Academy Student Words and Works

��Ƶ Staff — Wed, 04 Nov 2020 01:09:16 +0000

By Alexis Hopper

When it comes to sharing what’s so unique and special about Academy, our students tell it best! This fall, we asked students to share what they like about their class, what can make it even better, and what classes they’d like to see offered this spring. We would like to say thank you to our students for their feedback, and share these highlights from two questions on our survey:

“My Favorite Activity/Topic So Far Was…”

Subatomic particles.
Building a beaver dam!
The virtual microscope.
Designing adaptive Xbox controllers.
Building a catapult.
Making story boards.
Exploring and talking about philosophical arguments.
Learning the elements and the rings of bonds.
Talking about each other’s stories and giving feedback.
Castles.
Rodents.
Silly poems.
North America.
South America.
The periodic table song.
Structures and support design.
Siege engines.
All of them!

“Because of this class, I am able to…”

Do fun experiments.
Build cool stuff.
Think laterally better.
Tell better stories.
Talk to other kids.
Identify stars.
Make chemical equations.
Write and enjoy poems.
Use Tinkercad to create my own designs.
Have a digital microscope and make observations.
Learn about the world and its cool features.
Learn about different ways to think about life.
Think in a new way about how to make things for people with disabilities.
Tell my parents facts they don’t know.
Tell my friends all this cool info.
Have fun while learning.

Students also shared feedback on what makes Academy different from other classes they take. As one student wrote, “I’m actually learning more about 3d printing, just like how in another (Academy) class I was actually learning about how rockets and engines work.” As these pictures of student work show, there’s no better way to learn than by doing!

NOW ACCEPTING NEW AND RETURNING STUDENT APPLICATIONS

FOR SPRING 2021!

Session Dates: January 25 – April 26, 2021 (no classes April 5-10)
Early Bird Application Deadline: December 18, 2020
Application Deadline: January 4, 2021[button size=”big_large” icon=”” target=”_self” hover_type=”default” font_weight=”700″ text_align=”center” text=”Apply Now” link=”https://ieastaging2.wpengine.com/programs/iea-academy/how-to-apply/” color=”#ffffff” hover_color=”#aa230d” background_color=”#aa230d” hover_background_color=”#ffffff” border_radius=”4″ margin=”0px 0px 0px 0px”]

Why We Need the Label

��Ƶ Staff — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 03:59:16 +0000

by Jennifer de la Haye

When I summarize ��Ƶ’s work to people outside our network: “…we are an educational nonprofit that works with gifted kids,” I am often met with skepticism and confusion. The most common response I have received is, “I believe all kids are gifted.” I do too! All kids have special giftings. As a mother of a four-year-old and one-year-old, I exist in a state of perpetual awe as I watch the personalities of my own children and the children in my community unfold. My preschooler has a remarkable propensity for language; she has been holding elaborate conversations since before turning two, and through language, she has been able to reveal a deep understanding of her own emotion and the emotions of others. One of her best friends, who wasn’t interested in speaking as early, has LEGO architecture skills that could land him a job designing hoverboards and intricate skyscrapers and giant ships right now, at age four. A three-year-old I know can draw a Mr. Potato Head picture that he could easily slip into a book of 1920s surrealist art and no one would know the difference. And every child I meet astounds me with either a wild and creative imagination, a surprisingly sharp sense of humor, a well of empathy, or all of the above.

Yes, of course all kids are gifted, in that all kids have creativity, beauty, love, special talents, and unique modes of intelligence comprising their very being.

But this is not what we mean by “gifted.” As a society, we needed a word to describe people whose experience of life is measurably different than their peers. I like the definition created by the Columbus Group in 1991: “Giftedness is asynchronous development in which advanced cognitive abilities and heightened intensity combine to create inner experiences and awareness that are qualitatively different from the norm.” When we dismiss the term “gifted” because we have disdain for labeling children, or because all children are gifted, we are denying the existence of an entire body of people, whose inner workings are remarkably different than most.

A few years ago, Dr. Patty Gatto Walden, Yunasa Senior Fellow and psychologist, presented at the Beyond Giftedness Conference in Colorado. I had the privilege of listening to her speak. One idea from her discussion especially stood out to me: she talked about the incoming “channels” that each person experiences. In a classroom, a child might take in several channels at once – the message of her teacher, the mutterings of her classmates, the sound of the shifting leaves on the pavement outside, the feeling that her desk-mate is melancholy, the way the new piece of art on the left wall of the classroom makes her want to paint. A person whom we have deemed “gifted,” whose “inner experience and awareness is qualitatively different from the norm,” takes in hundreds of channels. Hundreds. Not several. She might be absorbing the message of the teacher while feeling that something is happening in the teacher’s life that is new and exciting; she feels her desk-mate’s melancholy, and her skin starts to tingle and her tummy begins to sink; she listens to the mutterings of her classmates and feels their emotions, too; she hears every sound in the classroom and outside, and each sound makes her body feel something different. For the sake of time, I won’t describe all 200 or 400 channels that our gifted child might be taking in. Dr. Patty took it further and said that a highly gifted person takes in thousands of channels. That is a lot for anyone. It is a lot for a child who is still learning who she is.

When we say someone is “gifted,” we are not inferring that he is “better” or “more special” than other children. We need a label, though. We need a label because we need special programs. We need different types of classes, camps, workshops, counseling sessions, support groups, books, retreats, scholarship options, learning centers, and more, so we can help these children understand themselves and flourish. And at ��Ƶ, we want to provide gifted kids and their families with a community of people who deeply connect with them, so they don’t feel alone.