Learning and Sharing

You know, learning is a lifelong venture.  I believe that to my core.  I have never felt that there will come a time when I've "arrived" in learning and can finally turn off that part of my brain and just relish in what I've learned, and only impart my wisdom and knowledge to those who know less than me.  In fact, I think I learn even from the youngest among us as well.  It always amazes me how much a young child learns in such a short time.  That level of learning would burn me out at this time in my life.

There's this children's book called "Zoom."  It's a wonderful book and kids love it. It starts off with the page above, and with each page turn, the reader is pulled back to see more of the picture.  This picture happens to be the comb of a rooster. The page after this is of two kids looking through the window at the rooster, and the page after that is the house the kids are in who are looking at the rooster.  On and on the book goes, and each page turn gets "Ooo's and Aaaah's" from the kiddos.  It's pretty fun.

But then I relate the book to life.  I ask them, "If each page represents something big you've learned that changes your view of how the world works, and this entire book is a lifetime, where would you say you are in this book?"  The responses are wonderful.  The 5th graders and most of the 4th graders get the question and what it means.  And quite developmentally so.  They give answers like "Maybe two or three pages into the book."  I had one third grader, though, tell me he was close to the end of the book.  I said, "Really?  Because I don't think I'M even halfway through it!"....just to give him some perspective.  But he thought a second and said, "Yeah.  I'm almost to the end.  I'm pretty smart."  Mind you, all of these kids are gifted kids, so they will get questions like that, but this child's answer makes me smile every time I think of it.

I have been asked lately, however, to teach adults.  It's pretty humbling, because I am only a few steps ahead of others, but there it is.  My expertise is about gifted kids, specifically those who are twice exceptional and may have some learning difficulties.  I'm concerned about the RTI process in our schools, because kids who are gifted, but have learning disabilities, are not being identified.  There was a time when students were identified with full out educational psych evaluations, and it was easier to see if a child had a learning disability with that information. The current system is reliant on teacher knowledge of what a twice exceptional child looks like in the classroom, and that training just isn't given.  I teach gifted kids at two schools whose combined population equals 1100 students.  I have one twice exceptional student.  One.  Out of 1100.  It's sad, because that means there are quite a few students who are not receiving the services they desperately need.

We've zoomed in on education over the last 15 years or so, but I believe it's time to zoom out.  We need a paradigm shift in regards to how we are serving our students.  THAT's some knowledge I know I can impart.  If I'm wrong, I'm willing to learn.

Unloading these thoughts

I've learned a lot these past few years since returning to the States.  I enjoy learning, and realized recently after taking survey after survey, that it is a hobby of mine.  I was thinking about possible hobbies when filling out personality profiles for school ( I'm an INFP, for those who need a little TMI), and it suddenly hit me that I gravitate toward learning new things.  Sad, but this is my exciting life.

The down side to all of this learning is that it starts to jumble up in my head.  I have all of these thoughts and connections going on, but they just sit there until I need to use them.  It came in handy this Summer when I was tasked with putting together the training for our staff retreat.  (Funny side story, my principal told me how impressed she was with all of the neat information I put into the training, and I think she thought I worked to find all of those things over the summer.  I didn't.  Instead, it was me finding in the recesses of my brain these remote things I had learned about years ago, and I finally found an application for it all! It was a glorious moment. LOL!) Other than these fleeting moments that are few and far between, my brain is just a tangled web of connections of new information, which then requires the pondering of said connections, and then....overload.

Well.  One of the things I learned about last year was about how the brain learns.  It seems our brain is more like a computer than we realize!  When a computer has too much information in it's storage system, it begins to freeze.  Processors slow down, and something has to be done with all of this stuff.  So files are transferred and downloaded into a separate storage in order to free up space.  Such is the state of my brain.

The downloading of my thoughts will once again take place on this blog.  It's not necessarily for anyone else's benefit, even though this is a public forum.  I only have 12 readers.  This is for me to be able to unload some of the things I've been learning, and if others learn, too, or are even prompted to think further on my thoughts, then more power to ya!

Let the downloading begin.

Zoom

This perfectly imperfect life has been busy lately.  It's been awhile since I've posted.  But life is full and I'm continuing to learn and grow.

I love learning, and I love the fact that the more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.  I talked about this with my class early in the year.  I teach third through fifth grade gifted and talented students.  It's a fun job, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.  The way these kids make connections to the big ideas that we're learning always amazes me.  I think in 3rd grade I was in Mrs. Assim's class, and fighting over teams in kickball.  I do remember reading "Little House on the Prairie" as a class, and when the tv show came on, we wrote the producers and told them that their Mr. Edwards looked more like Pa in the book than the Pa they chose.  But that is the extent of my 3rd grade remembrances.

There's a book called "Zoom."  It's a wordless book, and it's great for gifted kids, because just when you think the book is almost finished, the illustrator zooms out some more and adds to the big picture.  I won't give it away completely, but I love showing it to new classes because there are always audible "Aaaah's."  This year, though, I took the book and related it to learning.  I pointed out that many times we learn and think we've arrived in our knowledge and understanding, then a "Zoom" will happen, and we'll realize we really didn't know as much as we thought!

As a funny little test, I asked the 5th, then the 4th, then the 3rd graders to relate their learning to the Zoom book.  I merely asked them, "If this book represents all of the learning you will do in your life, what page would you be on now?"  5th graders were the most conservative, but that's probably because developmentally they would get that kind of question better.  But they still saw themselves as about a fourth of the way through.  4th graders saw themselves a little more than that, I I had one 3rd grader tell me he knew everything he needs to know.

I let them talk about it a few minutes and debate, and then I stepped in and said, "What if I told you I think I'm not even halfway through this book?"  The conversation quickly shifted, (except for the boy who still thought he was through the entire book) and a paradigm shift took place.

It's the thing I love about teaching gifted students.  They get stuff like this.  They enjoy  thinking in terms of "what if" and in seeing possibilities.  We have some real future leaders in this group.  I'm glad I get to say I knew them when!

Today...

Happy anniversary, Big Dad!  Love you, bunches!!

USA Women's Gymnasts...

....ROCK.  Gah.

Decluttering

OK, I actually had fun today with Big Dad, putzing around the house and decluttering.  I guess it's late spring cleaning.  We just bought a dining room table, and we weren't sure how we wanted it to sit in the dining room.  So we just took everything out to move things around.  But then we thought we might as well steam clean the carpet.  So we did.  Then I started looking at the curtains and realized they could be washed, so I did.  But that's when BD saw a nick or two in the paint, so he got out the paint and touched up.  He also noticed that the curtain rod needed to be more secure, so he fixed that, too.  Then we played around with the furniture. 

I think we've got it the way we want it.  It will be perfect when I move my school stuff out of there on Monday. ;)

Air's Out

It's getting to be a yearly thing.  I guess we should just plan on it in the budget.  Our air conditioner is out again.  Almost a year to the day.

I called about getting a technician to come out, and the lady said, "Well, I see we replaced your capacitor last week...is it still not working?"  I corrected her mistake, and that's when I realized it's a repeat of last year.  Not my own memory, mind you.  That's failing quick.

I actually kind of like watching technicians come out.  I've said before, I like to watch people who are good at what they do, and air conditioner technicians fall into that category.  I learned a lot about capacitors last year and how to tell when they go bad.  Not that it will help me, really.  By the time it goes out again,  I'll have to remember that info, and I did mention that my memory is failing, right?

I also like figuring out how things work.  I used to love my kids' Beast Wars transformers, even though they'd frustrate me to no end.  But learning about mechanical things is fun, and I enjoy making the link to things I'll be teaching the kids.  That's probably the main motivating factor, not some self professed love of intricate things to give myself the appearance of intellectual superiority.  The real truth is it gives me something to use with kids that are smarter than me!  Now THAT'S smart thinking.

The technician will be here in a few.  Gotta go watch.