Once Again OneMan and OneDaughter Venture to our State Capitol
It is time this year again for the my daughter and I to attend the Springfield day put on by the Illinois Association for Gifted Education. (On Thursday)
It looks like I will be leading a group around the capitol again, so if you see a large man leading some adults and kids in yellow shirts around please feel free to say hi.
Thanks for your suggestions from last year on things to do with my daughter when down in Springfield a decent amount of that feedback got put into what was given to the parents this year.
I will try and take picture again this year and put them up on the blog to give you an idea of what Springfield seems like and looks like to folks who don't follow what goes on down there like we do.
If anyone has any suggestions for how to effectively share the message about gifted ed feel free to leave a comment or send me an e-mail at OneManBlog@yahoo.com
Thanks
OneMan
2 comments:
First, don't let ed funding become a zero sum game. Don't let anyone pit the funding of gifted children against the funding of disadvantaged children. Both are absolutely necessary to have a strong state and a globally-competitive nation. It's not one kind of education funding versus another, its education funding against everything else.
Second: Gifted Ed = The opportunity for a future with good American jobs.
The America's future success will be won or loss at the margins.
If we let the most disadvantaged children fall too far by underfunding their education, we will lose. Similarly, if we put a lid on our best and brightest by underfunding their education, we will lose.
The only way to maintain the USA's leadership -- and a leader can hope to determine the course of world history -- is by properly funding education across the board.
In addition, gifted ed is the truest embodiment of the American dream, i.e. if you are able and willing, you have the opportunity to work your way from the bottom to the top.
Without access to gifted ed, even the best and brightest child will be on his or her own to figure out how to make the most of his or her gifts. Bill Gates wasn't just very smart; he also had access to teachers and training who could give him the tools he would need to found Microsoft. We can't blindly hope our nation's future will be secured by messianic autodidacts. [As a kid, I was a clever little automath, but I had no access to a gifted program. And look at the depths to which I've sunk. Access to a wildly out-of-date Encyclopedia Britannica can only carry one so far!]
The top of today's economy is info/knowledge/technically heavy -- without a structured, accelerated education program, even the smartest child can not hope to get even a nuts and bolts understanding of the fundamentals.
The future is a rough and tumble place and we need to fund education to ensure that future Americans are prepared to compete in it.
Best of luck, etc.
-- SCAM
so-called "Austin Mayor"
http://austinmayor.blogspot.com
Look forward to seeing you guys again.
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