Bob Barboza, founder of Kid's Talk Radio, wondered online recently about who would be the first gifted girl to travel to the North and South Poles. "A 17 year old boy," he said, "will make this trip in 2012. He was the first boy to ever make this trip at age 16. In addition, in 2011, two disabled male athletes are skiing to the South Pole. On December 14, 2011, we celebrate the 100th year anniversary of the discovery of the South Pole. We are going to podcast this type of news into classrooms in 2011 and 2012. We welcome any information about young women explorers or young women looking for internships in our Kids Talk Radio Science student backpack journalist programs."

Kid's Talk Radio is designed for gifted and talented students, as well as special needs students, in grades 4 through 8, and is currently being expanded to include bilingual and at-risk students in grades 9 through 12. It is a creative program that encourages its students to develop skills in listening, speaking, reading, writing and computing. And they are looking for teachers around the world to join them in building news teams that will work on the kinds of issues that will benefit everyone.

To read many of the articles written by these young journalists, log on to Kid's Talk Radio.  

It's not too early to start planning to attend the 20th World Conference on Gifted and Talented Children, which will happen August 5 to 9, 2013, in Auckland, New Zealand.  

The conference's theme is The Soul of Giftedness, and it will occur in the International Year of Giftedness and Creativity. It is designed to increase public awareness, increase the investment in gifted and creative students and generate enthusiasm for the future of this field of knowledge.

The following item, recently published in the Davidson Institute newsletter, looks like some good news for gifted students in the schools:

The TALENT Act (To Aid Gifted and High-Ability Learners by Empowering the Nation's Teachers) was introduced to the House of Representatives and Senate by Representatives Elton Gallegly (CA) and Donald Payne (NJ) and Senators Chuck Grassley (IA) and Bob Casey (PA). It would require states to note when students perform above grade level and report their learning gains as part of state report cards. It would also mandate more professional development for teachers in gifted education and require Title I schools to create plans to better identify minority and disadvantaged students as gifted.  

This Christian Science Monitor article describes how the Talent Act could help gifted students when it comes to learning math. Source: National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC).  

Gifted Conference in Texas  

The Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented (TAGT) is presenting its annual  TAGT Professional Development Conference in Austin this coming November 30 through December 2. The three-day conference will feature 15 content strands, with hundreds of intensive training sessions for professionals and parents in every subject area, at every grade level, and for every experience level.

In addition, there will be a special conference-within-a-conference on assessment and identification geared specifically for psychologists and experienced educators. 

The Davidson Institute has now posted their Fellows scholarship applications for 2012. These scholarships - in the amount of $10,000, $25,000 and $50,000 - are awarded to students for projects they present in the categories of science, mathematics, technology, music, literature, philosophy, and "outside the box." These projects must have the potential to benefit society, and the work must be equivalent to college graduate level work.  

There is no minimum age requirement to these scholarships, but students must be 18 or younger as of October 4, 2012. The first deadline for applications is January 16, 2012.

You are probably aware of the book Freakonomics, a book resulting from a collaboration between Steven D. Levitt, an economist, and Stephen J. Dubner, a writer. In the book, they delve into the "hidden side of everything."

The success of their book led Levitt and Dubner to write SuperFreakonomics, which led to many more endeavors, including a website with a blog. If you decide to check it out, you might want to start with a blog from last May, Deliberate Practice: How Education Fails to Produce Expertise.  You may also find it hard not to be drawn in by a blog stating that Kids who watch SpongeBob score lower in the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment.  

The Minnesota Council for Gifted and Talented Fall Conference has been scheduled for Saturday, November 12, at the University of St. Thomas in downtown Minneapolis.

During the conference there will be breakout sessions on a variety of topics for adults, including a presentation by Dr. Ruf on Levels of Giftedness. In addition, there will be a keynote session, the usual full day and half-day classes for kids in kindergarten through seventh grade, and an array of interesting exhibits and information.  

Watch for more details about the event on the MCGT website.

  Home of the Ruf Estimates™ of Levels of Gifted Online Assessment. Don't leave your child's education to chance! Find out today - affordably, conveniently, and privately - what your child needs to succeed in school. For more information, go to www.TalentIgniter.com.

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