Six friends, mostly teachers, sitting at a small Italian restaurant in Mid-Town NYC after a fun filled day of touring the city and seeing a show on Broadway, discussing the current nature of education and how it has changed. We are discouraged. We have lost that passion that is so critical to being a successful educator. We start to think how we could have chosen differently if we could “do it all again” knowing what we know now….
Actor? Maybe.
Perhaps a surgeon? I think I would have made a great doctor.
An editor. For a big publishing company. I would love to read books all day.
Me? What would I REALLY do if given the chance? As a gifted educator I always get incredibly frustrated that my students are overlooked. We are the first to have to move classrooms to make way for other larger classes. We don’t always have the same access to technology. Teachers don’t have a good understanding of what a “gifted” child actually is and spend time making my students glorified tutors for other kids in the class ((although research shows that gifted students typically make terrible tutors)). My friends nod their heads, they have heard me say this before. They understand my frustration, and sympathize.
Do you know what I have ALWAYS wanted to do? I want to start a program just for gifted students. Kind of like a small oasis that they can go to. Maybe just in the summer…maybe build it into year round. I want it to be accessible to regular families — not thousands of dollars like the gifted programs in other states. I want only the best teachers to work in my program — the fun ones. The ones that may have been gifted themselves. I want them to create classes that are not concerned with anything “common core” related — or testing, or evaluations. I want them to teach for the pure joy of teaching. Anything that they want. Something that they’re good at and passionate about. Something that they can pass onto the next generation and inspire creativity. I want the students to come into the program with excitement — and leave feeling exhausted because they have satisfied their thirst for more knowledge — and then go home and tell their parents all about it at the dinner table. I want them to build, design, create, pretend, imagine and inspire others. It’s going to be a great place.
“So why don’t you?”
Really? A summer program for gifted kids? What do I call that? Brain Camp??
“Camp Cranium”. Let’s do this.