Is your child feeling good about him or herself? An unhappy or depressed child doesn't have the emotional energy to learn at his or her optimal level or to get involved in activities that will develop his or her talents. On the other hand, good self-esteem leads to strong confidence. If you discover that your child's view of self is not positive, you can help to change things and clear the way for success!

 

TalentIgniter is now introducing the Self Esteem Test for Children (SETC) that will help you find out how your child compares to other children on self-confidence. It's an affordable online assessment that children in 3rd through 8th grades complete privately online, and it measures the child's self-perception in the areas of scholastic competence, social acceptance, athletic competence, physical appearance, behavioral conduct, and global self-worth. After the child has completed the profile, a brief interpretation and recommendations are provided to the parents, school counselor, or other mental health professional.  

 

Because TalentIgniter is a site dedicated to discovering and igniting talents, we provide information that typical school-based or therapeutic treatments might not consider, so you can help clear the way for your child's success.

Check out the TalentIgniter website for more information. And watch for our Self Esteem Test for Teens and Self Esteem Test for Adults, coming soon!

 

 

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, in partnership with the Northwest Evaluation Association, has published its latest study, Do High Flyers Maintain Their Altitude? Performance Trends of Top Students. This is the first study to look at the performance of America's highest-achieving students over time, and the results are troubling: many of these students struggle to maintain their high performance over the years.

 

"It is my hope that this report debunks, once and for all, the absurdity that high-achieving students will do fine without appropriate services delivered by teachers trained in gifted strategies," said an official with the National Association for Gifted Children.

 

 

So after reading about the Fordham study, the next question is, how do you teach the highest-ability students? How do you teach, for instance, a 10-year-old who has already worked on T-cell receptor research at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center?

 

Here's an article by Katherine Long from the Seattle Times, Educating Gabriel, 13, an off-the-charts prodigy. Gabriel is an example of a Level Five child, as Dr. Ruf describes through case examples in her book 5 Levels of Gifted: School Issues and Educational Options. Children with Gabriel's interests and abilities exist in larger numbers than people realize, but the majority of them do not find the support, mentoring and flexibility that his school district provided. Take a look and consider how our society could make it easier for more Gabriels -- and Gabrielles -- to emerge from the age-paced classroom.

 

 

Scientists are constantly studying galaxies, including our own, in order to understand how they form and evolve. Part of that study involves classifying the galaxies. That's a difficult task with the numbers of galaxies being studied, so computers are being used in the process. But looking at an image and noting any oddities is a uniquely human ability that computers can't duplicate.

 

So in 2007 the Galaxy Zoo was launched, inviting anyone to look through a data set made up of a million galaxies imaged with the robotic telescope of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Within the first year, 50 million classifications were made by almost 150,000 people.  

 

The originators of Galaxy Zoo have now designed Galaxy Zoo 2 and are inviting the public to view more images and answer more complex questions in the classification process. The website has posted papers and projects that have used the data from the original Galaxy Zoo, and the site also offers a library about galaxies and astronomy pulled from all over the Internet, an astronomy glossary, information on the space missions and telescopes used in the research, blogs, forums and more.   

 

By the way, if you like this, look for the Moon Zoo link on the website!

 

 

Between November and March, students in grades 4 through 8 can set up teams and participate in the Perennial Math competition. There are five monthly tests, each test has five questions, and each test takes 30 minutes to complete.

 

A team can register up to 30 students. If a school is not participating, students may register individually.

 

Perennial Math is directed by Dr. Sylvia Dean, a gifted specialist in Huntsville, Alabama, who has coached and coordinated robotics, math and technology competitions for more than 20 years.

 

About a year ago, I visited the Minnesota Science Museum in St. Paul to see the fascinating exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which includes the oldest known biblical manuscripts in existence.  Now it is possible for anyone, anywhere, to view these ancient scrolls in even greater detail.

 

The Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Project, developed by the Israel Museum in partnership with Google, allows the viewer access to searchable, fast-loading, high-resolution images of the scrolls, as well as short explanatory videos and background information on the texts and their history. Five complete scrolls from the Israel Museum have been digitized for the project so far.

 

 

This October is the sixth annual National Bullying Prevention Month. This event was originated by PACER, an organization that was founded in 1977 by parents of children and youth with disabilities. In 2000, the PACER Center noticed an increase in bullying situations against children with disabilities, and so began to compile resources for bullying prevention. Ultimately, PACER realized that it was important to design these resources for all children.  

 

National Bullying Prevention Month is dedicated to raising awareness of bullying prevention through events, activities and education. PACER's website offers its resources for parents, educators, teens and kids, and will also offer one-to-one assistance by phone or email with regard to bullying situations.

 

"This is a very real and painful issue that kids are facing," says Julie Hertzog, director of PACER's National Bullying Prevention Center. "But they don't have to face it alone, and bullying can be prevented if we all work together to change the culture."