At admissions time each year, my thoughts occasionally turn to considerations of our school as a home for highly intellectually gifted children. What is highly gifted? The literature in the field places our students at a certain place on the bell curve of cognitive ability. More basic is the idea of giftedness. Some authors (Sapon-Shevin, and Oakes) cite giftedness as a social construct. Well, of course. Many things we deem important as a society - big houses, little red cars, public civility - are constructed from the social fabric of our concerns and values. Any definition of giftedness lies partly in our understanding of intelligence.  This is somewhat like gravity - we really can't define it, but we know it when we see it. Lewis Terman and Leta Hollingworth were two early pioneers in the study of gifted individuals. Throughout the years, various definitions and descriptions have surfaced including: Triad (Renzulli), Crystallized and Fluid (Cattell), Multiple (Gardner), Triarchic (Sternberg), Creative (Guilford), Asynchronous (Columbus Group), Talent Development (Gagne), Percentage Type (Getzels and Dillon), Omnibus (Marland), Development (Gowan and Demos), and the most current one, Indication of Potential, an emerging idea about defining giftedness by experts from divergent areas of our field. Definitions have an impact on identification and curriculum development. For the Scholars' Academy, identification criteria are established by the charter. As far as curricula is concerned, our program is the beneficiary of the energy that goes into curriculum development to support each of these ideas of giftedness. Many of the curricula are concerned with process, an important aspect of learning, but our task has been to incorporate the process materials with the content that we are required to cover in a way that makes sense to us and is appropriate for our students. The synthesis of a wide variety of materials, adaptations of best practices, strategies, and methods, and the expertise of our staff creates the strong program that we provide for students at our school. So, while admissions is a particular passage for each school year, it brings into focus a more complex examination of our thoughts of giftedness, curricula, and our school.
 
Parents are reminded that the 9:00 to 9:15 a.m. and 4:00 to 4:15 p.m. arrival and dismissal periods are NOT to be used for conferences with staff. Staff members are responsible for all students at those times, and conversations cannot be kept confidential. Please make an appointment for a conference with your child's teacher if you have items to discuss.
 
Please use caution when walking in the parking lot.  The striped area in front of the entrance to the British American School is the safest place to cross when walking your child to a vehicle parked in the school parking lot.