VAGTC Vision A4 Book 2022 vol 33 no2 EMAG

The Victorian Association for Gifted and Talented Children

Volume 33, No.2 2022

Strengthening Advocacy for Gifted Children • Best practice advocacy for gifted and 2e learners • Reshaping Stage 4 for English to differentiate for gifted students • Gifted learners with disability: a ‘recipe’ for success • Advocacy, parent groups, and collaboration

Volume 33, No.2 2022 VISION, VOLUME 33 NO.2 2022 © 2022 Victorian Association for Gifted and Talented Children 2/3 Wellington Street, Kew, Victoria, 3101

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MANY THANKS TO THIS ISSUE’S CONTRIBUTORS The most amazing people volunteered to make this issue what it is.

Much gratitude to: Gabby, Luke, Seqina, Lucy, Justin, Jude, Benjamin, Clair, Amy, Kathy Harrison, Julie Skolnick, Greg Longney, Charlotte Wells, Carol Barnes, Terry Friedrichs, Kim Farbisz, Emily Villamar-Robbins, Bernadette Sheedy and Victoria Poulos.

For advertising inquiries and submission guidelines please visit www.VAGTC.org.au/Vision.

VISION Magazine welcomes contributions from members and students and invite student submissions of artwork, photographs, poetry, or short stories.

Best-practices, reflections and educator-submitted reviews and articles are also welcome.

Copyright. The Victorian Association for Gifted and Talented Children (VAGTC) 2022 All rights reserved.

VISION is published by the Victorian Association for Gifted and Talented Children (VAGTC) in two volumes each year and distributed to all VAGTC membership subscribers.

All material in VISION is wholly copyright (unless otherwise stated via CC license and reproduction without the written permission of VAGTC is strictly forbidden.

Neither this publication nor its contents constitute an explicit endorsement by the VAGTC of the products or services mentioned in advertising or editorial content.

Whilst every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, VAGTC shall not have any liability for errors or omissions.

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In some instances images have been provided to us by those who appear editorially and we have their permission in each case to use the images.

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Such sites are controlled or produced by third parties. Except as indicated, we do not control,endorse, sponsor or approve any such websites or any content on them, nor do we provide any warranty or take any responsibility for any aspect of the content of this publication.

We apologize if anything appears incorrectly. Please let us know and we will be sure to acknowledge it in the next issue.

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32 No. 21 2022 2021 VISION, Volume 33

Cherries and Sprinkles - by Gabby, Year 5, St Joan of Arc, Brighton.

VAGTC provides professional development for educators and support to parents through seminar presentations provided online or face to face. Seminar lengths vary from one hour to a full day, and cover a wide variety of topics. We aim to expand our offerings.

Do you have expertise or resources that you would like to share? If you are interested in developing seminars and/or presenting, please send your expression of interest to info@vagtc.org.au. Remuneration is on an hourly basis.

Presenters should have: • Minimum of 5 years experience in gifted education • Post graduate qualifications in gifted education and/ or extensive experience working with gifted children 2

• Experience and ability in presenting at conferences/ seminars • VIT registration • ABN

VISION, Volume 33 No. 2 2022

Contents Title Page Contributor

Student Voice Cherries and Sprinkles

2

Gabby

God’s Garden

4

Luke

Comic

4

Seqina

Impressionist Landscape

9

Lucy

Garden of Dreams

9

Justin

Then and Now

9

Jude

Lokie

14

Benjamin

Royal Portrait

14

Clair

In Your World

18

Amy

Welcome From the President

5

Kathy Harrison

Resource Best Practice Advocacy for Gifted and 2e Learners

6

Julie Skolnick

Students Are Unlikely to Advocate for Themselves: Reshaping Stage 4 for English to Differentiate for Gifted Students

10

Greg Longney & Charlotte Wells

Gifted Learners with Disability: A ‘Recipe’ for Success

15

Carol Barnes

Three Adult Actions for Gifted Youth with Learning, Behavioral, and Attentional Disabilities: Advocacy, Activism, and Organizing

20

Terry Friedrichs

Perspective & Reflection Advocacy, Parent Groups, and Collaboration: Tools for Meeting Gifted Needs

23

Kim Farbisz & Emily Villamar-Robbins

Fireflash

25

Victoria Poulos

Facilitating Gifted Students’ Thriving in Mixed Ability Classrooms - A Reflection

26

Bernadette Sheedy

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VISION, Volume 33 No. 2 2022

God’s Garden - by Luke, Year 4, St Matthews School, Fawkner.

Comic by Seqina, Year 7, Al Faisal College.

ADVERTISING IN VISION We are exploring options for advertising in VISION in 2023. If you are interested in advertising in our publication, please contact us at: vision@vagtc.org.au

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VISION, Volume 33 No. 2 2022

Welcome

From the President Kathy Harrison AS I WRITE THIS, THE YEAR IS QUICKLY COMING TO A CLOSE AND PLANNING FOR THE NEXT YEAR IS IN FULL SWING. VAGTC’s agreement with the Department of Education and Training Victoria (DET) over the past three years is coming to an end and writing our final report provides a good opportunity to reflect on what we have achieved. Past president, Mark Smith, brokered the agreement early in 2020 and the plan was to take seminars to the regions to support parents in advocating for their gifted children. All plans were put aside in response to lockdowns, changed modes of communication and delivery, and a very uncertain future. I have to say that VAGTC pivoted extraordinarily well and ended up delivering more than was planned. More importantly, listening to and being guided by parents and teachers as they approached us for advice strengthened our connections to people on the ground.

Out of this was born the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) Resource for parents, an extensive compilation of questions that we have been asked along with succinct, easy-to-read responses. Our model of empowering parents through targeted information seminars and individual advice along with advocacy at the school and system level has been praised by gifted education advocates worldwide. We look forward to entering a new funding agreement with the DET in the near future. The DET’s overarching goal is to increase capacity in schools to cater for high ability children. It is significant that the importance of supporting parents as active participants in achieving this goal is recognised.

Under this edition’s theme of strengthening advocacy, we have a wide range of articles. The theme of regarding each student in their uniqueness and leading from their strengths is central (Carol Barnes) along with challenging the assumption that conformity is good (Terry

Friedrichs) in responding effectively to unique combinations of strengths and weaknesses. Kim Farbisz & Emily Villamar Robbins, under the banner of collaborative advocacy, bring us practical advice on how to advocate individually or as a group. Their wealth of experience in the US context translates well into the Australian setting and highlights some universal issues and strategies. Seeing how advocacy translates into specific programs, we hear from Victoria Poulos and how needs at a local level were filled through an innovative club. At the school level, Greg Longney describes a school wide approach to catering for gifted students, while his colleague Charlotte Wells details how she responded to this in her own classroom. She wanted to offer freedom of choice and independent learning and describes how students responded both positively and negatively. Her action research and observations are a great example to educators about noticing the difference interventions make. It is so helpful to see work samples and student feedback too.

Thanks to our student contributors too, for their writing and artworks.

We look forward to hearing more from students, seeing their creativity and passion.

I hope that you are encouraged in your journey of advocating for our gifted children. As always, we are keen to join you and support you along the way.

– Kathy Harrison VAGTC President

Call for Submissions - VISION Magazine Volume 34, No 1 Submissions are invited for our next edition on the theme of Managing Expectations of Giftedness and Talent. Due date 30th April, 2023.

VISION welcomes contributions on gifted education matters, including academic papers, reports on research, book reviews, perspectives from best practice and reflections. Some issues produced by VAGTC for VISION are thematic in nature. All written material should include a brief biographical note (approximately 30 words).

Photographs and images should be original, copyrighted to the author, of suitable quality for print reproduction (no smaller than 300dpi) and emailed in jpeg format. Articles should be between 800-1500 words and be original work. All material submitted will be evaluated by the editors and outside referees where appropriate.

The editors reserve the right to edit accepted works in order to fit the publication formatting and language.

Email to: vision@vagtc.org.au

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VISION, Volume 33 No. 2 2022

Keynote Resource

Best Practice Advocacy for Gifted and 2e Learners.

Julie Skolnick, M.A., J.D. ADVOCACY ON BEHALF OF A GIFTED OR TWICE EXCEPTIONAL CHILD IS A LIFE-LONG PURSUIT. Within these ‘global advocacy’ efforts, parents find it necessary to explain, demystify, and encourage others to shift their mindset to understand the gifted or twice exceptional child. Ideally, advocacy efforts are planned with an understanding of the child’s needs and include carefully crafted and effective interventions. This article provides scaffolding to help parents succeed on behalf of their gifted or twice exceptional child utilizing an advocacy formula and the ‘Craft Your Child’s Story’ method.

If you are a parent advocating on behalf of your child, likely you share some of your child’s traits. This can make advocacy extra challenging because of the complex nature of having a 2e child and/or being a 2e adult. Parents, often feeling misunderstood and defensive themselves, try to balance their own emotional intensity and executive functioning weaknesses while advocating on their child’s behalf.

The way a gifted or twice exceptional person shows up in the world makes them different from their neurotypical peers or professionals with whom they interact. Perspective drives success: successful interactions, feelings of self-worth and feelings of accomplishment. Since gifted and twice exceptional people’s perspectives are rarely in sync with others’, the result is often misunderstanding and ineffective interventions.

Advocating on behalf of a gifted child means asking someone to truly learn what being gifted means; encouraging creative and sometimes out-of-the-box interventions; and finally requires flexibility when something doesn’t yield desired results.

Understanding The first step to helping others understand the gifted or twice exceptional child is to describe what Kasmierz Dabrowski called ‘overexcitabilities’.

Defined as an intense response to stimuli, Dabrowski maintained that overexcitabilities could lead to pleasurable or painful experiences.

These areas of intensity occur in five categories: Intellectual, Emotional, Imaginational, Sensual and Psychomotor and result in experiences that are qualitatively different from the neurotypical experience. Results may include:

assumptions. This chart juxtaposes common assumptions with the actual gifted experience:

Assumptions

Reality

The child is trying to show off by sharing all he knows.

The child is excited about their knowledge and is excited to share and discuss.

The child is trying to disrupt the class on purpose to irk the teacher.

The child is bored or confused and either needs enrichment or support in an area of learning difference.

The child is lazy and refuses to meet his potential.

The child is bored or needs support in an area of weakness.

Teachers don’t need to call on gifted students because they know they’ve already mastered material.

Engagement is imperative for a gifted child to feel invested in their learning.

The child is having a meltdown for no reason.

The child’s sensitive neurology is under attack and the child is in ‘fight or flight’ mode.

When debunking assumptions, parents often feel defensive. They are frustrated by a lack of understanding, patience, and a seemingly ‘glass-half-empty’ attitude toward their child. It is difficult in these circumstances to create a collaborative atmosphere and to advocate effectively. Having a simple formula helps parents stay on track.

Advocacy Formula Praise

A rage to learn Frustration when waiting for others to catch up Immense creativity Daydreaming when bored Deep empathy and concern for existential considerations Struggles with real and perceived injustice Pleasure or discomfort from sensory input A need to move to be productive

I recommend a simple but effective formula for advocating on behalf of your complex gifted or twice exceptional child. Known as ‘PraiseAsk-Thank’, this formula helps parents balance their desires with their child’s needs, and approach advocacy in a collaborative and positive manner. During a meeting or within an email, utilizing praise allows a soft start to the advocacy conversation. Human nature responds to gratitude, so parents do well to find something, anything, to praise.

This may include merely praising the teacher’s efforts at showing up to the meeting and acknowledging their busy schedule. Or it might include sharing something positive your child said about the content of the class, a book or project or even demonstrating appreciation for the teacher’s responsiveness to parents’ emails.

Helping others understand how the world affects your child is important when advocating on their behalf. It is equally important to describe how your child’s response to heightened input causes them to react.

Since triggers for a gifted or 2e child may remain unseen to others, an intense reaction is confusing and causes issues for the gifted child.

Their behavior is often misunderstood and interventions are based on incorrect assumptions. Advocacy, therefore, requires debunking these

Additionally, parents can help set the tone of an advocacy meeting by encouraging praise. Don’t be afraid to ask a teacher what they love about your child, or what they see as your child’s ‘superpowers’. This approach reframes their thinking and sets the tone for the meeting.

If they simply cannot give you a positive response, this is your first clue that despite your advocacy efforts, this environment may not be appropriate or safe for your child.

• • • • • • • •

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VISION, Volume 33 No. 2 2022

Ask

passions and interests’ include:

The ‘ask’ is your goal. This is where you will spend most of your advocacy efforts. Be sure your goals are clearly defined. Specific goals yield action items and ways to measure progress. When defining goals parents must prioritize. There are many things you probably want and need for your 2e child, but asking for too much at once usually results in very little done well.

• The teacher or learning specialist will meet with Leora during

When defining your goals, no matter the age of your child, make sure the goals incorporate what your child deems important. If you think your child needs more challenging work in a course but their frustration in class is derived from feeling like they are rarely given a chance to contribute, fold this into the goal. If the teacher states that she already knows your child mastered the material and therefore calls on other students, this is when you can advocate for more challenging work and express your child’s need to engage.

Incorporating the child’s desires helps them feel understood and connected.

Drafting specific goals is an art and requires practice. To test whether your goal is specific enough, consider whether you can outline necessary action items to meet that goal. Ask yourself whether you can delineate measurables to indicate progress. For instance, if your child is disengaging from class and seems unmotivated, a parent’s goal might be for this child to maintain their love of learning. It’s difficult to describe action items or identify measurables to meet the general goal of ‘Maintain their love of learning.’ Instead, the goal could be stated like this: ‘Leora’s engagement in class will increase by providing her with project choices, allowing her to give input on partner choice, and by spending time learning about Leora’s passions and interests.’ This specific goal is based on a deep understanding of Leora’s needs. Gifted kids do best when learning is meaningful and relatable. Choice affords Leora control and allows her to draw from her interests. Having input on who a gifted child works with is always a good idea since they often feel like they ‘do all the work’ or that other students don’t take the assignment as seriously as they do.

We know gifted and twice exceptional kids thrive on connection but that this is often difficult for them. Requesting intentional connection building with the teacher helps Leora feel like an important member of the class.

Action items that follow from the goal, ‘Leora’s engagement in class will increase by providing her with project choices, allowing her to give input on partner choice, and by spending time learning about Leora’s

study hall to discuss her interests and passions.

• The teacher will help Leora incorporate or make use of her

passions and interests within the classroom and assignments.

• Leora will be given choices on what topic to use for projects and

how she will show what she knows.

• Leora will have a chance to give input on partner choice for

group projects.

• Leora will be given opportunities to share her knowledge and

participate in classroom discussions.

With this specific goal and action items in mind, measuring progress will include observations of engagement in classroom discussion and excitement over assignments.

Thank It sounds simple and obvious, but it is important to thank those to whom you are advocating. Teachers often receive negative feedback and showing appreciation goes a long way in empowering them in a similar way to how you want them to empower your child.

Making Deposits Advocacy requires communication and, when parents are frustrated, emails are not the best way to connect with a teacher. I recommend following the ‘Three Sentence Rule’. This requires parents not to write emails that are more than three sentences. If you have more to say, request a phone call or a meeting. If you find yourself drafting a long email that comes from a place of frustration, continue to write as therapy, but do not send that email. Take a break and sleep on it. If you still feel like you need to communicate with the teacher, request that meeting or phone call.

However, there are ways to advocate via email that yield positive results. It’s important to help teachers see what your child looks like outside of the classroom. Particularly, if the classroom is where your child struggles, giving teachers a positive visual impression of your child helps to reorient their thinking. I refer to this as making deposits in the ‘positive perspective bank account’.

When your child is involved in something she loves, or that is noteworthy, take a photo of her engaged in the activity. Send the photo along to your child’s teacher with a short missive describing the photo. Perhaps you know that the teacher is interested in music and your child performed in a concert. Maybe your child isn’t a great

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VISION, Volume 33 No. 2 2022

reader, but you catch her reading. Or maybe your child volunteers.

These are great opportunities to give your child’s teacher a glimpse into your child’s interests and passions.

Another way to make a deposit into the ‘positive perspective bank account’ is to provide her teacher with any positive feedback your child shares. Maybe your child talks about the book they are reading during lunchtime, or they are excited about the science lab, or the teacher told a funny joke. Letting the teacher know about positive feedback helps them feel good about your child because they know they are attending and are appreciative.

Crafting Your Child’s Story Parents often complain that teachers pay more attention to their child’s struggles than on their strengths. Called ‘deficit focus’, those with this attitude often feel that they must ‘get behavior under control’ before they can address strengths or provide enrichment. Utilizing strengths often results in difficult behavior melting away. So how do you encourage teachers to become strength based? I recommend ‘Crafting your child’s story’.

At the end of the school year, ask your child’s teachers to answer these five questions: 1. What are my child’s strengths?

2. What are my child’s struggles?

3. What enrichment and accommodations work?

4. What enrichment and accommodations don’t work?

5. What one thing do you want next year’s teachers to know?

Answer these questions yourself and ask your child to answer the same questions. Now you have the data to craft your child’s story.

Be sure to share what your child loves and when he shines. It is also important to let teachers know what behavior they may see and what it means.

Since we know that gifted and 2e kids’ triggers are often unseen, parents need to help teachers identify when their child feels threatened. Parents may share that one of their child’s strengths is their deep empathy. But this also can mean that their feelings can get

hurt, and that they may react negatively to sarcasm. Perhaps your child values friendship and thrives on feeling connected. But if your child struggles to interact with peers, it is important for teachers to know this. Otherwise, they may misconstrue your child’s attempts to connect as annoying or difficult behavior.

The most important step toward effective advocacy is considering everyone’s perspectives. The child’s, parent’s and teacher’s viewpoints are all valid. Yet since everyone perceives situations through their own lens and experience, advocacy requires thoughtful communication to help others to see the gifted child’s entire experience. To succeed, it’s imperative for parents to view advocacy as a team sport – working collaboratively with all the players including teachers and the child herself – to effectuate the best outcome for their child.

Julie Skolnick, M.A., J.D., Founder of With Understanding Comes Calm, LLC, passionately guides parents of gifted and distractible children, mentors 2e adults, trains educators and advises professionals on how to bring out the best and raise self-confidence in their 2e students and clients.

Julie serves as Secretary to the Maryland Superintendent’s Gifted and Talented Advisory Council, is an advisor for the Masters of Education Program for the Bridges Graduate School of Cognitive Diversity, is the Maryland liaison for Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted (SENG), is a Committee member for the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) and serves as an advisor to “The G Word” feature documentary currently in production.

A frequent speaker and prolific writer, Julie is also the mother of three twice exceptional children who keep her on her toes and uproariously laughing.

Find out more at www.WithUnderstandingComesCalm.com.

Virtual WCGTC World Conference 2023 August 5 – 6 & 12 – 13 worldgifted2023.com #WCGTC23

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VISION, Volume 33 No. 2 2022

Impressionist Landscape - by Lucy, Year 5, St Cecilia’s, Glen Iris.

Garden of Dreams - by Justin, Year 11, Parade College, Bundoora.

Then and Now - by Jude, Year 12, Xavier College, Kew. 9

VISION, Volume 33 No. 2 2022

Keynote Resource

Students Are Unlikely to Advocate for Themselves: Reshaping Stage 4 for English to Differentiate for Gifted Students Greg Longney & Charlotte Wells THIS ARTICLE IS WRITTEN IN TWO PARTS. Part 1, written by Greg Longney, describes the broader school context of Barker College and outlines the plan to address shortcomings in the school’s advocacy for gifted students. Part 2, written by Charlotte Wells, focuses on one teacher’s experience of conducting action research and then leading change in the English Department. The overall picture is a positive one, supporting teachers to understand giftedness in all its forms, and supporting gifted students by creating appropriate levels of challenge, abstraction, and complexity in English classrooms.

Part 1 – Greg Longney Since 2017, a focus of the school has been to better address the needs of gifted students. Like the national landscape of gifted education in Australia, the school’s provision for gifted students was fragmented. In over a decade of being a History teacher and then a Head of Department, very little of the school’s attention had been given to the needs of gifted students. Academically capable students were well-supported and were able to achieve success. However, opportunities for extension were most often presented as extra work for ‘fast finishers’ or out-of-class options such as competitions. There was little evidence of differentiated classroom practice and there were many misconceptions about highly able students. There was no staff training in gifted education. For most staff, a gifted student was a smart student - usually a motivated student - who was likely to succeed without a great deal of additional attention or support.

Five years on, while the approach to gifted education remains a work in progress, the landscape is very different. There is increased awareness of the needs of gifted students and, therefore, greater opportunities to advocate for gifted and high potential students. The school’s approach to change has focused on three key areas: 1.

2.

3.

Training staff to understand gifted education theory and to apply it to their teaching practice.

Greater use of data to identify and support gifted students.

Increased focus on differentiated teaching practice and assessment.

The most significant development has been the introduction of planned professional learning for staff to engage with gifted and talented theory and practice and to undertake classroom-based research. This has been facilitated in groups of 10-12 staff, led by external educational experts.

Research indicates that teacher attitudes toward gifted students are often negative but improve significantly with appropriate training (Jolly and Walsh 2018). The program has helped staff to understand how to interpret test data, the importance of pre-testing in identifying what students already know, the complex picture of the identification of gifted students, and the different approaches to planning and delivering a differentiated curriculum.

Another step taken has been the reintroduction of external placement tests for students entering the school in Year 7, and the grouping of 10

students in classes based on ability. Historically, Year 7 students have been placed in House groups in all classes except English and Mathematics, where students have been grouped based on academic attainment determined by internal testing only. The aim of the new approach was two-fold: to put a focus on student ability as much as student achievement, and to acknowledge the research that indicates that ability grouping for gifted students is an effective practice. The conclusions of the research in this area are still debated, and the success of such programs will depend on effective curriculum differentiation and appropriate assessment practices (Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation, 2019).

The focus on high ability class grouping has allowed us to discover more about the learning characteristics of gifted learners. In relation to highly able students, teachers have always known that they learn faster than other students and are capable of learning more complex material.

Teachers who have been teaching the Year 7 high ability classes have been asked to seek opportunities to provide greater complexity, greater abstraction and, where appropriate, more opportunities for students to conduct independent research (McCoach et al, 2017, cited in CESE, 2019). Yet, staff are discovering that students, regardless of ability, need a certain level of explicit teaching such as scaffolding and worked examples, especially in the early stages of learning new content. Rosenshine (2009) comments that gifted learners will be able to move through this content faster, but still require this foundational instruction. Furthermore, students of high ability will likely develop talents asynchronously and still need very explicit instruction in some curriculum areas; for example, some students present as highly able and can master content quickly but are poorly organised and are not adept at writing. This is not altogether surprising, but these experiences have added to our collective understanding of how to teach gifted learners and have gone some way to challenging the stereotypes of gifted students and how they learn.

The most complete picture of how we have advocated for gifted learners can be found in the work of the Stage 4 English team. As a group, they have embraced the challenges of using data to ask questions about students’ strengths and weaknesses. Meticulously, they have planned a differentiated program of study that sets high expectations of all students with integrated extension work (not optional extras) for the most able.

Part 2 – Charlotte Wells In 2020, I had the privilege of being part of the school’s planned professional learning on gifted education. Having an exceptionally talented Year 8 class inspired me to further my knowledge and understanding about gifted and talented theory and practice and to undertake action-based research. Understanding and interpreting the data on the students gave me more insight into the approach required to provide greater complexity, and the possible ways to differentiate the unit of work outside the demands of the assessment program.

VISION, Volume 33 No. 2 2022

Having a large percentage of students with Stanine 7-9 in their placement test data shaped the design of my research question - How can teachers differentiate successfully in a top class to stretch and challenge all students? My aim was to increase the complexity of tasks and to encourage academic risk taking in a safe environment.

Throughout the academic year, I observed the following: • many students displayed signs of perfectionism • many appeared to only take learning seriously when it counted

towards their final grade • many memorised responses • many compared themselves to others • students feared the thought of risk taking and did not want to be

achieving the lowest marks in the class.

The greatest challenge was to modify the program to allow freedom of choice to encourage independent learning. While some students had previously displayed signs of being only motivated by marks and grades, most of the students were happy to share the journey with me and were keen to improve their educational outcomes.

Action research case studies

their attitudes to English, and this assisted in the task design. The prequestionnaire results confirmed that the students had found a lot of the Year 8 work unchallenging and effortless, but allowing greater choice and flexibility resulted in the post-questionnaire responses revealing the enjoyment that the increased level of difficulty and the extra demands provided.

Famously, David Ausubel (1968) stated, ‘The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. Ascertain this and teach him accordingly.’ Therefore, to gain an indication of the individual strengths and areas for development for each student and to assist in the development of dynamic activities, I initially undertook off-level testing where students had to respond to a stimulus and write an extended response without guidance. From gaining a deeper knowledge and understanding of differentiating more proactively, I was then inspired: • to use tiered instruction to allow students to work with

appropriately challenging tasks; • to use the Williams Model to encourage more creative thinking

and to provide extension and enriching activities; • to use Bloom’s Taxonomy to promote and encourage

higher order thinking and a more abstract and conceptual understanding.

Whilst my research question was designed to differentiate for all students in the class, we were encouraged to select three students to include as part of our action research. To understand the varying needs of individual learners, it was imperative to recognise the specific characteristics and differences of learners.

Tiered instruction

Student A – I observed a lack of confidence in this student as he consistently compared himself to others in English. His perceived or actual underachievement was evident in Betts and Neihart’s Type 2 profile – somewhat resentful and often challenged tasks if they weren’t attached to marks. He often rushed work, monopolised class discussions and demanded one on one guidance for assessments (Betts & Neihart 2010). Student A felt dejected with his assessment marks (total of 104/110) and could not see where he was ‘losing’ marks rather than what he had achieved. There was a concern around keeping him engaged in his learning as he was resistant to doing anything new that did not have marks attached.

Task 1: During our study of Andy Mulligan’s (2010) Trash, students had to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the contextual activities by completing a narrative writing task.

The idea of designing tiered tasks is that all students learn the same fundamental skills and concepts but through varying modes and complexity of activities. The tiers should appropriately challenge the students at the current ability level, and I used the off-level testing and their assessment scores when making the decision as to which tier to give the students to complete.

Write the opening to your narrative using third person omniscient voice Write a section of your narrative (not the opening or ending) using third person limited voice Write the ending to your narrative using an unreliable narrator

Student B – This student displayed characteristics of perfectionism – self-critical, sensitive, and worried about getting things right. He was a very confident student but procrastinated which resulted in tasks often being incomplete. Student B achieved full marks for all assessments bar one where he achieved 29/30.

To add to the complexity of the task, the students were required to research their chosen narrative voice and were asked to generate appropriate success criteria (see below).

Student C – This student was an independent learner and a strong critical thinker, and had a superior vocabulary, but was not a risk taker. His performance data revealed Stanine 9s in all areas (General Reasoning; Reading Comprehension; Writing and Spelling) and he liked working with other gifted students. Student C also achieved full marks for all assessments bar one where he achieved 29/30.

dumpsites - look at the Dumpsites page and Angel of the Dump page.

• You need to aim to write 300-400 words.

• Your narrative must be set on the dumpsite.

• You must write in the narrative voice you have been allocated.

The internal English assessment results indicated that most of the students were demonstrating competency in the outcomes prior to the assessment and were achieving above the A range, based on the syllabus outcomes. Therefore, differentiation was at the forefront of my mind for a 9-week term with no formal assessment. This provided the ideal opportunity to build on the positives of the year, and to refine and develop skills which would allow the students to think more deeply and take academic risks.

Students completed questionnaires which were designed to measure

• It has to be clear that you have used one of the images provided.

• Your piece should indicate what you have learned about

(See Figure 1: Sudent C work sample - over page) Students found the tasks demanding as they were forced to move out of their comfort zone. Student C said, ‘I enjoyed the challenge, even though it was hard.’

Task 2: On completion of the novel study, students were encouraged to consider the wider issues explored in the text. I gave the students a choice between Core (purple) and Extension 1 (green) or Extension 1 and Extension 2 (red). Despite providing an element of choice, no student chose the Extension 2 option.

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VISION, Volume 33 No. 2 2022

Figure 1: Student C work sample 12

VISION, Volume 33 No. 2 2022

Keynote

The Joys and Challenges of parenting three TwiceExceptional (2E) Children (aka Finding what works) Jeff Segal

Figure 2: Student feedback Is resilience a necessary requirement of survival? How is this evidenced in Trash ? How is this seen on a more global scale?

Survival is a human instinct. Does the end justify the means for this to occur? You need to refer to Trash and at least one other text you have read.

‘Learning is not compulsory … neither is survival.’ How is the truth of this statement played out in at least three texts you have read or viewed recently? You must use Trash in your response.

All students completed a full response, except for Student A who was resistant.

It was evident in this situation that gifted students sometimes cannot advocate for themselves and therefore, need to have engaging, complex tasks purposely designed and allocated to them by their teachers.

Williams’ Model – Tolerance for Ambiguity I posed open-ended ‘what if?’ questions at the end of a lesson for the students to consider and they expressed their thoughts in the next lesson. The questions sparked interesting discussion, but students struggled to stay on task due to the challenging nature of the questions: • What if compulsory education was globally enforced?

• What if children got to decide what was taught in schools?

• What if education was devoid of all political ideology?

My conclusion here is that the task was too ambitious as a one-off activity and students need to be provided with more frequent opportunities to engage with complex concepts.

Bloom’s Taxonomy Students were provided with question stems to write their own questions using the framework. Students understood that the six levels ranked in order from the most basic to the most complex and their task was to write 10 questions that ranged in complexity. The students were keen to write difficult, challenging questions and said that they ‘enjoyed being the teacher and writing the questions. It was difficult though to write the higher order questions and know the answers.’ Student B said, ‘We

should leave writing the questions to the teacher.’

My conclusion of this task was that just because the students were highly gifted, that didn’t automatically translate to them being able to undertake higher order tasks. This aligns with the idea that students are not always able to advocate for themselves, and need more frequent training and explicit teaching to engage at a level they are capable of.

Student feedback With the exception of Student A, the students responded positively to the range of dynamic activities (See Figure 2: Student feedback).

Unfortunately, Student A’s fixation on marks was detrimental to his learning and resulted in disengagement and negative behaviour. It was disappointing that he did not see this as an opportunity to flourish outside the demands of the formal assessment program.

Research conclusions The reactions observed ranged from a sense of achievement and satisfaction and an appreciation of being stretched on the one hand, to a reluctance to engage with the challenge on the other. Overall, it was a positive experience. It was evident that some students, regardless of academic ability or giftedness, are not able to advocate for themselves.

Some do not want to advocate for themselves in terms of challenge but will when it is linked to personal achievement.

As a consequence of this action research, a decision was taken to focus on the English Faculty in differentiating programs and fostering change. In my new role as Stage 4 English Assistant Co-ordinator and in consultation with the Director of Teaching and Learning, I have begun to reshape the teaching and assessment practices to make the learning experiences richer. Currently this is the application of tiered tasks in three units across Stage 4. This has led to conversations about changing texts and introducing conceptual frameworks.

Staff who were interested in developing differentiation across Stage 4 were invited to participate in planning days where we collaborated and implemented a range of different strategies to strengthen advocacy.

In Year 7, we designed an Identity Unit where we have key conceptual 13

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areas with a range of differentiated texts and activities, allowing students an element of choice in their learning journey. In Year 8, we adapted the creative writing unit and developed and trialled pre-assessments which gave us an insight into students’ abilities prior to delivering the differentiated unit.

Future directions The future success of such programs will depend on adjustments to teaching practice in other areas, most notably assessment practices.

Traditionally, all students, regardless of ability, have completed the same summative assessment tasks and this restricts any benefits of a differentiated curriculum. It has been pleasing to see some departments begin to experiment with differentiated assessment practices and this change will need to be expedited in order to take advantage of the decision to group students by ability and the observable benefits of differentiated programs of study. Ultimately, we are working towards an integrated program of identification, programming, and assessment that serves the needs of all learners, particularly our most able.

Lokie - by Benjamin, Year 3, Keysborough Gardens Primary School.

Greg Longney has been teaching at schools in England and Australia since 1995 and is a History teacher and the Director of Teaching and Learning at Barker College in Sydney. As a key part of this role, Greg has overseen the process of differentiating the curriculum for all students but with a particular focus on the needs of high potential and gifted learners.

Charlotte Wells is an English teacher and Assistant Co-ordinator of English for Stage 4 at Barker College in Sydney.

Charlotte has been teaching in Wales and Australia since 2003 and has a passionate interest in differentiation to enable all students to access the curriculum, to enjoy English, and to achieve their potential.

Royal Portrait - by Clair, Year 4, St Paul Apostle North School, Endeavour Hills.

STUDENT SUBMISSIONS INVITED!

vision@vagtc.org.au

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We are particularly interested in hearing from students/children in our next edition, which is on the theme: Managing expectations of giftedness and talent. If you would like to contribute a reflection, story, essay or visual piece, please contact vision@vagtc.org.au for further information and guidelines.

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Keynote Resource

Gifted Learners with Disability: A ‘Recipe’ for Success Carol Barnes Who are gifted learners with disability (GLD)?

PARENTS, EDUCATORS AND POLICY MAKERS SOMETIMES ASSUME THAT ALL CLEVER CHILDREN, HAVING SUPPOSEDLY WON THE GENETIC LOTTERY, WILL INVARIABLY ENJOY SCHOOL, LEARN EFFORTLESSLY, SUCCEED ACADEMICALLY AND THRIVE EMOTIONALLY. This is indeed the case for many, perhaps most, intellectually gifted children – but sadly not for all. Not all gifted children achieve high grades, or live up to the gifted stereotypes. Indeed some gifted children defy them.

Some are every day silently struggling with an unidentified disability which may negatively affect their learning, their academic success and their general wellbeing. Some read slowly and painfully, forget their times tables, or struggle to record their thoughts in writing.

Here are some insights derived from almost 20 years of parents’ experiences with this neurodevelopmental paradox which constitutes the intersectionality of intellectual giftedness and some form of nonintellectual disability.

Children of high intellectual ability who also have one or more nonintellectual disabilities may be described as ‘gifted learners with disability’ (GLD).

The term GLD encompasses intellectually gifted children who have one or more additional conditions which may negatively affect academic performance, including: • specific learning disorders such as: • reading disorder (dyslexia), • disorder of written expression (sometimes erroneously

still called dysgraphia), or • mathematics disorder (dyscalculia);

• communication disorders, such as language disorder (previously

known as specific language impairment); • ADHD, especially the predominantly inattentive presentation (PIP)

thereof, without visible symptoms of hyperactivity, impulsivity, defiance or disruptive behaviour (now called PH/IP); • autism, especially formerly-called ‘high functioning’ autism Level

1 (previously known as Asperger’s syndrome); • motor disorders, such as developmental coordination disorder

which may affect handwriting/penmanship (sometimes still called motor dyspraxia or [erroneously] dysgraphia); • physical disability, including chronic pain; and • to a lesser extent, mental health needs such as depression

and anxiety disorder – which some parents see as ‘parasitical’ disabilities, in that the child began to experience them only as a result of starting school and soon realising that they were not able to learn to read or print or do math or pay attention or make friends as effortlessly as most of their peers.

Intellectual impairment (low IQ) is the only disability which cannot logically co-occur with intellectual giftedness (high IQ). However, intellectual

giftedness alone will not vaccinate a child against any of the nonintellectual forms of disability, or against academic underperformance or mental health needs.

Terminology GLD children are sometimes referred to in the research literature by a variety of abbreviations: in the UK as ‘DME’ (dual/multiple exceptionality), in Europe as ‘TE’ (Twice Exceptional) and in the US as ‘2e’ or ‘2E’ (twice-exceptional) – the two seemingly conflicting and opposing ‘exceptionalities’ being the giftedness on the one hand and the nonintellectual disability on the other. This article uses ‘GLD’ (gifted learners with disability), not only because it is more descriptive of the actual condition, but also because the inclusion of the word ‘disability’ may serve as a reminder of the legislative protection to which GLD children are arguably entitled in Australia.

A ‘recipe’ for GLD students It is crucial that appropriate support be given to GLD children, both at school and at home. The goal for each GLD child should be ‘high challenge, high support’. For most GLD children, support should include the following five ‘Ingredients’. All are important and necessary.

Of course, the ‘recipe’ outlined below may vary according to the nature of the disability and the level of impairment occasioned by it. What follows simply draws together some threads which apply to most GLD children.

Ingredient One – First and foremost, feed the gift Before all else, the gifts of GLD children must be explored and developed, and students must be regularly provided with work which they find challenging, enriching and interesting, and which is in keeping with their intellectual abilities, even when they are not already scoring stellar grades at school. Depending on the nature of the disability, some GLD children, like many other intellectually gifted children, will learn at a faster pace, and this should be encouraged. At least part of a GLD child’s school day should be spent with like-minded, similar-ability peers, for it is from amongst this population that the GLD child is most likely to make their friends. Those peers need not be of similar chronological age because, for a GLD child, intellectual friends may be more important than similar-age ones.

There needs to be something each day at which the child can expect to succeed. We must determine early on what are the child’s special interests or areas of passion, and ask how these can be drawn on to design teaching strategies and assessments without compromising the exigencies of the mandated curriculum.

Too often, GLD children are denied access to programs and services designed for advanced learners. Educators say (or imply), ‘We have to ‘fix’ what’s ‘wrong’ with you, before we begin to nourish what’s ‘right.’’

The intellectual gift may thus be allowed to shrivel up and perhaps fade away under the weight of the disability.

Since too many school programs tend to focus only on remediating challenges rather than extending GLD students’ learning beyond yearlevel requirements, some GLD students spend the majority of their 15

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school day struggling with lagging skills, and little to no time developing interests. They may soon become disheartened and discouraged. If we routinely ignore the child’s strengths and instead turn our gaze only to deficits, we risk disengagement and loss of motivation because ‘the gifted side gets bored.’

Ingredient Two – Introduce remedial intervention Once the exact nature of a disability has been identified and professionally quantified, specialised remediation is usually indicated in all cases where the disability is indeed remediable, especially if the disability is something which affects reading or writing. Effective remediation will ensure that the GLD child develops improved accuracy in literacy and numeracy, and ultimately improved fluency or automaticity.

Particularly in the case of young children (aged 9 and below), if the disability is one which can be remediated, the possibility of evidencebased remedial intervention should always be immediately explored, before the window of remediation begins to close. A ‘let’s wait and see’ approach is never justified since it is essentially a ‘wait to fail’ strategy.

The latter may eventually result in some limited funding at school when a child does indeed fail, but it also means that the child will probably never catch up.

Remediation or and/or therapy should continue until the child has developed their skills and has ‘caught up’ (as far as possible) with their peers without disability. Then a decision needs to be made, in consultation with professionals, as to what is to happen in the future.

Targeted small group or one-on-one remedial programs are preferred to ensure high levels of mastery in literacy and numeracy. Ideally, remedial programs should be delivered by special education teachers or allied health professionals using an empirically-supported method. It should take place in a quiet setting, outside the regular classroom, so that the child cannot be observed by peers.

Contraindicated is any deficit-focus approach which withholds opportunities to use the child’s strengths and gifts until the child ‘fixes’ their disability or improves their so-called ‘bad’ behaviour. Participation in an academic gifted program or in extension activities should never be held out as a ‘reward’ for accomplishing what a GLD child cannot unilaterally achieve, or be delayed in order to allow more time to first ‘fix’ what the child cannot do and may well hate.

As for out-of-school remedial intervention, teachers need to be vigilant when suggesting to parents that GLD children be enrolled in (or assessed for) expensive but unproven therapies and out-of-school programs run by commercial ‘edu-businesses’. Disabilities associations such as AUSPELD, SPELD NSW, and Learning Difficulties Australia caution in particular against programs run by businesses whose founders or owners themselves do, or organise, the initial assessments, and then unsurprisingly recommend their own program to ‘fix’ whatever the child is presenting with. Just because these initiatives are sometimes spruiked at academic conferences doesn’t mean that they ‘work’.

Teachers can help by cautioning parents to be on the lookout for non-evidence-based programs which have NOT been recommended by a medical or allied health professional, preferably a developmental paediatrician or an educational/developmental psychologist. Parents considering such programs can contact GLD Australia for a copy of disabilities’ associations position statements on these programs and an article about how to spot shams, scams and hoaxes before emptying their wallets in the direction of dodgy edu-businesses.

Many members of GLD Australia have devoted enormous amounts of money over the years to programs and ‘remedies’ which turn out to be shams, scams and hoaxes. Further, all the time and money spent 16

on such programs could have been more usefully devoted to a noncommercial, evidence-based remedial intervention program delivered by a highly credentialled and experienced special education teacher or allied health professional.

Ingredient Three – Provide disability adjustments Like all children with disability, GLD children also require adjustments to their educational programs to allow them to access and participate in their classroom activities, assessments, and homework assignments and in their high-stakes State examinations on the same basis (as far as possible) as children without disability.

Adjustments may be implemented either on a long-term basis (for disabilities which cannot be remediated) or on a temporary basis (for disabilities which can at least to some extent be remediated, as discussed above).

Examples of disability adjustments for everyday untimed classroom activities include (but are not limited to) the provision of paper or electronic notes before class to minimize the need for copying off the board, the provision of handouts before class, approving extended time for submission of assignments, preferential seating, and allowing some written work to be dictated or typed.

Disability adjustments for limited-time tests and exams (sometimes called ‘special provisions’, ‘disability provisions’ or ‘accommodations’) could include (but are not limited to) measures such as extra time and rest breaks, individual separate supervision or preferential seating, provision of a reader or scribe, access to a laptop or word processor, or dimmed lighting.

A collaborative partnership is required to develop the most suitable personalised adjustments for each GLD child. Since GLD children are a heterogeneous group, there is no single GLD profile or even classification system of GLD profiles premised on an agreed pattern of strengths and weaknesses. There is no universal solution appropriate for all GLD children.

If you’ve met one GLD child, then you’ve met just one.

Under federal legislation, adjustments are to be made available in the context of all disabilities, not just those few which as a matter of policy have been singled out for extra government funding. Similarly, there is no mandated cap on the number of children receiving adjustments at any given school or any given year level. Legislative requirements with respect to disability adjustments cannot be overridden or circumscribed by departmental or school policy. Adjustments may not be withheld on the grounds of intellectual giftedness or ‘not actually failing’, and may not be offered only as a ‘reward’ for so-called acceptable classroom or playground behaviour.

Contrary to some educators’ contentions, when provided alongside appropriate remedial intervention, disability adjustments do not render a GLD child ‘soft’, ‘dependent’ or ‘unprepared for life in the real world after school’. A young GLD child is not assisted by being told: ‘No extra time for you. When you grow up, the tax department won’t give you an extension when it comes time to file your tax return.’

Disability adjustments are important but they do not, and are not designed to, replace the need for evidence-based instruction or evidence-based remedial intervention.

Adjustments for some children constitute simply a temporary ‘bandaid’.

They are a necessary stop-gap measure until the child actually learns to do whatever the child cannot now do, but adjustments do not unilaterally ‘cure’ the root problem.

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Of course there is a role for bandaids in our education system, but disability adjustments alone will not teach anyone to read, spell, write or do math, any more than cleaning the muck off their windscreen will teach them to drive.

It is so important that vigilant parents take action to ensure that their child receives evidence-based remedial intervention if appropriate, and to ensure that the child’s professionally supported applications are approved for legislatively mandated disability adjustments.

Ingredient Four – Offer emotional support

That being said, it’s wise to remember that the vast majority of teachers in all sectors are well-intentioned and do the best they can for most children most of the time. When they don’t, it’s usually because they simply don’t know what to do. Few teachers have been trained in gifted education in their undergraduate university courses. Education graduates are supposed to have had training in disability, but most GLD parents report they suspect that is not the case.

High IQs and low school grades usually don’t live well together.

Children who have been identified as GLD have had academic, social, and emotional experiences that are informed by both their giftedness and their disability. Similarly, GLD children who remain unidentified have extra layers of mysterious social and emotional complexity to negotiate.

An indeterminate number of intellectually gifted children experience chronic and significant underachievement due to disability, especially if their complex learning profile is misunderstood.

After repeated failures, unidentified or unsupported GLD children become increasingly acutely aware of their difficulties at school. They eventually tend to conclude that they are ‘just stupid’ or ‘lazy and weird’, since this is the message which they have picked up either overtly or subliminally from parents, siblings, peers and educators.

Many have accumulated and filed away an assortment of critical, sarcastic, or disparaging comments from school personnel over the years – comments which continue to live unbidden and rent free in their heads, sometimes right through university and into adulthood.

While some GLD children will call upon their chutzpah tendencies to paper over their pain, others may even begin to openly agree with the ‘lazy’ appellation, since of course anyone would rather be viewed as ‘lazy’ than ‘dumb’. We watch as previously academically driven GLD students gradually generalise their feelings of continuing school failure to an overall sense of personal inadequacy.

The years of academic failure which a GLD child may experience if neither their strengths nor their weaknesses are addressed will invariably lead to continually widening learning gaps, poor self-efficacy and selfconcept, frustration, anger, learned helplessness, lack of motivation, chronic literacy problems, poor peer relationships, disenchantment with school or finally school refusal and even dropout. These in turn can have serious long-term damaging effects on tertiary study, career opportunities, employment, socio-economic status, mental health, family and social relationships, and all aspects of adult life.

Even a child who claims to be unconcerned about academic failure may suffer from the social isolation occasioned by not being able to identify with any other group – not their gifted peers, nor their typically developing peers, nor their peers with disability. The GLD child’s giftedness may result in a heightened awareness of being very different, leading to loneliness and perhaps defiant behaviour. It’s no fun being a Ferrari brain which always seems to have at least one wobbly wheel.

Consequently, early emotional support and understanding from parents and teachers is crucially important. Parents know their child best, and will probably be the first to notice changes in behaviour, mood, motivation or attitudes towards school. As well as providing a home environment which supports the child’s strengths and provides opportunities for intellectual challenge and growth, parents need to ensure that they are regarded as the ‘soft place to fall’ instead of the ‘homework police’.

Ingredient Five: Advocate tirelessly and effectively As well as trained, understanding teachers, success for GLD children depends on well-informed parents who are able to develop and maintain good relations with their children’s teachers and schools, and are skilled at effectively advocating to have their children’s needs met at school.

Instead of presenting busy educators with a thick file of professionals’ reports, it will probably pay in the first instance to draft a one-page summary about your child – both strengths and weaknesses. Not all educators have been trained in the art of reading long and technical professional reports It can sometimes be helpful to initiate conversations with your child’s teacher by acknowledging that you know your child is unusual. It is also usually wise to adopt a cordial but rather business-like manner when discussing your child’s needs. The child’s IQ report will say all that’s required – there is no need to talk at length about every cute and precocious thing your child ever did in his highchair years ago. It is best also to stay away from discussing how much you love your child, and how hard he is trying, and how it is breaking your heart to have to watch him not succeeding at school.

Reading widely about GLD and attending conferences and webinars on both giftedness and disability will greatly assist with advocacy. Joining groups such as GLD Australia, gifted associations and disabilities associations may also assist parents to acquire the requisite knowledge, expertise and confidence, and at the same time to benefit from being part of a sympathetic support network of other parents who are walking the same road.

As well as offering emotional support to their GLD children, it is important for parents to be mindful that raising GLD children can be an emotionally draining, tiring and frustrating endeavour. No parent signs up for this.

Said one mother, ‘I would happily ‘give back’ all of my son’s giftedness and his high IQ if only he didn’t have the disabilities.’ Acknowledging those sentiments may be cathartic for some parents, in addition to maintaining supportive contact with other parents of GLD children.

Finally, beware of the furphies Parents should be especially cautious not to delay investigating and addressing the cause of unexpected and unexplained academic underachievement on the grounds of popular notions or ideologies which are not empirically supported.

Amorphous but now discredited explanations for academic underachievement such as ‘learning styles’, ‘left/right brain thinking’, ‘multiple intelligences’, ‘differently-wired brains’, ‘asynchronous development’ and ‘overexcitabilities’ are sometimes proffered by wellintentioned but non-professional onlookers in an attempt to convince parents that there is ‘nothing wrong’ with their gifted child. Rather, the child is said to be just the victim of an education system which has not been designed for them - the ‘square peg / round hole’ aphorism.

These specious explanations should never be accepted in the absence of professional assessment. They may seem temporarily comforting, but over the long term they do nothing to help the child.

In summary then, we must consider ALL the ingredients in the ‘recipe’ for GLD children. Yes, by all means, let’s continue to advise teachers 17

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to feed the gift, focus on the strengths and areas of talent, and (where appropriate) introduce targeted disability adjustments and offer emotional support. But we must not forget the importance of remediation.

The boost in academic self-concept or self-esteem which comes from routinely excelling yet again at something which you have already mastered is questionable. Doing well what you’re already good at is unsatisfying, compared with the feeling of pride and elation the first time you succeed at something which you’ve always struggled with or been afraid of.

Let’s not withhold that prize from our GLD children.

Carol Barnes is an honorary Visiting Fellow (gifted education) at GERRIC within the School of Education at the University of NSW. She is national coordinator for GLD Australia, a notfor-profit online learning community focussing on intellectually gifted learners with disability (GLD). She is

currently consulting (as a volunteer) to government on numerous GLD-related projects, inquiries and reviews. A resident of Queensland, Carol is also vice-president/parent support group convenor of the Queensland gifted children’s association branch on the Gold Coast, where she is undertaking a Bond University PhD in Law on the legal aspects of disability adjustments for GLD children. In 2020, Carol was named as the only Australian on the American list of professionals qualifying as ‘movers and shakers’ in the field of education for gifted children with disability (2e), published by the Bridges 2e Center for Research and Professional Development in Los Angeles: Movers and Shakers in 2e Education | 2eNews.com.

To learn more about GLD children, or to inquire about a free membership with GLD Australia, contact Carol at carol@bartink.com.au

In Your World - by Amy, Year 12 Sacred Heart Girls’ College, Hughesdale.

VAGTC PARENT & EDUCATOR SEMINARS We run seminars on a regular basis for parents and educators of gifted and high ability children. Please check our website for more information: www.vagtc.org.au/seminars/

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Keynote Resource

Three Adult Actions for Gifted Youth with Learning, Behavioral, and Attentional Disabilities: Advocacy, Activism, and Organizing Terry Friedrichs, Ph. D., Ed. D., Director IN UNDERSTANDING THE VARIOUS KINDS OF PARENT ACTION THAT CAN BE UNDERTAKEN FOR GIFTED CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES, PARENTS AND EDUCATORS SHOULD UNDERSTAND HOW SCHOOLS IN SOME NATIONS INSTRUCT TWICE-EXCEPTIONAL STUDENTS. Schools in these nations may teach a wide range of students but, in some disability theorists’ minds, these educational settings really value conformity (Kauffman, 1981). In seeking gifted students, schools often look for youth who obtain the right answers, who achieve highly in all subjects, who create products utilizable in school, and who show attentiveness and socially acceptable behavior. This combination – of serving diverse pupils but preferring conforming ones – threatens many diverse students, including the twice-exceptional. But many 2e students’ patterns of non-conformity – particularly their unique combinations of strengths and weaknesses – seem predestined to run against conformity desiring schools. Their intellectual, academic, creative, and leadership ‘ups’ and ‘downs’ may run against schools that expect conformity.

In this article, I will explain the challenges faced by parents of 2e youth as they confront schools searching for an institutional focus on their children’s weaknesses or strengths, especially those students with the most frequently seen disabilities, in learning, behavior, or attention. We will see how advocates address the problems often faced by groups of these students who excel in gifted education areas: pupils who cannot get right answers but who sometimes express creative ideas; those who achieve highly in some but not all assignments, instructional weeks, or school years; pupils who create amazing products and processes but get little school credit for it; and youth who energetically lead school efforts but cannot seem to sit in one place.

In seeking more attention for three potentially-effective models by which parents can speak up for 2e youths’ strengths and weaknesses in these four commonly-seen areas of giftedness – intelligence, achievement, creativity/arts, and leadership – I describe these patterns of parental activity mostly apparent in the education literatures of Australia and the US from 1997-2022: 1) sole parental actors speaking up for their children in individual classrooms, 2) two-person parental activism in those classrooms, and 3) organizing by multiple parents across multiple classrooms within a school. Although single-individual advocacy, twoperson activism, and multi-individual organizing can all take place at the classroom, school/district, or state/federal levels, this essay will concentrate on those activities within a classroom or school level, the level at which most advocacy now appears to take place. We will see how advocates, activists, and organizers in fighting for their children at these two levels, can successfully seek and spread information, show passion and exert ideals.

Advocacy Seeking/spreading information Parents of gifted youth with disabilities – like many college students with 20

disabilities themselves – seek information about those challenges so that they can present the youths’ differences in the most positive light (Olney & Brockelman, 2003). Knowledgeable advocates can indeed spread information about their child’s gifts and reading needs. As time goes by, 2e child advocates can also disseminate similar kinds of information about other people’s 2e children. After parent or educator advocates seek greater understanding, better identification, or stronger service for their 2e children, they honestly analyze how current classroom activities are going, seek more positive attitudes they wish to take with their students, and discuss helpful curricular or instructional adaptations for their youth (Chivers, 2021). Classroom, gifted, or even special educators may especially misunderstand factual information about 2e children’s phonics, sight word, or comprehension struggles or hidden strengths, since these teachers often have not been trained in phonics or giftedness (Friedrichs, 2001). Educators may also misunderstand a whole array of 2e traits that are positive in some situations and not in others (Munro, 2004). Even with success, parental advocates may soon find that their children’s gifted or special education teachers lack the expertise, materials, or rules to make the requested changes. These advocates must then re-tool, with more information and new strategies, to obtain the needed gifted or disability services. For example, these advocates may dig deeper into why their children with dyslexia read the ways that they do, or they may learn strategies whereby gifted educators can provide their 2e youth with advanced input without reading.

Bringing passion In educating teachers about the gifts and reading disabilities of their children, individual parents may bring extraordinary energy to spreading understanding of those facets, sharing much of what they have learned with these teachers. Some parents may bring forth their children’s problems with schools, striving for an awakening needed for further progress with teachers. Others may focus that same passion to those specific school practitioners who are more likely to listen (Kircher Morris, 2022). Whether fueled by anger or by constructive criticism, these advocates may also read extensively on their own, eventually becoming their own informal experts on reasons their 2e children do what they do, on effective ways of identifying and serving these youth, and on rules used in other districts to help these children.

If parents are unsuccessful in prying loose appropriate institutional assessments from schools early in their children’s careers, for example, they might consider staying calm and focusing on allaying their own frustrations. Then, they can double up their efforts for complete assessments the next time, striving to obtain all needed gifted and special needs services and accommodations. Efforts for appropriate assessments might occur at those transitional stages at which children — and the demands of schools — developmentally change, such as grade 3 and the beginning of the middle, secondary, and college levels

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(Prior, 2013). Depending on the assessment results, parents may ask not only for IEPs for their children but also for ILPs to deal with their children’s asynchrony among skills (Jacobs & Anthony, 2017). Advocates may share such information with their children’s teachers and ask these educators various times in the school year to educate themselves more fully through books, magazines, or movies.

Advocates may enthusiastically share ‘handy-dandy’ lists of general approaches that work with such children, such as GLD Australia’s list of ingredients of effectiveness which encourages parents to use various ways to ‘feed the gift,’ ‘provide accommodations for the disability,’ and ‘offer emotional support’ (GLD Australia, 2022) to youth who have difficult times with tasks. Advocates may also ask their children’s educators to reflect on these approaches to see if they would like to learn more such techniques, to achieve more supportive interactions between 2e students’ and their environments (Frydenberg & O’Mullane, 2000). Advocates may also encourage teachers to attend conferences to hear particularly strong speakers on giftedness and dyslexia or other disabilities.

Exerting ideals Often advocates have ideals that encourage them to strive for more than just their children or their fellow advocates’ youngsters. These advocates’ idealism brings them to a ‘Don’t ever quit’ view of helping their students — when seeking an educator’s understanding of a certain pupil problem (such as slower speech for an aphasic child), when striving for that educator to identify giftedness, or when trying to facilitate support for a child’s underserved articulation problems. These advocates believe that, like other gifted students, these youth have the right to broadly-based services promised by law and by public policy (Gallagher, 1997), not just disconnected services that some schools may offer. These advocates may develop a hunger for new information that keeps them up through the night — and that keeps the teacher listening through parental conversations that seem to go on and on.

Advocates may also try to be the first to do something, such as having a new identification or programming method just for their children. They may attend conferences, chat with people online, and consider taking group action for other children with similar problems as their students, within their school and beyond. Idealistic advocates need to keep in mind which gifted options exist in their students’ classrooms, and then marshal their ideas on which options are the very best options for their children -- and why. In many countries, this approach may mean focusing on schools’ limited, offered options, such as acceleration or enrichment (Kronborg & Cornej-Arenya, 2018). Parents need to be able to express their ideals for their children through the lens of educators, who may see things differently but who will ultimately need to be the ones to implement school-based recommendations on dealing with 2e children’s messy backpacks and distracting chatting.

Activism Seeking/spreading information Individual advocates may find that their situations are not unique. While this realization may take them some time, it can be an empowering and effective experience. Eventually, many advocates realize that, through individual advocacy, they cannot achieve in the classroom what they hope for their children, simply through their searches for and spreading of data about their individual students’ gifts and attentional, learning, and behavioral disabilities. They need to join forces with advocates who hold similar feelings toward educating teachers or with advocates who empathize with that journey. Such advocates, for example, may seek out other parents whose children have the same gifts and emotional/

behavioral disabilities, to find out about the other students’ stories of satisfactory or unsatisfactory identification or programming, or about methods or materials that might work better for such youth. These twoor-more advocates may need — before they approach their children’s educators — to mutually support their own varied requests or to together craft a smaller list of agreed-on requests. They may also ask for advocates outside the system, such as a lawyer or tutor, or a person within the system, such as an educator at the school, to speak up for them (Benson, 2018).

In the process of coming up with a common list of requests on how to deal with classroom phenomena such as anxiety, depression, or creative artistry, activists may build up a joint understanding of the causes of a classroom problem and effective interventions to meet that challenge. When approaching their children’s teachers, activists may need to educate them on the nature of giftedness, talent, and disability, all constructs frequently misunderstood by new (Warmald, 2011) and more-experienced (Ronksley-Pavia, 2021) teachers. Young educators may especially need to know helpful attitudes, identification methods, and professional training programs regarding 2e students (Warmald, 2011). These teachers may especially feel unprepared to teach students with diverse abilities (Rowan & Townend, 2016).

Bringing passion Pairs of parents – activists for children with varied gifts and disabilities in the multiple classrooms— have the chance of educating teachers so that they really will listen and be educated, in both mind and heart, about learning, emotional/behavioral, and attentional disabilities. Working to educate a school system about 2e youth (Davidson Institute, 2022) frequently starts with the individual classroom. If pairs of classroom activists have a common message, they are more likely to have classroom educators understand and retain that message. If these activists feel that they cannot effectively engage in bringing forward that message, they may seek more options whereby teachers can learn and even acquire online gifted and 2e credentials (Ronksley-Paris & Neumann, 2022). Activists are more likely to ask for procedures that follow district rules about identification and service. They may have a common set of articles for teachers to read, or movies for them to watch, to help them empathize with a common vision of what conditions such as dyslexia are and how to deal with them. After meeting with teachers, activists can also re-tool and come up with a way to adjust their approaches in their next activist phase so that their ideals better win the hearts and minds of the classroom educators.

Exerting ideals Although two activists for gifted youth with disabilities can get on one another’s nerves with their strong positions or sometimes stronger personalities, and they can thereby drive one another to quitting their mutual 2e advocacy, they can also urge one another to stay on the activist path when things get tough. Through mutual exposure to inspiring speakers, activists for gifted students with years-long challenges such as ADHD may be inspired to new ideals that they never had before; and they may urge one another to strive for goals, in their children’s treatment, which they have never accomplished before. Activists may explore helpful identification and service approaches to creative ability and emotional/behavioral challenges, in their children’s present classes and in other courses not yet available to their children. They may also network with other convention attendees on similar journeys to their own. Comparing notes can help these attendees to devise mutual approaches to classroom activism for their children’s creativity and emotional regulation. Activists may reach out to one another to honor their fellow activists’ efforts as well as helpful teachers’ beliefs, ideals, 21

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and positive actions in their children’s classrooms (Assouline & ShoplikLupkowski, 2003).

Organizing Seeking/spreading information Sometimes activists cannot find the information they need, even from fellow 2e parents in the same classroom, about what the current attentional problems or academic strengths for their 2e children might be, about what strategies might work with the children, and about what helpful information might be found. Organizers may need to broaden their circle of fellow activists to other parents in the same school or district. As a result, organizers may bring in additional parents who are experiencing the same problems with their children – or those parents who appear to have already solved such problems. At gatherings at mutually convenient sites, these organizers can strive to come to a consensus about what the pattern of attentiveness problems or creative strengths may be in the school or district. Organizers can also present the patchwork of criteria, for gifted or disability program selection, that may exist within the grades of a school or between schools (Ronksley-Pavia, 2019). Organizers can also gather a common list of research-derived identification and programming approaches that can be undertaken in all classes. They can devise a set of talking points for parent conversations with school authorities, as well as agendas regarding which parents will say what, and in what order, to help their 2e children focus on attentiveness problems, show their intellectual strengths, and accomplish other goals.

If there is a perceived need for continued action, there can even be a structured parent group, such as the long-existing 2e parent group in Montgomery County, Maryland (undated).

Bringing passion As they find more like-minded parents, organizers may become bolder in educating teachers in their children’s schools about 2e students’ challenges and gifts, and they may express themselves in more detail, in longer meetings, and with more passion. They may intensify their own passions and learn to direct them to their children’s current goals.

Parents need to indicate as a group how they feel about their children suffering through a range of horrendous events, such as these school situations noted by Gifted Australia’s Ryan Fritz (2022): being regarded as ‘special school material,’ needing to ‘wear masks’ to survive, suffering from a ‘patchwork’ of gifted and special education identification systems, wandering through undiversified curricula, and lacking the material and equipment they truly need to learn. Again, organizers will need to line up and monitor these passions, such as through an agenda of who speaks in what order, on what topics, and at what length. In the absence of a locally known pattern of data on such youth (Ronksley-Pavia, 2020), parents may seek relevant national patterns, such as 41% of the gifted with learning disabilities having their disabilities unidentified (RonkskeyPavia, 2020), 30% of the gifted having traits of learning disabilities, and 10% of the gifted falling two of more grade levels below their potential in reading (Nicpon, in Munro, 2004). Organizers need to divide up their reading and note-taking tasks so that all needed action gets done in advance of meetings with school authorities. They also need to create their goals for such gatherings. Then they can benefit from organizers’ ‘meetings after the meeting’ to mutually decide next steps.

Exerting ideals The ideals of an organized, multi-person group can be multi-faceted and therefore powerful. Yet these ideals may need to be made consistent for documents in which the group’s position is made clear. Conversations about the group’s positions can be made over e-mail but are often better done in person. Organizers can pool their resources and can support 22

one another in their mutual goals (such as more gifted or attentionrelated psychological services for the school) or in their individual objectives (such as more time for certain kinds of children in the school to complete assignments). They may also engage outside speakers to address the group on effective attentional or creativity identification, or programming methods. Organizers may ‘scout’ conferences or school board meetings together, in advance, to better engage those meetings later. At actual school board gatherings (Devine, 2019), parents can speak from both the heart and the head on struggles that they have encountered with their schools. Current students can effectively convey harm that has been done as well positive impacts that teachers have made in enhancing student performance and self-concept (Townend & Pendergast, 2015).

Conclusion Whether they are focused on academic, intellectual, creative, or leadership strengths, or on learning, emotional/behavioral, or attentional difficulties, action-oriented persons can do several things to prepare for any of the three activity levels above on behalf of gifted children with disabilities. Parents can grow consistently in information gathering, not just regarding students with gifts and disabilities but also concerning optimal teacher training on 2e youth, their nature, and their instruction.

Parents can learn more about passionate advocates and how they conduct themselves, not just in specifically 2e student instruction but in more general areas of disabilities and gifted education. And they can learn about organizing, not just in education but also in labor and social justice movements.

Action-focused 2e parents can look within, too. For instance, they can ask whether being knowledgeable in a circumstance at hand is more important than taking action for gifted youth with disabilities. They can ask whether they feel comfortable, with the events at hand, in seeking out others’ help for their children’s various gifts and disabilities, or whether they would or should endure silence and go it alone. Finally, they can ask whether they want to be known as organizers, with the notoriety – and sometimes the infamy – that goes with that status in the minds of both friends and foes. The individual decision-making level is sometimes the most consequential and enduring level, as parents continually reflect on what they truly want for themselves and their children concerning 2e-related information, passion, and ideals, both at classroom and school levels.

Based in the US, Dr. Terry Friedrichs is a teacher of gifted students, youth with disabilities, and twice-exceptional (2e) students, from kindergarten to graduate levels. He has earned 2e-focused doctorates in gifted and special education (University of Virginia, 1990) and in Critical Pedagogy (University of St. Thomas, 2005).

Dr. Friedrichs’ advocacy for 2e students has been informed by his vast teaching experience, and by his life as a person with a significant visual-spatial disability. In his lifetime, has been successful in advocating for his own and for hundreds of other persons’ educational accommodations and alternative educational options. He currently serves as Advocacy Committee Chair of the National Association for Gifted Children’s 2e Special Interest Group and as Chair of the International Council for Exceptional Children’s Educators with Disabilities Affinity Group.

Terry can be reached at terry@friedrichseducation.com.

VISION, Volume 33 No. 2 2022

Leadership Reflection

Advocacy, Parent Groups, and Collaboration: Tools for Meeting Gifted Needs Kim Farbisz & Emily Villamar-Robbins GIFTED EDUCATION PROGRAMS AND SERVICES VARY AROUND THE WORLD, AND REQUIREMENTS FOR GIFTED EDUCATION OFTEN VARY BETWEEN JURISDICTIONS IN THE SAME COUNTRY. Some things, however, we know to

be the same. We know that children with advanced learning abilities exist in every population, and we know that nurturing gifted potential fosters intellectual, social, and emotional growth. We also know, unfortunately, that advanced abilities can be misunderstood, and that too frequently, advocacy is required to ensure that classroom instruction meets the needs of gifted children.

For these reasons and more, the support of parents and caregivers is essential for gifted children, both at home and at school. Some parents advocate successfully for their children without difficulty, but many find it beneficial or necessary to collaborate with other families. Forming parent support groups, using collaborative negotiation strategies, and forming partnerships with educators can often help improve educational opportunities for students with advanced learning differences.

Importance of parent groups All students deserve to have their needs met, and collaborating with other parents to support and advocate for gifted learners can be a very effective way to ensure that happens. Gifted students who do not have their needs met can lose motivation in school, can feel alienated from peers, and may not develop the resilience needed to succeed through future academic challenges. Like other students with unmet needs, gifted students can also be at risk for depression, anxiety, suicide, dropping out of school, or becoming addicted to drugs and alcohol. Being the parent of a gifted child can be lonely and overwhelming. There are often many challenges to deal with and not many rulebooks that are applicable to those challenges. The opportunity to get together in person or virtually with a group of others dealing with similar situations to provide support and share information can be such a relief, and is sometimes a game changer.

Having a support group can also be instrumental in advocating for gifted education. A combined voice is always stronger than a lone one, and that voice can be utilized to gain access to the people who make educational decisions for gifted students. Building relationships with those people can lead to better accountability and better decisions being made about strategy, curriculum, hiring, and funding for gifted education.

Collaborative advocacy Whether working as a group or as individuals, parents are more likely to succeed in bringing about changes if they work collaboratively with educators. Whenever possible, it is important to preserve relationships with administrators and teachers. Before approaching (or re-approaching) educators with a request, parents may wish to consider the following steps: (1) Gather data about the student(s). What evidence can you present to support your request: test scores, work samples, or observations from adults, either inside or outside of school? Can you provide

documentation? Focusing on data, whether quantitative or qualitative, can help establish common ground. When advocating for policy changes, can you provide examples of how this need is handled in other schools?

(2) Identify special circumstances. Are there additional diagnoses, such as a learning disability, that should be taken into consideration when reviewing the data? If looking at the school as a whole, are there any data points that require special consideration or explanation in light of the circumstances?

(3) Know current recommendations. What do experts currently recommend for students in this situation? Can you provide articles or citations? Using sources respected by local educators can help work toward an agreement.

(4) Learn applicable laws or regulations. Are there laws, policies, or regulations at any level that support your request, or that create obstacles? What are the options for enforcing any helpful laws or policies that are not being followed? If a law or policy is preventing the school from following best practices, what is the process for bringing about change to that law or policy? Can change happen quickly enough to help this/these specific student(s) in this school setting, and if not, are temporary or alternative solutions available?

(5) Identify a ‘Plan B’ (and even a ‘Plan C’) option. If a solution that meets the needs of the child(ren) cannot be reached, what is the next-best (or ‘least-worst’) option? Identifying alternatives ahead of time can help parents to make better informed decisions – and can even help parents to stay calm – during negotiations.

(6) Consider the needs and concerns of educators. Teachers and administrators work hard, and they chose to work in education because they care for children. Pausing to think about disagreements from the school’s perspective can help parents to preserve relationships and to communicate more effectively.

(7) Request help from allies, when possible. Are there teachers or other professionals, especially within the school, who agree with the concern and would be willing to join meetings?

(8) Learn the chain of command and communicate with respect. When possible, educators appreciate being given the opportunity to address concerns before parents appeal decisions. When further advocacy becomes necessary, how can you bring supervisors into the conversation in a way that shows respect for all educators involved?

According to experts in negotiation strategy, it is important to preserve relationships whenever possible. We have found this to be especially true in advocacy for gifted education. To increase the chances that solutions will last, it is important to attempt to address the underlying needs of all parties involved. For strategies that can improve the success of your meetings, our team often recommends resources from the Harvard Project on Negotiation, including the bestselling books Getting to Yes 23

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(Fisher et al, 2006) and Difficult Conversations (Stone et al, 2010).

Many times, unfortunately, one parent alone may not be able to bring about the policy changes necessary for teachers to follow current recommendations. For this reason – and many more – advocacy from parent groups is often necessary for excellent gifted education programs.

How to advocate with a parent group In order to utilize a parent group to advocate for gifted education, it is important to build relationships and approach situations with a partnership mindset. It is very helpful if members of your group already have connections in your district or region. Pull in people that have gifted children but also volunteer with PTA/PTO, booster clubs, or education foundations. Reach out to teachers with supportive messages, looking for ways that you can help them. Also, build relationships with people in leadership in your sector or region. Utilizing connections made through other organizations can provide an opening to have conversations about gifted education and make them aware of your parent support group in a non-threatening way.

Once you have begun building relationships with key people, work to create a partnership. Educate decision makers on concerns regarding gifted education, and seek to understand what their key concerns are.

Commit to providing ongoing, current, and relevant information that they can use in making decisions. Surveys, results from other districts or regions, best practices from conferences, or research can all be helpful to your cause when advocating for gifted students.

Addressing your concerns at many levels and from many different angles is most effective. If you have been making a point of talking to teachers, principals and leadership, when they get together, they will have all heard the same things and will have the same understanding about your problem.

It is also important to keep in mind the big picture. If what you are asking for is not in line with what an educator’s boss has told them they can do, you will not be successful. Pick your battles carefully, understand the constraints and concerns of each of the people you are talking with, and be sensitive to those concerns. Look for solutions that work within existing constraints or offer to have conversations with others to remove those constraints.

When using support groups to advocate for gifted education, using the attitude, ‘How can I help you help our kids?’ will go a long way. Building relationships and partnerships so that there is a team effort yields the best results, not only in terms of accomplishing what you want, but also in terms of ensuring that the students feel supported by all of the adults in their lives.

How to support educators and parents There are many ways to use a parent support group to provide a community for GT parents and to support GT educators. Providing ‘lunch and learn’ events, speakers, student and parent panels, and discussion groups are all ways that you can provide value to GT parents and help foster a community of supportive families. Even just regular get-togethers at a local playground can provide great opportunities for young GT children to play with others like them. At the same time, it allows the parents to get to know one another and share information and support.

Inviting teachers and administrators to speak to your group can demonstrate how much they are valued. Giving awards and training scholarships to educators is very much appreciated by them and helps to incentivize them to be more supportive of gifted needs. GT teachers can often feel isolated on their campuses since there are generally not many others (if any others) who do the work they do. Given how prevalent it is 24

for gifted education to be misunderstood, the work that GT teachers do can be unappreciated or even deemed unnecessary by their peers. This makes it all the more important for GT parents and GT parent groups to focus on teacher appreciation and providing support for those educators.

Allowing both teachers and parents an opportunity to have their voices heard can be instrumental in making them feel valued and in accomplishing your goals. Surveys, panels, and invitations to roundtables or committees are all ways to help give people a voice. Anonymous data from parent and teacher surveys has been very effective in helping to change policies, building better relationships with teachers, and finding solutions to gifted education problems.

Forging a path When facing resistance, parents and caregivers may begin to question their decision to advocate. Is this really worth it? Is there any hope of changing this system?

We want to conclude by emphasizing the importance of this work – not just for your own child, or for the children in your immediate community, but for generations of children to come. Not all parents are both informed and able to advocate for their children with learning differences. The changes you make today – however small – can make the difference in the ability of many children to reach their potential. Sometimes, policies need to be changed at a higher level or on a larger scale in order to see results locally, but working in local volunteer teams can lay the foundation for success at higher levels. Sometimes, it may not be possible to make changes quickly enough for your own child to remain in their current school setting – and we want to emphasize that we agree with changing school settings in situations involving current harm – but any work in raising awareness will still have made an impact. Your advocacy today paves the way for future families and educators to work toward further improvements. To answer the questions above, consider asking: Is it essential for schools to provide all children with learning opportunities that support their social/emotional health while enabling them to reach their full potential? For our families – and we suspect for yours, as well – the answer is yes.

Kim Farbisz is a parent of two highly gifted students, a past President of Grapevine-Colleyville Supporting and Advocating for Gifted Education (GC-SAGE), and a GCSAGE board member for eight years. GC-SAGE helped to create the GCISD ASPIRE Academy for the Highly Gifted.

Kim is beginning her seventeenth year of volunteering for PTA and just completed a two year term as President of the Council of PTAs in Grapevine-Colleyville ISD. She currently sits on five different boards, all related to public education.

Emily Villamar-Robbins is a graduate of Harvard Law School, a GT parent, and a supporter of public education.

She holds a Graduate Academic Certificate in Gifted and Talented Education from UNT, has served for over nine years in leadership roles for Special and Gifted Education in her district, and has written and presented about multiple areas of GT advocacy. Her GT interests include parent education, special populations, and improving diversity in GT services.

She continues to support her district, and she serves as a member of the Texas Education Commissioner’s Advisory Council on the Education of Gifted Students.

Kim and Emily are both founding members of the nonprofit organization Gifted Education Family Network in Texas. To learn more, visit giftededucationfamilynetwork.org.

VISION, Volume 33 No. 2 2022

Parent Reflection

Fireflash Victoria Poulos THE NATIONAL FIRE PROTECTION ASSOCIATION (NFPA) DEFINES A ‘FLASH FIRE’ AS: ‘A FIRE THAT SPREADS, BY MEANS OF A FLAME FRONT, RAPIDLY THROUGH A DIFFUSE FUEL, SUCH AS DUST, GAS, OR THE VAPORS OF AN IGNITABLE LIQUID, WITHOUT THE PRODUCTION OF DAMAGING PRESSURE’, AND SO FIREFLASH WAS THE NAME CHOSEN BY THE CHILDREN FOR OUR GIFTED SUPPORT GROUP. These remarkable children wanted their life and their learning to be bright, luminating and intense like a blaze of fire.

And my role (on top of being a parent and educator), was to facilitate an environment to produce the ‘dust, gas or ignitable liquid’ to support these young people to blaze like a flash fire in their journey as lifelong learners.

One of the greatest challenges we faced as a family with gifted children was the misunderstandings and preconceptions in the community regarding giftedness. Despite what was commonly assumed, being gifted does not mean privileged, elitist, proud, obnoxious, or entitled… yet these were the perceptions we faced, even from within the school community. We soon discovered that many other families were facing similar challenges and the number needing support was growing. And so, to this end, Fireflash was birthed.

Fireflash was established as a support network for gifted children and their families in the Casey/Cardinia [Melbourne, Victoria] area, meeting fortnightly in a local church hall. Each fortnight had a different theme including a favourite, ‘Junkyard Wars’. We’d supply a load of cardboard boxes, paper, containers, and craft bits, sourced free from a local recycle business. In small teams, students had the whole session to create whatever they wanted. This was not only a lot of fun for students, but was intentional in developing affective skills, such as collaborating, listening, planning, negotiating and then creating. Another evening we employed a drama teacher who led the group through writing their own short play and then the children performed it. The children, who all loved drama, also performed A Midsummer Night’s Dream one evening and another evening was a night of science experiments directed by a local science teacher.

The highlights for me were the ‘Showcase Nights’ that we ran at the end of each term. Students could bring in any piece of work, music,

poetry, etc to show, read or perform. This was often the student’s private piece of work done entirely at home, birthed from their area of passion or interest. Some examples that students showcased included detailed dioramas from a particular time in history, science models, prose, and some pretty cool maths discoveries. This time was so dear to my heart because children were not only fully affirmed in their efforts and creations but were also affirmed for the amazing young men and women they were. Often students shared that, in the school environment, they were rarely praised, affirmed, or encouraged for their work. This often comes from the misconception that because schoolwork comes easily to these students, little effort has been taken. Showcase nights were all about changing this mindset, celebrating the remarkable achievements, the learning journey, and development of skills, where children were safe to feel proud of their efforts without judgment or labels.

While the focus of Fireflash could appear to be only on the students, it was just as intentional in supporting the parents. While students were playing board games, creating, having a science session, doing drama or enjoying an early dinner snack together, parents had the opportunity to connect, network, talk strategies, listen, and share. This time was treasured by all. Families were diversely represented and those who had been on the journey longer openly shared what worked for them and what didn’t. Coming together fortnightly was an emotional lifeline for some, while others attended so they could be a support and a listening ear to those that needed it.

Students’ perspectives were particularly powerful.

Isabelle: ‘I loved how we got to do a wide variety of cool activities, especially the plays, science experiments and I loved the board game nights. But the best thing was being able to make friends with other kids who had the same interests as me.’

Brigitta: ‘I just loved how I could be myself at Fireflash and I loved playing with kids of all ages.’

Daniel: ‘I love maths and science – so anything to do with these topics were my favourite nights.’

Gemma: “I loved being able to bring my huge project on Ancient Egypt that I worked on at home for Showcase Night. It took me 6 months to make, and my teacher never even knew about it. I did it just for fun.”

All the children from Fireflash days are now young adults, and it has been so rewarding to have been a small part of their lives. If anyone is interested in starting up a support group, I highly recommend it. There are so many families seeking support and maybe you could be the next facilitator to produce the ‘dust, gas or ignitable liquid’ for the young people around you!

Above: Fireflash Science Night

Victoria Poulos is mum to two gifted adults and is the Gifted and Talented Coordinator at Crest Education, Melbourne. She is also currently engaged in postgraduate study in gifted education at GERRIC, NSW. 25

VISION, Volume 33 No. 2 2022

Educator Reflection

Facilitating Gifted Students’ Thriving in Mixed Ability Classrooms - A Reflection Bernadette Sheedy This is a re-print of an article from our previous edition (Vol 33, No 1) which contained a printing error. Apologies are extended to the author.

IN TODAY’S CLASSROOMS, TEACHERS NEED TO BE FLEXIBLE AND HAVE THE SKILLS TO ADAPT THEIR PEDAGOGY TO CATER FOR A DIVERSE ARRAY OF STUDENTS, EACH WITH THEIR OWN UNIQUE NEEDS. Some of these

needs stem from the gaps in learning and the social emotional impacts of the learning disruptions caused by pandemic lockdowns. While much emphasis has been placed on providing accommodations for students with learning difficulties, it is imperative that the needs of our gifted students are not overlooked. The following are my reflections in response to the question: how do we help our gifted students to thrive in a mixed ability classroom?

Gifted students are special needs students The first step to helping gifted students thrive within a mixed ability classroom is for teachers to acknowledge they have special needs. No two classes are identical, and the same can be said for the students within them. This is one of the joys, and the challenges, of being a teacher. Each child has their own strengths and weaknesses, but some have needs that impact profoundly on their ability to learn. For over twenty years, I have worked as a teacher in Victoria and I have had the privilege of working with educational support faculties that have done an incredible job supporting students with a range of learning difficulties.

Perhaps it is because legislation dictates that schools must address the needs of these students that schools are so mindful of putting measures in place to cater for this cohort of students. However, when I think about students with special needs, I also think of gifted and talented students.

They are wonderfully neurodiverse and they have so much to contribute to our classrooms, and to the world.

supporting the full participation of learners with disability. Given that descriptor 1.5 of the APST states teachers must be able to differentiate teaching to meet the specific learning needs of learners across the full range of abilities, does it not then follow that teachers in Victoria should also be required to participate in professional development to improve their ability to meet the needs of gifted and talented students?

Understand differentiation Another step towards ensuring gifted students thrive in a mixed ability classroom is for teachers to understand that there is more to differentiation than simply a collection of strategies. Differentiation is about an overall approach to teaching which informs our thinking from the moment we begin planning to the moment we evaluate what we have done. Tomlinson’s (2017) model of differentiation refers to incorporating ‘respectful tasks’ as part of the differentiation process and I think this is a key element. Whether you are responding to the needs of high ability learners or those with learning difficulties, every student has the right to learn something new every day and respectful tasks facilitate this happening because they take into consideration what the student can already do and what they already know. The misconception is that in order to differentiate, a teacher needs to prepare individual lesson plans for every student in their class. If this were true, teachers would be leaving the profession in even greater numbers than they already are.

We need to debunk these myths and show teachers that there are ways differentiation can happen that do not require extensive amounts of time to plan or execute.

(See Figure 1.)

Empower teachers

Utilising technology

Another step that will contribute to gifted students thriving in a mixed ability classroom is to empower their teachers with the knowledge to be able to identify who these students are and the ways their needs can be met. There are so many misconceptions surrounding these issues which lead to teachers thinking that gifted students are the ones who always achieve perfect results on tests, or believing that gifted programs only exist when students are withdrawn from mainstream classes. Reflecting on my time at university when I was completing my teacher training, I recall that I did not have to complete any units about gifted and talented education, and I think that most teachers would say the same. It was not until I completed the Certificate of Gifted Education through GERRIC that I truly began to understand these unique young people and how I could be responding to their needs. According to the 2018-2019 State of the States in Gifted Education document published by the NAGC (2020), ‘thirty five out of 46 states’ in America require teachers to obtain an endorsement or certification in order to work with gifted and talented students. Similarly, it is a requirement that teachers in Victoria attend professional development in order to meet descriptor 1.6 of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) in relation to strategies for

We have spent the better part of the last two years working in digital environments due to the pandemic lockdowns. One silver lining is that resources have been developed to facilitate this mode of learning and we can utilise these types of resources to support our gifted students in mixed ability classrooms. Hyperdocs can be used to create materials for students which include links to other websites or digital resources.

These resources can include extension materials which will challenge and extend the learning of our gifted students. We can offer students the opportunity to complete webquests or interactive activities online to enhance their learning or they can create these types of resources themselves and build their digital skills. We can use different apps which can engage students by asking them to complete digital tasks requiring higher order thinking skills. Digital platforms can also be used to encourage collaboration through the use of blogs or apps such as Padlet or Flipgrid. Research demonstrates the substantial academic gains which can occur through grouping gifted students to complete collaborative tasks (Kulik & Kulik 1987; Vaughn 1990). Students can use technology to connect with mentors in their areas of interest or with high

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Figure 1. Maker’s (1982) model of differentiated curriculum for highly able students

ability students at other schools. Depending on the level of differentiation required, gifted students could also access courses designed to meet their needs by organisations such as the Johns Hopkins Centre for Talented Youth or the Northwestern University’s Centre for Talent Development. Another form of extension can be provided by giving students access to virtual museums or art tours, or allowing them to tune into live broadcasts or lectures from around the world.

Bernadette - MEdLead, BA, DipEd, GCertEdRes, COGE, Deakin University Doctoral student - was the Coordinator of Gifted and Talented Education at St Monica’s College, Epping, for eight years, and is currently the Gifted and Talented Coordinator at Mount Scopus Memorial College. She

completed her Master of Educational Leadership at the Australian Catholic University in 2014 and the Certificate of Gifted Education (COGE) through the University of New South Wales in 2011. Bernadette has presented at conferences for VAGTC, the Victorian Association for the Teaching of English and the Victorian Commercial Teachers Association.

She has facilitated professional learning teams at her school and delivered presentations to Faculty groups on the topic of Curriculum Differentiation for Highly Able Learners. She is currently completing a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), with a focus on gifted education, at Deakin University.

C O N S U L T A N C Y The VAGTC offers expert advice to educators and parents in the areas of gifted and talented education and advocacy.

Consultancy is available on the wellbeing and education of gifted and high ability children.

A free initial consultation service is available to parents and families by emailing consult@vagtc.org.au. Ongoing support in response to specific needs can be arranged for families and schools at an hourly rate. Membership discounts apply.

e: consult@vagtc.org.au

For further information about support offered by the VAGTC Consult Team through parent and educator seminars, visit: vagtc.org.au/seminars/ vagtc.org.au/book-an-educator-seminar/

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References: Pg 10: Students Are Unlikely to Advocate for Themselves: Reshaping Stage 4 for English to Differentiate for Gifted Students Ausubel, D. P., Novak, J. D., & Hanesian, H. (1968). Educational psychology: A cognitive view.

Betts, G.T. & Neilhart, M. (2010) Revised profiles of gifted and talented. Accessed October 28, 2022. https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/ teachingresources/high-ability-toolkit/Pages/defining-high-ability.aspx Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation. (2019). Revisiting Gifted Education. Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation. Accessed September 25, 2022. https://www.cese.nsw.gov.au/ DET. (2019). High Potential and Gifted Education. Accessed September 25, 2022. https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/high-potential-and-giftededucation/about-the-policy/high-potential-and-gifted-education-policy Jolly, Jennifer L, and Rosalind L Walsh. (2018). Gifted Education in the Australian Context. Gifted Child Today 81-88.

Mulligan, A. (2014). Trash. Definitions.

Rosenshine, B. (2009). The Empirical Support for Direct Instruction. In Constructivist instruction: Success or Failure? New York, NY: Routledge.

Pg 19: Three Adult Actions for Gifted Youth with Learning, Behavioral, and Attentional Disabilities: Advocacy, Activism, and Organizing Assouline, S., & Lupkowski-Shoplik, A. (2003). Developing mathematical talent: A guide for teachers and parents of gifted students. Waco, TX: Prufrock.

Benson, T. (2018, Nov. 1). Tricky task for advocating for 2e youth in public schools. Variations. 2eNews.com.

Chivers, S. (2021). Twice exceptionality in the classroom. Journal of Student Engagement: Education Matters, 2(1). https://www.aaegt.net.au/gifted-learners-withdisability-questions-and-answers.

Frydenberg, E., & O’Mullane, A. (2000). Nurturing talent in the Australian context: A reflective approach. Roeper Review, 22(2), 78 85. https://discovery.ebsco.com/c/ xppotz/viewer/html/gch2736npn.

Friedrichs, T. P. (2001). Distinguishing characteristics of gifted students with disabilities. Waco, TX: Prufrock.

Fritz, R. (2021, February 15). Disabled? Gifted? Both? How to support twice-exceptional kids in a problematic Australian education system. The Advocate. https:// theadvocate.org.au/news/disabled-gifted-both-how-to-support-twice-exceptional kids-in-a-problematic-australian-education-system/ Gallagher, J. J. (1997). The role of policy in special education reform. In J.L. Paul et al. (Eds.). Special education practice: Applying the knowledge, affirming the values, and creating the future. Pacific Grove, Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, p. 26-42.

GLD Australia (2022). Questions and answers: Gifted learners with disability (GLD). https://www.aaegt.net.au/gifted-learners-with-disability-questions-and-answers GTLD Network (undated). Upcoming events. https://gtldnetwork.wordpress.com/ Jacobs, K., & Anthony, H. (2017). Supporting twice exceptional (2e) students at school: The case for Individual Learning Plans (ILP). Vision, 28(1), 28-31. https:// www.vagtc.org.au/vision magazine/ Kauffman, J. M. (1981). Characteristics of children’s behavior disorders (2nd ed.). Columbus, OH: Merrill.

Kronborg, L., & Cornejo-Araya, C. A. (2018). Gifted educational provisions for gifted and highly able students in Victorian schools, Australia. Universitas Psychologica, 17(5), 42-55. https://discovery.ebsco.com/f5d2cb22-d51b-4cb8-b144-6e872daad6fa Kircher-Morris, E. (2022). Raising twice-exceptional children: A handbook for parents of neurodivergent gifted kids (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi. org/10.4324/978100323753 Munro, J. (2004). Gifted literacy disabled students: Understanding the learning characteristics of gifted students who have literacy learning disabilities. Vision, 28-31. https://www.vagtc.org.au/vision-magazine/ Olney, M, & Brockelman, K. (2003). Out of the disability closet: Strategic use of perception management by select university students with disabilities. Disability and Society, 18. DOI 10.1080/713662200 Prior, S. (2013). Australasian Journal of Special Education, 37(1), 19–27. doi: 10.1017/jse.2013.3 https://www.cambridge.org/core/article/transition-and-students withtwice-exceptionality/76B988117F87EE92CBE316FD49DCACEA Ronksley-Pavia, M. (2020). Twice-exceptionality in Australia: Prevalence estimates. Australasian Journal of Gifted Education, 29(2), 17 29. https://search.informit.org/ doi/pdf/10.3316/informit.433291132264635?download=true Ronksley-Pavia, M., & Neumann, M. M. (2022). Exploring educator leadership practices in gifted education to facilitate online learning experiences for (re)engaging gifted students. Education Sciences, 12, 99-99. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12020099 Rowan, L., & Townend, G. (2016). Early career teachers’ beliefs about their preparedness to teach: Implications for the professional development of teachers working with gifted and twice exceptional students. Cogent Education, 3(1), 1242458. doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2016.1242458 Townend, G., & Pendergast, D. (2015). Student voice: What can we learn from twice-exceptional students about the teacher’s role in enhancing or inhibiting academic self-concept. Australasian Journal of Gifted Education, 24(1), 37-51.

Wormald, C. (2011). What knowledge exists in NSW schools of students with learning difficulties who are also academically gifted? Australasian Journal of Gifted Education, 20(2), 5-9. https://ro.uow.edu.au/sspapers/3530/

Pg 22: Advocacy, Parent Groups, and Collaboration: Tools for Meeting Gifted Needs Fisher, R., Ury, W., & Patton, B. (2006). Getting to Yes (2nd ed.). Penguin Putnam.

Stone, D., Patton, B., & Heen, S. (2010). Difficult Conversations. Penguin.

Pg 24: Facilitating Gifted Students’ Thriving in Mixed Ability Classrooms - A Reflection Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. (2011). Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, AITSL, Melbourne Kulik, J. A., & Kulik, C.-L. C. (1987). Effects of ability grouping on student achievement. Equity and Excellence, 23, 22-30.

Maker, J. (1982). Teaching models in education of the gifted. Aspen Systems Corp. Teaching Models in Education of the Gifted - C. June Maker - Google Books NAGC. (2020). 2018-2019 State of the States in Gifted Education: Executive Summary. National Association for Gifted Children Tomlinson, C. (2017). How to differentiate instruction in academically diverse classrooms Alexandria, Va Ascd. Differentiation: An Overview (ascd.org) Vaughan, V. L. (1990). Meta-analysis of pull-out programs in gifted education. Paper at the annual convention of the National Association for Gifted Children, Little Rock, AR.

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To advocate for gifted learners as they explore and develop their talents

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