“S.P.I.R.I.T.”

(Seeking to Provide Individual Release of Intellectual Talent)

The  mission of the Columbus Municipal School District program for intellectually gifted is to create a learning environment that fosters and encourages thinking, creativity, metacognition, healthy enriching relationships and appropriate expectations and understanding of self. 

CMSD Gifted Education Goals are: 

• To provide qualitatively, differentiated and challenging learning beyond the regular curriculum through in-depth enrichment in order to develop and maintain our students’ commitment to the love of learning as a life long process.
• To help students through self-awareness, better understand themselves, develop social interest and a feeling of belonging in order to assist them in reaching their full potential.
• To help students develop independence, self direction and to challenge them through various activities and mentors to become productive citizens of society.

Students will continue problem solving practices with an emphasis on the critical thinking attributes. For the purposes of SPIRIT, a critical thinker is one who knows the following:

• There are differences between things that MAY be true & things that MUST be true
• There are differences between facts and opinions
• Sometimes more information is needed in order to draw a conclusion
• It is useless to argue over facts
• Listening carefully to what others are saying is vital
• Sometimes one must admit a personal lack of understanding of a topic
• Must be willing to gather all the facts before making a judgment
• The same word may have more than one meaning
• Keeping an open mind to new ideas is essential to problem solving
• Change is necessary and one should not resist change when it enhances thinking

SPIRIT classes use the Scientific Method and Suggested Teaching Strategies for Teachers of the Intellectually Gifted as a basis for study.

• State the problem               Form an hypothesis               Experiment
• Collect data                        Draw conclusions                   Make an evaluation

SPIRIT is Franklin Academy's program for intellectually gifted students. 

• Assessment for new students and students in grades 2 through 4 is on-going year round. 

• Students may be referred in several ways including their teachers, parents, peers, anyone who has reasonable knowledge of the student and self-nomination.

• The annual referral of first grade students will begin February 1, 2009.

• Homeroom teachers will complete the referral package and return it to me.

• I will complete the process and submit the referral to Mrs. Lindsay, the CMSD psychologist.

• After a ruling to determine eligibility to continue testing by the Local Screening Committee, documentation requiring parental permission to test will be sent to parents.

• Testing will occur by either a psychometrist or a psychologist during the spring.

• Notification of the results will be sent in the last report card given to you in May.

First grade students who are eligible in the 2010 screening

will begin classes in Fall 2010.

Traits of Gifted Learners

• Intense Sensitivity: A keen sensory system allows many gifted individuals to process the nuances of the world at a rapid rate. This heightened sensitivity, however, may also cause them to more quickly reach sensory overload. Similarly, gifted children may have a keen sense of justice, compassion and emotional understanding uncommon among their age peers.
• Intensity of Interest: Gifted children, and especially Highly Gifted Children, will often develop intense areas of interest. In school they may be reluctant to transition from these interest areas.
• Rapid Learning: Gifted children will often be able to learn academic content much more quickly than their age peers.
• Advanced Vocabulary and Sense of Humor: These are the children who hear a word once and instinctively know how to use it. They may also find enjoy puns and word play from a very young age.
• Early Reading: Although many gifted students are not early readers, it is not unusual for gifted children to be self-taught readers well before school begins and to love books from infancy.
• Perfectionism: Gifted individuals often set unreasonably high goals for themselves or measure their achievements unrealistically

For more information regarding the gifted education program, please contact Sylvia Collins.