Wise Ones Australia

International Womens Day

I’d like to honour two women who had a significant effect on my life and therefore on WiseOnes. Australia’s first saint, Mary McKillop, founded a teaching group of women with the vision of educating the poor. I once visited a remote aboriginal community, in a stony desert area in West Australia, as far from anywhere else as you could get, and there were two of her group, living in an ancient caravan and running a school so the influence of Mary McKillop three quarters of a century later was still felt. For me another amazing women was Sr Edmund, probably born after Mary’s death, but who was filled with Mary McKillop’s vision and with a great sense of humour. Sr Edmund taught me in Grade 5, recognized my potential, organized free psychological assessent, coached me for free after school towards gaining a scholarship. I passed the scholarship that year so missed grade 6 and also Grade 7. After a very hard year doing grade 8 , I gained a government scholarship and completed years 9 to 12. For several years only one other girl from my primary school at Frankston completed year 12. I found out later that my parents had gone without food to pay my train fare to secondary school. Yes, I do appreciate that parents make sacrifices to provide the WiseOnes program for their fast learners.

Read more on International Womens Day…

MySchool reports

I averaged the Victorian ICSEA scores of all schools that has the WiseOnes program in 2009. The average was 1095 with a range of 1005-1194. The two extremes of the range were both in the outer east of Melbourne. I wonder how much help we have been to these schools in assisting their fast learners to be happy, confident and able to achieve good results. Many would anyway, but confidence in being your own true self certainly helps and the extra, advanced general knowledge and advanced learning skills must make a difference. We do hear of children who are in WiseOnes getting scholarships but have no means of tracking them later. I am keen to make the program available in schools with lower scores, as school leaders tell me it makes a difference, but parents can’t afford it and schools can’t afford it. I am seeking a big corporate sponsor that we could work with as a partner. Our ethical nature would need to be satisfied as one of the criteria. Pat S

Master Speller Mentor

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.

Commencing 2010

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.

Why Nerds are Unpopular

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.

Happy Christmas

To all teachers, students and parents associated with WiseOnes in all of the schools in Victoria and New South Wales, we say thanks for your commitments during 2009. All WiseOnes Education Managers and teachers as well as the Directors wish you time of peace, solidarity and fun with your families.

Mel Levine

Many thanks to those who sent information about Mel Levine. I have contacted ACEL and given them the link to the New York Times article. Probably the information does not invalidate his expertise in the field of learning but we would not associated with him again, in case. Pat

12th year almost completed

When we started WiseOnes there was nothing like it anywhere. We did not know how it would work out. All we knew was that there was a big need for specialist gifted programs as many children were not totally enthusiastic about school. Having many grandchildren in all different systems and independent schools showed us that it was a general need everywhere. Learning at the World Gifted Conferences showed us that it was a world wide problem. Having been a creative problem solving Principal, I knew that there were so many hindrances in the way of schools being able to do enough, that a support program that took no money, no special teacher time, no resources and was a parent choice program could work. After 12 years I have set a new aim so that all the gifted children can have access to the program in spite of family finances.

Strengths and deficits in children

On 24/11/09 I attended a seminar given by Dr Mel Levine, Rhodes scholar, graduate of Harvard, Professor of Pediatrics at the University of North Carolina. Dr Levine taught us about Neurodevelopmental Constructs and Functions. His special interest is in children who are not doing well at school. Quite a few children are gifted and also have developmental deficits. Dr Levine does not believe in labels such as ADHD or Aspbergers. He says we must look at the strengths of each child and help use them to find a way around the weaknesses. I was interested in one of his books “The Myth of Laziness’ as one of my own gifted children was always accused of “laziness”. No teacher recognized him as gifted and he was not sure until he was tested as an adult.

Angela Katsos schools

Angela Katsos VIC	Teacher	Term 1 2010	Term 2 2010	Term 3 2010
Eltham PS	Norma Turnbull-Smith	Mind Your Money
Streeton PS	Norma Turnbull-Smith	Mind Your Money