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April 2015
Volume 11 (1)
www.nmgifted.org
Volume 11, No. 1
Gifted Day, February 23
NMAG Executive Board
President:
Geoffrey Moon, Gallup McKinley
County Schools
President Elect:
Christy Jewell-Roth, Albuquerque
Public Schools
Recording Secretary:
J Ortiz, Española Schools Treasurer:
Bonnie LaCourt, Albuquerque
Public Schools
Membership:
Darryl Bryant, Menaul School,
Albuquerque
Publicity:
Steve Heil, Gallup McKinley
County Schools
Legislative and Higher Education
Liaison
Dr. PJ Sedillo, New Mexico
Highlands University
Newsletter Editor:
Sara Dean, Farmington
Table of Contents
• New Mexico Gifted Day - page 1
• President’s Letter - page 2
• NAGC Affiliate Conference - page
2
• National News - page 2
• Gifted Education around NM:
Interview with Michael Freeman page 3
• NMAG Membership Information page 6
• NMAG Bookmark for Gifted Day
- page 7
By Christy Jewell-Roth, President-Elect
It was a cold, snowy day in the Land of Enchantment as
students, parents and teachers (approximately 160 in all) from
Gallup, Albuquerque, Taos and Farmington arrived in Santa Fe
to celebrate Gifted Day in the New Mexico legislature.
Representative Christine Trujillo (Democrat in District 25) read
a statement about gifted education in our state and then
introduced House Memorial 005.* After the memorial was read,
gifted students in the gallery stood and were recognized.
The audience in the gallery had a bird’s eye view of the
events on the House floor for about an hour of the morning. One
teacher in attendance likened it to watching an anthill.
Legislators were moving about in all directions as staff and
student pages entered and exited the floor delivering various
items. Legislators introduced guests, made announcements and
introduced new pieces of legislation to be discussed at a later
time. When the morning session adjourned, much of the gallery
audience filed down onto the House floor for photos with
legislators.
New Mexico Association for the Gifted Newsletter
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April 2015 News Links:
National
Gifted Education Advocates Praise
Leadership of Outgoing Sen.
Mikulski
U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, a
Democrat from Maryland who
announced Monday that she plans to
retire in 2016 after 30 years in
Congress, has been a dogged
supporter of programs intended to
identify and educate
underrepresented populations in
gifted education, advocates said.
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/
speced/2015/03/
gifted_education_advocates_pra_1.ht
ml
Will the Common Core mean the
end of gifted programs?
Some U.S. schools are using the
adoption of the Common Core State
Standards as a reason to scale back
or eliminate gifted-education
programs, according to a study by
the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
Jonathan Plucker, a professor of
education who wrote the study, says
the Common Core was intended to
be "a floor, not a ceiling," and that
teachers need more training "devoted
to curricular and instructional
differentiation by ability level.
thejournal.com/articles/2015/02/23/
will-gifted-education-weather-thecommon-core.aspx
National news links continue on
page 5.
Volume 11, No. 1
Those in attendance were also able to take part in a tour of
the Roundhouse and eat lunch in the Martinez Memorial
Gallery. If you have never been to the Roundhouse or the
Gallery, you are missing some beautiful architecture and
artwork. Our students were able to see some amazing examples
of paintings and sculptures made by local artists. Despite the
cold weather, it was a great day for gifted education!
*http://www.nmlegis.gov/Sessions/15%20Regular/
memorials/house/HM005.html
On page 6, see the NMAG bookmark distributed at Gifted Day.
Letter from the President
Do we need so many tests? How many? At what cost?
I recently found myself reflecting on yesteryears’ debates about
the amount of time spent in school: how recently educators and
legislators debated issues of school day length and school year
duration; the yo-yo history of administrative decisions
lengthening school days, then retracting them to extend teacher
training time. It is interesting to contrast that period of school
reform to this, when so much seems to be staked on testing.
In this season when the PARCC test looms large for so many of
New Mexico’s students, it has come time to think carefully
about the place of standardized testing in schools. Standardized
tests may be useful to guide education, but in a country where
there is widespread agreement that we should increase student
success, the question arises whether all we give up for tests is
helpful.
A carefully constructed school curriculum will always include
three components: content for students to study, ways to learn
that content, and assessments of learning. Assessment is
important for at least four significant reasons:
1.In planning a lesson or sequence of lessons, they provide
concrete goals to work towards.
2.Given in advance of teaching, tests may indicate more
precisely what should be taught.
3.Given at the end of a learning unit, tests support reflection on
whether the curriculum worked, and what next steps should be.
4. Given outside of a class, tests support planning needs such as
diagnosis of learning problems and strengths, placement, and
allocation of resources.
New Mexico Association for the Gifted Newsletter
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April 2015
PARCC gets a bad name because it is new and
the most widely publicized test in our schools.
And though it may have strengths and
weaknesses, PARCC is only one of a host of
tests given outside of the regular curriculum.
Our schools test for purposes including class
placement, assessment of language proficiency,
measurement of student growth, comparison of
schools and teachers to each other, and
identification of college and career readiness.
Partially because of the high stakes we place on
them, weeks of the school year are devoted to
tests divorced from the curriculum, and to
school’s explicit preparation for them.
Beyond the time spent on tests, there are also
quantifiable costs in dollars and unquantifiable
costs to teachers and students. At $29.50/
student, the PARCC, just one of the many tests
we use, costs than $5 million to administer to
New Mexico students. Thinking about
intangibles, when I’ve asked my students, “What
do you learn from all the tests?” they shake their
heads. When I ask how they make them feel, the
overwhelming majority reports it makes them
feel bad. Teachers talk of having some insights
about students, but also a huge loss of morale
from the way tests are used to judge them. Our
tests generate not only financial but human
losses.
When we were having discussions of school day
and year, there was little thought to what we do
in school; it was assumed that school time was
time well spent. Now we give up a large
percentage of those precious days not to
learning, but to proving that we did something
with the reduced time we find ourselves left
with.
We need tests in schools, for all of the reasons
listed above, but tests don’t raise student
performance. School, maturation, teaching, and
practice do. We need to take some time in
school for assessment, but if we take weeks
New Mexico Association for the Gifted Newsletter
Volume 11, No. 1
away from teaching and practice; just letting kids
grow older, going to school without learning,
shaming them for what they don’t know, who
does that help?
Legislative Priorities for NAGC Affiliate
Conference
When President-Elect Christy Jewell-Roth and
Legislative and Higher Education Liaison PJ
Sedillo attended the NAGC Affiliate Conference
in Washington, D.C., from March 21 to 24, they
promoted three ideas to New Mexico Senators
and Representatives: the accountability in the
flow of money and performance of top
tierstudents; advanced programming for top
performers which is an addition to, not a
substitute for, gifted programming; and a
national definition for giftedness. Their summary
of the experience will be published in the next
issue of the newsletter.
Gifted Education in New Mexico
Michael Freeman received NMAG’s 2014
“Outstanding Teacher of the Year” award. For
the first in a series of articles about successful
gifted education programs in New Mexico, he
answered some questions for the NMAG
newsletter.
How long have you been teaching gifted
education? What grades and subjects are you
teaching now?
This is my twentieth year of teaching, eleven of
which have been in gifted programs. Currently,
my focus is on fourth grade students but I am
also team-teaching algebra/geometry in second
grade and teaching a creativity group in third
grade. For the past eight years, I have been
happily providing B-level pull-out gifted
services in a school where we have grown from
16 gifted students in 2007 to regularly serving
over 100. My favorite part of teaching gifted is
getting to teach and work with kids over multiple
years. I love seeing them mature, grow, and build
on what they have learned. It is especially fun to
watch their sense of humor develop and change.
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April 2015
Volume 11, No. 1
The funny thing is that I had never heard of
gifted education until I was doing my student
teaching and a friend told me that she had found
the perfect place for me with a teacher who
taught gifted. I had to ask what she meant.
If we walked into your classroom on any given
day, what would we see?
If you walked into my class you would see a lot
of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and
math) activities with students building,
discussing, planning, experimenting, helping
What does gifted look like in your district? Is
each other, and being creative. You would see
there a teacher in each school or do you serve
group problem solving, algebra, 3-D math,
many sites?
Greek mythology, art, and genetics. You might
Gifted programs at APS schools vary depending see us practicing thinking strategies like
on the school, the support of the administration
SCAMPER or FFOE or you might see us
and parents, and the number of gifted students at working on strategy by playing ICO (a 3-D
that school. Some gifted education teachers serve game) or Polis (an ancient Greek game). You
multiple schools while others teach in selfmight see me trying something out of my
contained, or C-Level, classrooms or provide
comfort zone and you might see students
gifted enrichment through a pull-out (B-Level)
frowning in concentration, smiling at successes,
program. When I began at North Star Elementary collaborating, or deep in concentration.
in 2007, I was the only full-time teacher of the
What ways have you found to motivate
gifted and worked with one part-time teacher.
students?
With the support of parents, teachers and our
You must get to know your students if you want
administration, our program has taken off, with
to motivate them. Some students like
new subject matter and learning approaches
competition, some like curriculum offered in a
added each year.
game-like format, some respond to technology
Our school currently has four full-time teachers use or challenge, and for others it comes down to
of the gifted, and by the end of the year we
offering interesting, relevant content. Perhaps the
usually have well over 100 students. In general, most important way to motivate students is to
we organize our lessons by grade level but we
provide them with choices to give them some
are flexible and find creative ways to provide the control over what they learn and/or how they
services each student needs. I really appreciate
learn it. A good teacher has a diverse repertoire
and value the gifted (curriculum) strands that all of techniques and chooses the best one for the
APS teachers are asked to use when designing
student or group of students. I also find that
curriculum, such as Self-Understanding,
gifted students get bored with routine, so I mix
Independence in Learning, Thinking Skills,
things up and try to find fresh ways for students
Creativity, and Interest Development.
to experience learning.
How much time are you able to spend with
yours students each day/week?
We base the number of hours a student attends
gifted enrichment on the areas in which the
student qualified and each student’s needs. I
believe our current range is between 3 and 7
hours per week with most students receiving
around 5 hours. We never have enough time for
everything we want to explore.
New Mexico Association for the Gifted Newsletter
What makes your program successful?
Our recipe for success includes the support of
parents, administration, and the district. Mix in a
large helping of teacher collaboration seasoned
with experienced, dedicated teachers. Serve to a
group of students who are eager to learn and
willing to try new things.
Something I learned from my students is that
excitement in learning is not generated solely
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April 2015
from new ideas but can also be sparked by taking
a novel approach to known subjects. I was once
told that every gifted program does a unit on
Greek Mythology and considered replacing it
until I asked my fifth grade students to rate their
favorite topics from all their years in gifted
enrichment. Greek Mythology won first place
hands down. I have had parents tell me their
second grade student reads all the Greek myths
and cannot wait until they reach fourth grade so
they can study Greek Mythology. I have adapted
the Odyssey simulation curriculum from Interact
and added a healthy dose of activities that
require creativity and problem solving. For
example, after reading the Pandora myth,
students are asked to create a box with items to
counteract the bad things Pandora let loose in the
world. They create artifacts to represent the
abstract concepts of such things as health, peace,
and wealth (or whatever they decide counteracts
poverty).
Volume 11, No. 1
to think deeper. For example, one page has a flat
pyramid shape with 1 block on top, three on row
two, five blocks on row three, and seven blocks
on row four. The student is asked to find a math
pattern or formula that will allow them to predict
how many blocks they will need for the tenth
row without building the structure.
What are the challenges to the program?
In addition to funding, which is a problem for all
educational services, our biggest challenge is
coordinating gifted instruction schedules with
our students’ general education (or classroom)
teachers. It is difficult to ensure that our students
receive all the instructional time for which they
have qualified because general education
teachers must also schedule activities such as
PARCC test practice in the computer lab, field
trips, special programs, and parties, all of which
our students should participate in along with
their classroom peers.
Our students have strong interest in science and Our second biggest challenge is scheduling IEP
(Individualized Education Plan) meetings with
math so I stepped out of my comfort zone and
put together a unit on genetics based on activities parents, general education teachers, and our
I located on the University of Utah’s website. We gifted teachers given time constraints. We are
given one day a week to hold IEP meetings and
recreate Gregor Mendel’s pea experiment using
quick growing plants that allow us to raise three therefore have a huge problem if parents cannot
generations in one year. That way we can see the attend on that day and we have to schedule a
traits that are passed down (dominant). We look different day. Getting coverage for the general
education teachers so they are able to attend the
at patterns in human diseases that are inherited.
meeting is sometimes difficult as well, especially
With grant money I received for field trips, we
visited the genetics lab at the University of New in a school with as many gifted students as North
Star Elementary.
Mexico to see their work using fruit flies.
Students do a big Family Trait Tree homework
project and later interview family members about What do you want students to retain after being
attitudes and beliefs about human and animal
in your classroom?
cloning, genetically modified foods, and gene
It would thrill me to have students say that I
therapy for diseases.
introduced them to a topic that became a passion
for them. I would feel successful if they learned
In an effort to provide more STEM skills and
to be more curious about the world, learned
opportunities, I started offering a 3-D math
program. Students build a shape with cubes and something about themselves, and learned to
then draw it from three perspectives (front, side, work in a group. I hope they learn perseverance,
logic, and the desire to become life-long
and top view). They look for math patterns and
there is always a challenge question to get them learners.
New Mexico Association for the Gifted Newsletter
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April 2015
Volume 11, No. 1
How does your program align to Common Core standards?
We align every IEP goal to the Common Core. My fellow teachers of the gifted and I see our job as to
guide the students who are ready to go higher or deeper into the standards. We are there to “enrich” the
curriculum for students who already know the grade level curriculum or have learned it quickly. We aim
for the higher level thinking skills by using more abstract, complex or open ended activities and
approaches.
What advice can you give to teachers who want to improve their gifted education programs?
If you want to improve your program, you should keep learning and trying new things with your
students. Listen to your students to find out what they are interested in doing. Read journals and articles
on gifted education to learn what other teachers are doing. Take classes focusing on gifted students. For
me the most important thing was to connect with a gifted cohort to share ideas, materials, and
inspiration. I love to bounce ideas around with other teachers of the gifted because we end up with
something that is superior to what any of us could have produced on our own. My colleagues are
wonderful and each has different talents and skills that they bring to the collaboration table. We are a
strong team that is dedicated to gifted students.
National News, continued from page 1:
Educator: Focus on "giftedness" in all students
Teachers should strive to find "giftedness" in all students, educator Cheryl Mizerny writes in this blog
post. She calls for the use of instructional strategies often used in gifted-education classrooms to be used
with all students, especially those who may be struggling.
smartblogs.com/education/2015/02/19/finding-the-gift-in-every-student/?utm_source=brief
Louisiana district seeks to close minority gap in gifted education Black and Hispanic students often are underrepresented in gifted and talented programs, according to
U.S. Department of Education data. A Louisiana school district is taking steps to bridge the gap by
addressing two potential reasons for underrepresentation -- test bias and teacher bias.
http://hechingerreport.org/can-schools-create-gifted-students/
NMAG Membership Information
http://nmgifted.org/membership-applications.html
New Mexico Association for the Gifted Newsletter
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April 2015
Volume 11, No. 1
NMAG Gifted Day Bookmark, front and back:
New Mexico Association for the Gifted Newsletter
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