New Website Devoted to Gifted People
The Gifted and Talented Society Launches On-Line Community
Oct 7, 2009
Sadly, many states do not have the resources to identify and properly educated the talented and gifted students that comprise between five and ten percent of their school population. The underlying significance of this fact is that the school systems in these states need not provide any special programs or classes for their brightest kids.
Traditional Public Education Often Ignores Gifted and Talented Students
Most of these schools do provide special attention for their students on the other end of the bell curve, those with learning disabilities and other obstacles to success in the traditional classroom structure. Special education classes, individualized tutoring and the use of paraprofessionals is common.
Funding streams for special education programs have a long history in US public education. It has become more common for the more progressive (and wealthy) states to provide funding and identification of the gifted and talented and may have some programs to address their needs. Often this will involve gifted classes or acceleration programs where the child is tested to ascertain the appropriate level and then skips to the grade that corresponds to his intellectual ability.
Support Services Needed for Gifted and Talented and Their Educators
Having gifted children, the Pessinis learned firsthand how difficult it is to support their needs within the confines of the normal classroom setting. The website was designed to support four different segments of the gifted community: parents/adults, children, teens and college groups.
This venue will give gifted people of all ages and the parents of gifted kids the opportunity to share ideas, stories and resources with others. Further, members of the site community can post questions, comments and other information to the forum and discuss coping strategies with others who have been there and done that before.
Special care has been taken to assure the security of the site. Safety of private information was a particular concern in developing the site, which will not only support local students in discussing community outreach issues for the gifted, but will strive to reach a global population in advancing the needs of gifted education, techniques and new developments in this exciting area of education.
The email address for the Gifted and Talented Society is gtsociety@comcast.net. The new website, which is up and running at this time does require a free registration/validation procedure and is located at gtsociety.
Resources for the gifted are being born everyday. Dedicated parents, educators professionals continue to evolve their ideas, techniques and philosophies on educating gifted kids as well as adults. Joining forces with others in the local and national communities and sharing information and best practices will benefit the gifted children of today and tomorrow.
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