From the Principal's Desk

GENERAL ELECTRIC AWARDS $1MILLION GRANT.
I am pleased to announce that TAG is the recipient of a $1 million grant from the General Electric Foundation. In response to a proposal from my office, the Foundation has awarded us $250,000.00 per year for the next four years.

This grant will underwrite almost all of TAG's teacher and staff development through the end of the 2013-2014 academic year. It will also provide funds for upgrading classroom computer equipment and for purchasing the remainder of the Smartboads™ we will put in every TAG classroom.

Most importantly, the grant will fund the training of teachers to help their students prepare for state and national examinations. Already, this year, we have used grant money to contract with Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions. Kaplan is providing materials and techniques to teachers to aid their preparation of 7th graders taking state math tests in fall 2010. We will extend exam preparatory training to all middle-school teachers by 2011-2012.


CLASSIC TEXTS FOR K-8.
Teachers have begun discussions about exposing TAG students to classic texts in an orderly progression from grades K-8. When TAG students graduate, we want them to have read or, in the case of the earliest grades, to have read aloud to them, a pre-determined selection of great literature.

Our aim is not just to introduce the standard classic texts. Rather, we will search for culturally and socially relevant literature to include within the traditional "great ideas" canon of books.

TAG is the most culturally diverse T&G citywide program. I want the TAG reading canon to mirror TAG's diversity.

Soon, our Kindergarten through 8th graders will compare Anansi, the West African spider character, to the Hare and Tortoise in Aesop's fables as well as to the Coyote and Raven in traditional Native American folk tales. They will ponder philosophies of wealth and charity by reading, for example, Andrew Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth along with The Gifts of Wali Dad, a Pakistani Literary tale.

Wherever they pursue an education after graduation, TAG students will draw from the TAG reading canon to engage individuals thoughtfully across the global village in which we live.


TAG'S CORPORATE PENCIL PARTNER TO PROVIDE LAPTOPS FOR 6th GRADERS.
For the last two years, a company called Computer Associates ("CA" in the corporate world) has been TAG's corporate partner. Last year CA donated twelve Smartboards™ and sponsored a student trip to Washington, DC. Its Vice President, Anne Marie Agnelli, became TAG's principal for a day this past October 15. Shortly after spending that day at TAG, she announced that CA will provide laptops for all of TAG's sixth graders beginning fall 2010. I know all TAG parents join me in thanking CA for this stunning display of confidence in TAG's educational program. In the near future, we will expand the laptop program to each of the upper grades.


INTENSIVE CRITICAL THINKING - A UNIQUE TAG CLASSROOM EXPERIENCE.
Critical thinking is the hallmark of gifted and talented (G&T) education. But at TAG, critical thinking should be so intricately woven into teaching and learning that it grounds G&T education as at no other G&T school. My goal is to transform each TAG classroom into a laboratory for intensive critical thinking.

This uniquely TAG classroom has begun to evolve with a consultant from Atlas Communities (funded by our General Electric grant), Ms. Rhonda Cleavenson. She is working with each teacher on the fundamental question of student engagement.

She begins by examining a teacher's lessons; then she looks at students' responses to those lessons. She helps teachers rethink the teaching-learning context by understanding that critical thinking is a shared teacher-student and student-student experience.

Teachers learn to talk less to their students. Students learn to talk more with one another. In the TAG classroom, a teacher will move among student discussion groups (2-4 students) rather than stand and instruct in front of them.

The intensity of critical thinking will be evident most in the evaluation and analysis of students' writing. Teachers and students will jointly critique writing content (conceptualization and expression) and structure (grammar, spelling, and syntax). TAG teachers will always grade assignments. But their students will join them in analyzing the problems classmates face, beginning at the point at which each student looks at a blank page or computer screen through proofreading her or his final draft.

In the near future, I will offer parent clinics to extend the intensive critical thinking experience into the home, where, as we all know, much of your child's learning still occurs.

The TAG intensive critical thinking laboratory, I believe, will become a model for G&T classrooms. More importantly, it will give our students a competitive edge as they encounter problems throughout their lives requiring solutions based on the most developed thinking skills they possess.


HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH - A GREAT SUCCESS - OTHER ETHNIC HERITAGES TO NOTE?
Our first celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month was a resounding success! From the collages of first graders to the biographical essays of 8th graders, TAG students - prompted by their enthusiastic teachers - explored Hispanic worlds from here in East Harlem to Spain, itself. Latino students comprise almost one-third of TAG's student body. Their history, at last, is now a part of TAG's.

TAG's calendar recognizes three distinct heritages: Hispanic Heritage Month (September), Black History Month (February), and Women’s History Month (March). I wonder what other opportunities we should create to observe the rich legacies of other ethnic constituencies in the TAG family? Would TAG parents like a TAG International Heritage Month, maybe in May, during which students would focus on the broad diversity of our TAG family? Email me your suggestions by the end of January (c/o Ms. Felix: AFelix@schools.nyc.gov).