Unexpected Gifts: Discovering and Nurturing the Strengths in Every Child

Friday, January 25th, our daughter, Katie, turned 26. Happy Birthday, Katie! As we were talking on Friday, she commented on how she has always loved her birthday because it’s been our family tradition of making each person’s birthday a day of recognition and celebration, complete with cake and candles, a specially prepared dinner and presents to open.

Knowing how much each of us enjoy the recognition and celebration of our birthday has helped me realize the importance and power of celebrating, every day, the strengths and gifts of each child as we accept and celebrate their differences. Here are just a few of my reasons to accept and celebrate every child’s learning differences:

1. Accepting and celebrating differences respects and honors the individual learner. It demonstrates an important understanding that all children learn differently and benefit enormously when teachers differentiate the instruction to provide access to and acceleration of the curriculum to meet the diversity of student needs.

To read more about all the different ways our brains are wired and why we all learn differently, check out Mel Levine’s website, All Kinds of Minds. It’s listed my Blogroll. You’ll also want to read his phenomenally helpful book, A Mind At a Time.

If you want to learn more about differentiation, click on the link in the Blogroll.

2. Accepting and celebrating differences is an acknowledgement of the truth that not all students learn best from a logical-mathematical perspective. This limited logical-mathematical perspective is one of the main criticisms of the high stakes testing children are subjected to these days. If we truly want to leave no child behind, we are going to have to honor all the ways children best demonstrate what they have learned.

Howard Gardner, in Frames of Mind, identified the theory of multiple intelligences over 25 years ago and paved the way to accept learning differences. You can read about Gardner and his theory of multiple intelligences by checking on the link in the Blogroll

3. Accepting and celebrating differences in our children is really all about affirming and loving our children as unique individuals who all have strengths and gifts.

Just as we celebrate our child on his or her birthday, now is the time to truly accept and celebrate the differences in all of our children and expect our child’s teachers to do the same in the classroom.

What are your reasons for accepting and celebrating your child’s differences? I’d like to hear from you!

Late this summer, my husband and I had a chance to visit Alaska and fell in love with this unique state where at times you have a feeling that you’ve stepped into another country. One of our favorite side trips during our two-week stay was a visit to a coastal temperate rainforest, one of the few left in the world (http://www.akrain.org/).

As we hiked along the trail, we were amazed at the diversity of the plants, insects and animals. Thanks to our knowledgeable and witty guide, we truly gained an appreciation of how every plant and animal plays a vital role in the life of the mystical and incredibly lush green rainforest we visited.

It is this same appreciation for the diversity of our learners in our homes and classrooms that Thomas Armstrong, a psychologist and author, www.thomasarmstrong.com, has written about in many of his books and articles. In one of his articles posted on New Horizons for Learning, www.newhorizons.org, Armstrong talks about the concept of neurodiversity, a concept that states that “atypical neurological wiring is part of the normal spectrum of human differences and is to be tolerated and respected like any other human difference such as race, gender, sexual preference, or cultural background:”
http://www.newhorizons.org/spneeds/inclusion/information/armstrong.htm.

Certainly all of us have been educated to be more sensitive to the outward signs of diversity all around us in our community, schools and workplace. Yet, it is only when we recognize that diversity in learners is so much broader and deeper than traditional differences that we will be able to effectively help our children and students reach their true learning potential.

Without a doubt, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has received both support for its noble core goal of helping struggling students to improve and criticism for the realities of its implementation, narrow focus on basic skills testing and punitive labeling as failing for a growing number of schools across America.

While most of us in education will agree that the overall intentions of NCLB are admirable, it’s impossible to pick up the newspaper or any educational journal or publication without getting a sense of the growing frustration of teachers, administrators and parents. Time and time again I hear stories of the gradual transformation of classrooms as former environments of joyous learning into testing preparation centers with little time for creative expression, critical thinking opportunities, social studies or the integration of the arts.

Yet thanks to the Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development’s (ASCD) recent focus on the whole child, http://www.wholechildeducation.org/ , the current emphasis on high stakes testing is beginning to be put into proper perspective.

According to The Report of the Commission of the Whole Child, “Current educational practice and policy focus overwhelmingly on academic achievement. This achievement, however, is but one element of student learning and development and only a part of any complete system of educational accountability.” The report describes a whole child as:

o Intellectually active
o Physically, verbally, socially, and academically competent
o Empathetic, kind, caring and fair
o Creative and curious
o Disciplined, self-directed, and goal oriented
o Free
o A critical thinker
o Confident
o Cared for and valued

Included in the report is a call for entire communities to get involved as partners with our educational system so that schools can truly access all the resources that are available that will allow them “to become powerful agents for change in the lives of their students and families.”

If you believe that this focus on the whole child is truly a better way to ensure that we leave no child behind, I urge you to let your legislators and our presidential candidates all know what you think. Our children’s future is clearly at stake. You can make a difference if you add your voice of support to the ASCD’s whole child initiative. Please encourage other parents and educators to join in and do the same.

Welcome to 2008 and to a new name for this blog, originally named in April of 2007 as Gifted and Twice Exceptional Matters. The focus of this original blog has also broadened to include more families around the world whose children have strengths and gifts yet to be identified.

Making these changes seemed like a great way to start off 2008. Yet I know the best way to navigate 2008 is by setting some New Year’s Resolutions – so I thought I’d share my own Top Ten Resolutions for 2008 with you:

1. Focus on the whole child.
2. Create an awareness of the diversity of all students, including gifted and 2e.
3. Celebrate and accept the differences present in every learner.
4. Remove the barriers that block student learning and educational equity.
5. Help turn the strengths of every child into pathways of success.
6. Share stories of effective teaching strategies for the classroom and for the home.
7. Promote the use of technology for access and acceleration of the curriculum.
8. Encourage parents in their role as their child’s first and most important teacher.
9. Increase collaboration and networking among advocates of all children.
10. Use my voice to make a difference in the lives of children.

I will admit that this is a rather ambitious list. You might even have a few more resolutions for me to consider that might be on your Top Ten New Year’s Resolutions list. So I definitely hope you’ll share those with me, along with your suggestions, comments and feedback. Thank you and Happy New Year!