We are so glad you are considering Mindprint to help qualify for your school’s gifted program.  We are happy to assist you through the gifted program appeals process. Confirm your gifted coordinator will accept Mindprint. Every school has a gifted coordinator who manages the gifted program appeals process. If the coordinator is unfamiliar with Mindprint and would like more information about the Mindprint Assessment, please have the school contact us. They can also visit our website and you can share our research showing the validity and reliability. You might want to let them know that in addition to districts accepting Mindprint, Summer Institute for the Gifted (SIG) and Summer Academic and Honors Institute, among others, accept Mindprint as a qualified assessment. Decide who will pay for and administer Mindprint. Your… Read More

Are we looking for the ‘lost Einsteins’ in the wrong places? Research suggests we should be looking at students’ spatial and flexible thinking skills, not math and science scores. Who are the ‘lost Einsteins’? Late last year the The Equality of Opportunity Project released a report concluding that the U.S. is losing out on as much as 400% of innovation potential by failing to effectively nurture under-represented minorities, i.e. Blacks, Latinos, and girls. The report states, “there are many ‘lost Einsteins’ – people who would have had high-impact inventions” but never do because they grow up in communities where math and science in general, and innovation specifically, isn’t fostered. Stories in the NY Times and The Atlantic among other outlets fueled the social media discourse about an educational system… Read More

  Do you know a kiddo who can assemble a Lego set in the blink of an eye? Tells the bus driver how to find his street? Helps you design your bulletin boards to perfection? What do these seemingly nice-to-have but not particularly useful skills have in common? They are all reflections of a student’s spatial perception. And while we might not ask students to apply spatial skills very often in school, spatial skills are essential for careers in engineering, advanced mathematics, robotics, and design. What’s more, spatial skills have a unique role in the development of creativity. Many researchers believe that superior spatial skills are the “X factor” that separates creative geniuses like Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein and Frank Lloyd Wright from the rest of us. If spatial… Read More

  Note if you were looking for the MindPrint Assessment to help qualify for the gifted program please click the link. If your child didn’t get in to the gifted program, but you think he or she should, don’t give up. You have options. Get the Facts on your school’s Gifted Program Re-read your denial letter. It should include a paragraph about the appeal process, with contact information and deadlines. Typically you have 30 days to appeal the decision. Request a copy of the formal, written appeal process immediately. Never rely on a telephone conversation. Then call, write, and email your intent to appeal as quickly as possible. Expect a response back from the school within 30 days which includes an invitation for an in-person meeting. If you don’t… Read More

By Nancy Weinstein Last weekend my daughter flew. It was her Bat Mitzvah, and she owned it from start to finish. From her preparation, to planning the party, to conducting the service, to showing the grace and poise as a hostess that one rarely sees in a 13 year old. Unlike most parents on such a special occasion, I didn’t cry. I glowed. I had cried too many tears already. As the saying goes, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” At times I think my daughter is the strongest person I know. But getting to this point wasn’t easy. At her one year physical, the pediatrician tried to offer solace by telling me, “The most difficult children often turn into the most interesting adults.” It was… Read More

By Mindprint Staff Sunday morning on Meet the Press, Chuck Todd turned to his bi-partisan panel debating over what outrageous remark might knock Trump out of contention. He posed the question, “What if everything we thought was his weakness is actually a strength?” And then he went to commercial. Not a bad move for live TV when you don’t want to answer the question. But for the rest of us, maybe it is an important question we want to answer: Can we turn our weaknesses into strengths? And if so, what does it take? Virgin CEO Richard Branson wrote in his 2012 book that his struggles with dyslexia became his greatest strength. It taught him how to be an efficient manager which he believes was crucial to his… Read More

  By Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff It doesn’t matter if it’s summer or the middle of February, at some point a parent stands before her child’s messy room and has to make a decision. And 9 times out of 10, the solution is simple: close the door. From the hall, the mess is gone. To clean or not to clean, is not really the question. The question is how the child finds a matching pair of socks, her homework, and earbuds beneath the upper layer of clothes, books, and unidentified objects. I do have one confession, however. My own desk is a mess. My office? Pretty clean, in the sense that a small toddler could be let loose on the… Read More

By Nancy Weinstein As parents we really need to stop saying: the teacher, the curriculum, the lesson, or the test is bad. Really, we’ve just got to stop. The reality is that most teachers are highly competent. Most curricula are well-vetted and well-written. Most administrators put a lot of care into selecting the materials they believe will work best for their students. So don’t immediately assume the worst of our educators. Instead, consider starting with the assumption that the instruction is probably fine, but for whatever reason it is not working well for your child. Believe me, I’m not suggesting that you allow your child to struggle or be bored without asking for accountability. Quite the contrary. I’m simply suggesting a shift… Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff One of my favorite lines form “30 Rock” is when Jenna tries to explain the concept of back-door bragging, giving this example: It’s hard for me to watch ‘American Idol’ because I have perfect pitch. And so it might seem when parents of a profoundly gifted child talk about the problems they have finding the right stimulation, peer groups, and emotional support for their child who, from the outside, is just “too perfect” for everyday life. But the concerns are just as deep, and at times frustrating or painful, for parents of the profoundly gifted as they are for the rest of us. At the end of the day, we all want our children to reach… Read More

By Nancy Weinstein The United States is failing its gifted students. And despite the national weariness for standardized testing, the answer lies in a test. But it’s a test you can’t study for; would never tie to teacher performance; doesn’t require billions to fund, and thanks to advances in technology, can be taken anywhere in about an hour. I’m referring to cognitive assessments, the uncontested, most reliable measure of a student’s learning strengths and weaknesses and the best way to engage learners of all abilities. Back in the day, these assessments were called IQ tests and there was a notion that when it came to smarts, you either “had it” or “you didn’t.” Thanks to a better understanding of neuroplasticity,… Read More