Piedmont Challenges Us

Middle School Serves Gifted learners

This is not the video I expected to make. I have been working with gifted students for curriculum compacting, for online enrichment, and for my class for gifted teaching certification. I expected that the video would be more about how we teachers give gifted students a chance to delve deeply and to show off their academic abilities. and, while, the challenge of projects are big part of this video, the students were most grateful for each other and the environment of Piedmont. They kept going back to what they learned socially and how they learned from each other. 

This video was made off the cuff since I'd forgotten that I'd promised to make it. I literally asked the first students I saw if they'd been pulled out of classes in elementary and  if anyone wanted to say a word about how being gifted at Piedmont is different than that. I just filmed whatever they wanted to say.

The eighth graders' enthusiasm for Piedmont was especially heartening.  I turned off the camera once and a group said "wait we need to talk about the teachers" and had me start rolling again. Almost at the end of their middle school tenure, they feel a palpable gratitute for all the experiences that grew them in these three years, and were suprisingly other-focused. They talk about how seeing others' skills pushed them to be better and take more risks, they talk about how working with others taught them so much. 

As you watch, a few things that I noticed were how  different each student was yet how similar their takes, how animated and happy all the students were, how aware students are of their own needs and how they yearn to learn while creating.

We do an excellent job of letting kids be kids and supporting them while offering appealing challenges that push them forward. but, full disclosure: students  reported waiting for the teacher to notice they already knew the material to get their needs met.  I edited out a few "bored" lines and maybe I should have kept them in, but the students were so polite and respectful, they didn't want to tell their teacher. 

This video humbles me. I thank Ms. Gorman and Ms. Thornburg for giving me the opportunity to make it as they prepare to discuss how Talent Development works in middle school at their conference. And I thank the gifted students in this video for their candor and enthusiasm and for teaching me a few things about gifted development I didn't learn in my grad school program.


Video transcript  -  my commentary in pink

• In elementary school, they used to say, "Alright, can my specials please walk out of the classroom?" And so me and my other friends would walk out of the classroom. 
• A problem that a lot of people have with pulling gifted kids out of the classroom is it feels like they're being separated kind of socially in what they do everyday. But at Piedmont we're all kind of together.
•  Piedmont is just challenging in itself.
•  Our school I think as a whole we're really well rounded. She was talking about how our athletics are really good; Our academic clubs are amazing. Like, we're a national level team-
• also robotics! Science Olympiad's like "Oh Yeah, we're the better STEM team" And Robotics's like "Oh yeah?"

 nice nerd trash talk sesson.

• You WILL be pushed
• -The side projects we do...
• -Teambuilding with other people 
• -It's also built a stronger bond between us as a group and all learning how to work together and learning what other people are good at.
• Yeah, learning each others' strengths.
• Just getting to know other people and develop empathy for others.
• Yeah cos like with the Community and Service project we had to kind of not just be by ourselves  we work with somebody else.
• -The person that sits next to me in Math 1&2 is the most logical and reasonable person I have ever met
• Everyone I think of in my class, there's like one thing I know them for being amazing at 
• Every single time I'm about to do something that's a little questionable he's just like always the one who's telling me to do the right thing. He's like the angel on my shoulder.
• - From Piedmont, you make friends that are forever
• -Develop those social skill and communcating with people

 wow that is a whole lot of talk about teambuilding.

• -Yeah like I can't say that about every school but like I'm so comfortable around my teachers. They're like my friends, you know.
• -You can just talk to them
• -But not in like a weird way (yeah!) it's like obviously they're still very like teachery and they challenge us
• ...And then we get to IB.

Finally, we are getting past the social skills. Let's hear it...

• the IB rubric is from Zero to 8. Zero means you didn't try whatsoever. Seven is when you are almost at the very top, there might just be one thing that you missed that wasn't perfect.
• -With an 8 the mindset you have is "I can't grow anywhere" so a lot of us get 7s like repeatedly and that, it's not irritating but it pushes me to do better. Oh I was so close to getting that 8, I'm almost there I know what I need to do and I do it. 
• -One of my favorite things about Piedmont and how it's challenging to every single student is because they give you projects of different varieties, whether its like a stand-up presentation like the IB project where we had to do community service or if its like the esssay that you have to write it and format it and correctly use grammar and research, the projects are really catered to you.
• And so walking around the school and seeing that inspires you to challenge yourself even more and do an even bigger project or go more in depth.
• -It's an overall good environment to like try to grow and be advanced. 

Ok So now we're back on social - how social contacts challenge your growth.

• -We're given an extra challenge in here
• -And everybody gets challenged and everybody gets to develop at Piedmont.

• -The kind of end-all be-all overarching theme of this whole conversation was that Piedmont challenges all of us, and every single student, academically, socially, to push you out of your box, and artistically. 

No students were paid or prompted in any way in this video. This is amazing!

• -Obviously there's requirements you have to meet but if you choose something you're passionate about it doesn't seem like it's extra hard work.
• -That's kind of what I did 'cuz I'm really into the arts so I made a play, like , a musical.
• -more like creative skills ...
• -I've also done compacting for Social Studies. So I was given the notes to fill out on my own time and could research and do a lot of the stuff that I'm interested in.
• -I was already advanced in Spanish and Piedmont allowed me to continue that. They created the Native Speakers course which was a challenging Spanish course, which is also a high school credit.
• -At first I was placed in a Math 1 class, but, um, the people at Piedmont realized I wasn't being challenged so they placed me in Math 1&2 after the first week.
• -So as a middle schooler going that in-depth into subjects that you're interested in (It's not like required or anything, I'm doing this cuz I really enjoy doing this.)
• -We're here because we basically already know what people are doing in the classroom
• -We're more experienced and knew what the teachers were teaching

I'm in awe of these students. 

• -Putting yourself out there and having things that you are really passionate about come to life.
• -Instead of sitting there and just knowing everything, just basically sitting there for an hour, instead you could build a bridge and have fun and do something new. 
• -We all kind of get challenged here with the bridge building. It doesn't really talk about JUST math and science and stuff but kind of it talks about teamwork and things that we should know as IB students. 
• -And um we have to work on everything rather than just one specific thing, so we have an essay and things like that, rather than -and we're also making a bridge. 
• -And if we don't understand something that's on the homework or something that we know we're going to have a quiz on, we have the option to stay in class that day.
• -Practice time management...
• -You have to be able to plan things out and actually find a way to follow through with all your plans.
• -We would've been, like, bored in a regular class.
• -Sometimes people get intimidated by this crazy, "Oh my gosh! We have to take two high school courses in one year! But you don't even notice it going by, (yeah!) Like we learned so much in that class and it seemed hard the first day and then you go back the next day and you're like "Oh my god I get it now"
• -I don't think I'm gonna keep up with everyone else and then you're like Oh! (sings a math formula.
• ​I don't know thsi formuala see Ms. SR if you need a translation) Indeed ...All over 2a
• -Not only with teachers and adults making a relationship is important, but also with all the students here because it's so diverse with different religions and sexualities and races, it allows you to really communicate with people who are different from you who, at first it may be a challenge for some people, but afterwards, I think it will really help you in the future. And that's how it challenged me.

This warms my social studies teacher heart.

• -I'm really sad that this is our  last year at Piedmont (yeah, me too) because like Piedmont was, like, it's like home.

sniff.


Related links:
http://piedmontpd.weebly.com/piedmont-pd/compacting-for-personalized-learning
http://piedmontpd.weebly.com/piedmont-pd/gifted-and-ib-conference-notes

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google drive link https://drive.google.com/file/d/1t3fXpodrOGeaW1W4-9pqpAAUyixBPxW0/view?usp=sharing