Education Learning Issues

NO MORE MULTI-PART POSTS EACH WEEK. From now on, we'll just post two or three times a week in separate posts.

IT'S STILL SUMMER, according to Wrightslaw. At least, their "Summer School for Advocates" is still in session. The most recent edition of Special Ed Advocate (Part 5 and the conclusion of Summer School) features "action strategies for advocates helping children with disabilities." Find it.

MORE ON ADVOCACY. If you find yourself involved at school because your 2e child has an IEP, you might be interested in advice in the National Examiner: Always tape IEP meetings. Find out why.

DO YOUR BEST, PARENTS OF GIFTED KIDS. Apparently the impact of positive parenting can last for generations. That's the conclusion of a study done at Oregon State University on three generations of families. Negative parenting showed up in negative behaviors in children and, when those children grew up, negative and inconsistent parenting on their kids. Read more.

SPORTS, HIGH ACHIEVERS, AND LD. A back-up quarterback for the NFL San Francisco 49ers has an LD similar to dyslexia that challenges his ability to learn from the playbook and textual materials. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, teams were hesitant to sign him because of his LD. Read the article.

TETRIS IS GOOD FOR YOU? A study of adolescent girls showed that those who played Tetris 30 minutes a day developed greater brain efficiency and a thicker cortex. Some of the changes remain unexplained to the researchers. Read about it.

FROM DAVIDSON INSTITUTE. Just a reminder to teachers that the DITD website has "The Educator's Guild," and, given the institute's mission, there are plenty of resources for educators of gifted children. Find it here.

MORE TEACHER RESOURCES. A press release about Thinkfinity.org, a Verizon-sponsored site for teachers, notes that the site contains 154 new free online educational resources for the new school year. Two of the new resources are from the Smithsonian National Museum of American History; in another, students apply text messaging to the character Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye. Find Thinkfinity.

BOOKS FOR GIFTED KIDS. In the early days of 2e Newsletter, Judith Halsted contributed columns on books for young, gifted readers. Her book Some of My Best Friends Are Books has just been updated in a third edition. Read EdNews.org's Michael Shaughnessy's take on it here.

PRIVATE, PUBLIC -- WHICH IS HARDER? A young woman who was a straight-A student in the Fairfax County, Virginia, public schools transferred to a private boarding school in 10th grade. According to an article in Virginia's Connection, the young woman discovered that "I really didn't know how to study" before. What's the difference between the well-regarded Fairfax and Montgomery County schools and this private school? What are the advantages to gifted students of such a private school? Find out.

DOES SCHOOL BORE YOUR CHILD? Washington Post columnist Valerie Strauss covers the work of cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham on the biological and cognitive bases of learning. According to the columnist, Willingham, in his book Why Don't Student's Like School?, contends that students' brains will give up on problems that are too hard -- or too easy. He also takes issue with several beliefs commonly held by parents and educators: that everyone has a preferred learning style (visual, auditory, kinesthetic); that critical thinking trumps learning facts (kids need both, according to the scientist); and that making content relevant to learners increases interest (we'd have to find out more before we'd agree with this). Find the column.

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