You roll: the black hailstone of sadness and the TDI

I am the first to drink of the blue that still looks for its eye.
I drink from your footprint and see:
you roll through my fingers, pearl, and you grow!
You grow, as do all the forgotten.
You roll: the black hailstone of sadness
is caught by a kerchief turned white with waving goodbye.

Paul Celan (1952)
—translated from the German by Michael Hamburger
MOHN UND GEDACHTNIS (Poppy and Memories, 1952)

I stood arms outstretched, face to the heavens, on the newly mown grass of the chook run at the dementia center today.  I let the hail stones pelt my face and ping off my body.  I was in intimate conversation with super cooled water droplets. I laughed out loud.

I wanted grandpa to strip down to his white (really institutionally swashed grey) Y-fronts and join me, but he retained the reticence of an early 20th Century learner, suggesting instead that if I didn’t come back inside he would see the charge nurse and have me put on the “unsuitable visitor list”.   

But being open to whatever the heavens could throw down was a good thing.  He should have joined me.  When I felt the hail on my skin and saw it pronging around the cowering chooks I knew, I just knew somehow that I haven’t fallen to the ground for the last time.  I haven’t done waiting, and I haven’t done hoping. 

Hailstones tell stories through their structure. When you bisect a hailstone the concentric rings tell you the number of times the hailstone has held high hopes – the concentric rings tell you how many journeys reached to the top of the storm before the inevitable surrender to forces of gravity and the drop to the chickens below.

When you bisect me you will find many concentric rings.  But I refuse to acknowledge Celan’s “waving goodbye” kerchief wrt Grandpa or anyone else.  I am determined to only ever grow more rings.

The gossip in the schools out west is that dropping to the chickens below is happening to more than hailstones – I’ve blogged before about the disappointing “ground hog day funding of the MOE gifted and talented Talent Development Initiative 2006-2008 in  Yes we are ALL different. -

I see from the spin doctors working on the TKI website that the MoE prefer to frame “ground hog day contracts” as “TDI enhance” and “TDI ignite” – you have just got to admire the cleverness in this.

It seems that one of the big winners in the TDI Ignite 

Meeting the needs of gifted students: Kelston Intervention Team
Seventeen cluster schools, ranging from decile 3 to decile 10, with students from more than 50 different cultural communities, will be involved in professional development, incorporating Resource Teachers: Learning and Behaviour in a mentoring programme designed to address the needs of gifted students with social, emotional and/or behavioural difficulties.

may have failed to meet expectations of "ignite", and after almost a full years funding fallen like a hailstone to the chickens below. 

Word in schools out west is that once the whistleblower tootled, key player/s scrambled to distance themselves from the project and people have been called to Wellington to account. If the gossip is true – then rolling the black hailstone of sadness is appropriate – for if  a years worth of government money has disappeared into something that fails to meet the expectations of MoE “ignite speak”, then the RTLB’s and the kids from 50 different cultural communities and seventeen different schools out west are still waiting for programmes to meet their specific learning needs.

Dunno, it seems to me that the kerchiefs of gifted kids in New Zealand are too often turned white with waving goodbye 

Comments

[bentmum]

“Dunno, it seems to me that the kerchiefs of gifted kids in New Zealand are too often turned white with waving goodbye”

I would say that the kerchiefs of gifted kids in New Zealand are too often turned red with their blood and black with disappointment!

[nix]

When the hail came I was working with a bunch of 'G&T'/CWSA/outside the square learners. We all rushed outside to scoop up handfuls of the delicious stuff and to play. They I realised I was a teacher not supposed to be playing in the wet and cold stuff so I tried to scoot them all inside again. I stopped myself just in time.

I needed to be in the hail and they needed to be in the hail. It was glorious.

[Artichoke]

You are right Bentmum - I suspect that the red/ black kerchief is the real face of the Nags change for many NZ gifted kids -

When you take the option of being forgotten and match it up against an alternative of being trapped in an inappropriate intervention and/or labelling process then I must allow that more damage than good might come out of being remembered.

Was having lunch last week with a colleague who works with pre-service teachers and sees the sort of gifted interventions currently on offer across many many schools - her comment was that the flawed interventions that resulted from the mandatory nature of NAG1 - meant she was for the first time in her career beginning to wish that we just "left the kids alone"

[Cherrie]

What's a "gifted kid"?

[Artichoke]

All I can say is that you did ask Cherrie – never have so few words in a comment box precipitated so many words in response - think best place to look is The Extent, Nature and Effectiveness of Planned Approaches in New Zealand Schools for Providing for Gifted and Talented Students Report to the Ministry of Education
T. Riley, J. Bevan-Brown, B. Bicknell, J. Carroll-Lind, A. Kearney
Institute for Professional Development and Educational Research Massey University

There you will find out that our unique take on this in New Zealand means we ride in many different directions … in Ministry speak we choose not to define ... read on

“Gifted and talented education in New Zealand differs from that of many other countries in several ways. It is recognised that “giftedness and talent can mean different things to different communities and cultures … and there is a range of appropriate approaches towards meeting the needs of all such students” (Ministry of Education, 2002, p 2).”

DEFINITIONS AND CHARACTERISTICS
There are many theories and definitions which have developed as educators have grappled with the notion of giftedness and talent. As the Working Party on Gifted Education pointed out in their 2001 report, there is not a universally accepted definition. That report also recognised that while all individuals have strengths and abilities, gifted and talented students have exceptional abilities. In 2002 the Ministry of Education stated that gifted and talented students “… have certain learning characteristics that give them the potential to achieve outstanding performance” (p. 2). These learning characteristics are described by the Working Party (2001) as being cognitive, creative, and affective. Gifted and talented students may possess one or more of a ‘wide range’ of special abilities, including strengths, interests, and qualities in their general intellect, academics, culture, creativity, leadership, physical abilities, and visual and performing arts (Ministry of Education, 2000). Finally, there is recognition that giftedness and talent may be recognised and developed in different ways by different communities and cultures (Ministry of Education, 2002).

While there are many definitions of giftedness and talent, within New Zealand, unlike some other countries, there are the above-outlined underlying principles, but no ‘official’ definition. Rather, there is encouragement for, and expectation that, each individual school will establish a school-based definition of giftedness and talent (Ministry of Education, 2000; 2002). “Schools need to develop multicategorical approaches to giftedness that are flexible enough to include the many characteristics that are typical of gifted and talented learners” (Ministry of Education, 2002, p. 2). The concept of giftedness and talent is dynamic, sensitive to time, place, and culture (McAlpine, 1996; Ministry of Education, 2000). What is valued in one community at a particular point in time and by a specific group of people will vary greatly from another community, time, and people. Giftedness and talent is a living, breathing, ever-changing concept, one which has been, and continues to be, according to Borland (1997a), socially constructed.

Cultural values, beliefs, traditions and attitudes, as well as interpretations, underlie our constructions of giftedness and talent (Ministry of Education, 2000). For example, within New Zealand, Bevan-Brown (1993, 1996) has investigated Mäori perspectives of giftedness. Her research has enlightened our understandings of giftedness and talent, raising awareness of the broad and wide-ranging special abilities valued within Mäori society. These include special abilities, such as exceptionality in academics, general intelligence, the arts, leadership, and sport, but also acknowledge Mäori knowledge and understanding, service to the Mäori community, spiritual and emotional qualities, pride in Mäori identity, and mana. Bevan-Brown’s research also highlights the cultural value of service to others, sharing one’s special abilities and qualities for the good of humanity, the community, or Mäori culture. Within Mäori culture there is also recognition that a group of people may be gifted and talented; in other words, the dynamics and interactions of a group of people are likely to result in gifted behaviours.

In 2000, the Ministry of Education presented a smorgasbord of national and international definitions of giftedness and talent in Gifted and Talented Students: Meeting Their Needs in New Zealand Schools. As Moltzen, Riley, and McAlpine (2001), the Ministry-commissioned writers of the document, report:

We were in no doubt that we could not provide a single definition of giftedness and talent if we were committed to allowing schools to truly develop their own approaches here. Yet if we offered too many options we could add to the existing confusion (p. 11).

Six definitions are presented in the document and an analysis of these demonstrates some recurring elements which should be considered school-wide in the creation, adaptation, or adoption of definitions:

The recognition of both performance and potential, or promise and fulfilment;
The acknowledgement that gifted and talented students demonstrate exceptionality in relation to their peers of the same age, culture, or circumstances;
The acceptance of a multicategorical approach which includes an array of special abilities;
The recognition of multicultural values, beliefs, attitudes, and customs;
The need for differentiated educational opportunities for gifted and talented students, including social and emotional support;
The acceptance that giftedness is evidenced in all societal groups, regardless of culture, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, or disability (learning, physical, or behavioural); and
The recognition that a student may be gifted in one or more areas.

Multicategorical concepts of giftedness and talent appear to be favoured by New Zealand educators – they are broad, inclusive, and liberal, sitting well with egalitarian philosophies and beliefs. However, as Moltzen et al. (2001) point out, definitions which recognise such a broad array of exceptional abilities create a

…tension between recognising and nurturing exceptional ability across a number of domains, but running the risk of ‘watering down’ the concept of giftedness to such an extent that the special needs of the highly or exceptionally gifted are lost in a milieu of disparate provisions to meet disparate abilities (p. 11).

New Zealand educators should ‘contextualise’ their definitions of giftedness and talent based upon their individual school’s culture and shared understandings. Otherwise, individual schools and the country as a whole could run into the sort of jeopardy described in the United States by Robinson (1999): “If we lack consensus about the very children we are trying to support, we ride off in many directions. And that, in fact, is what – for many reasons – we do” (p. 121).

[botts]

and so if the MoE cannot or will not nail down a definition of gifted and talented how then do they justify cutting off funding for a program that doen't meet their expectations.

[Artichoke]

Ahh good point botts - I have missed you - sometimes (or oftentimes on this blog Arti') it takes someone from across the ditch to point out the obvious flaw/s in my argument -

I will admit in the privacy of my own blogspace (but not elsewhere) that identification for gifted ed programmes in the wobbly isles is hard to defend against Father Ted like charges of

Dougal, how did you get into the church in the first place? Was it, like, 'collect 12 crisp packets and become a priest?'

for all of the reasons you identify

[Cherrie]

I always thought 'giftedness' was reserved for prodigy-like talents... maybe because I never heard the term 'giftedness' used in any other context.

But then from that bit you posted in your comment (and thanks for bringing it all together and putting in only the important bits - I'm serious - it's not often that one gets a satisfactory answer to an unspoken question) from the MOE seems to say that everyone is or could be gifted - if a particular part of them was examined... funny it doesn't mention anything about forming relationships or group giftedness outside a Maori culture.

But then if every student could learn at their own pace and get the guidance and resources they need, then why should there be a gifted 'programme'? Maybe the gifted programme is just an awesome teacher who understands and a nice not-data-capped broadband connection. Oh internet, how you complete me!

Oh I don't know. Don't know what it means to be gifted. Don't know what it means to teach a gifted person. Don't know what learning means for a gifted person.

Do 'gifted kids' want different things to 'regular kids'?

I guess the bottom line is (because the whole world revolves around me) - was/am I a 'gifted kid' and if so, was I treated differently? If I was treated differently - should I be grateful or angry? If I was/am a 'regular kid', did I strive to be a 'gifted kid'?

Does being a 'gifted kid' at school correlate with 'success' later in life? (don't ask me what success is - I think everyone's is different)