News from New York

Here is a letter I received from Dr Sandra Lea-Wood of CHIP Geelong

Gifted and Talented Education in New York

In 2002, I presented my PhD findings to the Wallace Symposium, an international forum for cutting edge research in gifted development. As a result I was invited to be an adjunct professor this northern summer at the City University of New York. Hunter College is located in the heart of New York City, and part of the City University of New York network. New York State has recently created a Gifted Certificate Extension for teachers who work with gifted and talented children and my involvement was designing and presenting coursework within this program.Hunter is committed to understanding and encouraging high level achievement in diverse kinds of learners and since 1941, Hunter College Campus Schools (Kindergarten to Grade 12) have been publicly-funded laboratory schools for intellectually gifted learners, and are widely regarded as pre-eminent schools for gifted education. The Gifted Centre was initiated in 2001and is working toward establishing a set of teacher development opportunities creating a nexus for programs, activities, services, and institutions pertaining to gifted education and development.

Provisions for the gifted and talented in New York comprise dedicated schools for the gifted, self-contained classes in regular schools much like our SEALP schools and pull-out programs in regular schools.

I was fortunate to be able to live on the Upper East Side of NY while I was there and the experience of working and living in New York City certainly was exhilarating. A friend stayed with me for a couple of weeks and, although the weather was extremely hot, around 35-40 degrees with humidity to match, we were able to visit most of the wonderful museums in New York and actually row on Central Park Lake. Claudia and I went to two Broadway shows as well as spending a day at Sag Harbor on Long Island.

Sandra Lea-Wood PhD

Manager

CHIP Centre Geelong

 

Pelicans

I did not manage to see the pelicans in Warrnambool this year but here are the photos I took at Hopkins River, Warrnambool last year

    

Warrnambool GEMM Program

Once again Active Minds in Warrnambool put on an excellent GEMM (Gifted Extension Moulding Minds) Program last weekend. This year Brauer College provided an excellent venue for the event.

On the Saturday Dr. Karen Rogers and Michelle Juratovic conducted a very well received GERRIC Workshop for Parents in Regional and Remote Areas of Australia for a large group of parents, some of whom had travelled great distances to attend.
For full details of these workshops see http://gerric.arts.unsw.edu.au/regn.html

On the Sunday there was an Expo of local businesses and organisations, a host of exciting workshops for the children and a Film Discussion on the film Top Kid for the parents.

Unfortunately this year I was not able to come a day earlier and there was no time to see the whales and pelicans but I still enjoyed the whole weekend very much.

Congratulations to Active Minds for an excellent program!