Book Review: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book was interesting and brought up a number of observations about introverts that made sense to me.  It has colored my reading of several educational psychology studies that I have read concurrently.  There were times when I wished the author had edited it down a bit, but I must admit that those extra anecdotes did keep me reading, whereas straight exposition might not have. 

I have known for a long time that I am an introvert, but it always puzzled me how an introvert like me could also be a teacher, since teachers have to interact with SO MANY people in the day.  Moreover, I am a substitute teacher and I have to interact with many NEW people every day I work.  The explanation helps me understand why I am SO TIRED when I get finished with a day of subbing and also why, though I know I SHOULD "network" with other teachers at lunch time, instead, I retreat to the classroom and eat alone and in peace.   



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The Demise of the Teeter-Totter - and Its Implications for Algebra

Years ago, I was teaching in an elementary school computer lab. There was a software program I was using, where the students were supposed to balance bags of gold. On one side of the balance was a bag, for example, weighing 7 pounds, and they had to balance it with a combination of two or three other bags, e.g., 2 and 5, 3 and 4, or 1, 2, and 4. I was AMAZED and discouraged that so many of the students found this difficult. You see, years before that, teeter totters had been removed from many public playgrounds, because of insurance mandates. Many kids just didn't and don't know how balances work. This has big implications for mathematics and equation solving.

A few years later, I was substitute teaching in a 5th grade and the lesson was on balancing equations.  Again, I observed that the students simply didn't understand how balances worked.  They could not predict what would happen if something heavy was added to one side of an equation that was balanced.  No wonder so many of them are lost in beginning algebra.  

I am not sure we can bring back teeter-totters, but we can certainly bring back playing with balances in the younger grades.  Get the equipment out and let kids play with it.  

First in Line

I might as well say it:  I hate getting kids lined up to go somewhere like art or PE or lunch.  It takes way too much time and it seems demeaning to me.  Do adults line up to go somewhere?  Do we insist that they walk single file without talking?  Do the adults in the hall avoid talking when they pass rooms with their doors open?  No, no, and definitely not.  Yes, I understand that we want to avoid clogging up the halls, when many classes are moving around, and lines do help.  But I really don't like them.

And furthermore, I especially don't like the fact that kids actually fight over who gets to be first in line and who gets to be in front of whom.  "She cut in line", "You can't save places in line!", "No frontsies", etc.  Why is it that kids, almost universally want to be first in line? or ahead in line?  I can understand why adults want to be first to get on the airplane - so that they get prime luggage storage space and so that they don't have to force their way past cramped seating crowded with people.  But what is it that kids are fighting for?  Being first in line conveys no extra privilege.  It doesn't raise them in the esteem of their teachers or their peers.

To be fair, not all of the kids want to be ahead in a line.  There are those who prefer the end of the line, especially if the teacher walks at the front.  They can get away with more at the end of the line.  And there are a few, usually the more passive kids with fewer friends, who don't seem to care (but, even so I wonder if that is just a front).

So the question remains, what is it about those stupid lines that is of such social/psychological significance?  Over and over again. 

There is reading and then there is READING.

This is a reflection on the following post:

www.creativitypost.com/education/save_the_readers

There is something I observed recently while subbing. Frequently, teachers will have time in their lesson plans for kids to do silent reading, often called Read to Self, SSR, or some similar acronym. There seem to be two types of readers: the kind who are deeply immersed in books that have mostly text and few illustrations and the kind who are reading either non-fiction, graphic novels, or books with a lot of pictures and very little text. Looking more closely, especially with the non-fiction books, the students who choose to read those are actually doing very little reading. They will look at the pictures and glance at the captions, but they rarely actually read the text. There has been a big push lately to include more non-fiction reading, especially in an attempt to lure boys to do more reading. But from what I can see, this may be backfiring, as readers of non-fiction aren't actually reading much. They ARE getting a lot of information from pictures, but that is a different skill.

New (Old) Direction for Education

My grandmother was a teacher; my mother, who is now 98 years old was a teacher; I am a teacher.  In all these years of teaching, what have we seen?  Wave after wave of "educational reform".  The old was thrown out and the new brought in.  But is it better ... or just different?

The best wave I have seen was the federal push to develop outstanding curricula - BSCS Blue, Green, Yellow; Man a Course of Study; The Voyage of the Mimi, etc. I was in one of the classes that got to take BSCS Blue, when it was pretty new.  I also was a student when the New Math was the rage.  There is some marvelous curriculum out there.  As a sub, I have seen bits and pieces of some wonderful lessons - simulations of Columbus' voyages to the Americas, re-enactments of the American Revolutionary debates, with both sides represented.  But, far too often, these marvelous lessons are relegated to the back burners, because of the amount of curriculum that the teachers MUST cover.  What counts is the students' scores on the standardized tests.  Where are the wonderful lesson plans for diverse abilities?

Some people have mentioned that they have just about given up on schools, because it is so hard to agree on what SHOULD be done and not just what should NOT be done.  Fewer standardized tests, yes.  But, what instead? 

I have been thinking about what I saw working at a Montessori school. I sub mainly for 3rd grades through 6th grades and the Montessori school set up was such that the kids worked in 3 week time blocks with assignments in each subject area (some of which incorporated multiple areas). The students planned their days and worked on lessons with teacher-prepared materials. Occasionally, there was some whole group discussion, but most of the time, the kids worked individually, in pairs, or occasionally in groups of 3 or 4 on their own goals. The one exception was math, which was taught in groups of 7 or 8 students, with outliers taught individually by tutors. The teacher met with individual students, taught mini-lessons to small groups of students, or led discussions.

The biggest criticism I had of the arrangement (and I subbed there quite a bit) was that some of the materials could have been differentiated much more. The middle level of materials was great, but the materials for higher and lower ability students weren't as good. With the possibilities of computers allowing for wider ranges of materials to be available, I can actually see this model working. There were two rooms with a wide doorway between them, so kids could actually go back and forth between the rooms, especially for math. It was peaceful and work oriented. The kids really seemed to take responsibility for themselves and the one boy who didn't was guided into trying to make better choices.

There are quite a few lessons where working with someone makes the lesson much better.  Students in this Montessori classroom were frequently given introductory lessons about some topic, then given assignments that explored the topic in greater depth, with the unit culminating in presentations of products or large group discussions/debates.  Student groupings were varied and flexible.  

Interestingly, for me at least, was that there weren't any "specials" teachers.  There was an adult (teacher?) supervising the gym at set times, but students showed up in the gym any time during the time blocks, when they needed a break.  Each student was required to do some physical exercise several times a week, but it could take a wide variety of forms.  Art projects were supervised by the classroom teachers as part of the regular work.  I am not sure about music.

This arrangement might actually be an ideal one for me.  I like the ability to work with the kids all day, without the interruptions of switching classes.  I like knowing what individual students are doing in all of the areas of study.  I like the ability to integrate all of the arts into the curriculum.  I like many of the Montessori materials.  And I like the effects of the structure on the students.  They seemed responsible for their own behavior and learning.  They were considerate, even to subs.

But that is the only Montessori school I have worked in, so I don't know if it was unique, or if many of them are like that.  It would be interesting to find out - one of the advantages of substitute teaching.  If a job like that comes up, I will take it.

Why Do Some Capture Us?

As a substitute teacher, I see WAY too many kids in a week to remember them all.  In fact, if I am in a particular class for only a day or a half day, I often have trouble REALLY noticing quite a few of the students.  This is especially true of the quiet ones, the ones who seem to become part of their chairs.

One of my ongoing questions of myself is why do I notice some students and remember them and why do others completely fade from my mind?  If I come back to that same classroom weeks or months later, which kids will I remember and which ones will I have no idea about who they are or what they are like?

As one might suspect, the naughty ones are memorable.  And the class clowns.  The kids with special needs that make themselves known to the sub.  Those are easy reasons to remember particular students and they are all reasons why I remember some students.  But that isn't the entire cast of the ones I remember.  I am thinking back over the class I had just yesterday and trying to think of which kids I still can bring up faces or names for.  Interestingly, many of the kids do not fit any of those categories. 

Kids who speak to me personally are more memorable - even if it was just to ask to go to the nurse.  Kids who help me with some piece of equipment or some unique classroom procedure are also memorable.  Kids who display some part of their character are also memorable.  Sometimes even the especially quiet students are memorable. 

But, there is one category of kid that I remember especially well.  It is the kids who ask memorable questions.  And, yes, for me, the obviously gifted kids.  Weeks ago, I wrote about one young man I interacted with and felt especially drawn to.  During the literacy block, when the rest of the class was busy, this young man had told me all about a book he was working on - about American heroes.  For some reason, he and I really connected.  I was sorry when the day ended that I probably would not teach him again.  He is in a grade that I normally do not sub for, but I like his school, so I had taken the job for that class.

I was wrong that I would not teach him again.  I was in the grade one higher than his at that school a couple of days ago and he came into the math class that I was teaching.  This confirmed my assessment of his probable giftedness - kids are rarely accelerated into a math class higher than their own grade, unless they REALLY need it.  And, wonder of wonders, he was also delighted to see me - in a very quiet way.  He is not a loud, assertive kid.  But he did come up during a transition time and ask me if I remembered him.  I did.  Again, that mysterious and wonderful connection.  But too short. 

If I could teach kids like him every day, I would do it for free.  They are that intriguing to me. 

Ideal Class Size - Opinions

On Linked In, in the Elementary Education group, there has been an ongoing discussion of what the ideal class size would be.  This question hasn't addressed, for the most part, funding or teacher quality, but simply the straightforward question, about IDEAL class size.  Interestingly, the answer seems to hover around 12 students.  As most people know, this number is between one-third and one-half of the currently common classroom sizes, which range from 20 to 36 students. 

My own comment was, "The best classes I have taught have had from 4 to 12 students.  What fun they are!  You can actually talk with the kids and enjoy the teachable moments.  You can treat each child as an individual and not just as members of a huge group."

The key for me is the teachable moment.  In a class of 24 or more, there is little opportunity to take advantage of the teachable moment.  Teachable moments are directly applicable to individual children.  Sometimes these teachable moments extend to quite a few individual children at a time, but the real focus is on getting individual children excited about their learning.  Children are quite different in what really excites them.  Novelty, of course, will excite many of them at a time, but true interest in something usually is much more specific.  With classes of 20 or more, this becomes a time and classroom management issue, especially when there are specific curricular goals to cover - and there almost always are specific learning goals mandated for the day.  

Intuitively, I think most classroom teachers know that small group instruction is better than large group.  That is why most classrooms I have subbed in have small reading groups for reading instruction.  Very rarely, is reading taught as whole group instruction.  A bit less frequently, but still often, math is also grouped.  And sometimes spelling lists are individualized or grouped.  But rarely does grouping extend to any other subject areas.  This is especially noticeable for science and social studies.  The most content-oriented (as opposed to skill-oriented) subjects are the least likely to be taught in small groups.  

What is so great about 12 students?  12 is enough to provide a lot of variety.  4 probably isn't - variety in terms of viewpoint, gender, personality, background, etc.  12 is a good number to provide interaction.  It is also a good number for dividing into even smaller groups, pairs, triads, quartets, and hexads.  12 means that talking is manageable.  12 children talking all at once isn't an aural assault.  A class of 24 or 36 is.  A class of 12 means that the teacher can talk to each child in a reasonable time, close to when they need it.  In a class of 12, you are dealing with individuals as often as you are dealing with a group.  There is time for the teacher to ask questions that will excite specific students, but not, perhaps, the whole group.  The teacher can ask a student about a project and go in depth, where this isn't possible with large groups.  The whole quality of the classroom changes.  

I think groups up to 20 can operate like this, but with groups larger than this, the instruction seems to change.  What do you think?

The Complete List of Problems with High Stakes Testing

This comment is in response to this link:

The Complete List of Problems with High Stakes Testing

As the comments to the original article demonstrate, this isn't exactly the complete list of problems with high stakes testing.  From my viewpoint, Marion Brady is hitting some of the major problems with the tests.  I would only add a few things for a bit different emphasis.

"Teachers oppose the tests because they provide minimal to no useful feedback; are keyed to a deeply flawed curriculum adopted in 1893; lead to neglect of physical conditioning, music, art, and other, non-verbal ways of learning..."

There are several points to be made here.  First of all, there ARE standardized tests that provide useful and immediate feedback.  Computerized adaptive testing is getting better and better.  I dabbled with using these kinds of tests more than 10 years ago.  At that time, there was a concern that some students would find the computerized testing environment too intimidating.  I think that worry has greatly diminished, as students repeatedly demonstrate that they are quite adept at handling the computers, thank you very much.  The advantage of CAT is that it gives virtually immediate results and those results can potentially cover a wider range than most of the standardized tests that are used for high stakes testing.  Instead of the 3 or 4 grade levels covered by the high stakes tests, CATs can cover more ability levels.  On the high stakes tests, a 3rd grader would typically see material designed for 1st through perhaps 5th grades.  On a CAT test, a 3rd grader could see material designed for pre-school or Kindergarten all the way up to the top level of the test, probably 12th grade, depending on how successfully s/he answered the questions.  The feedback provided to the teacher can be quite specific, down to exactly which items caused the student problems.  Aggregate statistics are available, too - and immediately.  If a teacher sees that a large number of his/her students are having trouble with capitalization, s/he can add a few extra lessons on the subject in short order.  With high stakes testing, the results are usually not available until this year's class has already moved on.

The second major point I would like to make is that it is not just P.E., art, music, and drama that are suffering.  It is also science and social studies.  As tests get added for science and social studies, perhaps this won't be quite as apparent.  But right now, science, especially, is suffering.  What used to be taught daily is now relegated to once or twice a week.  And, since setting up for, and cleaning up after hands-on experiments takes too much time, a lot of the science that is taught is done in the form of a reading lesson.  The "literacy block" and the "math block" take up huge portions of the day and science and social studies have taken a back seat.

"Teachers oppose the tests because they reduce teacher creativity and the appeal of teaching as a profession..."

Yes, indeed.  There is a lot of pressure on teachers to make sure that they "cover" the curriculum.  The spontaneous discussion, the divergent anecdote, the ability to listen whole-heartedly to what the students are saying - these things are sometimes lost, under pressure to cover everything they are responsible for. 

"...lead to the neglect of the best and worst students as resources are channeled to lift marginal kids above pass-fail 'cut lines'..."

Those who know me know that I am deeply interested in gifted kids.  It seems to me that the needs of gifted kids are being greatly neglected, because of this emphasis on helping the marginal kids succeed.   All kids are in school for the purpose of learning, but gifted kids especially are learning a lot less that they need to learn.  There is a proverb that goes something like: if you feed a mouse a grain of corn, he may feel nourished and full; if you give that same grain of corn to an elephant, he may not even notice that he has been fed.  Is it right to make the gifted child sit in class day after day, year after year, with only a few grains of corn? 

Another thing that I dislike about the high stakes tests is the fact that so much time now is spent teaching to the test.  It isn't bad to learn to write a 5 paragraph essay, but that isn't the only form that essays can take - nor is it always the most effective.  But many students will never learn anything else.

I have actually taught some of the test prep materials in the classroom.  The materials themselves are sometimes worthwhile, but these are things that should be part of the regular curriculum if they are important.  Teaching them as part of test prep only makes the students think that they are only important on the tests and then can be dropped when the tests are done.  Their impressions are usually validated. 

There are many problems with high stakes testing and fairness - both toward students and toward teachers.  Marion Brady covered a lot of the problems, but I wouldn't consider his list "complete". 

Gerald Coles: Why Bother Educating the Poor? - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

Gerald Coles: Why Bother Educating the Poor? - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

Reforming education has been a national pastime since my mother first started teaching - and my mother is now 97 years old.  But the recent (past 15 years) of reforms have been the meanest spirited at all.  In the guise of improving education, they have made it virtually impossible for teachers to enjoy being in the classroom.  There are ever increasing demands to cover ever more "standards"; there are significantly larger classes and therefore a much increased work load; teachers are required to accommodate an ever increasing list of special education students and practices; there is less provision for kids who are at the extremes of "normal".  It would almost seem as though people are determined to eradicate creativity and caring from the classroom.  Creativity is a waste of time and caring is monumentally difficult,  with so many students to take care of.

People who would have made excellent teachers are driven away from teaching or don't even consider it as a profession, because of low pay, low prestige, uncertainty in working conditions, and heavy work loads.  People who enter the profession with hope soon encounter the reality of the job and drop out of teaching in droves.  I read recently that teaching loses half of the teachers that enter the profession in 5 years. 

The increased testing regime has been discussed extensively in many places, so I am not going to address that.  I am going to discuss what I consider the most insidious of the reforms: differentiation.  On paper and in theory, this looks great.  Teachers are taught simple techniques for making lesson plans adaptable to the various ability levels of all of the students in the classroom.  What proponents of differentiation often fail to consider is the amount of extra time required to plan for a differentiated classroom and the fact that this increases with the increase in ability levels in the classroom.  A simple 5th grade lesson on the rock cycle can be an example.  There is a standard textbook, which is probably written at a 5th grade reading level.  Most of the students will be able to read it, but there will be a few who cannot.  The teacher has to find other ways of teaching the rock cycle for the students who cannot read the text - maybe an audio recording, maybe partner reading, maybe a movie, maybe a simpler book.  Each of these have to be checked to make sure they cover the standards and objectives for the lesson.  Then, there are the kids in the classroom who have special needs.  Each of their needs must be accommodated in the lesson plan.  And finally, there are probably a few gifted kids in the class, maybe even a highly gifted kid, who has studied the rock cycle extensively on his own, has a large rock collection at home, and is interested in comparing the difference in microscopic structure of granite and marble.  The teacher knows nothing about high school or college level geology and would have to struggle to find appropriate materials for this child.

All this might be do-able, if the class size were under 20, or if the teacher could count on teaching the same thing several years in a row and could gradually amass materials to use with outlier kids, or if there were a curriculum specialist would could gather appropriate materials or find a mentor.  But the recent budget cuts have boosted class sizes into the mid 30s, teachers are often reassigned year after year, depending on class numbers, the curriculum itself is redesigned on a regular basis, and the curriculum specialists have been eliminated by budgeting problems.

And, the fact of the matter is, elementary teachers are almost universally responsible for multiple lessons in one day.  When I was teaching full time, I counted 34 different lessons that I was responsible for in one week (grades K through 8, for me).  Planning for these lessons, teaching them, and assessing student progress took much more than the 30 minutes planning time I was allotted each day.  

Simply put, the job of teaching has become too much.  Teachers pay lip service to differentiation, to standards, to new technologies, but in my experience, they can't do it all.  Perhaps I see a biased sample of what most teachers are doing.  I am a substitute teacher, so teachers might, in fact, simplify the lessons they leave for me, so that a sub can handle them.  But, I look carefully for signs of differentiation or individualization or indications that the students think that the lessons I am given to teach are somehow different from what they usually do, and I don't see very much evidence for those things.  It seems to me that most of the teachers end up following the textbooks and "covering" the content they are responsible for.  There simply isn't enough time to do anything else.  Parents then wonder why their students' needs aren't considered.  They decide that the teacher is lacking or doesn't care.  And the stress piles up on the teachers. 

So what do the 1% do?  They send their kids to private schools.  I recently read the blog of a teacher who chose to teach in private schools.  She originally planned to teach in public schools, but couldn't find a job there, so took a job in a private school - and stayed in those schools.  She claimed in the blog that she was grateful for having stayed there, because they allowed her the creativity and autonomy to mold her work into an enjoyable career.

Monica Edinger's Blog

I am one of the co-founders of a private school and I helped establish that school because the public school wasn't serving the needs of my highly gifted child.  It isn't entirely in keeping with my support of public schooling, but, when it is your child, you do what you can to get them the best education you can afford.  And, people who can afford those schools often do - schools which often have smaller classes and more autonomy for the teachers. Meanwhile, the public schools are suffering.

The Five Misconceptions About Teaching Math and Science

This comment is based on an article in Slate, brought to my attention by The MathMom: The Five Misconceptions About Teaching Math and Science 

 There are several interesting quotes in this short article. Here is one: "The fact that we score poorly now does not mean that our educational system has deteriorated. In fact, it was always bad." I like that, since it points to a different solution from going back to the "good old days".

Another interesting quote about recruiting good teachers: "The problem, however, is not recruiting people into teaching. The problem is keeping them in teaching. Teachers work very hard. They are not paid enough. They endure great stress daily. These factors drive many out of the profession. A study by the National Education Association found that the five year dropout rate for new teachers is 50 percent."

But then, the article says that the way to retain more new teachers is professional development. If teachers are overworked, underpaid, and overstressed, how is making them sit in on more inservice training or more coursework going to help? I respectfully disagree that this is the most important way to retain new teachers.  I think education needs to deal with the problems of overwork, underpayment, and stress.

Teachers' Work Schedules

This post comments about the following article and revises some of the material I posted in response to it on Facebook.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2159173/70-teachers-nighter-prepare-lessons-according-survey-teaching-magazine-concludes-hours-rest-us.html

The above article, which is from England, has recently been making the rounds on Facebook. My nephew commented and wanted to know if, in my experience, it also applied to teachers in the United States. The article claims an average of 48.3 hours per week for teachers in England. I told him that the teachers I know personally all worked at least that much. My own schedule, in one of my full time jobs was something like this: 7 to 5 at school, M-F. Sat and Sun 4 to 6 hours each. I had to do a lot of the work at school, because I managed the computer lab and all of the computers in the school, in addition to preparing and grading 34 different lessons each week.

I don't know the statistics for K-12 teachers in the US. It would be interesting to find out, though. I know a lot of teachers who put in much more than the 37.5 (or close to that) hours a week that they are nominally contracted to work.

I recently subbed in a class, where the teacher mistakenly entered the work order for a full day, but only needed a half day. So, I ended up in the teacher's lounge for a substantial time, waiting, in case they found something else they needed me to do (sorting the mail was one task I was given). The teachers were discussing the latest round of negotiations with the school board. They were completely fed up with the extra hours, over and above the negotiated work week that they were putting in. They were at the point of resolving, for the next school year, to work only the amount of school hours they were nominally responsible for. They were concerned that it would be hard on the students - to not have extra tutoring time, extra parent conferences, not as much feedback on submitted work, but they reasoned that, in the long run, it was the only way for the public to realize that the services they were getting were so much over and above what they think the teachers are doing.

Imagine for a minute, if it were thought that the only time a lawyer was working was during the time spent in court or the time spent with clients. Or, the only work that a doctor actually could claim was the few minutes spent in direct contact with patients. Teachers are generally in direct contact with students for at least 300 minutes per day. Virtually all of the prep work, the grading, the record keeping, meeting with administration, fellow teachers, and parents takes place outside of the direct contact time. Many professions require a great deal of "behind the scenes" work. Teaching is no exception, but this is rarely considered when talking about teachers' schedules. Teachers are typically allotted 30 to 60 minutes per day to deal with planning, grading, preparing materials, cleaning up, meeting with parents, other teachers, and administrators, record keeping, learning to use new technology, dealing with new curricula, and so on.

Just a brief example. A 6th grade teacher might know that the curriculum specifies studying about Ancient Egypt. There is a textbook, but reading the lesson and answering the questions at the end of the chapter isn't the engaging project that parents and administrators want to see. The teacher can develop her own projects, which takes time; or the teacher can search the Internet for interesting sites to visit or interesting projects to do. Try it. Try searching the Internet for relevant, appropriate, and interesting material, checking out the entire site to make sure it is OK for your students. Make sure that the project covers all of the standards and content you are responsible for. If you can do it successfully in the 30 minutes that is allotted for planning time, congratulations. Now do it for math, science, reading, spelling, writing, and possibly art as well. So, maybe those projects can last a whole week.  You still have to develop the grading rubric, write and print the instructions for the students, and perhaps write a note to parents about the projects. Now make those projects all relevant to kids whose abilities range from second grade reading levels to ninth grade reading levels. Modify each of the lessons so that both your students with learning difficulties and that gifted student have challenging things to work on for each of those lessons. Now try individualizing the curriculum for all 30 students in your class.

You can't do that in 30 minutes a day??? You must not care about your students.

Sigh.

Teachers Can't Do It All

I recently reacted to this poster on Facebook, in the group International Gifted Education.  I wrote:  "This is a great sentiment, but where are real teachers supposed to find the time to do this?"  The only person who commented on that original question was Roya Klingner, who jokingly said that good teachers will find the time by working 20 hours a day.  I appreciate the humor in this reply, but I stand by my response:  "Seriously, though, I think we gifted advocates need to stop proposing solutions that put an even greater burden on regular classroom teachers. Most of them are overstressed already."

I  have just about had it with people piling ever more responsibilities and requirements on classroom teachers.  From new standards, new tests, and new technologies to increasing class sizes, dealing with kids with special needs, and increased extra-curricular duties (bus duty, recess duty, detention supervision, after school tutoring), teachers' plates are already full.  When in the world do they have time to individualize curriculum?  People, teachers are human.  They need to eat sometimes, go to the bathroom, sit down for a few minutes.  They have families, they need to get their own exercise, they may even do things for themselves like play an instrument, garden, solve calculus equations for fun (OK, maybe that is a stretch).  

I am passionate about gifted kids, but I am also a substitute teacher.  I go to many different classrooms in many different schools and school districts.  Some schools structure their classes differently so as to ease the teachers' jobs, but all of the teachers I have subbed for have had full and extremely busy days.   

Yes, teachers should learn to differentiate curriculum, to give kids choices in methods of demonstrating what they have learned, to pose projects that can be tackled in different ways.  Good teachers do this and poorer teachers try.  But accommodating individual learners is HARD and takes TIME, especially if the learners are gifted.  Teachers can help the kids who are struggling.  Breaking down the skills and concepts they are teaching into smaller chunks is something teachers usually are good at.  They even, usually, have a large number of other teachers and aides who help them with this.  But helping gifted learners requires a lot more of a teacher.  It requires going beyond what they are familiar with, sometimes learning new material themselves, finding other people who can help, judging what is available, so that, if something must be purchased, the money (usually in extremely short supply, occasionally the teacher's own) can be spent well.  

We might as well admit this:  teachers can't do this.  They can't individualize curriculum for kids who may be placed in their classes, but who are 3 or 4 grade levels above their nominal grades.  Yes, as I have written before, there are phenomenal teachers who can manage this - I am in awe of them - but we have to stop expecting the average teacher to be able to accomplish this.  Teachers have been exploited far too long.  "If you really cared about the kids you teach, you would..."  Fill in the blank (see a list of teacher duties that keeps getting ever longer).  

What can we who care deeply about gifted children do?  Personally, as I told Roya, I advocate structural changes - grouping gifted kids in dedicated classrooms, schools, courses. Yes, the projects even there need to be flexible, but that is different from developing curriculum for each learner.  Cluster grouping is also a possibility, if the schools are too small for dedicated classes or classrooms. 

Dedicated classrooms and special schools work mostly just like a regular school. There will always be a range of abilities in the classroom. Teachers can handle a range of abilities, up to a point - 1 or 2 grade levels above or below the nominal grade level. After that, it is much more difficult, unless the class size is VERY small.

Some schools follow continuous progress models.  Children are grouped for instruction, based on their current level of achievement in that instructional area.  One school I worked at had a math block and a reading block.  All of the math classes met at the same time and kids were placed where they were ready to learn.  Similarly with reading.  Another school did that for grammar and writing.  The drawback of these models is that the teacher loses track of the individual child.  In those schools, I sometimes felt that I missed my "own" kids. 

One other model that I have seen that seems to have potential was a Montessori school.  From an early age, the students were trained to work relatively independently on a set of tasks.  The level and complexity of these tasks varied, depending on the child.  I have subbed in Montessori classrooms that follow this model, but they were not dedicated gifted schools.  Though this model seems to have potential and the teachers in these classes were good, I still did not see curriculum or expectations that were beyond two years above the nominal grade level of the class.  This model has potential for use in a gifted school, in my opinion, but even in this setting, the teachers cannot be expected to accommodate a range of more than 4 or 5 grade levels.

There seems to be great future potential in various models of computerized instruction.  From flipped classrooms to online learning, to adaptive programming, to digital production, there are now more options in this direction than ever before.  There are still problems with these models, though.  Doing chemistry on the computer is NOT the same as doing chemistry in the lab.  Skyping with a group of students from around the world is not the same as trying to convince the people in your class that your idea is valid.  Even if computerized instruction were perfect and readily available everywhere, you still need relevant experiences, discussion and interaction.

So I am pleading with gifted advocates everywhere:  work for structural solutions, but don't put down regular classroom teachers if they can't individualize the curriculum for gifted students.  They DO care about kids, but they just can't do it all. 

Differentiation - It Isn't Enough for HG+ Kids

Yes, I know differentiation is the acceptable mantra for educators these days.  I know I am supposed to tout the virtues of differentiating for every kid in the classroom.  I know that, if potential principals see this, I will not be considered for full time jobs.  But, I also know that, as a sub, I see very little of it.

For anyone who actually reads this, but who doesn't know my background, I will briefly say that I have taught in four states: Massachusetts (private schools), Illinois (public and private schools), Alaska (public and charter schools), and Colorado (public and charter schools).  I have taught, either full time or subbing, in at least a dozen school districts, dozens of schools, and hundreds of different classrooms.  I have gone through extensive training on differentiation and gifted, differentiation and special education, and differentiation in general. 

I have seen very little differentiation in action.  Some teachers will differentiate spelling lists.  Some teachers will have different levels of book groups.  Some teachers will pair up with other teachers and group the students for math classes.  But, if we are talking about meeting the needs of kids outside of the middle of the bell curve, there is very little for those outlier kids.  It can be done - I have seen 3 or 4 teachers who could do it.  I laud them.  But, in general, it isn't happening.

And, I think it is time that educators who are interested in meeting the needs of HG+ gifted students admit that differentiation, as it is practiced (or not practiced) just isn't enough.  It isn't consistent enough, it isn't broad-based enough, and it isn't at the correct level.  The further the gifted student is from the class average, the less appropriate any differentiated accommodations are.

Differentiation is a great thing to train teachers to do.  It is effective to have the things that I mentioned above: leveled math, book groups, leveled spelling, different expectations for writing, etc.  It just isn't enough to meet the needs of the highly, exceptionally, and profoundly gifted students.  And I think it is time to stop pretending that regular classroom teachers can teach all students.

We know that inclusion has worked for a lot of kids with learning disabilities, but we also know that their special teachers, special classes, and supporting aides still have their jobs.  In fact, there are loads of jobs advertised for special education aides.  We know that differentiation isn't enough for these kids.  The simple fact is that they need more support than this.  Why don't we acknowledge the same for the highly, exceptionally, and profoundly gifted students.  The regular classroom teachers just can't meet their needs.

Again:  The regular classroom teachers just can't meet the needs of the highly, exceptionally, and profoundly gifted students. This was true before the great school budget problems; it is even more true now, with class sizes creeping up to ever higher numbers.  It is unfair to classroom teachers to continually demand more and more of them.  They already have more responsibilities and less time than they need in order to be maximally effective.

This rant is targeted mainly at elementary schools, but also somewhat at middle schools / junior highs.  By the time the kids get to high school, we mostly stop pretending that a single teacher can teach all levels of ability in a single class.  AP Calc AB is not differentiated and no one expects that AP Calc teacher to prepare lessons for students who might want to take the class, but who haven't yet mastered algebra.  Nor is the algebra teacher expected to teach calculus to the one kid in the class who is ready for AP Calc AB.  It just doesn't make sense.

For those of us who are interested in the HG+ kids, I think it is time to stop saying that differentiation can solve all of their educational needs.  It isn't happening.

Not Young, Gifted, Bored, but Young, Gifted, Lazy

I was reading about a book with the title of Young, Gifted, and Bored by David George.  As I typically do (and I suspect a lot of people do, when they see a book with such a title), I thought of myself, in relation to the title.  When I was young, would I have described myself as Young, Gifted, and Bored?  I was certainly young and gifted, but I am not sure that the description "bored" would have fit me as well.

As background, I have to explain that I attended a two room school for elementary school.  Upstairs was Mrs. Jones, Elsie Jones, to be precise, with the Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd graders.  I don't remember much of her class, except that a couple of us were allowed to work in a small art room on the north side of the classroom, that had an even smaller walk-in art closet on the east side.  I remember eating paste.  So maybe, I was bored.  But my mother tells me that Mrs. Jones had me read to kids when she needed to keep me busy.

I do remember the downstairs class better.  Mrs. Morse, Marie Morse, if I remember correctly, taught the 3rd and 4th graders.  Our 3rd grade class consisted of 9 girls and 1 boy.  The next class up had 9 boys and 1 girl.  There wasn't such a concept of differentiation at the time, but I think my teachers did what they could.  They realized that I was very smart, but there weren't many outside resources available to help me much.

Personality-wise, I was a very agreeable child.  The third of four children in my family, I was often the peacemaker.  I felt uncomfortable when there was conflict around, so I did my young-self best to avoid conflict.  What I learned was not boredom, but rather self-doubt.  Everyone else seemed fine, so I should be fine, too.  I also learned to be lazy.  Why should I work hard at something, since it came relatively easy to me?  I was one of those seemingly all-around gifted children, who could pretty much do anything that I tried.  There were a few things I wasn't particularly interested in - I couldn't see the reason behind throwing a ball back and forth and calling it playing catch, for instance, but, in general, I did what I was told, especially at school.  It never occurred to me that I was learning to be lazy. 

My fifth grade year was spent in a different school with a fabulous teacher.  I can't remember learning to work hard there either, but the class was so interesting, it didn't much matter.  It was my sixth grade year that was the problem.  This was long before the concept of middle schools, but the number of children had exceeded the capacity of the local elementary school, so the 6th graders were sent off to the junior high school.  By then, I had learned that everything was pretty easy and I didn't have to work very hard to learn anything in school, but I also didn't have as fascinating teachers.  And, then, indeed, boredom did set in. 

My point in all of this history, though, is that, yes, boredom was eventually a problem.  But an even bigger problem, for me at least, was that I had already learned two important things:  I was good at most things that I tried without working very hard at them and that working hard at something (which other kids had to do) meant that you weren't very good at it. 

For me, it took until college, before I found out that you were really supposed to learn how to work hard at something, so that you could master it.  I discovered that I wasn't very good at memorization, but I had no tools to help myself learn how to cope with the necessity to memorize a lot of information.  I had learned that I was good at most things without really working hard, so if these now were things that I had to work hard to learn, then I must not be as smart as I was always led to believe I was.  I floundered, especially in classes that really did require hard work.

Since then, I have had several university courses and jobs where I had to work incredibly hard to do well.  I can work hard and I have mastered some of the strategies of learning, when the work is difficult.  But I wish I had had to work hard much earlier in my life.  I think it would have made me more confident in myself.  And I think it would have prevented some of the effects of Impostor Syndrome:  I must really not be as smart as I thought, since I actually have to work hard to get this. 

Why do I think it would have served me better to learn, while still young, that hard work at something doesn't mean that you are bad at it?  I look especially to my daughters.  The older one is a gymnast.  Through her gymnastics, she learned a LOT about challenging yourself, about goal setting, about trying difficult things and eventually mastering them.  She is much more able than I to work through difficulties without giving up.  Both kids were in academic settings where they, in spite of being exceptionally gifted, had to work at learning.  The younger one was a swimmer, and participated in quite a few sports.  I think the fact that they were in an exceptionally difficult high school helped them learn what I didn't learn until college:  skills to use when learning is difficult.  And, the personal attitude that, if things are difficult, that doesn't mean that you have finally reached too far for your abilities; it just means that you have to put in some additional effort. 

Subbing for Beginning Teachers

A number of years ago, I made the comment to a principal I was talking to that I thought that all new teachers should be required to sub for a couple of years, before they were given a full time teaching position.  There are quite a few reasons why this is a good idea.  First of all, it gives the new teacher a chance to get more experience.  The big advantage of this is that the teacher is typically encouraged to broaden his/her experience, in that jobs in the narrow range of expertise that s/he developed during student teaching are limited in number.  If s/he opts to sub in a broader range of areas, this can be advantageous in a number of ways:  s/he gets to see a broader view of the curriculum - both what might come before the age range s/he is most comfortable with and what comes after.  This gives added depth to his/her understanding of how the curriculum at his/her chosen grade level fits in with the overall curriculum.  S/he gets to know a broader range of students and their typical behaviors and needs.

Another significant advantage is that the teacher gets to see a broader range of schools and even, in some cases, different school districts.  I subbed several times at a Montessori school that had students in grades pre-K through 8th grade.  I had never had direct experience with Montessori schools before and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this particular school.  Not all schools, even in the same school district, are run the same.  It helps to know what the teacher feels most comfortable with.

It is also interesting for the teacher to see different teaching styles - even within the same school.  Fundamental things like room organization, the arrangement and availability of supplies, and daily time scheduling are quite different from classroom to classroom. 

All of this experience can lead to more confidence for the beginning teacher once s/he has his/her own classroom.

The key drawback is that you can't live on sub pay.  Typically, subs get paid around $100 per day.  Given that the school year is (at most) 180 days, the maximum amount a sub would earn is $18,000.  Given that there are teacher inservice days, parent-teacher conference days, and other non-working days, the typical income is usually much less than this.  And, there are no benefits - no health insurance, no sick leave, no vacation leave.  This means the new teacher has to have some other way of being covered, especially in terms of health insurance.

I have just applied to sub in three different school districts near where I live.  I have no idea yet whether that is too few or too many.  But I do know that a LOT of the new subs at the substitute training sessions are new teachers.  Jobs are scarce this year and many of them are signing up to sub, hoping to be hired on as regular teachers eventually.  Meanwhile, they will get some good experience, even if they are grossly underpaid.

Class Sizes

I have read some of the research that says that class sizes don't effect learning outcomes substantially and I just don't believe it. I have taught school off and on from 1971, in public schools, in private schools, in charter schools. I have taught in inner city schools with racial problems, in rural schools, in relatively wealthy suburban schools. I have taught and subbed in 4 widely differing states (Massachusetts, Illinois, Colorado, and Alaska). I have subbed in classes of 15 students and taught classes of 35 students. From what I see, numbers make a difference. There seem to be several major ways that numbers make a difference: discipline, content, ability to differentiate, personal connection.

No matter how well-trained a class is, 35 students inevitably are harder to organize than 15. Just figuring out where to put all the desks/tables/chairs is a huge logistical task for a class with 35 students. And young people are not miniature robots, or, for that matter, miniature adults. They haven't yet learned all of the social behaviors that adults can usually manage to bring forth in large group situations.

Part of getting students involved in their own education is to make a personal connection of what they are learning to what they already know and ways that they can use the new knowledge in their lives. If you are trying to have a personal conversation with 15 students about this, it is possible to touch on each of the students in the group. With 35 students, you have to have recourse to other methods - e.g., dividing up the group into smaller sub-groups, then reporting back to the whole group. With 15 students, you can alter the content of the lesson to address particular facets of the topic that impact members of the group. With 35 students, this is rarely possible.

In the many years that I subbed, about 8 years, I only ran across one teacher who
tried to individualize students' learning completely. I don't know how successful she was, but as a sub, it was extremely difficult. But not all of the students in any given class are in the middle of the ability/readiness range for the lesson. There are ALWAYS some outliers, ones who may already know the "new" material and ones who haven't yet mastered the prerequisites. With a class of 15, it is possible to individually support both ends of the outlier spectrum. With a class of 35, it is rarely done. Yes, teachers are taught about differentiation in college, yes, they say they understand how to do it; no, I don't see them actually doing it. It is simply too hard. Imagine a college professor teaching chemistry. Do we give him/her a class that needs to cover elements and atoms, acids and bases, all the way through to quantum mechanics? Of course not, that would be absurd. We set up a general sequence of learning chemistry and apportion the students into classes based on what they each need to learn next. Yet, we give an elementary school teacher 25 to 30 students, some of whom can barely read and some of whom are reading 4 or 5 grade levels above their nominal grade placement. With 15 students, and say 3 sub-groups, it is possible to reach more children than with 25 students. It is also a matter of simple math. If I have 50 minutes with 15 students, 20 minutes of which is spent in whole group instruction, there is a possibility of 2 minutes per student of individual help. With 30 students, there is 1 minute. How much can you get done in 60 seconds?

In a class of 15 students, a teacher can really get to know the students. With 30, it is much more difficult. That personal connection between teacher and student is what makes much of teaching and learning intimately fulfilling. Without it, teachers begin to feel like simple curriculum delivery vehicles and students begin to feel like insignificant cogs in the information factory.

Years ago, I read a research report that consolidated observations from different sized classes, from tiny classes of 6 or 7 through huge classes of 50 or 60. From what I remember, there seemed to be several breaking points in class size and class dynamics. With extremely small classes, children often had trouble finding kids who were similar to them in learning stage. At 12 to 15 students, there seemed to be change in classroom dynamic - enough diversity for different types of interactions depending on learning activities. Class dynamics changed again around 18 to 24 students, with more whole group instruction and fewer individually tailored assignments. With 25 or more students, the classes were largely given over to whole group instruction and standard assignments. There was some support for students with difficulties, but little or no accommodation for students who already knew the material. I would love to find that research again, but haven't been able to locate it.

The politicians now are bent on cutting funding for education and class sizes almost certainly will increase in many schools across the country. I can't help but feel this will make teachers jobs even more difficult than they already are. I suppose, if the research study above is correct, increasing class sizes from 25 to 30 students might not substantially change how the classroom functions. It does substantially increase teacher work load - but what do the politicians care about that - teachers have a long summer vacation to recover.

If Teachers Worked Like Doctors

To follow up on yesterday's post, I went to search the Internet to see how much of a doctor's time was actually spent in patient contact. I am not intending here to be a thorough researcher, so I stopped after finding one study here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2709110/. The authors estimated that doctors spent 25.5% of their time in direct contact with patients. Just to make things easier, let's round that off to 25% of their time - 1/4 of their time was spent with patients. Now, no one assumes that what the doctors do with the rest of their time is trivial or unnecessary or that it should not be figured as part of the heavy work load of being a doctor. Yet, they certainly do this with teachers.

Take the example I wrote about yesterday. 8:00 to 3:30 required work day; 15 minutes before kids allowed in; 15 minutes after last bell to get them all out. 30 minutes "duty free" lunch; 30 minutes planning time. 1.5 hours supposedly without kids out of 7.5 hours. That means teachers are in contact with their clients 80% of the day.

Just for curiosity, let's do some math. Year 52 weeks. Doctor gets 4 weeks vacation (a bit conservative, but let it go for now); works 48 weeks. 1/4 of time spent with patients. 12 weeks. Teacher contract: 36 weeks. 80% of time spent with students. 28.8 weeks. Teachers are on direct duty more than twice as much as doctors.

This completely ignores the fact that, not only are teachers in direct contact with their clients more than twice as much as doctors, but they have MANY MORE CLIENTS at the same time - typically 25 times as many. And, I can hear people object: oh, but they are just young children, they are easier to deal with than adults. The only problem is, young children are immature - what a surprise. They do not know how to behave in all normal situations, they are easily distracted, they have all sorts of needs that cannot be ignored, and all of this WHILE the teacher is trying to get them to actually learn something. The only people that think this is easy are people who haven't done it for a significant amount of time.

Taking Testing to the Next Level

The school district I sub in is doing their annual testing this week. So last week and the week before that, I was in several classrooms that were preparing for the testing. How? By taking a test that was virtually identical in form to the tests that are being given this week. I am assuming that the specific content is different, but I do not know that first hand, as I haven't seen the real tests.

But last week, at any rate, I was specifically teaching to the test. This is something that has always held a negative implication in my mind. If you teach to the test, you restrict the experiences of the students to those that can be tested. You focus their attention on filling in bubbles and giving back answers in format and content like those that will be expected on the tests. To my mind, it was a bit like saying to students, "This is the only thing that is important and if you can spew back information in this form you pass."

Only, last week, I saw that the kids actually needed this. Maybe it is because they aren't taught like this all of the time or maybe it is because they only take tests seriously, not their everyday assignments, but the practice tests actually helped. The part that I am thinking of that helped the most was the part containing the constructed response reading questions. One of the questions read something like: "Compare these two characters (from the reading). Tell about two ways they are similar and two ways they are different. Use information from the passage to support your writing." Now, in general, I have found that when kids are asked to write answers to questions such as this, they ignore most of the directions. They usually read only the first sentence of the directions, e.g., Compare these two characters. And then they start writing. Typical answers will be only ONE sentence, e.g., Character X is taller than character Y.

So, one of the things I did with the kids was to make them read ALL of the directions. Then I had them underline the important parts of the directions, e.g., TWO similarities, TWO differences, information from passage to support writing. After doing this, I had them actually write their answers. Then we went back and had students read their answers and we checked to see if they fulfilled the requirements. Most did not. So we kept at it until the kids had a decent idea of what constituted an acceptable answer to the question.

I came away thinking that teaching to the test might not be such a bad idea, as long as the tests have such worthy questions. Maybe the practice tests are a way of teaching the teachers how to pay better attention to some things that need to be taught, but are sometimes lost in doing workbook pages and scripted lessons.

And, in general, I have found that asking kids to read the directions for any specific assignment is a much needed intervention skill. Time and time again, I have found that simply asking the kids to read directions for an assignment will answer their questions about what to do and even how to do it. You would think that it would be obvious, but it is a standard joke in educational circles to point out that even adults don't read directions. Give a group of adults a list of things that they are to do, with the direction at the top that they are to read the entire list before doing anything. Then make the last thing on the list, "Do NOT do any of the things on this list, just sign your name and turn your paper over." Then stand by and watch as most of them do each thing at the top of the list, until someone discovers the final instruction and laughs.

Truth: There're No Consequences

A friend of mine recently decided to quit subbing, because of the general lack of discipline and brattiness of the kids (she is in a different state from me, but I think the problem is more general than just our two states). She complained that the kids don't understand the meaning of "consequences" any more. As a sub, I often share her frustration. I have frequently come to the point where I seriously consider quitting subbing, too. Only my continuing fascination with observing children and their classroom environments keeps me going.

But here is my current diatribe about consequences:

Part of the problem is that there really ARE no consequences any more. Physical discipline is out. In our schools (the schools I sub in), you can't keep kids after school, because most of them get to and from school on buses, which run VERY tight schedules. You can keep them in from recess, but often the kids who need to be kept in are the kids who need the physical activity the most. And, for various reasons, many of the kids actually WANT to stay in for recess. You can't give them extra work, as they aren't able to finish the work that they have. You can't assign them classroom jobs, as they find the jobs more interesting than the work that they need to do. It doesn't matter if you change their seats, it just means they have to shout a bit louder to talk to their friends across the room. You can send them to the office, but there is an unwritten rule that you can only send one or at most two kids to the office - and if you do that, they think that it is your fault for not being able to handle the discipline problems. You can call their parents, but the parents often can't keep the kids under control either.

In my day, shaming kids into behaving worked for some, but nowadays, they just think it is funny to be ignorant - and, in terms of school work, being ignorant has its rewards. If they are ignorant enough, they get sent to a tutor, where they get one-on-one attention and if they play ignorant with the tutor, the tutor will usually give them the answers to all of the questions as they work through them.

I have noticed this with direction-giving, too. Kids will pretty much ignore directions given to the whole class. It is to their advantage to do so. After the directions have been given, all they have to do is get this puzzled look on their faces and say they don't understand, and the teacher will explain the whole thing again for them individually. If they still look confused, the teacher will usually give them an answer or two and will sometimes even restructure the assignment so it is a bit easier.

As far as discipline goes, there are a few things left that work: denying them a coveted privilege, such as inviting someone to eat lunch with them, may work. Putting them in an isolated spot to work can help, if there is such a place in the room or in the hall. But the arsenal for subs is pretty limited. Working for a class reward (such as an extra recess) sometimes works. But often, for me, it feels WRONG to reward them for behavior that should be the norm - just to keep them from behavior that is unacceptable.

I don't blame her for quitting.

Intelligent Life in the Classroom by Karen Isaacson and Tamara Fisher

Parts of this book are interesting and parts of it I found annoying. The part that I find most annoying is that I didn't see any acknowledgement that teachers often do not have much choice in the material they present or the manner in which it is presented. For instance, the district I sub in has adopted curricula in all of the subject areas in the elementary grades. For reading and math, the adopted curricula include textbooks that have mostly scripted lessons. This past year, since the math program was new, teachers were urged to follow the program explicitly. That meant that the lesson was pretty much pre-planned and there was very little chance to deviate from it. In fact, the textbooks and teachers' manuals are so overwhelming that very few teachers were able to include all of the material they were supposed to cover - there was simply too much.

Now, I know this book is supposed to be about taking GT kids into account and believe me, I think that is super important, but how does the regular classroom teacher have time to do that? When the teachers are struggling to just get through the regular material, how do they have time or energy to do the extension activities or even, for that matter, the activities for English language learners or those for kids who need more support? When the book fails to take any of this into account, it seems completely unrealistic to me. Sure, it would be lovely to be able to chuck your whole lesson because one of your students was super interested in mold. But teachers have this thing called accountability and they can't do that very often. Yes, that is a fault of the system, but to present it as though the teachers have a choice in the matter is a bit unfair.

The part of the book that I found interesting was the description of the pullout classes. I ran pullout classes for 5 years and remember them fondly. I never had any particular child as outstanding as the girls described in this book, but we did some very interesting and worthwhile stuff. One of my favorites was dissecting old computers and then dissecting fetal pigs and comparing them as systems. I would love to do that kind of thing again.

This isn't a bad book - a bit condescending in places and, as described above, a bit unrealistic. But it might make a reasonable introduction to giftedness for some teachers. There are better books in terms of practicality, but this one is OK for motivation.