Phone: (03) 9794 8258Archive for January, 2010
We are very pleased with our first Master Speller Mentor. Her adult son has an intellectual disability and has not been able to spell before. Now , using the method accurately, he is learning two words a week when he comes to vist his parents. It is very exciting for all of us. The Mentor is not a teacher but a determined mother who is good at English. Contact us info@@wiseones.com.au if you think we could help you.
Welcome back everyone. Term dates for Victoria:- most schools start the WiseOnes program the week commencing February 8th. Make sure your fee is paid at the start of the school year to confirm your child’s place in the program as we have to prepare everything for the correct number of children. We do not use any of the school’s materials or resources other than a space. As term 1 is so short most schools will have two sessions at the start of term 2 then start that term’s unit straight after. In a couple of schools the teacher has negotiated finishing all 8 sessions in term 1 by holding a double session occasionally.
Im NSW the term goes a week longer so most will be able to complete the unit in term 1. Easter Sunday is 4th April.
Remember that your gifted child needs to enrol in the ‘hard” units as well, in order to learn to fail, to ask for help, to oversome perfectionism, to see that risk taking to learn is OK and to learn to make wise decisions about the effort that is required to attain the result they want at that time, for that work. In this way WiseOnes helps them cope with their gift, to prevent stress and to avoid later complications that often arise from the very nature of being gifted. We are not an academic enrichment program but a differentiated personal development program with Academic, Intellectual, Moral and Social aims specifically to help the gifted child from our own educational learning and the shared wisdom of our team of wonderful educators. Pat S
Paul Graham wrote an article on this topic from an American viewpoint and I think the situations is similar in Australia but not yet so intense as in USA.
Point 1: Everyone in the school knows exactly how popular everyone else is. 2. Being smart seems to make you unpopular and your life difficult. 3. So, he asks,”Why don’t smart kids make themselves popular?” After all, they are smart enough to work out how to beat the system” 4. The asnwer he thinks is they don’t want to be popular enough. 5. Being popular takes a lot of time from other interests. It affects how you live and move and dress, how they exude charisma, and listen to music, attend films, watch videos, play sport, and use the internet etc etc. It takes a lot of time and basically the nerds want to be smart more than to be popular. Yes, they would like to be popular, but not enough to let their smartness run down. It is not a conscious decision at the school stage so they still feel bad about not being popular but they want more to make a difference, to counter wrongs, to design beauty, to write well, to understand people better, to program computers, to wonder and experiment and to read deeply and widely. Being smart enough to do all those things is more important than temporary popularity.
As I see it they are more mature at the same age and they are able to see the big picture and take long term stances and plan long term actions. Given that the average nerd learns at 140% the rate of an average person, by their teens they are years ahead in their thinking. Judging them against others their own age does not make sense. In Australia it is quite similar to this. One of our daughters, a tall girl, was celebrating her 11th birthday. My tennis partner said, “How old is she today?” I said,’She’s 11.” My partner said “Thank goodness. I always thought she was bit on the slow side as I imagined she was about 16.” And this about a girl whose Geography teacher said when she was actually 16, “She is the most gifted student I have ever taught.” She had been underestimated due to her choices and her height. I am always amazed at how much nerds know when given the chance to show it in a non-threatening environment.