At a point in the past, in the middle of an unusually busy year of educational change as a high school teacher and administrator, I recall hearing (and being motivated by) this phrase: 鈥淲ithout teachers there are no other professions.鈥� Ah, I thought 鈥� that鈥檚 why I must keep doing what I鈥檓 doing. Teaching is, without a doubt, about improving life chances.

Now, as Program Manager at 优蜜视频, where聽I help shape the Academy program, I think similarly and differently. Today, as we mark National Teacher Appreciation Day, we honor our faculty of teachers who improve the life-chances of our students, but who also:

• Inspire our students, by creating incredible classes; classes not found in a traditional school environment. Moreover, Academy classes emerge from each teacher鈥檚 interests, expertise and current research. Where else would you get: Paleozoology? Marine Biodiversity? Logic Detectives? Brain Science? Microbial Ecology? Debating on a Global Stage: International Relations & Justice? Literary Ladies of Americana: A Paean to the Female Pen? Microbiology for Kindergartners? The Study of Star Wars: A Hero鈥檚 Journey? Mindfulness for Gifted Tweens & Teens?
• Mentor by sharing their stories, their journeys, by listening and being a friend. Academy classes are not just about the content or the process but about where these interests might take you and why and how.
• Lead by example: our teachers are patient, curious and share the thrill of learning, just as they enable Academy students to imagine a future self. Our teachers also acknowledge their younger selves in our students. They lead by example and they have the magical ability to connect with our youngsters
• LOVE what they do 鈥搒o much so, they find time as researchers, students, teachers, parents, computer scientists, consultants, N4P workers, actors, artists, film-makers, volunteers, animal curators, professors, administrators 鈥� to come to Academy and work with us 鈥� and then, THEY thank us!

And, so, a roll call to all of our Academy faculty, who teach, who teach and then sub, who offer mini-lectures, who sub some more, who provide expertise for Genius Days, who source and bring in extra learning resources to ignite their curriculum, who travel long distances each week, who accept all children with all of their needs (and always with a smile on their face), who return time after time with new classes and new reflections on how to improve and who work with 优蜜视频, with the resources we have, to offer your families the best service we can.

As Mark Twain said, “It is noble to teach oneself, but still nobler to teach others.”

Today, we thank 优蜜视频鈥檚 Academy teachers and friends for engaging in the most noble of professions and for helping shape future professions 鈥� whatever they might be.

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A British import, Louise Hindle graduated from the University of Manchester with a B.A. Honors Degree in English Literature and Language, completed her post-graduate teacher training at The University of Cambridge, and has recently completed her dissertation in Educational Leadership and Innovation with the University of Warwick. Louise has 20 years of experience in education as a high school literature teacher, lead teacher, administrator, adviser, and consultant. She is also the parent of three fun and active school-aged children. She loves working at 优蜜视频 because she is constantly learning and reflecting in order to meet the varied and complex needs of these children, who she finds to be confident and vulnerable in equal measure but always ready to learn and thirsty for more. In her free time, she likes to read with her children, hike, walk, and jog with her badly behaved dog.

Lisa is the mother of 3 gifted children and lives outside of San Francisco.

It鈥檚 the only fun part of the college application process: the college trip. It鈥檚 the chance for your child to dream before the harsh realities of test scores, class rank and GPAs hit. Best of all, parents are active participants. We get to be accomplices to the dream worlds our children are imagining.

Three years ago, I eagerly anticipated bonding with my oldest son on our whirlwind tour of 6 colleges in the east and one in the Midwest. I memorialized the trip with pictures of him scraping the snow off the windshield of our rented car, waking up with bed head and sampling cannoli in Boston. He was not amused. The defining moment of our trip happened during dinner midway into the week.

鈥淚 haven鈥檛 seen anyone in so long,鈥� he said.

I not only wasn鈥檛 bonding with him, I wasn鈥檛 even someone.

I returned from the trip with a more realistic understanding of my place in his world. I could be the travel agent, chauffeur and advisor, but I did not have a place in his dreams. The trip was his opportunity to imagine a life without me. He had already gotten a head start imagining that world.

I tried to apply the lessons I learned from my oldest son to my middle son鈥檚 college trip. We would see one school a day (with the exception of a quick trip to New York City) and travel solely by public transportation. The pace and mode of transportation would reduce my stress and allow each of us to immerse ourselves in the experience of looking for a college 鈥� separately. For my son, that meant plugging himself into the sounds of Ingrid Michelson and Idina Menzel. For me, it was flipping the pages of The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College.

My son let me set the itinerary. We could only visit 6 or 7 schools, so I made the decision to tour schools of varying size located in suburban, urban and big city locations. This would allow me to gauge his interest in particular types of schools. One of the things they had in common is that they all had strong programs in his areas of interest: International Relations, Politics, Philosophy, Economics, Public Policy and Government. The other thing they had in common is that they are all spectacularly hard to get into. That last part wasn鈥檛 one of my criteria; it just turned out that way. Or, more accurately, I didn鈥檛 make an effort to balance safety, target and reach schools.

I was breaking the first rule of the college application process: manage your child鈥檚 expectations.

I wasn鈥檛 trying to communicate an unreasonably high level of expectations to my son, although it could certainly be seen that way. I was curious. Some group of researchers decided that these were the best schools in the country and lots of students appeared to agree with this conclusion. How else do you get such low acceptance rates? Besides, isn鈥檛 this an area where a gifted kid can dream big? After my husband and I had spent years finding outlets for his passions, was this really the time to tell our son that the admission odds are set against him and he should be more realistic? Without visiting these schools, they would just be names, spoken with reverence by his friends and their parents. He would not know if the fuss was justified until he experienced these mythical institutions, however superficially.

Luckily, the idea of attending an Ivy League college had already lost some of its luster by the time we left for the East Coast. My son had fallen in love two weeks earlier. The object of his affection is a liberal arts college in Southern California. The town, the campus, the classes and the flip flop wearing student body spoke to him. He now had the gold standard against which all other schools would be compared.

If my son felt pressured by my itinerary, he didn鈥檛 complain. In fact, he said that he would have been disappointed had I not taken him to these highly selective schools. He was not ready to inventory his shortcomings. He still wanted the chance to dream. So, bring it on Harvard. Let鈥檚 see if the tingly excitement brought on by an Ivy League name can compare to the warmth generated by the Southern California sun.

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