Education Learning Issues

• Collaborate on projects with other teachers, classes or subject matter experts
• Connect with other teachers based on ages taught, location, or subjects of interest
• Discover new inspiration [their words, not ours] through resources such as videos, links, and tips.

ENDORSEMENT FOR "GEEK CAMP." CNN describes summer camps for gifted young people, in particular the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth and the Duke Talent Identification Program. Read how campers past and present appreciate the experiences they had. Sample reactions: "Yes, yes, I'm not a freak..."; and "You can really get into discussions with people and they'll know exactly what you're talking about." The article's lead notes that Lady Gaga once went to gifted camp; so did one of the founders of Google and the founder of Facebook. Read the article.

MORE ON IMPULSIVITY AND DOPAMINE. Another study, this one from Vanderbilt University, links high levels of dopamine in the brain with impulsivity. Researchers there found that when highly impulsive subjects were given a drug that released dopamine their brains released more than four times as much of the chemical as the brains of less-impulsive subjects. Read the report.

iPADS FOR ALL. A college-prep school in Georgia that serves bright kids with learning challenges has decided to use the Apple iPad to learn in a multi-sensory way. One app on the iPad, Dragon Naturally Speaking, will help students with dysgraphia. The headmaster says that there are so many educational apps available that the school will be able to get rid of most textbooks. Read more.

EQUITY IN ENDOCRINE DISRUPTION. You know those things you don't want your kids exposed to because they can interfere with the body's endocrine system, including the reproductive system? They're equally high in both high-income and low-income homes, according to a study in California, and they're present in the air inside and outside as well as in dust inside the homes. Even more worrisome to us: the number of suspected endocrine disrupting compounds the scientists tested for -- about 70. That's lots of stuff to worry about. Read more.

GENES & ENVIRONMENT INFLUENCE PSYCHOPATHY; that according to researchers at the University of Illinois. They discovered that "children with one variant of a serotonin transporter gene are more likely to exhibit psychopathic traits if they also grow up poor." Hopefully your encounters with gifted psychopaths will be infrequent, but now if you do encounter one you can better explain the causes. Read the report.

BOB HERBERT IS FRUSTRATED. The columnist for The New York Times notes that "the U.S., once the world’s leader in the percentage of young people with college degrees, has fallen to 12th among 36 developed nations." He sees college education as important in maintaining a good standard of living in the U.S. and crucial to the country's economic competitiveness. He blames everyone, saying "A society that closes its eyes to the most important issues of the day, that often holds intellectual achievement in contempt, that is more interested in hip-hop and Lady Gaga than educating its young is all but guaranteed to spiral into a decline." If you need more things to be depressed or angry about, read the column.

TREES AND GIFTED KIDS. Tamara Fisher makes a metaphor about growth, potential, and constraints. Read her blog.

READING DIFFICULTIES AND INTERVENTIONS. Two UK scientists compared three reading programs to see which one helped most in children with reading-comprehension difficulties. If you raise or teach a bright young person with reading problems, read about the programs and the results.

CULTURE AND PSYCHOLOGY. The July issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science evidently contained a special section on the "macro" influences on brain structure, brain function, thought, and behavior. Two of the articles were summarized in Science Daily. Find one about the influence of culture; find one about the influence of social and physical environments.

#GTCHAT. If you "tweet," or would like to, you might be interested in Michael Shaughnessy's EdNews.org interview with Deborah Mersino, who moderates #gtchat on Twitter, devoted to discussing gifted issues. Read the interview.

NOT MUCH NEWS so far this week...

SPECIAL ED ADVOCATE addresses dysgraphia in its newly-distributed issue. Included: a piece on understanding dysgraphia and what it might mean for your high-ability child's problems with spelling, handwriting, or written expression; getting help for dysgraphia; and how, as a child, Pete Wright of Wrightslaw was labeled as borderline mentally retarded and emotionally disturbed because of his problems with reading and writing. Find the newsletter.

A MENTOR FOR YOUR GIFTED CHILD. The Davidson Institute has several resources on its site about mentoring your high-ability, highly-motivated child. One is an article titled "Tips for Parents"; you can also find a PDF guidebook on mentorships; and there's a pointer to a site for a Girls E-Mentoring program.

REQUIRED FOR SUCCESS: IQ OR WORKING MEMORY? An article at SharpBrains.com describes a study indicating that working memory is required for school success, no matter what the IQ. According to the article, "..working memory at the start of formal education is a more powerful predictor of subsequent academic success than IQ in the early years." Find the article.

FRIDAY: EDWEEK CHAT ON DIFFERENTIATION. The current issue of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter focuses on differentiation and cluster grouping and includes material by Carol Ann Tomlinson, a differentiation expert. At 3 p.m. (Eastern) this Friday, May 15, Education Week offers an online chat on the topic with Professor Tomlinson. Find out more. (Transcripts are available for completed chats.)

LAUGHING AT (OR WITH) THE GIFTED. Tamara Fisher's latest blog entry drew our attention to the network television show "The Big Bang Theory," a sitcom portraying young, gifted, academician/researchers at Caltech -- four men and a woman. Fisher says she's hooked on the program, and provides links to some episodes of the show available online. Find her post.

LAUGHING AT (THE COMIC WITH) AD/HD. In an article in the Toronto Star, a Canadian comedian describes the effect of AD/HD on his life and work. Not diagnosed -- as sometimes happens -- until an offspring received the label, Rick Green is involved in a national public-awareness campaign on AD/HD, according to the article. An interesting sideline: the article included language from an AD/HD expert who contends that attention deficit results from childhood stress, a theory new to us. Find the article.

A SECOND "e": BURNOUT? Science Daily reports a Finnish study showing that up to 20 percent of success-oriented, upper-secondary-school females suffer from school burnout, which can in turn lead to depression. (Boys, according to the researchers, "tend to develop more of a cynical, negative stance towards school.") The article also reports on higher education burnout. Read it.

FOLLOW-UP: MUSICAL PHARMACOLOGY. In an item the week of March 29th, we mentioned a New York Times article on musical pharmacology. This week, we heard from Dr. Roland Haas, CEO of a firm offering a product mentioned in the article. He suggests that those interested in more information on the topic go to his firm's site, www.sanoson.at (English version available). He and a colleague who was quoted in the Times article have also written a book; more information here. Finally, on the topic of the influence of music in education Hass suggests the writings of Hans Guenther Bastian, although a quick Google search tells us that you won't get far without a working knowledge of German.

2e BUT COLLEGE VALEDICTORIAN -- thanks to his mother's homeschooling. A Georgia mother declined to believe early prognoses that neither of her sons would be able attend college. One son was dyslexic and dysgraphic; the other dyslexic with auditory processing issues. According to the article, the first son is the valedictorian of his class at Augusta State University, and the other son will graduate from the college this summer. Read the article. [UPDATE 5/15: Read a post-graduation article about the event and the valedictorian.]

WRIGHTSLAW THIS WEEK. Here's what's in it, according to the publishers: "In this issue of the Special Ed Advocate we answer questions about behavior assessments, positive intervention plans and support, and what you can do to get help for children with behavior problems." If the topic rings a bell with you, check it out.

LD ONLINE'S RECOMMENDED BOOKS. Books of note highlighted in an email today include: Understanding Your Child's Brain and Behavior from Birth to Age 6; A Guide to Collaboration for IEP Teams [good luck -ed.]; Levine's A Mind at a Time; Accommodations in Higher Education Under the ADA; Addressing the Challenging Behavior of Children with High Functioning Autism/Asperger Syndrome...; Attention, Memory, and Executive Function; Understanding the Social Lives of Children [scary thought]; and more. Find the recommendations here.

2e NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIBERS, please note that the contents of the May/June issue of 2e Newsletter are now posted in the subscriber-only area of the website. You know where it is; if not, ask for a reminder. Non-subscribers may find some of the content in the public area of the site, in particular: "Fighting for FAPE," the story of a family looking for educational justice for their 2e son; Part 3 of the "Mythology of Learning" series written by experts from Bridges Academy; Bob Seney's column reviewing literature likely to appeal to 2e readers; "Ask Dr. Sylvia," advice from Dr. Sylvia Rimm; and the "Parents' Perspective" column, this one by Sarah Garrison.

SPOTLIGHT ON 2e SERIES. Many of you are aware that Glen Ellyn Media also offers a "Spotlight on 2e Series" of booklets on various aspects of twice-exceptionality. For the rest of May, we're offering free shipping on the booklets, and many subscribers and non-subscribers alike are taking advantage. Subscribers, check your email inbox; non-subscribers, go here to find out more about the booklets and see the offer.

2010 2e CONFERENCE. The Weinfeld Education Group and AEGUS (Association for the Education of Gifted Underachieving Students) are planning a conference called "Diamonds in the Rough: Smart Kids Who Learn Differently." For educators, parents, and students, the conference is scheduled for March 11-13 of next year in Chevy Chase, Maryland. According to the organizers, highlights will include best practices for identifying the aforementioned kids; research-based strategies and interventions for helping them; the presentation of a lifetime achievement award to Dr. Susan Baum; and a presentation by Jonathan Mooney. We'll pass on more information as we receive it.

SMART, BUT NO OUTPUT. Lorel Shea, the gifted education editor for Bella Online, has posted an article about what happens and what to do when a child's input facilities work just fine, and the child is able to learn all kinds of things -- but the child has difficulty with output in the form of written expression. See the article.

ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY FOR WRITING. By coincidence, we just received a press release noting that AlphaSmart's NEO 2 classroom device now has Text2Speech features that allow learners to hear back what they keyboard into the device. In addtion, NEO 2 works with Google Docs and allows students and teachers to wirelessly access, store, edit, and share documents. Looks like there are some other handy features for teachers, too. We've had personal experience with AlphaSmart's products and have been impressed. Find out more.

SO HOW'S THAT RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR KID? Science Daily reports on a study of tension in the relationship between parents and child. Among the findings: parents are bothered more than the kids, older children bother parents more than younger ones, and daughters can be more aggravating than sons. Read the report.

RECOVERY FROM AUTISM? USA Today reports on a study of 58 mildly-autistic children with above-average IQs. At least ten percent of the children, after years of intensive behavioral therapy, were no longer considered autistic. Read the article.

ON THE MATTER OF ATTENTION. A recent New York Times article focuses on attention and concentration. The article says that novel stimuli tend to gain the brain's attention, even over something you're trying to concentrate on. The brain can override this voluntarily, but overriding involves syncing neuronal oscillation (gamma waves) to direct the brain to attend to something else. But there's more: apparently, pulses of light have the capability to induce gamma waves in the brain. One scientist foresees using low-wavelength light to penetrate the skull and help direct attention by synchronizing neurons -- no more Ritalin. Also in the article: tips for increasing concentration, and the assertion that "multitasking is a myth." Read the article.