Month: February 2016

Welcome to the first Early Childhood Matters blog. Although I may know quite a bit about early childhood, I must admit that I am a very green blogger. I read a blog for the first time yesterday, and this is my very first blog entry. It may therefore be New-Blogger-Optimism, but I am hoping to inspire comments and interesting conversations about young gifted children as a result of this blog.
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I wonder if you came across the article Hyper Parenting by Katie Roiphe last weekend in the Weekend Australian Magazine (July 12-13). I did, and although there were some valid points in the article, it caused me to revisit the sad “feminism vs children’s needs” debate, the one that has thrown out the baby with the bathwater.
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At yesterday’s Understanding Your Gifted Children seminar, a participating father asked a very interesting question: “Why should we treat our children the same way?”. His question reminded me of a little boy in a child care centre I used to know.
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The Productivity Commission’s recenly released discussion paper “A national quality framework for early childhood education and care” (available here) has no problems with conscience or consequence, and makes no bones about favouring the nation rather than what might be good for families and children.
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I tried to sell my Stanford-Binet Fifth Edition through the Australian Psychological Society last month, but no-one even gave me a call to negotiate the price. Perhaps it is a good thing that I was forced to keep it, as I sometimes use it with adults. But I don’t think I will be using it very much with children anymore.
Why? Let me go back a bit: When I completed my post graduate diploma in psychology I had to make a very difficult decision: What assessment tool or tools I should invest in for my gifted consultancy. At the same time I was excited. This was the moment I had been waiting for: Only qualified psychologists can administer or purchase IQ tests, and I was finally qualified. I wanted to be sure that I had the best tools available for assessing gifted children, and a mistake could be expensive – these tools are worth several thousand dollars each.
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I turned on ABC Radio 702 this morning on the way to the city and heard an interview with Gillian Calvert, the groovy Commissioner for Children and Young People. She made a statement that caused the hostess of the program to do a double-take. Her message was that the best place for babies under 12 months was at home with their parents.
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It has been a long, hard battle, but finally, we have victory: The 0-2 year olds who have until now been cared for by 1 adult to 5 children in 3/4 of the State’s child care centres will no longer have to wait quite as long for their turn to have a cuddle.
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A comment was left about the 1:4 blog I posted some time back. The writer wondered whether the prospective 1:4 adult to child ratio for babies may have been a factor in the current ABC crisis. It was a reasonable comment, but the problems with ABC may be a little less innocent than the mere tightening of the financial child care belt.
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It is probably not everyone’s idea of a nice holiday, but I have been re-reading Gagné’s journal articles and other papers with additional interest in preparation for his return to Australia… (see the NSWAGTC December eNewsletter about the event). For those readers who do not know Gagné’s work, his Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent (DMGT), is the predominantly accepted gifted model now used in Australia, and it forms the basis of the most recently updated gifted policy for NSW public schools. You can read more about the policy at: http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/policies/gats/programs/organisation/definitions.htm.
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I’m not normally a fan of Miranda Devine’s opinion pieces, but last weekend (Jan 31-1 Feb, SMH News Review, p.7) she wrote an article that could change my mind about her writing altogether. She was quoting research that demonstrate the lack of substance to the majority opinion within the Early Childhood field that children should be held back from school for as long as possible – especially boys.
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