Here are some guidelines for parents as to whether a student should be referred for GATE:

Does my child have high Advanced scaled score on the STAR CST in both Math and English-Language Arts (or on another standardized test) in two of the past three years? Or, does my child have high Advanced scaled score on the STAR CST Math (or on another standardized test in two of the past three years)? Does my child exhibit unusual divergent thinking ability and profound abstraction and other intellectual ability? Does my child have very highly developed skills in visual or performing arts, such as in drawing, music or other areas?

GATE referrals are through contact of Colina’s counseling office. The District assesses annually, and any referrals to Colina need to be made by the first week of December of each school year.

(This article was distributed at a Colina GATE Parents' meeting.)

Afterwards, Your a Genius: On Being Too Far Out
STEPElANIE S. TOLAN

When a new idea is proposed or a new invention created, the response of the world is
not always welcoming. The person who dares to come up with a radical concept is often
branded a fool, an eccentric, nuts. It is ordy after the new idea is accepted or the new
invention turns out to work -- "afterwards" -- that the person responsible for it is labeled a
genius.
Sometimes recognition comes in time to assure worldly success, fame and even riches;
sometimes it doesn't. From time to time (worst case scenario!) radical thinkers have been
imprisoned, executed, die in poverty or commit suicide because the world is unable to
accept or allow their ideas. Danger lies in virtually ever field of human endeavor.

A sane and sensible person, then -- one who wishes to have comfort, secunty, recognition, and a steady income - would do well to confine her/his thoughts to the realm of the already accepted. A sane and sensible person would be careful not to venture too far from the mainstream.

Parents watching a young profoundly gifted child come up with new ideas, new ways of doing things, are likely to be proud and supportive. Even when the child issues intellectual challenges to adults and questions the rightness of existing theories, ideas and institutions, many parents continue to cheer the robust mental activity that allows such behavior. Excited by the evidence of their child's intense mental processes, they may find themselves imagining a rosey future -- a Nobel Prize (or whatever equivalent award a particular field offers), fame, fortune, or at the very least a solid career in some Challenging field, as if there is a direct line between powerful, innovative thought and worldy success. But that isn't the case.

Last month, at a conference in Missouri, a speaker pointed out that not "f~tting in" could be literally life-threatening and suggested that we should teach our gifted children ways to fit in well enough to assure that other people are comfortable. (A sane and sensible suggestion!) And yet that would suggest that when Jesus began speaking in ways that stirred up the status quo, Mary should have pushed him to focus on his carpentry and stay in the workshop where he'd be safe. After all, no mother wants to stand at the bottom of the cross on which her son has been crucified -- not even if it was possible to know that two thousand years later the ideas he brought to the world would still be central to the spiritual quest of a large portion of humanity. Better to have a happy and successful carpenter in the family and maybe a bunch of bright grandchildren!

We need to consider carefully the message we give children with challenging minds. They need nourishment and encouragement, surely. But if they are to dare to fully use their unusual minds, they are likely also to need courage, persistence, determination, and a clear sense of their own personal goals. That means that we need those attributes as well.

We live in a challenging time. Newtonian/Cartesian materialistic science (the "old" science) provides a rational view of the universe that so pervades contemporary hurnan consciousness that we may be unaware of its limiting effects. For nearly a century new ideas have been introduced at a steadily accelerating pace that, fully understood, radically
change the established view of "how it is," of how the universe works. But changes to human thinking in general are slow and most of the world is not yet ready for what is already known, let alone what the next generation of innovative thinkers will learn and discover.

Our highly and profoundly gifted children may be at risk if they follow their hearts and minds out beyond the mainstream; it is well to remind ourselves that they will also be at risk tthough a different kind of risk) if they do not.