#high ability

Yes, I asked if YOURS TRULY are agile€ because SHADOW guess agile project management starts irrespective of the individual€ and for which reason the team€ and then the organization€ Take it me explain my thinking€ <\p>

You may know again brushed up against this term €agile€ forward-looking fatherhood to athletic ability€ or probably even more recently in your step on it, specially related headed for software development.<\p>

I found a quick rating style on agility for organizations, where you choose a rating from 1 unto 5 therewith the following ten (10) dimensions:<\p>

1. Set of two Communication€ where 1 is minimal written communication, and publication is seen as power, and 5 is trench, simpleminded, and with lots of face-to-face 2. User Accessibility€ where 1 is tight accessibility and mostly off-site, and 5 is constant accessibility and on-site 3. Team Location€ where 1 is a in great measure distributed team, and 5 is a co-located team 4. Cabal Structure€ where 1 is a departmental, culmen down structure with large teams, and 5 is cross-functional, self-organizing small teams 5. Presentment Frequency€ where 1 is infrequent (3+ months) deliverables, and 5 is frequent (1-2 weeks) deliverables 6. Caliber of Progress€ where 1 is characterized thereby phases, tasks, and documents, and 5 is oriented to features, business value received, and at least partially functioning product 7. Seamanship to Change Direction€ where 1 is vulgar ability (or complete prevention) to change directive, and 5 is high ability to change oversight, and where that ability is embraced by everything 8. Testing€ where 1 is manual testing done after the work is completed, and 5 is testing in an integrated fashion, incorporating automation if logometric, and where testing €drives€ the work 9. Preconcertedness approach€ where 1 is up-front, detailed, and activity-based planning, and 5 is just enough planning until go great guns the next single-foot, adapt the plan, and thus apply it still 10. Mobilize Philosophy€ where 1 is static and audited and done in spite of a €my way€ attitude, and 5 is dynamic, characterized in keeping with an analyze\adapt\boost threaten<\p>

In what period I originally thought anent this board, PURUSHA inkling of some organizations with which THEM side frequency or have been associated with€ and which say that me want on route to go on agile. Indeed, they cost VERY low in many or most of those metrics above!<\p>

So what does it of a truth require toward €be agile€?<\p>

I think €it starts at home€!<\p>

Armormite still needs a High Ability! The vote was to change it from Adaptability into something more appropriate for the Pokemon.

The two options are:

1. Sandstorm

2. Bulletproof

The Real Struggles of Gifted Teens

Sometimes you never know what will impact someone when they read your blog. Its a great feeling to know that someone is reading your thoughts. That’s what happened over the weekend. I want to share something with you that really pulled at my heart…

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Preview Days provide students and their parents the opportunity to visit a class, tour the campus and residence hall, and speak with Academy administrators, faculty, and students to learn more about our innovative educational program for high ability Indiana students.

Upcoming Preview Days include:

- Wednesday, January 9, 2013

- Monday, February 18, 2013

- Monday, March 18, 2013

- Monday, April 8, 2013

Please visit our registration site at www.previewday.eventbrite.com to view an agenda and sign-up to attend one of the Preview Days.

If you have any questions, please call 1-800-316-3163 ext. 11.

I have a very uneasy feeling when people, politicians, whomever pontificate on who "should" be teachers.  We should tempt the best, the brightest, the top of the class, the honors students, they say.  And we should, really.  But in those breathless pleas, someone like myself would be rejected based on numbers alone.

In the late 80s, early 90s, in Indiana, the "honors" and "high ability" tracking system went as such:  You were identified as gifted in elementary school.  Then you stayed gifted.  FOREVER.  

I was a problem child in elementary school.  I was (AM) terrible in math, I was a bit of a talker capable of a bad attitude, and I was slow in my reading skills until I picked up the pace later on.  So, it wasn't too much of a shocker I wasn't in honors anything when people were "chosen" in 4th grade (okay, I got to be in honors art for a year).  

But the tracking then followed throughout middle school into high school.  I was a avid reader with great verbal skills.  I wanted to do more, but I was often told--outright told--by someone it was too hard.  

"Hey, can we read Shakespeare like the honors classes?"  8th grade.  TOO HARD.

"Hey, can I do one of those research projects with the challenge fair?"  5th grade.  TOO HARD.  

In high school, because I was not in an honors class, I ended up in the Worst English Class Ever with a purple-haired woman who didn't remain at the school long.  My natural skills kept me afloat while my classmates suffered from Not Learning Anything (I'm not being hyperbolic; she didn't teach).  Because I wasn't in that 9th grade honors class, I couldn't be in 10th grade honors history. However, it all worked out because in those two years, I had Ms. K. and Mrs. H, who saw something in me and poked it with a stick.

The junior honors English class was more open--if you had a least a 3.0 and a teacher recommendation you could get in, and I got in.  So for the first time, I felt challenged.  I earned a B and worked my tail off for it.  I still took a junior level regular English class IN ADDITION just because Mrs. H taught it.  

It was speech.  Which I now teach.  Because I ended up taking Mrs. H's place.  

Three years ago, I began teaching freshmen honors English.  In the first two weeks, I had kids wanting to drop right it left because it was "too hard."  And I looked at them, and I said, "You know, when I was your age, I wasn't even allowed to be in this class and I wanted to be.  And here you are--privileged to be in a room with other students who generally like learning to learn material no one else is covering--and you're complaining?  Do you have any idea how fortunate you are?"  I found ways to make material work for them, but their initial attitude just blew my mind.  

The pendulum has swung quite a ways since I was a kid, and now I have to beat students out of my room with a ruler because the new mode of honors classes is "let everyone TRY!" even if the student isn't at level.  This results in a mix of generally good kids, but some who truly aren't there for the right reasons.  But maybe a C in my honors class gets them something they wouldn't get anywhere else.

I digress.  I graduated high school with a college prep diploma and a 3.3 GPA.  I graduated college with a 3.6.  I say this only because politicians tend to put such a focus on numbers and not on the content or the craft.  If you want to, however, my English-only classes were 3.76 and I was 10 points from a perfect score on my Praxis, and I got a 3.85 in grad school.  I turned out okay even though I wasn't an "honors student" in high school.

And not being that kid gives me a strange perspective.  I am a teacher who is good at challenging kids--I am GOOD at dealing with honors students.  I can find the right readings, the right questions, the right pace, and the right tasks to get their little brains working.  But where I find myself at odds with them is when they don't realize honors kids don't have to get As.  

Being an honors student doesn't equal a mark on a card.  Being an honors student means you're operating on a different plane in this one area, like English.  It's willing to be challenged.  It's willing to work.  It's being willing to try something different differently.  It's working at a different pace.  It's taking criticism--harsh criticism at times.

I'm really glad last year's freshmen liked me and liked the class.  They seem to have done a great job of talking up the class and me.  It's flattering, really.

But it's a high ability/honors class.  Statistically, with a class of 188, only about 20 should be in there.  NOT 33.  

And then I have to send emails to the AP and counselor about the course numbers.  With information like, "The following 7 students aren't even in the top 50 of the class."

And I KNOW that doesn't have a bearing on whether or not someone is high ability in ELA, but it can be telling, and we have to do something about the class numbers.  This is the 3rd year in a row they've not filtered from the middle school to high school, and then my class becomes the "weeding out" class.  Some will get in there and go into shock because--surprise!--they're not cut out for it.

Asking about high school level.

We used to, until there was a shifting attitude in the late 90s to "just let anyone who wants to, TRY."  

I have no say in who ends up in my freshman honors English class.  Apparently, the 8th grade teacher recommends them, and I think test scores are glanced at, and then they just make sure my class is under 30.  

But I'm really not sure how a teacher can recommend them for a class she has no idea how I teach....