State & District Goals:

 

Our mission at Plum Creek Elementary: To ensure that students and staff have the best in Gifted and Talented materials and information throughout the school year. To keep our G/T program full of the best quality learning we work with identified students in a variety of settings each week and continuously test students to keep our program growing. If you have a question about the TAG program, please email the G/T teacher (keitha.fortman@lockhart.txed.net), or call, 398.0612. 

State Goal for Services for Gifted Students: Students who participate in services designed for gifted students will demonstrate skills in self-directed learning, thinking, research, and communication as evidenced by the development of innovative products and performances that reflect individuality and creativity and are advanced in relation to students of similar age, experience, or environment.

 

State Definition of Giftedness: Gifted and Talented students means a child or youth who performs at or shows the potential for performing at a remarkably high level of accomplishment when compared to others of the same age, experience, or environment and who:

  • Exhibits high performance capability in an intellectual, creative, or artistic area;
  • Possesses an unusual capacity for leadership; or
  • Excels in a specific academic field

 

The Needs of Gifted Learners: Gifted students have some of the same basic needs as other students: love, understanding, encouragement to grow, companionship, guidance, respect, support, acceptance, and security. However they also have special needs which correspond to their special natures: A flexible academic program, freedom from academic restrictions, time and freedom to experiment, open access to learning resources, confrontation with problems and issues of society for which there are no single solutions, opportunity to brainstorm ideas, encouragement to ask questions, make discoveries, pursue interests in-depth, opportunities to work with other gifted students at some time and help others, and friendly recognition of their giftedness.

 

The 8 Great Gripes of Gifted Kids:

  1. No one explains what being gifted is all about – it’s kept a big secret.

2. School is too easy, too boring.

3. Parents, teachers, and friends expect us to be perfect all the time.

4. Friends who really understand us are few and far between.

5. Kids often tease us about being too smart.

6. We feel overwhelmed by the number of things we can do in life.

7. We feel different, alienated,

8. We worry about world problems and feel helpless to do anything about them.

 

 

*Taken from Nature & Needs of Gifted and Talented Students by Susan Maxey



 

 

 

 

 

 Last updated 11/08/07