Managing a Budding Music Career

Ian plays with Hex Radio at a recent VFW gig.

When I look back over the last few posts, I realize that they are more Eva- than Ian-heavy. That’s because Eva and I are doing more face-to-face exploration together than Ian and I are. Ian’s 12 now, and branching out to classes and projects that have less and less to do with my direct teaching of anything. Most of his work – especially in the music world – has long since required expertise beyond what I have to offer.

It’s exciting stuff, and I’m watching his musical personality unfold in his many and varied activities. He composes all the time – pop, rock, ballads, jazz, latin, orchestral work, classical marimba – there aren’t many genres that he’s not excited about. Sometimes this composing happens on the computer, Ian typing out lyrics and singing them out while he goes. Sometimes, like last night, it’s well past his bedtime, and he quickly records himself belting out a few reminder lines on his cellphone. The orchestrated pieces he creates using the computer software Finale. My “assignment” for him this year is to become proficient in Cubase, a computer program that is more useful for creating realistic sounding recordings of his work. I know nothing about Cubase, so the only help I can provide is in the form of library and internet resources, and perhaps a mentor or two.

Ian dressed for the high school marching band. Minus shoes.

If put all together, Ian probably works on music in some form approximately 3-4 hours each day. This breaks down to two hours of daily band rehearsal at the high school, approximately one hour of composing work, and one hour of practice. And then there is musical exposure – listening to jazz masters, watching Coldplay music videos, dancing to Gangnam Style and it’s various parodies; that happens off and on all the time and is difficult to quantify in terms of time spent. To be real, this level of work doesn’t happen every day, and those Magic the Gathering trading cards will often grab his attention much more firmly than the musical task at hand.

Folks who don’t know better might wonder what kind of Tiger Mama I am. 3-4 hours?? For reals! But the truth of the matter is that my main purpose and task as a homeschooling mom is to give Ian the intensive, high quality academic experience he desires while opening up as much free creative time as possible for him to pursue his truest love. This was my commitment to him from the beginning, and as he gets older, I find my job as manager increases as my role as teacher decreases. The only academic teaching I directly provide at this point is history. Between public school, his online class, and internet resources, the rest is pretty much taken care of.

Over the past few months, Ian has become more deeply involved in a wide variety of musical projects and has ambitious goals for the rest of the year. They’re so exciting, I’m going to share some of them here:

• Home record and share his increasing number of original compositions
• Continue composing in all the genres I mentioned above, including songs for his band Hex Radio, songs for his other group Flash, marimba trios for his high school wind ensemble, and other pieces as they come up
• Increase performance opportunities for both solo and band work
• Become proficient in Cubase
• Explore and apply for several categories of Downbeat’s Student Music Awards (there is a lot of prep work for this process, and though it is incredibly competitive, the work involved is a worthy pursuit even if no award is won)
• Prepare for various upcoming festivals and all-state auditions
• Rework his website

The music room is currently our unfinished basement. Can’t wait for sheet rock and insulation!

Coming up on November 9th, the University of Mary Jazz band will be performing Ian’s arrangement of John Coltrane’s “Bessie’s Blues.” This was his major music theory project last year, and after dozens of tweaks and last minute changes, we think it’s finally ready for public presentation. We are so thrilled about this event – I’m downright giddy for it. And tomorrow night he’ll have his first solo gig… ever, I believe. He’s downstairs right now rehearsing; he’ll be singing and playing keyboard – mostly originals.

One of the things he’s most excited about is a budding collaboration between him and Isabella Taylor, a tremendous young visual artist out of Austin, Texas. I’m not going to give any spoilers here – the project will be months in the making, and you’ll just have to be on pins and needles until they unveil. But I’ll tell you this – it’s unlike anything he’s ever done before. It will be fun to see what they come up with together.

With all this work – all these goals – you can see why 3-4 hours each day isn’t so unreasonable. It’s what he wakes up wanting to do and craves all day. In fact, his only criticism of his schedule this year is that there isn’t more time to do music.

It’s like this with intense kids. We parents are just doing our best to keep up, provide the time and resources our kids need, and make sure they go to bed at a decent hour and eat three meals a day. Oh, and brush their teeth and all too. And put on a jacket. And you know, the little things.

If you have similar experiences with your kids, I’d love to hear about them. How do you help your intense kids manage their time? And how successful are you at helping them find open space for creative pursuits? Share your tips! We’d love to hear them.

Oh, and before you go, check out this song that Ian and his buddy Ty from Flash! recorded the other week. Good fun!

Ian: the High School Student. Eva: the Skype an Author Author. Me: Lost in Moving Boxes.

Well, in the midst of all our boxes and packing and trucking our material lives across town into our new house, we’re still educatin’ and advocatin’ over here at the Ridenhour abode. We met with the high school principal yesterday about having Ian do an additional subject grade skip and take two high school band courses as a 10th grader. Once again, years of positive advocacy seem to have paid off, and the principal not only agreed to recommend his enrollment to the higher ups, but encouraged us to look at the various science and math courses that the high school has to offer. As we left, he told Ian that he was “breath of fresh air.” We couldn’t have been more pleased.

Eva Skyping into the Teaching and Technology conference

That was yesterday. Today, Eva is Skyping into two sessions of the North Dakota’s Teaching and Technology conference. She is being featured as a model for using Skype in the classroom to connect children with authors and other professionals. She just finished her first presentation, in which she talked about how her Skype sessions work. The next one’s up in about a half hour. Hopefully this will lead to more opportunities for her to connect with kids and encourage them in their own writing endeavors.

And now for the move… two days and counting (assuming all the lenders can get their paperwork wrapped up in time!). Next post up: engaging kids in creative summer learning/exploration. If you have thoughts about this or awesome plans already in place, let me know, and I’ll share some of them here!

But until then, please enjoy Ian’s rendition of Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep,” videoed last weekend. The boy’s got pipes.

The Power of Positive Advocacy: Personal Update

A couple of weeks ago I posted some thoughts and advice about educating gifted children. I feel it is important to share real stories about this process to help families make informed decisions about their own children’s education. In the above linked post, I list a host of gifted advocacy groups where you can talk to families all over the nation who are making educational decisions that are outside the norm.

But today I’ll share our own little success story. As you may recall, 8-year old Eva, who was subject accelerated in public school during her pre-homeschool days, has requested an additional subject acceleration in science and band; this would place her in the 6th grade in those subjects.

One might think that since we’ve already done a double grade skip for our son, we parents would not hesitate on this request; her test scores certainly make her eligible. But one would be wrong. Husband-Jamie and I talked to Eva about her request for weeks. We wanted to make sure that she wanted this for her – not because she wanted to be like her big brother. Ian, who has had plenty of ups and downs through his academic life, is right now extremely happy with his accelerated part-time public school situation. He is making a lot of new friends through his various music-related school ventures, and has happily embraced the land of texting; things are really falling into place for him. I was concerned that Eva would expect similar social success right away, and forget that it took Ian years to get to this place.

But I, as usual, underestimate my child. She was able to speak articulately about each point that I raised. She recognized that she would feel shy at first, but pledged to make choices to be friendly and open and not wait for her older classmates to make the first move. She acknowledged that it may feel awkward at first, but she felt confident that she would make it work.

Ultimately, it turns out that this really isn’t about Ian. Band here isn’t offered until the sixth grade, and Eva is eager to put her private trumpet lessons to good use. She doesn’t want to be in two different grades, but she loves science and wants to try this in a classroom setting; these points led to her request. And, from a teacher’s perspective, it all falls into place pretty nicely; biology was on our science agenda for next year, and this is also what is taught in the sixth grade.

We began this process by meeting with our former school principal. Since we are relocating to a downtown location, we will be dealing with a new school. To make things trickier, the principal at that school is retiring at the end of the month. Our former principal advised that we meet with her anyway, and try to get this arranged before she leaves. So we did.

And this is where the magic of long-term positive advocacy came to fruition. When we arrived at the new school for our advocacy meeting, we sat down at a table with three very friendly and familiar faces. This is who was there:

1. The principal. The principal used to serve on the board of a nonprofit I created; this nonprofit (called the Arlis Saxon Eco-Kids Project, in memory of my grandmother) offered grant money to elementary kids for well-written proposals to improve the environmental footprint of their schools. The students had to write the proposals and administer the funds. I ran that organization for four years and raised and granted thousands of dollars to kids and their schools. This school was also a grant recipient of the Saxon Project.
2. The guidance counselor. Back when Ian was double grade-skipped in full-time public school, one of our arrangements was that he received time with this same guidance counselor to assist him with the transition. She has remained involved and interested in both kids over the years, and is responsible for recruiting them both as presenters for the district-wide sixth grade career days.
3. The school psychologist. Another friendly face, this psychologist helped us set up IQ testing for both children (IQ testing is necessary for any kind of acceleration consideration). She also served on the committee for Ian when he did his double grade-skip.

Though it took Jamie and me over a year to get approval for Ian’s acceleration plan four years ago, this meeting was self-contained, and Eva’s request was approved on the spot. Each person around the table already knew about Eva’s work as an author and public speaker. They knew that Jamie and I were researchers and wouldn’t be at the table unless we had already identified and found answers to concerns they might have. They also knew that we would provide the parental support to make this a success. We had all the appropriate test scores in hand (IQ, and national and state assessments), because we had learned from experience what all we needed to move forward. We also had teacher recommendations ready.

In short, our “quick” success was due to years of positive advocacy. We as family advocates are persistent but friendly, homeschoolers but public school supporters. We are involved communicators, and will always be prepared with the research to support the radical acceleration and unusual educational arrangements we are requesting; we will also maintain our involvement once the plan is in place to ensure its ongoing success. We feel that though we are dissatisfied with the way public education is offered, it is our job as parents and community members to work together with teachers and administrators to improve it for the sake of all our children and the adults who support and teach them.

Though every situation is unique, advocacy doesn’t by its nature have to be adversarial. We can use our personal situations and issues to work for the good of all involved. And that, for me, is the kind of world I want to live in.

Riding the Wave of Intensity: Education and Advocacy From the Parent Perspective

At the end of my Parenting Magazine’s Mom Congress 2012, my DC host Amber asked me what all I had taken away. Had I learned anything? Had it helped? I told her I wasn’t ready to talk about it – too much to process. But I tried anyway, and after about an hour of conversation, found myself wound up in frustration.

There is so much I want to do, that I felt I couldn’t make any real decisions. My seriously passionate interests include education reform for all kids, education reform and advocacy for gifted kids, homeschooling my own kids, literacy efforts, the arts (especially in schools), environmentalism and alternative energy engineering, painting (I love to paint, but do it seldom). I want to start a leadership/magnet school that reflects my education values. I want to learn how to make solar panels cheaply. I want to travel and simply talk to teachers and administrators about project based, child-centered learning. And I want to give my kids the education they need. I’m all over the place.

Amber sat back with a big smile on her face. “Gwyn,” she said. “so what you’re saying is ‘there’s just so much music?’” She was of course referring to my recent blog post about my son’s own struggle to ride his ‘wave of intensity’ as I had called it. What could I do but laugh? She had nailed it. It appeared that I had my own wave to ride.

One of the biggest gifts I gave myself that week was a full day after the conference to wander the Washington mall, check out the fabulous museums, and simply have some quiet reflection time before I returned home to my full and crazy life. I walked all day, soaking in inspiration from the masters, absorbing the crowd’s energy and enthusiasm of the science centers, comparing the absurd differences and similarities of Ron Mueck’s The Big Man (which I saw at the Hirschhorn) with the stoic Lincoln Memorial. Oh, come on. It’s entertaining.

With tired feet, a full heart, and an overfull head, I stopped to eat at a little cafe in the National Gallery of Art. It served as the perfect setting for me to begin dumping out all I had absorbed over the week and begin to apply it to my life. There were women I had met that weekend who were deeply involved in education policy and legislation, school nutrition, book drives, global vaccinations, you name it. One woman from Montana had pretty much built an entire town around the resort area where she lived, simply because she saw the need. But these were 50 women and I am one. And this is how I broke it all down.

First off, I narrowed my focus to education. Perhaps in the next stage of my life I will learn about and develop THE end-all solar technology that will bring an end to climate change and win me some amazing prize, but I must admit to myself that this it not the time. So. Education. I first did some down-to-earth homeschool planning for my kids.

Homeschool Planning

• I realized that a piece I had gravely omitted this year was global studies. And I also realized that studying a foreign language simply wasn’t optional anymore. This was good – progress.
• I brainstormed a bit on making our final history unit of the year more interesting (nothing like making kids relate to the American Revolution than to compare it to the Hogwarts revolt in Order of the Phoenix).
• I began taking notes on how to keep science and math in our lives, even through the summer (lots of great videos from TED-Ed, Nova Science Now, Vi Hart, Minute Physics, etc.)
• I began dumping out ideas and to-do lists about the release of Eva’s new book The Kinzy Chronicles (you can purchase yours today!), and how to help Ian think about promoting his new composition “After the Storm.”

Education Advocacy for Ian and Eva

Next, I thought about longer term advocacy for the kids. Eva has requested an additional subject acceleration next year so that she can take a sixth-grade science and band class. Ian wants to play in the high school Wind Ensemble and Jazz Band (which also requires an additional subject acceleration).

• I identified the people I needed to contact right away to get this process going.
• I also identified people I needed to talk to about long-range planning especially for Ian. He wants to eventually attend a school like Berklee College of Music, which is fiercely competitive. I have to begin thinking of these things now so that he’ll be prepared when the time comes.

Community/School Advocacy

Finally, I opened my focus and began to think about how I could best give back to my community and our schools. Now that I felt I had taken care of my own kids’ needs, I was ready to think about this. The order of this process was essential. This is what I decided was within my reach:

• Recognize my strengths as a hands-on educator and quit beating myself up about not being more involved in policy (at least for now ).
• Work on forming a relationship with our district’s superintendent.
• Form a community group for parents and kids who are concerned about education quality.
• Recruit kids for an ongoing writers’ group to be held at our home.
• With the approval of Eva and Ian, increase their partnership with the schools for public speaking opportunities. These experiences have been wonderful for both my kids and their student audiences, and I hope to be more intentional in our work with the district.
• Host a kid-run book drive to collect and distribute children’s books.
• Advocate for increasing our music program in the public elementary schools, which was cut last year. Kids now can’t sign up for band here until they are in 6th grade. Talk with Ian about how we could work together on this project.
• Take advantage of the fact that this summer we are moving from our current rural location to the heart of downtown. We are doing this largely to increase our connection with our friends and the community. Once we get settled we hope to host a weekly “tea” to have folks drop in as they are available. The idea is to create a weekly family living room where people can just drop by, talk about their week, discuss fun things like politics and family, and simply be together.

Though I may eventually go back and cross some things off of this list, it helped me to begin focusing on things that not only benefitted other people, but made me happy as well. I think the secret to making the world a better place is finding joy in what you do. Because if it’s not joyful, you’ll burn out, no matter how noble the cause.

But for now, it’s time for coffee and pancakes. Happy Saturday everyone!

Too Fast, Too Slow, Just Right – Acceleration for the Gifted Child

I read a wonderful article this morning about acceleration. I’m up to my ears in this stuff right now, and wanted to share this with you. I’ll be posting here more about our progress in arranging further acceleration for next year, but in the meantime, click on over to this blog site and see what you think.

Too Fast, Too Slow, Just Right – Acceleration for the Gifted Child.

Out-of-the-Box Education Planning for Gifted Children

Raising and educating children who don’t fit inside the educational norm takes courage and creativity. I talk a lot on this blog about my hopes for the improvement of education in general, and indeed, I am committed to that mission. But today I want to offer discussion about gifted children in particular.

Parents with academically gifted children often feel that they have no option but to leave their kids in educational situations that are unsatisfying. Even placing them in accepted accelerated tracks can sometimes simply not be enough. I have been the shoulder for dozens of parents who feel their hands are tied with regards to their bright children’s education. They tell me their kids are bored, depressed, hate school, feel patronized. That they are uninspired and disappointed. But what can they do? There are no better options.

In my city in particular, there are no gifted services save a short pull-out program that works with students about three hours per week. Many participants and their parents report that this is insufficient to address their educational needs. Private school options here are strictly parochial, and though they may provide superior academic options, religion becomes an inseparable component. Plus, it’s expensive, and may not do better in meeting your child’s educational needs. For many families, this also is an insufficient option.

So what are our options? How do you go about creating an educational plan for children who are testing out at five or six grades or more above their age level? My suggestions here are for families who have already gone through the testing and evaluation process to identify their children as highly or profoundly gifted. I can talk about the testing and identification process in a later post if you’re interested. Let me know.

1. Let go of convention. Though there are hundreds of families carving out unique educational plans all over the country, there may not be any in your particular town. You may well be on your own here, so you’re going to have to allow yourself to step outside the comfort zone of grade levels, traditional trajectory, and the too oft-repeated community mantra of “but what if your child doesn’t fit in?” If your child is unhappy, she’s already not fitting in.

Ian and his Science Olympiad partner four years his senior bring in a first place medal. Peer groups aren't always determined by age.

2. Let go of the need for your child to be in an age-related grade. This is an extension of point #1. We first had to deal with the question of “what grade are you in” when Ian did a double grade skip, from 2nd grade to 4th. A couple of years later, Eva did a single grade skip, skipping over 1st grade altogether. Once homeschooling came about, we had to drop the idea completely, as we don’t use much in the way of grade-specific curricula.

3. ASK YOUR KID. Dream together. Without parameters, what does your son or daughter want out of their education? Eva wants her education to allow her to write and self-publish books. Ian wants his education to focus on music. Those are our overarching goals. I asked about the short-term as well, and Eva surprised me by requesting an additional grade-skip so that she can take public school science and band in the 6th grade next year (this in edu-speak is known as “subject acceleration”). Ian is in the midst of considering classes in the middle school, high school, and even the university (again, see point #1).

4. Partner with (and seek advice from) educational experts. Ian, who will be 12 in June, is becoming increasingly ready for a higher level of education than what I can give him. I know we can still handle literature at home, and perhaps one more year of science, but he’s been stalling in math, and he’s far beyond what I can teach in music. I am in conversation with music instructors in the middle and high schools and in the university, trying to decide what his best option is for next year. We are carefully weighing what he’s ready for, what would serve him best, where he would be happiest, always balancing academic and social needs, and always including him in the process. And though I could teach him math again, we’ve together (ie: Ian, his dad and I, and the middle school administrators) decided on a fast-track middle school geometry course where he’ll be able to study with his friends. To begin the advocacy process for Eva, I’ll be working with the principal of her former public school to prepare an official recommendation based on her performance and test scores.

The Iowa Acceleration Scale

5. Assessments are your friends. OK, that felt odd just to type that. But truly, it is not assessments that I’m so opposed to, but our educational system’s obsession with them. Assessments when done right (and far less often) can be useful tools. And if you want to go outside the traditional school trajectory, you’re going to have to make teachers and admin folks feel comfortable about it. Though both my kids have received testing in the past to approve their grade-skips, I had them take quick state assessment tests last week (thank you Wachter Middle School for so kindly administering them!). The scores were consistent with their past experiences, but having them up to date will assist me in my advocacy for their placement next year. Ian also took the SAT this year; we felt that was important if we were considering university options. Also, don’t forget the Iowa Acceleration Scale, which is a tool made specifically to assess grade-skip readiness.

6. Recognize limitations. When you let go of all parameters, you have to be prepared that you will explore options that ultimately won’t be appropriate. Ian has been considering taking a college chemistry class to follow up on our chemistry study of last year. After interviewing the several science professors, the chemistry professor and parents of gifted children who have done this kind of thing before, we decided that solidifying his math study needed to come first. We want appropriate placement in whatever course of study we pursue, and are open to the reality of his pace; this means that we’re prepared to accelerate if necessary, and to slow down when needed.

7. Connect with the national gifted community for support and advice. Really, I can’t say this enough. This kind of radical acceleration isn’t as rare as you might think. If you feel like your child could benefit from the type of education I describe here, you should be in contact with the Davidson Institute of Talent Development and check out their Young Scholars program. There are many other wonderful organizations for gifted children as well, including Hoagies Gifted Education, National Association of Gifted Children (NAGC), Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted (SENG), and Gifted Homeschoolers Forum (GHF). And you can always contact me.

8. Lastly, always be prepared to ditch what doesn’t work. This means to ditch the traditional education path if need be, and ditch your carefully laid out acceleration plans if they’re not working. This is process of trial and error. We research and carefully consider each option, but ultimately, sometimes you just don’t know until you try. You only fail if you’re not prepared to change a negative situation (even if it’s a situation that you have created).

Journeys with Gifted Kids

As a librarian and a parent of two “profoundly gifted” children, I often get the wonderful opportunity to meet other parents who are wondering if their children are gifted, and if so, what to do about it. Usually, I find that if the parent suspects that their child possesses unique learning abilities, they are most often right. Parents are very intuitive that way.

My husband Jamie and I began our journey into the land of parenting children who are outside the box about 8 years ago, when our son Ian turned 2 and began memorizing the lyrics and music of entire albums such as Paul Simon’s Graceland. This was admittedly surprising, and was only the first of dozens of examples of a mind (then later minds, after our daughter Eva came along) that learned differently than most people.

I would love to say that these gifts have made things easy for us and for our children, but as most parents of gifted kids will report, this has far from been the case. Although our children and their abilities are delightful, we have struggled, screamed, cried, and pulled our hair out when it came to educating them in the public school system. Most parents I believe will find that if their  child has special needs on the lower end of the academic spectrum, public schools will bend over backwards to make sure they get the support they need, even providing full-time aids to go through the school day with them. This is wonderful to see, and is what schools should be doing for children of all special needs – both above and below the IQ center.

This, sadly, is not the case. Perhaps in another blog entry, I will share more details of our story. It’s an important one, I think, because we had one child who “got left behind” despite our nation’s promises to ensure this doesn’t happen. And I know for a fact that our story is far from unique. The good news is, that after struggling, screaming, crying, and pulling our hair out for four years in the public school system, we have finally found a happy balance for both children. Now Eva has been accelerated one full grade and goes to school part-time, homeschooling the rest. After Ian was accelerated two full grades in public school, we finally made the decision to homeschool him full-time. He participates in the public middle school band, and loves this. Though he’s 10, he plays in the 7^th grade band, the 8^th/9^th grade marching band, and the 7^th-9^th grade jazz band. We are super grateful that North Dakota is one of the states that allow these part-time homeschool arrangements.

Just last week, we had dinner with a fantastic Bismarck family that includes two delightful children, one of whom the parents suspect is gifted. As he taught himself to read at the age of three (the parents didn’t even know he knew the sounds of the letters), I tend to believe that their intuition is correct. We shared our story with them in the hopes of sparing them the same experiences. I also had several resources to share to help them understand giftedness on a national perspective. I’m going to share these resources in this blog now, in the hopes that they will help other people as well. These are the titles that were the most beneficial for us in the past few years. In particular, the Davidson Institute has been an absolute life-saver. They are the only national “support” group for families of gifted children, though “support group” in no way describes the myriad of services they provide. Jamie and I would be lost without them.

If you are a lucky parent, friend, or advocate who believes that a child in your life might be gifted, I am more than happy to talk to you personally. The worst part of our experience is that we felt so alone for so long. But we have found that this does not have to be the case.

Happy reading!

Resource Recommendations for Educators and Parents of Gifted Children

Books (all of the following are available at Bismarck Public Library)

Genius Denied: How to Stop Wasting Our Brightest Young Minds by Jan Davidson

Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnosis of Gifted Children and Adults by James Webb et al.

A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America’s Brightest Students by Nicholas Colangelo (also available as a free download on their website)

Testing Instruments

Iowa Acceleration Scale: A Guide for Whole-Grade Acceleration, K-8 (a testing tool to help determine the appropriateness of grade acceleration; Bismarck Public Schools have purchased a copy)

Organizations

The Davidson Institute

Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted (SENG)

TED Talks

Sir Ken Robinson (watch his talks online)