Beginner’s Guide to Life on the Bright Side

I have just finished reading Derrin Cramer’s new book and I can definitely recommend it for parents and teachers of gifted students!
Beginner’s Guide to Life on the Bright Side by Derrin Cramer
Published by Thinking Ahead Extension Workshops, Como Western Australia, 2012
http://www.thinkingahead.com.au/Resources/Beginners_Guide.htm

This book is a comprehensive guide for parents and teachers and provides them with a wealth of information in an easy to read format.
Part 1 – A Gifted Child describes what a gifted child looks like, giftedness in the early childhood years and examines some of the myths surrounding giftedness

Part 2 – The Needs of the Gifted covers friendship and social issues, sensitivity, intensity and emotional issues, Dabrowski’s overexcitabilities, perfectionism, sense of justice and moral awareness, depression and stress, giftedness in families and giftedness throughout life

Part 3 – Measuring Intelligence looks at IQ testing and the different IQ assessment tests

Part 4 – Twice –Exceptionality is devoted to discussion of children who are both gifted and have some disability, learning difficulty or difference such as the 4 Ds –dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia and dyspraxia, ADHD and Sensory issues

Part 5 – Succeeding discusses Succeeding in Life and Motivation and Success with Learning including the topics of creativity, optimism, resilience, Mindset, boredom and good habits

Part 6 – Advocating for your child addresses advocating for your child including choosing a school, meeting with the school and what to ask for

Part 7 For Teachers is a section to help teachers recognise the gifted students in their classes and provide some strategies for working with gifted students.

Throughout the book there are quotations and every part contains Read More sections giving details of books and articles for further reading.  As well as an Appendix containing useful checklists, an Index and a Glossary there is an excellent Notes section at the end of the book.

This is the book I would have loved to have when our children were young!

It can be purchased at http://www.thinkingahead.com.au/Resources/Beginners_Guide.htm

Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the Education of Gifted and Talented Students

Australia is engrossed in welcoming home the athletes who participated at the London Olympics, planning street parades for them and evaluating the effectiveness and cost of the Australian Olympic campaign

It was great to read an opinion piece by David Southwick MP, Chair of the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the Education of Gifted and Talented Students,  in The Age newspaper today
http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/forget-the-games-we-need-to-support-our-gifted-students-20120817-24ddj.html

It expresses very similar sentiments to one of my posts on Sprite’s Site blog on2 July 2012 http://spritessite.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/the-un-olympics-bower/

Here is part of that post

On 25 July 2011, the day of the first of the hearings for the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the Education of Gifted and Talented Students, http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/etc/article/1339

the front page news was

Cadel Evans wins Tour de France
http://www.theage.com.au/sport/cycling/a-selfconfessed-loner-with-a-nation-riding-beside-him-x2014-australia-celebrates-a-new-sporting-legend-20110724-1hvdq.html

and

http://www.abc.net.au/am/indexes/2011/am_20110725.htm

This led Carmel Meehan, President of the VAGTC, to say during her evidence

“We celebrate people like Cadel Evans. He had a problem that he has solved in a physical way, and we have him on the front page of our papers today. We have people like Gustav Nossal and people who are working in stem cell research in our universities and who are doing brilliant work, but we do not see much of that on the front page of the paper. Our gifted and talented students are the resource that we have to solve those problems and the people who tomorrow will be at the cutting edge of helping humanity to survive.”

And

“We acknowledge our sporting heroes. We have a very good model for acknowledging excellence in our sporting domains. That could be transposed very easily into celebration of academic excellence, problem-solving, music and arts. In this country if we have good leadership in acknowledging gifted and talented people and celebrating their successes in the way that we celebrate our sporting heroes’ successes, then we are well on the way to having a very smart next generation coming through.

What we are looking for is equity for all the fields, whether it be in sport, arts, dance, mathematics and science, or whatever. In a level playing field let us celebrate it all, not one at the expense of the other.”
http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/images/stories/committees/etc/Past_Inquiries/EGTS_Inquiry/Transcripts_of_Evidence/25_July_2011_VAGTC_CORRECTED_VERSION.pdf

On 12 August 2011 Cadel Evans was given a street parade through Melbourne http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2011/08/11/3291187.htm

Extract from Sprite’s Site blog entry 21 June 2012
http://spritessite.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/in-the-news/

On Wednesday 20 June 2012 the report of the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the Education of Gifted and Talented Students 2011 was tabled and the report posted at http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/etc/article/1341
with the full 336 page report in PDF form at http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/images/stories/committees/etc/Past_Inquiries/EGTS_Inquiry/Final_Report/Gifted_and_Talented_Final_Report.pdf

The recommendations arising from the Inquiry can be found on the VAGTC website at
Recommendations from the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the Education of Gifted and Talented Students
http://www.vagtc.asn.au/sites/vagtc.asn.au/files/Recommendations%20G&T.pdf

The Age newspaper reported on the findings of the inquiry at
http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/gifted-students-go-dumb-to-fit-in-20120620-20ogw.html

If you follow Sprite’s Site you may remember that on 2 July 2011 I was busy writing a submission for this inquiry and had delayed celebrating Sprite’s blog birthday because of it http://spritessite.wordpress.com/2011/07/02/hard-to-please-everyone/

My submission to the Inquiry can be read at
http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/images/stories/committees/etc/Past_Inquiries/EGTS_Inquiry/Submissions/113_Gifted_Resources.pdf

There’s life in the old Blog yet!

Recently I received an email telling me that I needed to either close the Gifted Resources blog or update it to the newer format. I realised what a long time it had been since I posted on it. All my blogging energy has been poured into Sprite’s Site for the last few years.

My tech guru, Jamie Tarling, put in a lot of work to update this blog and transfer old posts into it. It was exciting to see the possible formats and themes on offer for the updated version. The picture in the blog header changes randomly from a selection of Gifted Resources pictures at each page refresh. Thank you very much, Jamie!

So how will I use this blog? I enjoyed  the walk down memory lane as I read the old posts.
They are a mixture of Gifted Resources information and personal stories.
And I can see the seeds of some of my current interests expressed in some of the posts.
I think I will use this blog for posts which relate to Gifted Resources, to issues relating to giftedness and possibly include some personal stories. But if the posts relate to Sprite or any of the characters from that blog I will post them on Sprite’s Site.

I may import some of the posts from Sprite’s Site into this blog and there will be quite a bit of cross referencing between the two blogs.  I am going to add Tags to the previous posts and have fun sprucing up the blog. Maybe the Dabrowski Dogs will visit this blog occasionally too?