The Independent Stitch

Yesterday and today

It's been quiet around here for many reasons, including travel, planning and contract negotiations for next year's teaching, and . . . an online course I'm taking called Teach Now, coordinated by Jennifer Louden and Michele Lisenbury Christensen.

Wow! The course is as laid-back or intense as each participant chooses to make it. Of course, I've jumped in with both feet. Although I have taught classes and workshops and given occasional keynote addresses for more than thirty-five years, teaching has always been a once-in-a-while event. Next year, I'll be teaching as much as I have time to (my 2012 calendar is full) and I want to make sure I'm doing it as well as I can. I took a gamble on this course and it's been very worthwhile. It looks at teaching as a multidimensional activity, one that every teacher undertakes from a position of both knowing and not-knowing, that is both more valuable (and demanding) than we often recognize it to be, and that deserves attention in ways that will make it sustainable for the teacher to continue doing.

Jennifer and Michele provide lots of audio resources (a focus recording for each week plus interviews with master teachers), homework with deadlines, and conference calls in which we can all work through sticky spots or examine questions that have come up. There's also a private Facebook group for conversations between participants that is a delight. It's taking a lot of time, and it's also paying off in giving me more confidence in teaching (which I love) and ideas for different ways to teach. It's also helping me feel like it's okay that I have way more questions about the topics I'm teaching than I do answers! I know that I know a lot. (Putting together a course is no problem, as soon as I identify the topic. My biggest challenges then are how to focus and trim the material so it makes sense as a whole and can be fitted into the available time.) I'm always significantly MORE aware of what I want to learn about next—what I don't know yet!

One of the things I don't know is when Jennifer and Michele will be offering the course again. To find out, get on their non-bothersome mailing list. I recommend the course strongly to anyone who is teaching any topic at any level. It's best if you can clear enough of your schedule to take advantage of all the opportunities (in my case, drastic measures have been required), but it's also valuable if you can just sip from the fire hose, so to speak. I'm also reading Parker Palmer's The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life, which Jennifer and Michele recommend highly (with good reason), even though it's not a specific part of the course. (An interview with Parker Palmer is included in the course materials.) There are both independent and facilitated versions of Teach Now. The facilitated option is amazing.

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Meanwhile . . . we have had one of Colorado's weather shifts in the past 18 hours.

I've also been appreciating our neighborhood, which is generally somewhat boring. Houses all built to the same handful of plans, too many of which are painted in shades of beige. Privacy fences made of cedar boards, arranged vertically, six feet high. Grass. A few trees. Not much individuality. Except. . . .

One of our neighbors has recently painted her fence! We're THRILLED! (And we told her so.)

Yesterday

Today

Her mural looks super whatever the weather. Note, though, how there are no tree limbs hanging in front of it in the first picture and there are several in the second.

I seriously wanted to bike to the coffeehouse last night for my evening work session, but it was spitting rain-snow at 5, and by the time I was getting ready to leave at 5:30 the back deck was completely wet. Worse, the forecast indicated that we would likely get several inches of snow and a significant portion might have fallen by 9 p.m. I usually work at the coffeehouse until they close at 10. Sigh. I took the car, even though I knew today would likely not be great for biking and thus I'd be losing my last opportunity for a while.

It turned out I wasn't just being a wuss. By the time I headed home, I had to scrape a couple of inches of snow from the car and free it from some limbs that were overhanging its roof.

Yesterday, briefly revisited

Here's more of yesterday:

Those are likely violas—maybe actual violets, although the blossoms are bigger than those of the midwestern violets I grew up with—that we've been enjoying all summer. They've grown through the street's asphalt. The truck parked behind them hasn't pulled forward over them, a fact for which we've been grateful every day when we've checked on them. The leaf blanket has been a new addition to the scene.

Today, again

This morning, our walking landscape looked entirely different and the flowers have yet another layer over them, this time white and puffy.

About seven inches (18cm) of snow lie everywhere. You can't tell we got that much snow from the street view, because it's a wet, heavy storm and the snow is melting quickly where it's warmed by the combined heat of the sun and of the dark roadway. The fact that our crew is walking in the street is a giveaway, though, of how much snow there is elsewhere. We're sidewalk folks. The sidewalks were either not cleared yet or were covered with backed-up, cold, wet, boot-invading slush. My daughter and our two dogs are turning a corner toward the house with the new mural.

Just behind her is another house that enlivens our walks, although we'll enjoy less of its pleasures for the winter. It has a spinet piano in the garage (in the GARAGE?) and the young man who plays it never seems to miss a note. When he learns a new piece, all the notes are in the right places but they don't come in as quick succession as they do when he's got the composition down. When he masters a work, it's hard to listen as fast as he plays, so we don't try. We just let the music swirl around us. It's such a nice experience and lasts for about a half-block in each direction (just past where the mural now is).

We're grateful for all the moisture of this snow, although it comes at a cost.

We've seen other trees that have experienced this sort of snow-induced split go back to growing just fine. I hope this one will. It was obviously pruned to take off some extra branches not long ago, so it was less vulnerable than it could have been.

Our neighbors, who just had the pruners out last week, lost part of their remaining big tree.

And another piece fell on their fresh paint job and new roof, although I don't think it did structural damage. I hope not.

So yes, I was out front at our house in my pajamas this morning, first thing, poking a shovel at the branches of the crabapple and bouncing them to get off as much snow as I could (and trying no to get it all over me). I think that tree is basically okay. The lilacs are also spreadeagled, but they tend to be resilient.

Lots and lots of neighborhood trees were less fortunate. Some people's lawns and porches were covered with broken limbs, and in other places drivers had to drag parts of trees out of the road to get to work.

Yet the storm also left some lovely sights in its wake:

It's supposed to clear up late this evening, and tomorrow's low is predicted to be 11°F (-11°C). I'm glad I located my winter coat and my boots today. I think before I get back to work in a few minutes I'll block the sweater I finished knitting on Monday night (photos to come).

It's been busy around here . . .

. . . and I have a backlog of ideas for posts. For some of them, I need to find the items to photograph, and I haven't had time to organize the office (or the rest of the house) for the next phase of research and work.

Here are some of the reasons why. . . .

Starting up my freelance business again

During the final phases of preparation for publication of The Book (now being referred to on Ravelry as FFSB, for The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook), I had to turn down almost all other freelance work. Getting that part of my life started again has meant re-thinking the way I go about it, and getting more closely focused on the clients and projects where I have the most to offer.

The result of all this has been two new pieces of written material:

1. An introduction to editorial work in general, and to working with me in particular (should be helpful for anyone who's thinking about consulting an editor)
2. A questionnaire for potential editing clients, which has the intention of setting up a solid foundation for figuring out whether this writer, this editor, and this project are all simpatico (again, should be of value for folks working with me or with others)

Right now, those links lead to a public section of my Dropbox account. Soon I hope to have them on my personal website (see the next section of this post, about the thesis, for why they're not there yet). Although I've tested the documents thoroughly, I still consider them works-in-progress and welcome feedback.

In addition to the thinking and writing and information design involved in producing these pieces, I needed to learn how to make a fillable PDF. Then I upped the ante, because I wanted a form that could be used on both PCs and Macs (plus Linux, but the Linux folks can manage just about anything on their own). I also wanted the PDF to allow the user to print, to save a partially filled-out form, and to send the results to me, as needed.

Getting those functions into a PDF is not as straightforward as I thought it should be. Each involves a separate set of solutions. Having discovered this, I now understand why some PDFs that I've run into have not let me save my responses or print, as well as why the "print" and "submit" functions didn't work on my Mac, while the "clear form" command, with what appeared to be identical types of coding, did. Lynda.com got me through all of these problems except for the Mac issues, which I just needed to bash around and puzzle out. Several friends tested my drafts on other systems; I'm grateful.

There's never a dull moment in the world of technology. I'm also learning new software: DevonThink, MarsEdit, and I forget what else. My most recent completed post came from a digression on this topic. Several started-but-not-published posts keep getting shoved back due to my long list of tasks, chores, and responsibilities. And a few pleasant milestones that have been too important to miss.

My daughter's thesis defense

My daughter, who is my webmistress (her choice of title), is well on her way to having earned a master's degree. Just under two weeks ago, she defended her thesis.

There was lots of paperwork involved, framing and documenting a discussion with the three faculty members of her committee.

Two of the profs came from her program, the rhetoric and composition section of the English department, which encouraged her in looking at computer-game culture from the perspective of literacy and communication. Her outside reader is in the sociology department. She dug into her topic from multiple angles, including visual rhetoric (a comparatively undeveloped field), theory of composition, sociological theory, and autoethnography.

Her biggest challenge throughout the thesis process has been defining a topic that was small enough to be contained in about 25,000 to 30,000 words. The final subject: rhetoric of gender in Mass Effect 2. (She did rationalize including brief coverage of a number of other games, to make certain points or establish the position of Mass Effect 2 within the universe of computer games and within her broad area of study. Some of the thoughts that didn't fit into the thesis were diverted into presentations she made at three national conferences this spring, and even more went into major projects for classes she was taking.)

Many of the committee members' questions were prefaced by words of this general sort: "Now, this angle would only really be relevant if you were doing a dissertation rather than a thesis, but let's talk about it anyway." One of the most interesting questions, toward the end, was: "What if there were no such thing as gender?" Everyone laughed, in part because the query wondered about the existence of such a basic idea and in part because it also elicited even deeper examination of the issues. Then we listened as my daughter considered, out loud, what that would mean.

I wish I had the whole event on tape, because I would like to listen to what she said again. In the not-too-distant future, she'll need to talk (or write) about the new ideas that arose, in addition to writing for other sets of audiences about what she put together for her thesis. The committee estimated that she has three distinct publishable academic papers within its pages. In addition, she intends to connect in the future with game designers, producers, and players. (Because of research constraints, she has not so far been able to engage in discussions within the gaming community.)

Here's the support team, minus the one who was behind the camera:

We were a motley crew, but a friendly one. (Knitting: swatch. Yarn: Swaledale wool, chunky.)

After the conversation, we observers waited in the hallway while the committee discussed whether my daughter had passed the thesis requirement.

Yes—with distinction!

Much more paperwork followed. As it turned out, even I received a request to sign something. It wasn't an official form. The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook shows up in unexpected places.

We adjourned to a nearby coffee shop for chai and a celebration, plus all the questions and comments that the observers, who did not participate in the official proceedings, had jotted down while listening.

The rest of the degree process involves getting correctly signed papers to the appropriate offices in quick order, along with formatting and digitally submitting the thesis. My daughter is making a few changes for her own satisfaction, but none were required by her committee. They encouraged her to go on for a Ph.D. There are lots of hurdles between here and that possibility. An early question is where. It was hard enough finding a program that would let her do the work she wants to do at the master's level! The program she has been in doesn't have a doctoral-level component.

In the long (or short) run, she wants to consult to the game-development industry on how to significantly increase their market, and improve their game-play experiences, by not actively alienating huge potential market sectors, as they currently do. It's not clear to her that a Ph.D. would help her do that, although it might.

Simple cleaning and organizing

Following the publication of The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, I am woefully behind on housework and clutter-abatement. It's been hard to manage The Project within the available space, which means that while the files related to that one part of my life have stayed excruciatingly well sorted and filed, everything else has fallen into disarray. There's been no time. A project of that scope and size, undertaken within the relatively short time-frame of four years, requires the development of an obsessive approach that narrows the focus to a single, complex goal. Almost everything else goes into a mental cabinet labeled "after deadline."

"After deadline," what would really be appealing is a vacation, although sometimes that isn't an option. (But see the next two items.)

Over the weekend, I've been working on labeling fabric swatches for teaching, and rearranging some books, and making piles of accumulated stuff to go to the next charity pickup. (I can't do too much of this, much as I'd love to take a month just to clean and clear things out, because I do have more deadlines to keep track of.) I'd like to reclaim the living room, kitchen, office, and bedroom in the foreseeable future. I've made some progress in the living room and kitchen, but there's a way to go yet. The office and bedroom are getting worse, I hope temporarily, as the central areas get better.

Border collie rescue "reunion"

We took Ceilidh to her first "reunion" with a bunch of dogs adopted through Western Border Collie Rescue. If all the eligible dogs had come, there would have been more than seven hundred. As it was, there were only, oh, sixty or seventy. Or maybe a hundred and twenty. I can't count things that move that fast.

Lots of different activity areas.

We talked to some folks about treibball, a sport that is mentally challenging but low-impact. Ceilidh, at two, already has signs of some arthritis, so we're looking for high-brain-power, low-joint-strain things for her to learn. Ceilidh was a little distracted by all the other things in the vicinity.

So we decided to introduce ball-herding later and went to play around in the tennis-ball-and-frisbee area. Throwing balls for a field full of Border collies is a kick.

Siblings get to attend the gathering, so Tussah tagged along.

We met some dogs who were up for adoption at the same time as Ceilidh and were delighted to learn that they'd found their "right" homes, just as Ceilidh found hers. What a treat.

Vacation

Here's my almost-daily vacation.

Most days, I mess around with it for ten to twenty minutes, usually just noodling with Uncle Rod's Ukulele Boot Camp. I have no purpose for playing the ukulele, other than not working for a short while.

Saturday morning, I spent about an hour and a half at the inaugural meeting of a local ukulele group. Interesting folks, from "never did music before" to several types of professional musicians with a remarkable lack of pretentiousness.

And

. . . that's about a third of what's going on around here.

Knitting: Update on the sweater named Vivian

Now it's time for an update on my progress with the sweater called Vivian, designed by Ysolda Teague. I'm making it with Brown Sheep Lanaloft (the singles, worsted-weight, 100% wool yarn). Vivian was last seen on May 11, 6.5 weeks ago, so I'll recap the story a bit. Apologies in advance for the varied photo qualities. If I stop to adjust the images, this will never get posted.

I knitted along on the sweater until the body and sleeves were done to the armholes and it was time to join them and work the upper body (including saddle shoulders). That was May 9. I discovered a problem.

It became apparent that one of the sweater's predominant design features, the cables that run uninterrupted up the side of the body, was not going to work as planned on the size I'd chosen (38). I thought of a variety of ways to fudge to get things to work and didn't like any of them.

So I cast on for the body again at the bottom (it's knitted back-and-forth in one piece), changing the stitch count so that I'd have enough stitches to remove at the underarm without violating the flow of the cables (or creating what I envisioned as an uncomfortably tight underarm). Without ripping my first version, because I didn't want to trash my start in case I got a brilliant idea just after I started over, I began to knit the body over again to see how I felt about going back to the starting line.

Upper left is the first version of the body; center is the start of the second version, and that was May 11, the most recent day Vivian appeared here.

By the time I was 3 to 4 inches (7.5 to 10 cm) into it, I realized I was, indeed, going to abandon #1 and continue with #2. The only potential disadvantage was that the body would be an extra inch (2.5 cm) bigger, but I didn't perceive that as a problem, especially in a cabled cardigan. So I ripped out the first version, reclaimed the yarn, and kept going. That was May 13.

By June 3, after just over two weeks, I was back to the joining point. It took longer than I expected because other critical tasks took precedence over knitting. I don't get much knitting in anyway these days (maybe an hour or a bit more in the evening, three or four nights a week, on only Sundays and Mondays with anything resembling moderate regularity), and I got even less than usual during that time.

All was well until I reached the saddle shoulders. Again, the patterning was not going to work with the shaping in a way that would remain true to the designer's plan, which Ysolda describes in her post on the sweater's origins as "unbroken cables [that] run from the flared cuffs up the sleeves over the saddles and eventually join together at the centre of the hood" (admittedly, I haven't reached the hood yet, so I can't speak for that part). Shaping of the saddle was going to intersect with the cable sequence in very awkward ways.

I mumbled about this for a while, partially in front of some members of the Monday night knitting group (one of the times I do get to knit, when I'm in town). The solution for this wasn't going to be as easy as starting over by using a slightly different stitch count and just making wider seed-stitch panels along the sides. Which was both good and bad news.

Folks at the group began speculating about widening the saddle to incorporate more pattern in a way that would accommodate the saddle shaping better. Ultimately, I decided to narrow the saddle instead, which I thought was a better solution because of my particular body type. The shaping now occurs at a different spot in the cable sequence.

When you change the width of a saddle, you also need to change the amount of body you knit before beginning the saddle. The techniques for making saddle shoulders that work, and thus the key to escape from my dilemma, are described in Knitting in the Old Way. Fortunately, I have that bit of the book well memorized! When I narrowed the saddle, I had to lengthen the body slightly. To keep the sweater true to its shaping, that meant continuing to decrease along the body/sleeve join line. I have quite narrow shoulders, so this is okay. For someone with wider shoulders, it would have been the wrong choice.

So here's where I am—one saddle has been worked, and I'm ready to do the other. I'll need to be watchful as I prepare to do the hood, to make sure the cable transitions work there as well, after my modifications. I'll also have to monitor the neckline shaping, although the adjustments I'm making are minor enough, in the grand scope of things, that I should be within a couple of rows of where I need to be. The dappled light is because I didn't wait for the right time of day to shoot a photo without a nice tree-leaf pattern. I like the shadows cast by trees, although they don't do much for showing knitting clearly. So we're up to June 25.

I had planned to finish the sweater in time to wear it to the college reunion I attended last week. The project did go with me, in progress, and when I was at the book signing event two fellow knitters and Ravelry members came up and reminded me that it was World Wide Knit in Public Day, so I pulled Vivian out of her bag and put her on the table, but I didn't have time to knit (signing books) or occasion to think (required because what I'm doing now is off the plan). She was good company, though, at my table in the corner.

Almost as good company as my neighbor at the signing, Connie Berman, a history prof at the University of Iowa who has written some fascinating books on medieval topics, with special attention to women's roles and concerns. (She's also a knitter.)

On the other side of me (I really was in the corner) were Danny Proud, taking pre-orders for his CD of original songs (I can't locate a website), and Tamim Ansary, whose books I've mentioned here before. That was just the folks from my class!

We were especially well represented because it was a 40th reunion and there was a big push to get as many of us back to campus as possible. Even those who didn't graduate from the school, like me and Tamim, were included (I was in residence for almost three years, and learned a lot during that time). It's lovely to still be included, and I had a fantastic time. What an interesting group of people (and not just my cohort, because the reunion is for all alumni). One featured event sponsored by my class offered perspectives on the current situation in Afghanistan by three of "us" who had contrasting and complementary experiences: Tamim, who is Afghan-American; congressman Rush Holt; and Don Camp, who's been in the Peace Corps, foreign service, and Department of State.

I hadn't been to a college reunion before (I didn't actually ever go to a graduation anywhere, either, as it turns out, although I earned a couple of degrees). Two things were amazing: how interesting the people are, as reflected in the diverse paths they've taken; and how much they are the same as they were those many years ago—in personalities, body language, and speech. I went to one high school reunion (25th) and was not as struck by the consistency over the years; likely people are just that much more formed by the end of college. The exact paths people took could not have been predicted based on who we were then, of course (who would have predicted I'd be spending my days with rare wools?), but the qualities of mind were quite evident.

I'm glad to be back in touch.

__

And I do think I need to cast on for a simple pair of socks, for carry-around knitting. Especially since I have more work to do that involves travel, and the sweater (which I am supposed to be wearing by now) is too big to transport for the next trip, which involves airplanes.

Socks. Back to socks. Although I really want to finish this sweater!

dancepulse and PranaMamma: two brand new blogs

I just learned that my sister recently started a blog (and has been having computer problems), and then I got a note from a friend I've known for at least a dozen years (but have never met in person) who began her blog today.

They are both smart, wise women who know how to write. I can think of a number of people who read this blog who would very much enjoy their perspectives.

dancepulse: Dance education in particular, and arts education in general

Meg Mahoney, my sister, is a full-time dance educator in an inner-city public school. She didn't get to this place in life overnight. She knows a lot, and I'm so glad she's sharing her hard-earned knowledge: on how she moved from dancer to independent instructor to classroom teacher to full-time movement specialist, and on how she does what she does with the kids.

I know first-hand what a good teacher she is. When we lived in the same small town and were both in our 20s, she taught dance classes and I was one of her students. Those experiences have made a profound, ongoing difference in my life.

Here's a video prepared by KCTS-TV in Seattle when Meg won a Golden Apple Award, which recognizes extraordinary teachers. It's a little over 5 minutes long.

PranaMamma: Helping people keep breathing

Although PranaMamma—Respiratory Therapy: A Second Career in Mid-Life is presented anonymously, I know exactly who this is and how much life experience and richness she brings to her mid-life drastic career change. She's a fiber person who understands a number of elemental processes. She's taking on breath now. Everything she does is infused with spirit.

I'm looking forward to hearing more of her stories.

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Computer update

I plan to limp along for a while, because I don't have the heart (or time) to—again—format the hard drive and reinstall the operating system and all of the software and documents. I have tasks to complete and deadlines to meet. Everything's backed up, redundantly, so the amount of damage that can be done through software malfunction is limited.

Computer-geek friends have suggested ways to prevent future problems by creating drive partitions (which require rebooting when changing programs) or operating virtual machines. I'd have to set up networking to get files from one program to another, if the programs were operating on different partitions or virtual machines.

This does not sound like a comfortable, fluid working environment. In fact, it sounds less convenient than occasional blue-screen forced shutdowns.

I'll be looking into ways to dock the MacBook in the main office and hook it up to the printer and monitor without completely disabling the PC (which still runs several essential programs for which I have not found Mac equivalents).

High IQ Kids wins Legacy Book Award

I just received this message from Free Spirit Publishing (I've added some links):

"High IQ Kids: Collected Insights, Information, and Personal Stories from the Experts (978-1-57542-261-9), edited by Kiesa Kay, Deborah Robson, and Judy Fort Brenneman, has won the 2008 Legacy Book TM Award in the parent category.

"The Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented (TAGT) honors outstanding books annually for their positive impact on the lives of gifted children. The Legacy Book Award is the only American book award focused on meeting the unique needs of gifted and talented children."

There are three categories: educator, parent/family, and scholar. News of the 2008 awards is not on the site as I write this, but here is information about previous years (and probably 2008 as soon as they update).

Hurray! This project took many years and a bunch of people to put together. Nice (fantastic) to see it being acknowledged.

Finished book: High IQ Kids!

A UPS truck pulled up at the curb in front of the house early this morning and delivered an author's (in this case, editor's) copy of High IQ Kids! This is an "advance" copy, although not an "advance reader's copy" or ARC, because it's the real book, freshly unpacked from the printer's shipment before the official publication date (which is, I think, September 1 although the publisher lists a ship date of August 31, or tomorrow). The books were about four days late from the printer, which seems to be a recurring theme right now. . . . Maybe all the printers are currently overloaded with fall titles. . . .

The volume's 416 pages contain 30 essays and technical papers on raising and educating high-IQ kids.

What's a "high IQ kid"?

Good question. If you want to get precise, which I don't and some of the people involved with this book may disagree with the following statement, it's a kid who tests above 145 on a standard instrument. HOWEVER:

IQ testing is imprecise (several articles in the book go into this in detail). Different sources set up different categories. There's a technical testing definition of IQ scores and giftedness (it's on pages 7 and, with slight variations, 60).

But pigeonholes are only useful in a few contexts, like research. The current arbitrary levels being used by the researchers we included in the book are mildly gifted, moderately gifted, highly gifted, exceptionally gifted, and profoundly gifted. These categories align with standard deviations above the norm.

A rule-of-thumb that I came across years ago that has been helpful to me in a practical sense suggested that kids in the mildly and moderately gifted ranges can do anything they want in life (i.e., they're smart enough to do whatever they choose) and can still cope well with the prevailing environments (e.g., school, home, and regular social interactions). Those at the other above-average levels (highly, exceptionally, and profoundly gifted) are "wired" differently in enough ways that they will not be able to cope comfortably with the prevailing environments. They don't think "better," they think differently, which means they just don't operate on the same wavelength. They don't care about the same topics of conversation and they may come up with questions and ideas that don't make sense to other people.

That's neither better nor worse. People with those levels of intelligence, though, are the ones for whom High IQ Kids offers guidance . . . along with anyone else who fits a similar enough profile that the information might help.

I have a personal theory that everyone comes into life with a package of strengths and weaknesses that's about equivalent to everyone else's. Intelligence, as we measure it in the industrialized Western world of the twenty-first century, is just one component of everyone's package. Because each of us has a unique combination of attributes, the trick is in figuring out how best to use the pluses without being tripped up by the minuses. Or, for parents and other responsible adults, in raising children to enjoy and develop their strengths and to compensate for, instead of being limited by, their weaknesses.

The information in the book will help anyone who is trying to parent, teach, counsel, or befriend a kid who sometimes seems "too smart," whether the child also has learning differences or not (many high-IQ kids do).

It will also help adults who are guiding children who don't seem "too smart"—who appear to be quite average or are putting out so little effort they seem below average—but are having unexplained and serious difficulties in standard classrooms (or in "standard" gifted-and-talented programs, if they've shown some of their potential).

I'm really pleased that Free Spirit Publishing is the press releasing this book. Not only is it independent, it's the publisher of several books that helped me out through all those years. They've got even more great stuff now.

High IQ Kids contains all the best information that I needed in one place while I was working on getting one of these kids raised to adulthood alive and with only average requirements for additional psychotherapy.

Giftedness is generally not an "okay" topic of conversation in our society. Several of the contributors to this book have asked to be identified by pseudonyms. It has not been easy for my daughter and me to go public on this topic, either. However, we agreed long ago that we'd do anything we could do to keep even one other kid or parent from going through what we had to handle. An overview of our school saga, titled "Red Zone," is on pages 246 to 259.

The same impetus that motivates my daughter and me—to help others—brought together the three editors of this book to do the looooooong, complicated work of gathering the pieces, editing them, eliminating some (the book could have been twice as long; trimming was the hardest part), and finding the right publisher.

Between us, we've parented four of these kids, and over the decades we've been in touch with many other parents and children in similar situations. They're everywhere: in all geographic, social, economic, racial, and other environments. And all of them are similarly challenged to just facilitate an appropriately happy (and appropriately unhappy) childhood and an effective education.

The book's full title is High IQ Kids: Collected Insights, Information, and Personal Stories from the Experts. Some of the essays in it were written by young adults about their experiences when they were younger. They're probably the truest experts.

The sections include:

1. What's in a Number?
2. Take a Number
3. More Than a Number

And
    Resources and more information.

Here's a full list of the contents:

Part 1: What's in a Number?

• 1 Defining the Few: What Educators and Parents Need to Know about Exceptionally and Profoundly Gifted Children, by Annette Revel Sheely and Linda Kreger Silverman
• 2 Normal Kids Don't Quack, by Cathy Marciniak (we editors wanted to lead with this essay, but the publisher preferred to define terms before launching right into the puzzled parents' world)
• 3 Young Gifted Children as Natural Philosophers, by Deirdre Lovecky
• 4 Calculus, Pooh, and Tigger Too, by Courtney James
• 5 Intellectual Assessment of Exceptionally and Profoundly Gifted Children, by John D. Wasserman
• 6 Recommendations for Identifying and Serving Black Youth in Gifted Programs, by Tarek C. Grantham and Linda A. Long
• 7 Twice Exceptionality: Life in the Asynchronous Lane, by Lee Singer
• 8 An Anomaly: Parenting a Twice-Exceptional Girl, by Kiesa Kay

Part 2: Take a Number

• 9 "So You're the Teacher of a Profoundly Gifted Child" (And Then There Was Bill), by Laura Freese
• 10 What Makes the Highly Gifted Child Qualitatively Different? Implications for Schooling, by Karen B. Rogers
• 11 Too Smart for School? A Lesson about Teaching and Learning, by Marilyn Walker
• 12 Becoming an Educational Advocate: Dolphin's Story, by Carolyn Kottmeyer
• 13 The Underachievement of Gifted Students: Multiple Frustrations and Few Solutions, by Sally M. Reis
• 14 Surviving in Spite of It All, by Shaun Hately
• 15 Curriculum Issues for the Profoundly Gifted, by Joyce VanTassel Baska
• 16 Of Importance, Meaning, and Success: Application for Highly and Profoundly Gifted Students, by Christine S. (Tee) Neville
• 17 Homeschooling with Profoundly Gifted Children, by Kathryn Finn
• 18 Unfettered Innovation: The Promise of Charter Schools, by Amanda P. Avallone
• 19 An Early Entrance Program: A Well-Rounded College Experience for Young Students, by Trindel Maine (more) and Richard S. Maddox
• 20 A Longitudinal Study of Radical Acceleration with Exceptionally and Profoundly Gifted Children, by Miraca U. M. Gross

Part 3: More Than a Number

• 21 Red Zone, by Deborah Robson
• 22 The Problem of Pain, by Stephanie S. Tolan
• 23 When the Pop Bottle Overflows, by Judy Fort Brenneman
• 24 Giftedness is Heart and Soul, by Annemarie Roeper
• 25 A Mixed Blessing, by Ilona von Karolyi-Ross
• 26 Out of the Ordinary, by Elizabeth Lovance (also here)
  
• 27 Birds and Bees: Sex and the High-IQ Adolescent, by Annette Revel Sheely
• 28 Abnormally Brilliant, Brilliantly Normal, by Elizabeth Meckstroth
• 29 Rainbow Spirits, by Annamarie Summers

Appendix: Resources and More Information

• 30 Strength in Numbers: An Introduction to the Resources, by Judy Fort Brenneman

Here's the back cover.

The first reaction of all three editors at seeing the cover photos was that we wished our children had been able to experience that kind of joy-in-learning and comfortable confidence.

Our deepest hope is that because of this book more children in the future will look more often like the kids in the pictures.