Gifted Homeschoolers Forum

GHF Interviews

Kathi Kearney

Kathi Kearney, M. A. Ed., has worked with gifted children in a wide variety of settings for more than 25 years -- public school, private school, homeschool, at a university preschool program for gifted young children, in local and state advocacy work, and at the Gifted Development Center. Currently, she teaches gifted sixth grade students at the Noble VI school in Berwick, Maine, and does occasional consulting for individuals, schools, and advocacy organizations.

In October 2005, Kathi made some time to respond to an email interview conducted by Corin Barsily Goodwin, Director of the Gifted Homeschoolers Forum, and edited by GHF Editor Eleen Kamas. (Interviewer questions are in italics.)

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Can you give me a summary of how you first became involved in working with gifted kids?

I first got involved in working with gifted children my very first year teaching, in 1977. I taught at the Jewish Community Center preschool in Lewiston, Maine, and that first year, we had a 4 year old child who was reading C. S. Lewis's "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" and drawing in perspective. Also that same year, I met a local family with a profoundly gifted 5 year old, and it was that child who really led me on a saga to find information. "Finding information" resulted in eventually getting a master's degree in gifted education and pursuing doctoral level courses.

Did you have any idea where you would end up going on your saga?

Absolutely none.

Surprises

What kinds of surprises and obstacles did you meet along the way, and what has changed for you and in gifted education during that time?

First surprise: I've been working in the field of gifted education for more than a quarter-century, now, and almost nothing has changed regarding progress toward legal rights to an appropriate education for gifted children. A quarter century is a really long time, and in many ways, the current legal/legislative situation in gifted education and school reform, generally, leaves the majority of gifted children in a *worse* situation regarding public education than they were 25 years ago. The unintended consequences of the No Child Left Behind law has really hurt this population.

I gather you expected something else to happen -- some positive changes, maybe. What kinds of changes do you think should have happened, and why do you think they didn't?

On the federal level: What SHOULD have happened, at best, is a federal mandate for gifted education, similar to IDEA for special education. At the very least, what should have happened is maintaining and increasing the Jacob Javits Gifted and Talented Education program, and increasing its reach beyond just demonstration programs; instead, we find Javits in real danger of not being reauthorized every time around, even though its funds are a pittance compared to almost everything else in the federal government. There are all kinds of reasons (and excuses) why this is the case; I believe it partly boils down to just plain politics, coupled with the fact that parents of gifted children have not done the type of really tough advocacy work that parents of children with disabilities did when P. L. 94-142, the precurser to IDEA, was originally passed.

On the state level: Instead of seeing gifted programs go away, I expected more states to have solid mandates. I think reasons that this didn't happen are partly economics, partly trendy school reform (such as the now-nearly-debunked "middle school philosophy"), partly the standards movement, and partly, the No Child Left Behind law.

Can you be more specific about how you think the current legal/legislative situation in gifted education and school reform (especially the NCLB law) leaves the majority of gifted children in a worse situation regarding public education? Worse how?

There is no incentive for states to increase every child's achievement by a year's worth of academic growth. There is only incentive to bring students up to a "proficient" level. So much time, energy, and money has gone into the requirements of the No Child Left Behind law that many local districts and some whole states have used this as an excuse to markedly curtail or stop any services to gifted kids. If there was a requirement for every student to make progress every year, schools would have to make sure that gifted students made progress, too. I don't really think NCLB is working very well for anyone, but it's been especially difficult on gifted programming. And the test prep time in schools, coupled with rigid and not very thoughtful assessments of children's progress on state standards, has expanded so much that there is little time in the regular classroom for any enrichment for anyone. So gifted students are doubly penalized -- there are fewer gifted programs available, and the time in the regular classroom is even more likely to be spent reviewing what they already know, or can learn in a fraction of the time it takes other students.

Second surprise: That homeschooling grew so fast, that there are approximately 2 million homeschooled children nationwide, and that it is so well-accepted these days.

Why is this a surprise, and where do you think it is heading? I'm sort of thinking that as with most industries, the bigger homeschooling gets, the more the government will be itching to regulate it. Do you think that's true? What then?

Well, you have to remember what it was like 25 years ago. Homeschooling was a real anomaly, and engendered many negative, sometimes hostile, responses from all corners of society. If families decided to homeschool, some were told not to darken the doorways of their local school -- not to use the library, not even to attend an afterschool community activity. In some states, homeschooling was still illegal, or very, very difficult. In many places, schools refused to loan textbooks to homeschoolers (in many places, they still do). Companies refused to sell textbooks to homeschoolers – not just textbook companies that primarily sold to public schools, but companies like A Beka Books and Bob Jones University Press, companies that are making millions off homeschool sales these days. With no way to get textbooks, many homeschoolers started finding books at tag sales and in used bookstores and the like. A friend and I bought books when a Catholic school closed, and bought textbooks at a discount store that bought inventory when it fell off a truck or was in a flood or a fire. We made a lending library for other homeschoolers from these materials, because that was the only easy way to get textbooks back then.

When homeschooling was small, the government was itching to regulate it. In many ways we've seen less regulation as it's gotten bigger but in every legislative session in every state, there are bills to watch. Homeschoolers will always have to watch their legislatures like hawks. It's much easier to head off a bad bill and see it voted down than to let a bad bill pass and have to live with the consequences. I imagine when homeschooling is three times the size it is now, there will continue to be massive efforts to regulate it. Public schools have lobbying agencies that represent their interests in state legislatures all the time -- the teacher's union, the superintendent's association, the principal's association. Private school associations also usually have one or more lobbyists at each state capitol. Public and private schools are acutely aware of attempts to regulate them, and they act accordingly. Homeschoolers need to be vigilant as well.

Obstacles

Well, there are always legislative obstacles -- that's par for the course, since those writing laws rarely have either gifted children or homeschooled children in mind when drafting legislation. Where possible, and where there was support, I've worked to change public policy. This has included a variety of legislative bills that I have lobbied for, had input into the concepts and wording for, and even one that I wrote myself (Maine's new homeschooling law). The topics of these bills ranged from a waiver of the compulsory attendance law for students under age 16 who were full-time college students, to privacy protection for homeschooled students' educational records and "directory information," to support for a mandate for gifted education in my state. I am the legislative analyst for our state homeschool organization, so for the past 7 years or so, I have reviewed every bill in the state legislature that could possibly affect homeschoolers or gifted children.

GHF has an article by Wenda Sheard on this topic. She recommends that families homeschooling gifted children remain active in gifted policy issues relating to schools, as well. How can these families be involved... and at what level? Keeping in mind, of course, that there are huge differences in HSing laws on a state-by-state basis. Also, doesn't gifted funding comes from the federal piggy bank?

No, the only gifted funding that comes from the federal government is the Javits grant program, which funds demonstration projects and research for underrepresented gifted populations (minorities, twice-exceptional, rural, etc.) and also funds the National Research Center. But any monies for regular gifted ed. programs in schools are state-funded or locally funded (or both).

It's fine for families homeschooling gifted children to remain active in gifted policy issues related to schools. You never know when you might need to send a homeschooled child back to school -- unexpected things happen, even if you are convinced you'll be a lifelong homeschooling family.

Kathi, I have to ask you: where do you find the time for all of this?

It used to be really hard before the bills were posted online. I either had to go to Augusta regularly to read the bills, or I had to subscribe to the weekly legislative update (snail mail) then request the bills by mail (a two week process, and sometimes bills moved a lot faster than that through the legislature). Now, though, the bills are posted online as soon as they are printed, so I check the list of newly printed bills about four times a week during the legislative session. I read all bills referred to the education committee, and a good portion of the bills referred to human services. In addition, I scan for bills that might affect homeschoolers referred to other committees -- the transportation, judiciary, and taxation committees are all examples of where I have found unusual bills that were either really good or really bad for homeschoolers and/or for gifted children. I usually read bills late at night.

That's a lot of effort to put into this area. Do you have any children of your own, or have you essentially dedicated your life to making improvements for everyone else's gifted children? That's quite a public service, as I'm sure you know.

LOL! I have no children of my own, so I guess I'm in the "public service" capacity!

Other obstacles have been unexpected personal and family obstacles that have prevented me from doing some of the things I would like to have done in the field. Although some of these obstacles are far from resolved at this point, I hope that things will change someday soon. Because of my dad's illness and death from cancer, I had to put my doctoral dissertation on hold and I had to give up a university position in gifted education. Then, because of my mom's deteriorating situation and my brother's decision to take a job in Wyoming, I had to leave my work at the Gifted Development Center in Denver to move back east to be near my mom, since no other family was close by.

Homeschooling

Many people currently view "homeschooling" as sitting down with the kids and doing schoolwork (or not) completely apart from an educational institutions. What do you think about the idea of "homeschooling" as an umbrella term for the wide array of educational options available to our families? For example, some kids may be best off left to unschool entirely, while others may do some work at home with Mom or Dad and take classes with a homeschool group, through their church, or at a community college as well. Others, where they are allowed, may take art, band, or PE at a local public school, or they may go to school for most classes, but be allowed to homeschool specific subjects where they have unique needs that the school can't meet.

Well, all that is happening now, in perfectly legal homeschooling programs all over the country. Every state has its own set of laws and rules as to what constitutes homeschooling and I've seen every one of those options happen in homeschool programs. In states like mine, that have a public school access law for homeschoolers, even that last option happens quite a lot. But I feel VERY strongly about preserving the word "homeschooling" for what is legally defined as homeschooling in a particular state. Otherwise, we see all sorts of blurring of the lines between public school and homeschool, which seems to not only confuse the public but also invites more regulation for everybody. The charter e-schools have been particularly devious about this -- many of them have tried to sell themselves to homeschoolers as homeschooling, but with publicly paid-for perks such as computers, and the parents end up thinking they are homeschooling, yet the children in those public charter e-schools are PUBLIC school students and must meet all public school requirements -- including state and NCLB mandated testing. I don't like blurring the legal lines between homeschooling and public schooling at all. I think all choices are better when they are clearly delineated. There are benefits and some not-so-good things about every educational choice.

I'm sort of thinking it would be nice to build a bridge between homeschooling and the educational establishment, such as it is, so that kids would have a whole spectrum of possibilities to choose from. What do you think of that?

A lot of schools don't like that idea. But a lot of homeschoolers in essence do it, anyway. Their state has a public school access law, so even if the schools don't like the idea as long as everyone follows the rules in the law the schools have to do it. Or homeschoolers come up with their own set of spectrums of possibilities, that perhaps don't involve the neighborhood public school but do involve the public community college, or distance learning programs, and the like.

Hollingworth

Where does Leta Hollingworth, one of the early researchers on gifted kids, fit in to your story?

The very first course I took in gifted education was a two-week summer course at the University of Southern Maine. During the afternoons, I'd go to the college library and peruse all the books on gifted education (there weren't that many), looking through them at the library, and checking a few out at night to read. I was in the habit of just taking them off the shelf in order. When I got to the "H" authors, I picked up Hollingworth's Children Above 180 IQ, looked through it, and had the distinct impression that I wasn't ready for that book yet -- which was very odd, because I'd been basically reading anything and everything in the field. So I put it back on the shelf.

A year or so later, I was working on a master's degree in gifted education at Johnson State College in Vermont, and my master's thesis, which was a curriculum for a gifted child who was taught at home, came to a screeching halt midstream, because the family had had their little girl tested with the Stanford-Binet LM and found she was above 180 IQ. That explained why regular school hadn't worked for her, but at that time I had created her curriculum as a homeschooling curriculum for a child who was incidentally gifted. And I realized that I had no idea what to do for a child who was that gifted -- and apparently, neither did too many other people, as it had never been addressed in any of my coursework up to that point. I remembered the Hollingworth book I'd put back on the shelf a year and a half earlier and ordered the title through interlibrary loan. Once I read it, I realized it described many of the issues and problems, as well as the developmental trajectory, that this little girl had experienced. I had her mother read it too, and she said, "This is the first book I have read about giftedness that really described my children."

At that point I did do a literature review to find out what else was known about profoundly gifted children. This was 1983, and the answer was "not much." I collected all the articles and book chapters I could find; they all fit in one large binder. (At that point I decided to see what could be done to create an academic literature about profoundly gifted children.)

Of all the things I had read, Hollingworth's made the most sense. I tried to find the original curriculum guides that were published in conjunction with Hollingworth's Speyer School experiment in New York City in the 1930s, and eventually, after some sleuthing, was able to obtain them. I used them as a conceptual model for part of the homeschooling curriculum I was designing for my master's thesis.

Once I finished my master's degree, I was fascinated enough with what I'd learned about Hollingworth's work to try to locate some of her other writings, and eventually collected them all, as well as some unpublished materials.

Although Hollingworth's work was of necessity limited to the time and place of New York City, circa 1916 to 1939, what she discovered about the psychology and education of gifted children, and the case studies she compiled of children above 180 IQ, still have some pretty universal applications regarding giftedness today.

Is the literature review and subsequent desire to create a literature about profoundly gifted children what led to your creation of the Hollingworth Institute? What is happening with that – mission, activities, etc?

It helped, yes. Right now the Hollingworth Institute is on hiatus, because of several tragic deaths in the families of board members. Someday I hope it can be reconstituted, if there is still a need.

Curricula

Would you please address the creation/modification of curricula for gifted children. I am often asked why it matters if a child is gifted, if they are being homeschooled anyway. You know, the "G" word, the labeling argument... So it would be great if you would spell out for Gifted Homeschoolers Forum readers why it matters, and possibly suggest some initial reading on the subject for parents who are just beginning to explore giftedness in their children?

Most curricula out there are designed for children moving at an average pace. Most curricula will have to be adapted in pace, depth, or complexity if used with a gifted child. So knowing that the child is gifted (rather than lazy, ornery, or hyperactive!) really does help. And once you know, parents can start reading some of the literature about the development and psychology of gifted individuals; many parents report that this is not only exceptionally helpful, but exceptionally freeing. Good books to start with: Guiding the Gifted Child by James Webb, Stephanie Tolan and Elizabeth Meckstroth; Creative Homeschooling for Gifted Children by Lisa Rivero; Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual-Spatial Learner by Linda Silverman; and Empowering Gifted Minds by Barbara Gilman.

Teaching the Teachers

Coursework for those studying gifted education... There's another question. What is actually available in graduate work in education, regarding gifted children and regarding homeschooling? Anything? Has anyone done a recent survey on those topics?

There are a number of graduate level programs that offer a master's degree or a doctoral degree in gifted education. NAGC keeps a file of these programs, in the Professional Development division. They are the ones who do ongoing surveys. Most coursework will include separate courses in Introduction to Gifted Education (sometimes called Nature and Needs of the Gifted); Identification of the Gifted; Program Planning for the Gifted; Methods and Materials for Teaching the Gifted; Curriculum for Gifted Learners. Some programs also have separate courses in Counseling the Gifted; Special Populations of Gifted Children; Educating Young Gifted Children; Special Topics in Gifted Education; and Resource Development for the Gifted.

I do not know of any college or university that has more than an occasional course about homeschooling. They are very few and far between.

Testing and Assessment

Do you recommend testing or assessment of gifted homeschoolers, and if so or if not, why?

It depends on the child and the situation. In most cases, I think one good thorough assessment of cognitive ability and current achievement, done between the ages of 7 and 10, can be extraordinarily helpful, but isn't absolutely necessary. On the other hand, you never know when you might need the information -- for entrance into a special program, or the child has to return to a regular school. So it's helpful to have. If you suspect a child is extremely gifted, or twice-exceptional, then I'd strongly recommend testing.

Thank you so much for your time, Kathi!