 pages. Most of this has happened since October 2012 as a result of Catherine’s work .

I set up a fledgling site for teachers at TeachIreland which I hope to develop over time depending on demand. I am looking at some point in the future merging Gifted and Talented Ireland into GTNetwork and possibly TeachIreland also so that there is one comprehensive site where parents and teachers can network and collaborate proactively on behalf of gifted children. In this sense, GTNetwork has the potential to become a model of teacher and parent collaboration.

In the meantime we have had several articles published in various magazines and newspapers, including the journal of the largest teachers’ union  (see page 28) all of which have increased the profile of the needs of gifted children.

I have also had the honour of presenting to Trainee Teachers and hope to reach more so that overtime all new teachers will have at least a rudimentary understanding of the issues affecting the education of gifted children. Of course it would be nice one day to have fuller, more specific training but this is a start.

Future Developments

This year we decided to bite the bullet and move Gifted Education Awareness Week. It’s original timing was more accidental and partly a reflection on other commitments I had. It makes much better sense to have this event earlier in the school year. Consequently, Gifted Education Awareness Week 2013 will be held in September. We have several exciting developments in the pipeline which we will reveal closer to the time.

In the meantime, #gtie continues to develop and spread as more teachers and parents are discovering it as a useful resource. Join us on Sundays at 9pm. There is a guide here. Even better, register on the network and connect with other parents and help drive pro-active advocacy on behalf of all gifted children.

Gifted and Talented Ireland
Teachers of Exceptionally Able Children Ireland
Irish Gifted Education Blog.

Seth Godin has a trippy blog and a few other sites. He has written 12 bestsellers that have been translated into 33 languages. I’ve been reading Linchpin and quite enjoying some of the messages he offers about being an artist at whatever you do.

Anyway, all was well and good until he posted this little beauty…

Actually, it goes the other way
Wouldn’t it be great to be gifted? In fact…
It turns out that choices lead to habits.
Habits become talents.
Talents are labeled gifts.
You’re not born this way, you get this way.

Let’s ignore the obvious flaws in the logic that suggest that if I develop a cocaine habit I am, in fact, gifted and cut straight to the chase.

This is the second time in a month that someone of note (one in Ireland, the other, the US) has used the term ‘gifted’ without actually knowing (or appearing to know) anything about what it actually means.

So, once more around the mulberry bush…

All children are born with ‘gifts’ (even if their only gift is that they were born)

‘Gifted’ means a child has the ability to perform at a very high level in one or more areas of endeavour (physical, intellectual, artistic, musical etc) and they have certain personality characteristics that are common to other ‘gifted’ children though vary in extent but which are different from the rest of the population. (this is my working definition).

‘Talented’ means an individual has practiced SO much, they are competent or even excel at a particular endeavour.

Can a person who is not born gifted but becomes talented ever become gifted. No.

Can a person who is born gifted ever become talented. Yes – but they have to work.

If a person who is born gifted but doesn’t work and so doesn’t become talented, can they lose their giftedness. Nope – but it can become harder to become talented.

Can a person who is not born gifted but who gets lots of stimulation ever become so talented that they appear gifted? Yes – but only to an untrained eye. This maybe why high achievers are sometimes mistaken by teachers for being gifted. Joan Freeman writes about how children of average ability from middle class backgrounds often achieve better than gifted children from working class backgrounds.

Can a person be born talented? Babies and toddlers are talented at being babies and toddlers  We expect them to be able to do all the things that vast research on the development of babies tells us babies should be able to do - 1 month – lift their head when lying on a tummy, 2 months – gurgles and make cute baby sounds and so on. New parents are especially ‘talented’ a freaking out if their child misses some of these ‘milestones’ (usually failing to see they are averages).

Beyond 3 years of age, and so long as everything seems in place, we let go a little of our concern over milestones. We don’t forget them completely them. What we tend to ignore is the things that the literature and parenting books don’t tell you.

Nothing will tell you that if your child teaches themselves to read at 2 years of age (no mummy flashcards involved) they may be gifted. Nothing tells you that if your child only sleeps 5 hours  yet is still full of energy and there is no medical reason why they just do not sleep 10 hours like every other normal baby, that they may be gifted. Nothing tells you that if your 6 year old knows more about the origins of World War I and II than the average Leaving Certificate student (18 years of age) that they may be gifted. And nothing prepares you for what lies ahead when your 8 year old is working out algebra and likes it.

Certainly, children who can perform intellectually above their age-peers have learned the material that is evidence of that performance. You can call that talent. What is missing is identifying why they were able to do this in the first instance. Most 6 year-olds have no interest in World War I, assuming they have even heard of it. Most 8 year- olds just.should.not.know.algebra. ! (if you know what I mean!). This, you can call ‘gifted’.

And it is not that they have just learned some information like an unthinking automaton, but that they have a deep comprehension of what they have learned and that they can transfer that learning to other areas of interest.

These children are born gifted; if they receive the appropriate ability-level education, they become talented earlier. If they don’t, a whole world of problems develop that people, who often don’t ‘get’ gifted have to try solve.

If gifted was a gift, you imagine you could send it back

Wouldn’t it be great (and easier) if people just knew what gifted was?

 ..I didn’t cover everything; here are some people Seth could learn from

Life with Intensity
Red, White and Grew
Watch Out For Gifted People
Building Wing Span
Laughing at Chaos
Kate Arms-Roberts
Sprite’s Site
Ramblings of a Gifted Teacher
TheMakerMom
Lisa Rivero at Psychology Today

National Gifted Education Awareness Week Logo

The 3rd National Gifted Education Awareness Week is coming soon

We are currently seeking appropriate sponsors for this event.

If that is you, please email peterlydon@iol or gtnetworkireland@gmail.com

Download my presentation to St. Patrick’s National School, Glencullen, Dublin 18 on Wednesday 6th February 2013.

Gifted Children in School 

Books referred to: -

Daniel Willingham Why Don’t Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom

Linda Silverman Giftedness 101 (The Psych 101 Series)

Susan Wibebrenner & Dina Brulles   The Cluster Grouping Handbook: A Schoolwide Model: How to Challenge Gifted Students and Improve Achievement for All [With CDROM]

Susan Winebrenner Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom

Joan Freeman GIFTED CHILDREN GROWN UP (NACE/Fulton Publication)

Neville, Piechowski & Tolan Off the Charts – Asynochony and the gifted child

Maths Resources for Primary School

Bright Online   Variety of maths links (UK Site)

Differentiating for mathematically gifted students (article)

 Websites
http://www.homeschoolmath.net/online/gifted.php
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/math_gifted.htm
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10465.aspx
http://ceure.buffalostate.edu/~csmp/

Books
http://www.tower.com/math-for-gifted-student-grade-1-flash-kids-editors-paperback/wapi/117201358

http://www.prufrock.com/Assets/ClientPages/classroom_materials.aspx

St. Patrick’s National School Glencullen

Peter Lydon

Gifted Children in School

Wednesday 6th February 2013 7.30pm

Rachel Murphy Hall, St. Patrick’s NS, Glencullen, Dublin 18

 All welcome